Through a planned programme of activities, Careers Education, Information, Advice and Guidance (CEIAG) and Work-Related Learning (WRL), Brentwood seeks to help all students take their place as responsible adults within society. The focus is on raising the aspirations and achievement of individual students and equipping them with skills, attitudes, knowledge and understanding.

Careers Education helps young people to develop the knowledge and skills they need to make successful choices, manage transition between key stages and also between education and the world of work.

Careers Guidance enables them to use the knowledge and skills to make decisions about education and the world of work that are appropriate for them.

Brentwood is committed to:

• Providing a planned programme of activities to all students from Years 7 – 14 and in college which will help them to plan and influence their futures
• Providing independent advice and guidance (IAG) which is impartial, unbiased and is based on their needs
• Ensuring that the CEIAG and WRL programme follows local, regional and national frameworks for good practice.
• Working in partnership with Connexions to ensure all students access education, employment or training at least yearly and then at the relevant transition points

The Careers Education Programme
The CEP includes careers education sessions, career guidance activities (group work and individual interviews), information and research activities, work-related learning (including external and internal work experience where appropriate and work taster days) and individual learning planning/portfolio activities. Other focused events including a transition event, are provided at Key Stages 4, 5 and College e.g. ‘Beyond Brentwood’ where external relevant professionals from a range of organisations are invited into Brentwood to meet students and their families. External work experience is facilitated in Key Stage 5 and College. Students are actively involved in the evaluation of activities including work experience through lessons and in written feedback.

The CEIAG programme is greatly enhanced through links with a number of partners who help us make the students’ learning up to date and relevant. We constantly strive to expand and improve links with employers, other educational providers, local groups and charities.

Independent Careers Advice:
An annual partnership agreement is negotiated between the school and college and Connexions which identifies the contributions to the programme that each organisation will make.

Employment partnerships:
Examples of recent successful work experience placements have been with Wythenshawe Horticulture Centre, Short Cutz Hairdressers, St Margaret’s Ward Primary School, Waitrose, AJ Adams grocers, Manchester Museum, The Life Centre, Sunshine Café, Manchester United, Sale West and the Coppice Library.
Students have also had opportunities to volunteer within the local community through Duke of Edinburgh activities and enterprise in the community eg running a café at St Martin’s Church.

Further and Higher Education Links:
Strong links exist with local further education colleges, including Trafford College, Salford College, Bridge College, David Lewis College, Loreto College, Manchester College, Sea Shell Trust and local care providers.

Labour Market Information

Labour Market Information is information that helps students to make an informed decision about whether a career or job is right for them. Through our Careers programme we challenge the students to think about their future careers.

When thinking about a future career, we challenge the students to ask themselves:

• Are there jobs that you would want to do?
• Will you have to be more independent to find a job?
• How much money will you get paid?
• What sort of companies can you work for, or can you work for yourself?
• Will there be lots of these types of jobs available to you?
• Is this the right job for you?

By exploring this information in a meaningful and appropriate level to each student, it supports our young people to make important decisions about what they would like to do next in their study.  Through supported work-related learning opportunities this information can inspire students when thinking about their first job, or the next step in their career, if this is appropriate to them.

Further information can be found on the National Careers Service website.

https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/

Here students and their families can explore the skills and qualifications they may need for different careers. Students can see how many hours they would work in a particular job and it also shows trends in the numbers of jobs in a particular job sectors.

Skills Builder Programme

The Skills Builder Partnership works with schools and colleges to ensure that every child and young person builds the essential skills that they need to succeed.

At Brentwood we are currently working alongside the Skills Builder Partnership as we aim to equip our students with these essential and transferable skills. We believe good careers education includes the essential skills needed to support students to lead independent and productive lives.

The Skills Builder Universal Framework is the world’s leading tool for measuring and building essential skills. It breaks the 8 essential skills down into a sequence of steps, starting with absolute beginner through to mastery.

It's completely open source, and backed by years of research, developed with leading businesses, academics and educators.

At Brentwood School we have achieved the Bronze and Sliver award and are now working towards achieving the Gold award.

The Skills Builder framework is embedded into our Careers curriculum across school. The essential skills are also incorporated across the schools in other curriculum areas.

Last academic year students focussed on the skill of ‘teamwork’ where they worked together to plan and facilitate the very first Brentwood Christmas markets. Moving into the Spring term, students developed their ‘listening’ skills to participate in their own student led Careers fair. In summer students worked on their ‘problem solving’ to create their own enterprise project for the summer fair. 

Students, parents and carers can access the home zone here:

https://www.skillsbuilder.org/parents-and-carers

Headteacher - Jude Lomas

jlomas@brentwood.trafford.sch.uk

Careers Lead - Alice Doherty

adoherty@brentwood.trafford.sch.uk 

Work Experience - Siobhan O'Shaughnessy

soshaughnessy@brentwood.trafford.sch.uk 

Connexions advisor - Mick McHugh

mick.mchugh@trafford.gov.uk