CAREERS GUIDANCE: GUARANTEED - SUMMARY REPORT OF WORKSHOPS
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CAREERS GUIDANCE: GUARANTEED SUMMARY REPORT OF WORKSHOPS Prepared for the Association of Colleges Funded by Find a Future May 2014
Careers Guidance: Guaranteed – Summary report of workshops May 2014 Contents 1 Summary ......................................................................................................................................................................3 2 Methodology ..............................................................................................................................................................8 3 Current behaviours and beliefs...............................................................................................................................9 4 Best practice for careers guidance .................................................................................................................... 11 5 Appendix: Summary of original online survey results ....................................................................................... 18 © 2014 FRESHMINDS 2
Careers Guidance: Guaranteed – Summary report of workshops May 2014 1 Summary Careers guidance needs to be realistic, relevant, local and timely in order to fulfil young people’s needs. It needs to provide them with information, initial encounters with employers, experience of the workplace and direction on the next steps along the decision-making process. These were the key elements raised across three workshops exploring the role of careers advice among school pupils, college students, teachers, careers advisers and parents. These responses reflected the findings of an earlier online survey with 2,001 pupils aged 11 to 16 in school years 7, 8, 10 and 11. The findings from both parts of this research support the further development of an experiential model of careers guidance. Context Schools were given a statutory duty to secure impartial, independent careers advice and guidance for their pupils under the Education Act 2011. Further education and sixth form colleges have an identical duty. Schools receive statutory guidance from the Department for Education (DfE) which says that the careers advice should be independent and should involve external careers providers (not a school employee), employer visits, mentoring and access to website and telephone helplines. Careers provision should include information on the full range of education and training options. It should also be impartial and show no bias towards a particular form of education or employment. However, there is no systematic checking on compliance with the statutory duty and concerns about the quality of school-delivered careers advice and guidance have been expressed by the Education Select Committee, Ofsted, NUS, AoC and CBI. The key concerns are: students not being informed of other post- 16 vocational routes, such as apprenticeships, or studying A Levels or higher education at a college. There’s also evidence that some schools with sixth forms prevent further education and sixth form colleges from handing out prospectuses or coming to talk to pupils about courses, resulting in young people not being aware of the full range of opportunities available to them. Careers guidance should raise young people’s awareness of the working world Raising the visibility of job roles and increasing awareness of the reality of the job market is vital, as children typically speak about specific roles and jobs they have had direct contact with – these are © 2014 FRESHMINDS 3
Careers Guidance: Guaranteed – Summary report of workshops May 2014 often traditional and may not reflect the opportunities available in the current employment market. Awareness should be raised of what jobs are available to them (ideally by actually seeing them in action face-to-face or on video), and parents (and to some extent teachers) should be educated about the new jobs and industries available today, both at the national and local level. Young people also need to see what job roles actually involve in order for them to make more informed choices about the type of work they would be interested in. Careers guidance should involve employers Formal careers guidance is typically understood by pupils as ‘careers advice’ and is seen as an information-gathering exercise. Ideally it should move away from this to a model including more ‘employment encounters’, where children have the opportunity to engage with employers directly or experience aspects of what a job would entail. This could be achieved through hands-on activities, such as the Have-a-Go Experiences available at The Skills Show Experience and other Find a Future (formerly known as The Skills Show) events, employer visits and careers fairs. In order to raise the visibility of what is happening in the working world locally and nationally, and especially to demonstrate the variety of roles available, employers from both large and small companies need to be involved in meeting children throughout their time in education. This could be through visiting schools and colleges, having school parties enter their workplace, individuals going on work experience or through watching ‘day-in-the-life’ videos. Careers guidance should talk about how roles fit within industries Young people come to careers advice and guidance thinking about concrete jobs, such as becoming an engineer, mechanic or hairdresser. Especially in a local context, pupils and children need to be helped to understand the industries and employers in their area and the particular job roles these offer in order to make the most of these opportunities. For example, one school governor said that where there is a growing industry, such as maritime engineering, there might be a range of roles at different levels available: engineers who require degree level qualifications, technicians who might have had to complete an apprenticeship, or office staff who require completely different, non-engineering related skills and qualifications. © 2014 FRESHMINDS 4
