Careers Education

CEIAG stands for Careers Education, Information, Advice, and Guidance. All people, at various stages of their life, receive some sort of support in terms of their career development; the kind of support needed is defined by their needs and preferences.

• Careers Education = taught lessons on various aspects of career development.
• Careers Information = news and data about courses, jobs, career paths and opportunities.
• Careers Advice = suggestions and opinions relating to careers from either an informed or informal source.
• Careers Guidance = more in-depth support, often helping recipients understand things about themselves or the world around them that otherwise they would not perceive.

A career is defined as “a person’s journey through work, learning, and life”. Here at The Hollins, we understand that the first stages of young people’s career development are often the most important, and we provide comprehensive and ongoing support to our students to help them reflect on their capabilities, understand the nature of the choices they face, and move forward towards their future goals.

The nature of a ‘career’ has changed and continues to change. Many of our students’ parents or grandparents will have grown up in an age where it was common for a person to decide on their future career path very early – with some young people not getting a choice at all – and then working for long periods with one employer. Nowadays, careers are very fluid – young people will have many more employers throughout their lifespan, and they will more than likely have more than one ‘career’.

We are delighted to announce that Education Business Partnership NW (EBPNW) is the new provider of Independent Careers Advice and Guidance at The Hollins.

Education Business Partnership NW (EBPNW) are a local Careers Company who have been providing high quality CEIAG in the North West for over 10 years. Your son/daughter will receive valuable, impartial, careers advice and guidance which will support them to make well informed decisions about their future.

EBPNW’s Advisers are highly experienced and professionally qualified in Careers Guidance. All students will be offered the opportunity to have a one-to-one Career Conversation and will receive a detailed action plan to support them with their career planning. EBPNW welcome the opportunity to meet with parents/carers and will be attending Parents Events throughout the year.

Since 2018, schools must offer CEIAG provision that meets eight benchmarks of quality. These are called ‘The Gatsby Benchmarks’, as they were defined by a charity called the Gatsby Foundation.

The eight benchmarks are: –

• Careers in schools should be stable – with a named leader, Mrs Stubbs.  The Hollins has a stable, structured careers programme, that has the explicit backing of the senior leadership team and the school governors.
  The careers programme is published on the school website to enable pupils, parents, teachers and employers to access and understand it. The programme is evaluated on a termly basis with feedback from pupils, parents, teachers and employers as part of the continual evaluation process
• Students should be able to learn from career and labour market information, both in and out of the classroom.  Pupils and parents are encouraged to access and use information about labour markets and future study options via form time activities, the website and assemblies.
• Careers provision should address the individual needs of each pupil.  At The Hollins we acknowledge that pupils have differing needs at different stages of their careers guidance.  Opportunities for advice and support is tailored to the needs of each pupil. Our careers programme looks to embed equality and diversity considerations throughout it’s delivery, actively challenging stereotypical thinking and raising pupil aspirations.  Systematic records are kept of individual advice given to each pupil and subsequent agreed decisions. All pupils are e-mailed a copy of these records to support their career development.  The intended destinations of all school leavers are collated and recorded to ensure effective progression
• The curriculum within school should link to careers topics.  Teachers at The Hollins  embed careers information into lessons by teaching about relevant career pathways and job roles within lessons.  For example, Maths teachers highlight the relevance of numeracy within careers such as Architecture, Games Design, Accountancy, Engineering and many more.  English teachers highlight how literacy skills are required across a wide range of careers such as Journalism, Law, Blogging, Creative Writing, Publishing and many more.  All subject leaders have included how they meet this benchmark within their department development plans to ensure coverage across the entire curriculum.
• Pupils should receive multiple encounters with employers, employees, and representatives of Further and Higher Education providers.  All pupils are made aware of the full range of learning  opportunities that are available to them. This includes both academic and vocational routes and learning in schools, colleges, universities and in the workplace
• Pupils should be able to experience workplaces.  Our aim is that each year, from year 7 onward, all pupils should participate in at least one encounter with an employer or employee to learn about what work is like or what it takes to be successful in the workplace.  All year 10 pupils take part in work experience.
• All students should receive personalised guidance – with at least one chance to speak to a qualified Careers Advisor by the time they leave Year 11.  Our careers advice is provided by Career North. Pupils  intended destinations are discussed at length with them during these sessions to ensure they have a suitable plan in place for their future progression.

To view our programme please visit here

The Hollins Careers Entitlement Statement 2025

Provider Access Policy 2025-26

The impact of careers education at The Hollins is measured in a number of ways, including:

• Destinations of school leavers onto the next stages of their career journey are recorded and collated, including monitoring NEET figures in conjunction with Lancashire Authority.
• Termly Compass+ evaluations carried out by Careers Leader in line with CEC guidelines.
• Student evaluations of all activities, visits and trips including Y10 work experience are carried out to determine the impact and suitability for repeating.
• Employer feedback is collected, recorded and analysed by Careers Leader to determine success of Y10 students on work experience.
• Student voice is utilised to determine the effectiveness of the careers IAG programme
• Regular, planned IAG staff meetings discuss the effectiveness of the careers IAG programme.
• Careers leader monitors work across curriculum areas to embed careers learning into the curriculum to ensure Gatsby benchmark 4 is fully met by the school curriculum.

