Benchmark 1

A Stable Careers Programme

Gatsby benchmark 1 provides the foundation for careers provision across your school and supports you to link careers provision to your vision, priorities and to school improvement.

What can it do?

A stable careers programme can play a part in promoting social mobility for the benefit of young people, their families and wider society by opening doors for all young people. The Department for Education has endorsed the fact that “great careers guidance provides the first rung on the ladder of opportunity, helping everyone to achieve their full potential”.

How does it help?

Developing a progressive careers programme shaped and driven by a strategic careers plan enables your students to make well informed decisions about education, training, apprenticeship and employment opportunities and supports them to cope with challenging labour market conditions.

What does good look like?

What does good look like - Gatsby Benchmark 1

Where to start?

There are 3 Gatsby Benchmark 1 modules which include resources, templates and a supporting video. These are a great place to start or review your current provision for Benchmark 1:

1. Creating a strategic Careers Plan

2. Building a progressive careers programme

3. Impact Evaluation

For more information regarding Gatsby Benchmark 1 click here.

For more information about all Gatsby Benchmarks visit:

Gatsby Benchmark toolkit for schools and colleges
SEND Gatsby Benchmark toolkit

Compass + Tool

Using Compass + will help you to:

Assess – Assess your school’s careers provision against the Gatsby Benchmarks

Save time and plan with ease – Quickly and easily map out your careers programme for the academic year

Be more strategic and targeted – Create custom cohorts so you can target relevant careers interventions to the students most in need

Measure and monitor effectively – Create detailed reports and data visualisations to monitor performance and track student individual students’ careers interests and intended destinations (what they plan to do after leaving school)

Collaborate with colleagues – Encourage collaboration by allowing your colleagues to contribute to careers education programme

Reach and build a wider network – Receive intelligent provider recommendations for activities and store details of career partners / employers and contacts that can support your school with careers events

Download – Download key information into reports, for the following purposes:

For analysis and reporting within their school
To provide data to local authorities to support them in their statutory duty to record the intended destinations of 16-year olds
To provide systematic records to each student of the individual advice given to them as recommended in the Gatsby Benchmarks

The Careers and Enterprise Company lists the benefits of Compass Plus here.

Teach First - Strategic Objectives

The Strategic Careers Plan builds a guide to achieving the strategic objectives. It will include timeframes, responsibilities, and evaluation plans. It will contain all the information needed to lead improvements in careers provision and will provide a comprehensive handover document for any successor to the role of Careers Adviser.

This format follows the Teach First Strategic Careers Plan concept and includes:

Vision
Current state
Key strategic objectives (student-centred and measurable)
Action plan to achieve objectives’

Creating Strategic Careers Plans

Careers Strategy Vs Careers Plan

A Careers Strategy sets out the Vision, Aims and Objectives which will enable the delivery of the school’s careers plan. It will identify the strengths and weaknesses and set out a clear evaluation framework. It documents the school approach to embedding careers and provides the necessary gravitas for the Board of Governors and the Senior Leadership Team.

A Careers Plan explains in detail how the strategy will be executed. It identifies:

What’s to be done
Who does what
When it has to be done by
How you’ll ensure it gets done on time and within budget

Careers Plan Guide

Annual review checklist

Click through below for a checklist, created by the Careers Enterprise Company, that can be used by Careers Leaders as an annual review of your provision. Simply work your way through the list, filling in the appropriate information, and use the completed form to support your planning for the following year.

The checklist takes into account all stakeholders’ views and provides evidence of impact.

CEC Annual Review Checklist

Does your school or college have to publish information about their careers programme?

The statutory guidance in relation to publishing information about the careers programme is that from September 2018 schools and colleges must publish:

The name, email address and telephone number of the school’s Careers Leader
A summary of the careers programme, including details of how pupils, parents, teachers and employers may access information about the careers programme
How the school measures and assesses the impact of the careers programme on pupils
The date of the school’s next review of the information published
In addition, under section 42B of the Education Act 1997 schools should include a policy statement on provider access, otherwise known as the Baker Clause