Careers Guidance: Guaranteed – Summary report of workshops May 2014 Careers guidance should focus on both short and long-term opportunities It also appears that in many instances, existing careers guidance has a long-term outlook that is at odds with a child’s way of thinking. Young people are predominantly focused on the next short-term stage in their life (for example, their exams, a university place or the need for a job once they have finished education). This potentially causes frustration for pupils who find careers guidance too abstract, as the information and advice they receive is about careers located too far ahead in their future. Young people need to understand the immediate steps they can take towards a potential career path and should have the opportunity to hear from role models not much older than themselves. Careers guidance should provide direction, not just coaching Children’s expectations of careers guidance also appears to differ from those of adults in terms of what it aims to “[Careers Advisers] told me what I wanted to be, but when I found out achieve. Children expect to be advised or steered in what [the job] would really be and appropriate directions whereas adults aim to help them what it meant, it changed everything.” know how to find further information and do their own research. While young people do not want to be told Pupil, Weymouth exactly what job they should do, they want to be helped to narrow down their choices in order to understand the roles and opportunities available to them, and the skills and qualifications needed to take appropriate next steps towards their career goal. What this means The need for more information about the employment situation in a particular area, and the specific benefits of increasing employment encounters and experience, aligns closely to the current policy landscape encouraging Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) to own and shape the skills landscape in their area. It is also in line with the Association of Colleges’ Careers Guidance: Guaranteed campaign. The research has shown pockets of best practice and that the colleges visited are already working closely with some local employers. LEPs could play a role in increasing the consistency of careers advice across all colleges and schools, and in particular building the relationships with local employers that are highly desired by both parents and young people. LEPs could help bring colleges, employers and children together. © 2014 FRESHMINDS 5
Careers Guidance: Guaranteed – Summary report of workshops May 2014 What this means for Local Enterprise Partnerships LEPs should aim to fill in the gaps in access to careers information and workplace experience that many adults and young people feel exist, particularly by building a network of employers who can engage meaningfully with schools and build long-term relationships with them. LEPs may also need to raise their own profile among teachers and adults as no one mentioned them during the workshops, (although they were not directly asked about this topic). What this means for colleges Colleges need to place themselves at the heart of collaborative local partnerships, working alongside schools, LEPs, local authorities, Jobcentre Plus and the National Careers Service. With their contacts, local presence and often large facilities, colleges – alongside other partners – should facilitate opportunities for school and college students, teachers and parents to meet local employers through a range of opportunities, such as work experience placements, open days, employer talks and skills events. Many colleges already have strong links with local employers in delivering courses and through offering apprenticeships. These relationships should be built upon to enable as many young people as possible to meet employers and gain first-hand exposure and experience of a workplace. What this means for AoC Through its regional network, AoC should continue to use its national focus to promote the importance of good careers advice to help form policy. AoC can also use this national focus to ensure LEPs understand and appreciate the role colleges play in their local communities and for their local economies. What this means for Find a Future Find a Future’s programme of local events, The Skills Show Experience, is a perfect opportunity to provide the kind of careers guidance outlined below. These provide both the information and experience that young people need and want. It allows them and their teachers and parents to gain valuable first-hand information, meet employers, ask questions and get hands-on experience of a particular activity. © 2014 FRESHMINDS 6
Careers Guidance: Guaranteed – Summary report of workshops May 2014 Find a Future should seek to make sure that these events are attended by as many young people as possible and by as broad a range of local employers as is feasible, offering a wide range of activities. Find a Future must make sure the national Skills Show and local Skills Show Experience events maintain the various hands-on elements, as well as continue to provide information that children, their teachers and parents can take away and use as they make career decisions. These events should also aim to provide as many opportunities as possible for visitors to meet role models – people just a few years older than themselves, who have been through similar decision-making processes as young people will currently be experiencing. © 2014 FRESHMINDS 7
