Delivery and Approach

The Careers Landscape in State Education: Analysis of Key Barriers and Challenges 

Capacity: Career leaders in school complain on social media threads and in meetings about not having the time to open emails or read about provider offers. Their email addresses have to be public so that external providers can contact them, but Careers Leaders have no administrative function that they can use to process what arrives, and they receive information from Hubs as well. Often, they have other leadership responsibilities within their school, and an overwhelming workload.

Curriculum: Careers Leaders say that they are unable to take students out of timetabled lessons to engage in careers education activities. There is an increased focus post-pandemic on bringing levels of literacy and numeracy back up and on core curriculum elements, which is adding further challenge to careers education provision, which must often be accommodated in PSHE slots, numbering only one or two per fortnight  

Finance: There is a huge reluctance by schools to pay for services. Careers Leaders, usually have a tiny budget, or do not have access to a budget, or expect services to be free of charge and paid for by someone else. Careers Advisors and Careers Leaders are underpaid, which adds to the sense that careers is less of a priority. 

Employer engagement: In the current climate employer engagement is complicated and often hard to find. Also the emphasis is very much on student engagement with employers, but employers are not trained to deliver learning experiences and are interested in improving the talent pipeline for their business, which students do not appreciate. Schools need employer encounters, but these are difficult to arrange because of the aforementioned capacity and curriculum issues. Business and education speak different languages and operate in different timeframes. 

Structure: schools are supported by The Careers and Enterprise Company; those which are members of Hubs statistically do better in terms of meeting the Gatsby Benchmarks, but not all schools are in Hubs. Schools should have a business volunteer, called an Enterprise Advisor, but there is huge churn and variety in competency. Enterprise Advisors are not SEND confident, so specialist schools may struggle to find one. Careers Leaders are teachers, so their responsibility is to their Principal for teaching and learning, rather than to the Careers and Enterprise Company (CEC). This means that some schools choose not to engage with their Hub or Enterprise Coordinator. Many CEC employees are on year-long contracts so there is churn and they work for both the CEC and LEP, and sometimes other organisations as well, which poses a challenge. 

Special Educational Needs: Careers Leader training programmes have not included content to support working with students who have SEND, so specialist schools often have to put in their own training programmes, at cost. Enterprise Advisors are difficult to recruit for specialist schools. There are very few external providers catering for the careers education needs of students learning in specialist settings. Specialist schools have a lower budget for careers. Students in mainstream schools are treated as a homogenous group for careers education delivery, even though the vast majority of children with SEN are learning in mainstream settings; there is no differentiation. 

Mindset: schools, teachers and career leaders were forced into virtual delivery when the pandemic closed schools. Many of them remain uncomfortable with the format and think of it as an emergency backup. There is a lack of understanding about how the world of work has shifted in terms of virtual technology. They are not receptive to the idea that students need to learn using virtual technology because they need to prepare for virtual recruitment and onboarding, and virtual working. Their primary concern in terms of careers delivery is to achieve the Gatsby Benchmarks, which are still seen by some as a checklist to tick off.  

Deployment of Careers Staff: The Careers Leader role is strategic, but often they are not a senior member of staff, cannot make strategic or financial decisions and sometimes are also the Careers Advisor, which is an independent delivery role. The budget for Careers Advice is very limited, which means students often have the bare minimum of access to that individual, who might be working in several schools at once. Students with additional needs (15% of students) are particularly disadvantaged. 

Image and Value: Careers still suffers from a poor image and is not valued by students, parents and teaching staff as it should be. It is considered dry and boring, and an add-on to the serious business of passing exams. Many stakeholders have had negative experiences of 'careers advice' which doesn't help, and careers are still the ‘poor man’ of the education system. 

Methodology: We learn best through active engagement in learning that is differentiated in delivery and relevant to our context, designed to be inspirational. Being prepared for any learning or event is crucial, as is anchoring the outcomes in wider learning.

Why we took specific approaches

Our approach acknowledged the challenging year (2020-2021) for Careers Leaders and all education staff. Delegates were sent profiles of the coaches appointed to work on this programme. The selected coaches were all experts in their field and additionally were required to have an understanding of the world of education and the impact COVID had had on schools and their employees. Experienced coaches were willing to participate despite the small budget, due to the value they saw in supporting education staff.

It was recognised that a culture shift is needed at the senior leadership level in schools regarding CPD planning, delivery, and content, which often focuses on student well-being and outcomes rather than building and supporting staff capacity.

The programme commenced with the Careers Leaders attending the coaching workshop. In advance of the workshop, they were sent their own interactive online workbook, which included some coaching style reflective exercises to be used in advance.

Future direct engagement with Headteachers and senior staff was planned to help Careers Leaders access and deliver changes as part of their role.

A live virtual group workshop model was chosen, generally considered to be more effective when working with 8 to 15 participants.

The 1:1 coaching sessions were held online because Careers Leaders were overwhelmed with work and always short on time.