At Denmark Road High School, we aim to support students, so that they can make informed decisions about their future, by raising aspirations, offering and promoting varied opportunities and providing impartial and independent information and guidance.
DRHS is committed to providing all students in Years 7-13 with a Careers Programme that has been developed in line with the eight Gatsby benchmarks for ensuring best practice and to meet the requirements of the Department for Education’s statutory guidance.
Our Careers Lead is Mrs Lindsay Harvey.
The Careers programme at DRHS has been planned across Years 7 – 13 to support students in gaining the skills and knowledge they need to make informed decisions about their future.
The core programme is delivered through the Careers in Tutorial Programme. This programme has been specifically arranged to enable progression and development, through the use of Unifrog, from Years 7 and 13 and to meet the Gatsby benchmarks. Each student has their own account.
At DRHS we work with independent and highly qualified Careers Advisors who carry out at least one 1:1 30 to 40-minute career interview with all students in both KS4 and KS5.
Additionally, students can choose to purchase life-long access to Morrisby, an online careers platform and this is funded by the school for students eligible for support through Pupil Premium or Forces Premium. Our Careers Advisors are fully trained Morrisby Advisors.
Unifrog is a fully comprehensive, impartial careers platform that allows students to become further immersed in learning about their future options. It is used as a key tool in the delivery of Careers.
Every student has their own account which they can access at any time from any device. The tools, activities and opportunities presented by Unifrog are supported by Form Tutors. This helps students to chart skill development and allows them to reflect on the opportunities they have both at home and at school to personally develop.
In addition, there are other events and activities that are planned alongside the Tutorial programme to support Careers at DRHS. For example:
We think it is very important that students (and parents) have access to a wide range of information about different careers and also the labour market.
Careers related information and guidance specifically relates to careers, jobs and training. At DRHS this includes advice and guidance on choices and options at KS4, Post-16 and Post- 18 – for example applying for an apprenticeship, taking a gap year or going to university in the UK or abroad.
Labour market information is about current work and job/apprenticeship opportunities in specific locations. This includes information about companies and organisations, industries, occupations and professions. It also includes information on the labour market in terms of past and present trends as well as future demands which can be useful for students thinking about post-university opportunities.
There are a wide range of sources for this information and it is an area that changes regularly.
Some sources of information are included in our careers programme, such as Unifrog and UCAS.
All students in Year 10 take part in a week's work experience. In addition Year 12 have the option for a weekly work placement as well as agreed time for necessary work experience.
Throughout the year, the school is made aware of new and current opportunities that relate to careers that are not part of the planned programme.
Many of these are sent to the school by email and so we are not always able to verify the quality of the offer. However, we do our best to find out if other schools are aware of them or if they are from known providers. In most cases, we then pass the details on to parents and students.
Throughout the year, students are asked to reflect on their progress within careers through Unifrog. This helps students to chart skill development and allows them to reflect on the opportunities they have had to personally develop.
At the end of the academic year we will measure the impact of our careers programme:
Additionally, we consider student engagement – for example we review the proportion of:
Our Careers programme is reviewed annually using the Compass Tool to ensure that our provision meets the Gatsby benchmarks.
We work with the Gloucestershire Learning and Enterprise Partnership, LEP who have access to the Compass Tool results and are able to support schools in moving forward with careers.