Careers Guidance: Guaranteed – Summary report of workshops May 2014 2 Methodology AoC is working closely with Find a Future on best practice around careers guidance and how the Find a Future activity set (Have-a-Go Experiences, showcasing, collaborative guidance partnerships with colleges at the heart) can be used as an innovative and helpful way forward. AoC is interested in how aspirations and sources of information and influence develop during the time that children are in secondary school, and commissioned FreshMinds to explore: The aspirations of children. The sources of influence on these aspirations and how they develop throughout secondary school. Which people influence children’s aspirations and how these change over time. What children require from careers advice and what support should be provided for careers advisers. FreshMinds designed a dual stage approach to this research: an online survey of 2,001 children aged between 11 and 16 and workshops across the country. Findings from the earlier online survey are available on the AoC’s website1. This document summarises the findings of three workshops conducted with parents, teachers, careers advisers, school pupils and college students in London, Middlesbrough and Weymouth. The workshops were designed to supplement the online survey by providing more detail on the people and sources that influence children’s decision-making, and involve a wide range of stakeholders, including young people themselves, in identifying how careers advice could be made more helpful. FreshMinds and AoC would like to thank Barking and Dagenham College, Middlesbrough College and Weymouth College for their assistance in organising and hosting the workshops and to thank all the participants who attended. Young People Parents Teachers Careers Advisers London (Barking and 12 4 4 3 Dagenham College) Middlesbrough 0 0 0 122 (Middlesbrough College) Weymouth (Weymouth 6 2 3 1 College) 1 http://www.aoc.co.uk/news/fresh-look-careers-guidance 2 Despite parents and pupils being invited, only careers advisers attended the Middlesbrough workshop. Most of these worked exclusively as careers advisers, but some also had other teaching roles. © 2014 FRESHMINDS 8
Careers Guidance: Guaranteed – Summary report of workshops May 2014 3 Current behaviours and beliefs The experiences and expectations of young people in the workshops aligned closely with the findings of the online survey that formed the first stage of this research. The key findings from this survey were: Children often have clear aspirations about what they want to do. 72% of them agreed they ‘know what kind of job I want to do in the future’. However, aspirations tend to be fairly traditional – they wanted a ‘professional’ job (41%) rather than a ‘vocational’ job (36%) and often aspired to very traditional jobs, such as doctors, teachers, engineers and lawyers. To fulfil their ambitions most pupils expect to go into either further or higher education (FE or HE) once they have completed compulsory education. Of those surveyed, 57% expect to go to university, 53% expect to go to college, and 14% expect do an apprenticeship. The most common sources of information about jobs and careers are parents/guardians (70%) and teachers (57%). The importance pupils place on teachers and careers advisers increases as they progress through their school careers. Around two-thirds (64%) of Year 11 pupils approach a teacher for advice compared with just 50% of Year 7 pupils, while just 9% of Year 7s compared to 49% of Year 11s had approached careers advisers as a source of advice. Further information on stage one of this research can be found in the Appendix, while the full report is available on AoC’s website3. There is little awareness among children and parents of the reality of jobs and industries in their local areas Young people who attended the workshops only mentioned jobs they had actually seen in practice, such as teachers, policemen or hairdressers. Many expressed low awareness of what jobs were available to them in their local area or which companies or industries were the largest employers. Most of their awareness of jobs is gathered passively as they go about their lives, rather than being actively researched or discovered. Parents themselves said that they were not well informed about what was happening in the local employment sector. In both Middlesbrough and Weymouth, teachers and careers advisers were 3 http://www.aoc.co.uk/sites/default/files/Freshminds%20Summary%20Report.pdf © 2014 FRESHMINDS 9
Careers Guidance: Guaranteed – Summary report of workshops May 2014 especially concerned that parents had out-of-date views about which industries had declined and which were growing in their local areas and, as a result, were providing out-of-date advice to their children. This lack of awareness across both groups indicates that closer relationships between schools, colleges and employers are key to young people having a realistic view of their employment prospects and being supported in these decisions by well-informed parents. As part of this, there is a need for someone to facilitate information sharing and point people in the right direction. Adults and children think differently about future jobs and careers When asked about potential career routes for young people, adults thought about potential industries (for example engineering) whereas children talked about particular roles (such as a shop assistant, or a farmer). In some instances it appears that this difference in thinking causes children and adults to talk at cross purposes when discussing careers advice. For example, a careers adviser might suggest a pupil investigates the