Why is Careers Education important?

1. It supports children to prepare for their future

2. Schools are crucial in preparing pupils for their adult lives, teaching them to understand how to engage with society and providing them with plentiful opportunities to do so.

3. It raises children’s aspirations and builds cultural capital.

4.  Research shows that inspiring young people about the world of work needs to start at an early age as ideas about careers (including potentially-limiting stereotypes) are formed at a young age.

 What does Careers Education look like at Southborough?

1. We embed career learning throughout the curriculum by making links between our topics and different jobs and careers. For example, in Year 1, ‘people who help us’, children learn about different people who help, such as doctors, nurses and firefighters. Y6 take part in a Junior Citizenship course.
2. Visitors from different careers are regularly invited into school to share their experiences and talk to the children about a diverse range of jobs e.g. firefighters and authors.
3. Each class is named after a Pioneer from the past or present. The children learn about their pioneers at the beginning of the year. These individuals have been chosen to reflect a diverse range of careers and achievements.
4. Assemblies focus on key people across the year e.g. International Women’s Day focus on Katherine Johnson (a Y5 Pioneer), in the lead up to the Artemis II space launch.
5. We have a careers Week in June linked to enterprise week when the children have to make something to else and turn the biggest profit. For careers week, in the summer term,  we invite family members to come in and talk to classes about their job roles.  
6. We gather data and monitor the career aspirations and attitudes of our pupils through Pupil Voice. This allows us to tailor our careers learning to specific areas of interest, need or stereotyping that arise among our pupils. 

How do we measure the impact of Careers Education at Southborough?

We conduct an in depth survey of all pupils from Reception to Year 6. This involves each child drawing a picture of what they would like to be when they grow up. This data is analysed for trends which then inform the themes for future careers learning.