The Hollins does not have a Sixth Form. Therefore, all Year 11s at school must progress onto a programme of full-time education – whether that is A-Levels, a T-Level, or a vocational programme, training (through a Traineeship or Apprenticeship), or service in the Armed Forces.

More information is provided to all Year 11s through one-to-one interviews, and there is a channel on Teams (‘Y11 Careers’) where more information is available.

KS4 to KS5 Transition Booklet Final 2023

Popular choices for education or training include the following:

All Sixth Forms are essentially, extensions of existing secondary schools, where students can progress from year 11 onto Year 12. Sixth Forms welcome applications from external students. They previously offered just A-Levels, but some offer vocational options, too.

St Christophers, Accrington

Bacup and Rawtenstall Grammar School (BRGS)

Clitheroe Royal Grammar School (CRGS)

Westholme School, Blackburn

Haslingden High

Alder Grange, Rawtenstall

St Wilfrid’s, Blackburn

Blackburn College

A provider of A-Levels, vocational courses and Apprenticeships based in Blackburn, Lancashire.

Burnley College

A provider of A-Levels, vocational courses and Apprenticeships based in Blackburn, Lancashire. Note: Burnley College’s Apprenticeship offer is known as Themis, which you can find more out about at https://www.burnley.ac.uk/themis-home/.

Accrington and Rossendale College

A provider of vocational courses and Apprenticeships based in Accrington, Lancashire. Note: Accrington and Rossendale College is part of the Nelson and Colne College Group.

Nelson and Colne College

A provider of A-Levels, vocational courses and Apprenticeships based in Nelson, Lancashire. Note: Nelson and Colne College are part of the same group as Accrington and Rossendale College, and call themselves collectively the ‘Nelson and Colne College Group’.

Runshaw College

A provider of A-Levels, vocational courses and Apprenticeships with sites based in Leyland and Chorley, Lancashire.

Preston’s College

A provider of A-Levels, vocational courses and Apprenticeships with sites across Preston, Lancashire.

Myerscough College

A provider of vocational courses and Apprenticeships specialising in the Land, Animal and Sports industries, with sites in Bilsborrow (near Preston) and at Witton Park in Blackburn.

Some institutions offer full-time vocational courses but are not, strictly speaking, a Sixth Form or College.

Accrington Stanley Community Trust

A provider of full-time vocational courses, with a new site on Thorneyholme Road, Accrington, due to open in 2020. Please note: ASCT have a link with Accrington and Rossendale College.

Training 2000

A provider of Apprenticeships in diverse sectors including Engineering and Dental Nursing, Training 2000 also offer full-time courses, too.

North Lancs Training Group

A provider of Apprenticeships locally, NLTG also offer full-time courses and Traineeships for students not ready to engage with an Apprenticeship.

ELM Academy

A provider of training and Apprenticeships, specifically for the Hair and Beauty industries.

The Parent Perspective Podcasts

Parent Guide to Engineering

The ‘Labour Market’ is the availability of different jobs and vocations across a particular area – local, regional, national, or international. Looking at the labour market around you can help you understand the importance of the career choices that you will make throughout your education and beyond.

There’s a simple way to think about this. If you love creative industries, and feel that you want to develop a career within them, then considering the labour market around you is important. Is it likely you will find a job in the creative industries in the Hyndburn area? There are some opportunities, but certainly not as many as there will be in locations such as Manchester, Leeds, and of course London. Therefore, studying creative industries may mean that you need to aspire to study and/or work away from Accrington.

There are many ways to access labour market information, both online and in person.

• Possibly the easiest way to access labour market information is to look on a jobsearch website. These are generally the way most people access job vacancies nowadays (before they existed, people used to look in newspapers). Popular sites include indeed.co.uk, www.monster.co.uk, and www.reed.co.uk.
• Jobsearch sites will give you an immediate understanding of the jobs around you, but of course, you won’t be working full-time until you decide to finish your studies. Therefore, labour market information that deals with trends is probably more useful to you – particularly as it may anticipate coming changes to the labour market from technology.

A quick warning though – some of these information sources are not particularly user-friendly and you may not understand some elements!

• The Office for National Statistics is the government body that collects information on various things – among them, how many people are employed in particular industries, what qualification levels they have, etc. They have a site called NOMIS which shows labour market information – visit it at www. https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/, and you can look at information on particular areas such as Hyndburn, Burnley, and Blackburn, as well as wider regional areas.
• The Lancashire Enterprise Partnership (lancashirelep.co.uk) is an organisation that works across Lancashire, and the industries and economies that will thrive in future years.

• The Careerometer tool situated here

First Careers

https://www.firstcareers.co.uk

This website is great for younger pupils to explore how their favourite subjects can lead to a range of careers and discover work experience opportunities with well-known employers.

Prospects

https://www.prospects.ac.uk/job-profiles

All pupils can browse one of the most comprehensive lists of job profiles giving information about the role, qualifications, salary and the skills required. There are also tips for gaining work experience in each career.

UCAS

https://www.ucas.com

This is more than just a universities website. Young people and their families can find out about different careers, apprenticeships, going to college as well as university.

National Careers Service

https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/explore-careers

This is a government website with up to date information about careers. It provides you with an overview of careers available in the UK today.