automotive industry but the pupil may interpret that as a suggestion to be a mechanic, as that is the only job that they associate with that industry. This may be confusing and lead to them losing motivation and not engaging with careers advice or guidance in the future. Travel distance to a potential employer is a significant barrier to young people finding employment or work experience Participants in Middlesbrough and Weymouth both raised issues around the time and cost involved for young people to travel outside their town in order to find a job. Adults suggested that their pupils/children were reluctant to travel even though in many instances it would be necessary in order to find a suitable job. In some instances local transport infrastructure has meant that travelling by public transport was prohibitively expensive and time consuming. While school pupils and college students may not be seeking employment immediately, travel was still seen as a barrier to finding out about what jobs were available in their local area as they were unlikely to visit a prospective employer (for example, for work experience) unless there was a clear incentive for them to do so. Travel and transport were not seen as barriers in London, where there is greater access to more frequent and direct public transport. © 2014 FRESHMINDS 10
Careers Guidance: Guaranteed – Summary report of workshops May 2014 4 Best practice for careers guidance Good careers guidance for both young people and their parents needs to include these four elements: Facts – Information is key to ensuring good decision-making. It should be available through both face-to-face interaction and online. Exposure to opportunities – As well as being told about roles and industries, children should be exposed to what the world of work is like in general, and what a particular role involves, to build understanding and motivation. Experience of the workplace – Longer-term work experience ensures preparation for the workplace and full understanding of a particular role. It is highly demanded by both children and parents. Direction – Pupils and students do not feel empowered by the current careers advice system to drive their own decision making and job hunt. They would like to be provided with more direction and structure. This framework is explored further below to outline a best practice guide to careers guidance based on participants’ descriptions of current careers guidance; what works well, what does not work well and what children would ideally like to experience. Not all these things would be expected to be achieved in a single careers encounter, but as many as possible should be delivered, as often as possible, over the course of a young person’s time in education. The inclusion of employers in the guidance process was of particular importance, as was helping young people to gain a sense of direction and to know what steps to take. 1. Facts Children need to be provided with facts and information about careers, jobs and the opportunities open to them. They need to know what jobs are available immediately upon finishing education, what qualifications and skills they need, the location of such jobs, how long it takes to get there and how much they would earn. They also need to know how roles could lead to further opportunities and where further and higher education courses could lead. © 2014 FRESHMINDS 11
Careers Guidance: Guaranteed – Summary report of workshops May 2014 While the nature and content of this information will change depending on age, participants expect to have a face-to-face meeting, similar to existing experiences of careers advice – such as a meeting between a careers adviser and pupil – taking place at their school. This is something that many feel should ideally still be available to all pupils irrespective of ability or future ambitions. In addition to this, there is also a desire from adults and children for more group sessions, bringing together those with similar aspirations to explore potential careers together. Careers advisers, parents, teachers and young people also want information to be available online, “The government’s answer [to careers in an easy-to-use-format. The teachers and careers advice] is just the [National Careers advisers suggested that pupils should use the Service] website. But most of the kids do National Careers Service (NCS) website, or other not have the skills to navigate it or are similar websites which provide careers information, not motivated… Those who go on [the but that those who may struggle to access this website] are not the people who need website should be supported through face-to-face it. You need colleagues to make home interactions. To facilitate the use of the NCS website, visits and answer all the questions the schools could place a link on their homepages website can’t.” directing people to the site, or any other localised careers information, such as the example below. Careers Adviser, Middlesbrough Linking to the NCS website is one of the four pillars for AoC’s Careers Guidance: Guaranteed campaign. Example of best practice Middlesbrough College uses a searchable online database, Careers Coach, from EMSI, to enable its students and others in the area to locate information on local jobs. The website enables people to search for jobs by salary type and level of education and to find out what subjects and skills they need for a particular job role. This website provides a central hub of information, helps users see the local and national profile of a certain role, explains the steps needed to enter that role, is easy to navigate and enables them to create their own CV as an output. https://mbro.emsicareercoach.co.uk © 2014 FRESHMINDS 12
Careers Guidance: Guaranteed – Summary report of workshops May 2014 As far as possible, efforts should be made to also inform childrens’ parents so that they can provide “The biggest influence [on children] is relevant support and advice as part of the decision- the parents, for better or for worse. [The making process. While parents are not necessarily parents] still say you can go and do a viewed as careers advice “experts”, they are the trade, which is great if you can, but you people children most commonly go to for careers often can’t.” advice (70%). They are trusted because of the Careers Adviser, Middlesbrough personal knowledge they have of the young person involved. Raising the collective knowledge of these key advisers would help improve access to information and the quality of ad hoc, informal careers advice. This is because uninformed family members can hinder a child’s ambitions and push them towards careers that are seen to be safe or traditional, but possibly not best suited to the individual, or taking into account emerging industries. “Parents’ particular experience of industry in the North-East has not always been a happy one. They have experienced substantial declines in certain industries that are now reasonably secure. [We’re] helping them make that transition from believing there is only this particular kind of job and it’s not very safe, to [understanding] it is now quite different in this particular area and there are a variety of quite secure jobs that offer progression.” Careers Adviser, Middlesbrough © 2014 FRESHMINDS 13
Careers Guidance: Guaranteed – Summary report of workshops May 2014 2. Exposure Young people also need to discover more about the industries that exist in their area and understand what job roles local employers can offer them. Any experience which helps them to get a sense of what a job is like in practice and widens their understanding of the world of work in general should be encouraged. Careers fairs, and visits from employers are fairly common in the colleges which hosted workshops, and all participants indicated these were useful. For instance, Weymouth College runs an annual careers fair with 70 different occupations represented. Employers and students come from all over Dorset to participate, with students able to select four careers sessions they would like to experience. Example of best practice One Weymouth school ran a ‘speed interviewing evening’ with local engineering companies for pupils who were in years 11 and 13. This was open to any pupils with an interest in this sector and involved them sitting down with local engineering employers for a few minutes at a time. It led to some of them finding work experience placements through the contacts they had made. However, those involved said it was difficult for smaller companies to be involved in these activities as they could not spare their employees’ time. This is significant given that 59% of private sector employment is in small and medium enterprises (SMEs).* * Department of Business Innovation and Skills, ‘Business population estimates for the UK and regions 2013’ https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/254552/13-92-business-population- estimates-2013-stats-release-4.pdf Young people did not specifically reference Have-a-Go Experiences, such as those delivered at The Skills Show Experience, but these could also be extended as a way of giving children an insight into the realities of work. Ideally any exposure to employers should take place in the workplace. This would help young people to think of the company or job in less abstract ways and allow them to see people carrying out their particular tasks. © 2014 FRESHMINDS 14
Careers Guidance: Guaranteed – Summary report of workshops May 2014 While visiting a workplace is not always an option, technology may be able to supplement workplace exposure. One teacher anecdotally referred to a training provider giving their apprentices webcams so that people, including college pupils, could watch what they were doing in the work place. Other similar technology solutions such as videos, blogs and online case studies could all play a role and would be able to be shared among friends. As part of any meetings with employers, role models can play a key part in helping young people see how they might progress. These role models should be a few years older than the pupils or students and, where possible, from related backgrounds and experiences so that children can easily relate to them and see how they might progress in similar ways. 3. Experience Similar to one-off meetings with employers, longer- term work experience (anything from a whole day, “Getting the chance to do work to a few weeks or longer) is also important to help experience is great. You can tick off children build-up a picture of what working life is what you like and don’t – it’s useful really like. There was frequent and passionate anyway [even if you don’t like the dissatisfaction expressed by both teachers and job].” pupils about the removal of statutory work Pupil, Weymouth experience opportunities. Participants wanted work experience to be available to all pupils and designed to be a core part of a pupil’s school or college experience. Workshop participants said they would like work experience opportunities even when placements were not explicitly linked to a pupil’s course of study or specific interests; work experience placements are a way young people can identify what they do not want to do and provide an insight into general employability skills and behaviours, which are relevant to all. One Weymouth College student had been looking forward to taking part in work experience, but it was cancelled just as she reached the eligible age to do it. Rather than offering work experience to everyone, only five of her classmates – those who she described as “the ones who were always naughty and on the verge of getting kicked out” – were given the opportunity, leaving other students disaffected and disappointed. Some participants suggested a staged approach throughout secondary school with some work experience offered every year, with the level of involvement increasing each year. For instance, © 2014 FRESHMINDS 15
Careers Guidance: Guaranteed – Summary report of workshops May 2014 one post-16 student from Weymouth College suggested that Year 8 pupils are shown around the workplace, in Year 9 they enter the workplace and do a little practical work, and that in Years 10 and 11 pupils do the job alongside the employees. Linking work experience placements to actual subjects was suggested as a way of increasing the links between education and work. In particular, apprenticeship programmes were suggested by some teachers and careers advisers as providing the ideal combination of work and training. However, the research suggests a lack of both supply and demand for apprenticeships: Careers advisers in both Middlesbrough and Weymouth believed there was a large gap between the number and type of apprenticeships advertised at a national level, and what is available at a local level. The earlier online research survey showed comparatively few school pupils expected to do an apprenticeship, with just 14% (17% of boys and 12% of girls) expecting to pursue this type of education. This was compared with 57% expecting to go to university, and 53% who expecting to go to college. 4. Direction While information gathering is key to any careers guidance, children were frustrated if they only received information. Adults expected pupils to leave careers advice sessions with the skills necessary to do their own research and for them to feel “empowered” to make decisions themselves. However, young people wanted more direction than they had received in the past. The ‘Post-It’ notes above were written by pupils during the workshops when asked what “works well” or “does not work well” about their current careers advice. © 2014 FRESHMINDS 16
Careers Guidance: Guaranteed – Summary report of workshops May 2014 Children want to receive appropriate suggestions for careers to explore based on their skills, desires and favourite subjects. Some careers advisers suggest pupils use online diagnostic tools to help them gain direction. Any careers guidance or encounter should also provide young people with tangible results, such as the tools they need to make their next move, and a clear structure outlining what they should do next. For example, they may walk out of a careers advice session with: A written C.V. to enable them to apply for roles. Interview practice to give them confidence when they secure an interview. Suggestions about where to find relevant job opportunities. Suggestions for other relevant information they need to know and where to find it, such as college courses. It should also help them clearly understand what steps to take next, such as knowing which courses they need to take for a certain career or which potential employer to contact for work experience or a job. © 2014 FRESHMINDS 17
Careers Guidance: Guaranteed – Summary report of workshops May 2014 5 Appendix: Summary of original online survey results This report is the second stage of research and follows the findings of an online survey4 with 2,001 school pupils in years 7, 8, 10 and 11 conducted in December 2013. The main findings of the online survey were: Almost three-quarters of children surveyed (72%) agreed they 'know what kind of job I want to do in the future', but more than one in five children (22%) ‘don’t know’ what job they want to do in the future. Children were more likely to say they wanted a ‘professional’ job (41%) rather than a ‘vocational’ job (36%) and often aspired to very traditional jobs, such as doctors, teachers, engineers and lawyers. Two-thirds (65%) of children were 'positive about their future job options’ and six in ten (58%) believe they 'can do any job [they] want'. But it appears that as children get older they become more pessimistic about their future job prospects. Two-thirds (67%) of children agreed that they are 'getting the support they need to make decisions about their future', though only a half (49%) ‘feel well-informed about what jobs are available' Parents/guardians (70%) and teachers (57%) were the most frequently approached source for careers advice. Professional careers advisers were only used by 27% of those surveyed, with significantly more children relying instead on friends (48%), relatives (42%) or general internet searches (32%) for advice about their future careers. Children most commonly expected to go to either university (57%) or college (53%). Just 14% expected to do an apprenticeship and fewer than one in ten (9%) expected to get a job straight away. 4 http://www.aoc.co.uk/news/fresh-look-careers-guidance © 2014 FRESHMINDS 18
Careers Guidance: Guaranteed – Summary report of workshops May 2014 229-231 High Holborn London ⁄ WC1V 7DA 0207 692 4300 www.freshminds.net FreshMinds works with global brands info@freshminds.net De to navigate a digital world; driving @FreshMindsTeam growth and sparking innovation. Our team of consultants will help you to uncover new markets, rapidly iterate and develop product propositions, and devise effective marketing strategies and communications that drive profitable growth. CLAIRE PURCHASE Director 0207 611 1039 Claire.Purchase@freshminds.net ADAM WILSON IF YOU HAVE ANY Senior Associate QUESTIONS, PLEASE DO GET IN TOUCH 0207 611 1051 Adam.Wilson@freshminds.net © 2014 FRESHMINDS 19
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