Careers, Education, Information, Advice and Guidance

BSCA Careers Team

Careers Governor Link - Mr Bagley

Careers SLT Link - Mrs Farrell

Careers Connexions Advisor - Mrs McCarrick, ashley.mccarrick@bolton.gov.uk

Careers Development Co-Ordinator - Miss Bradburn, obradburn@boltonstcatherinesacademy.org.uk

What is CEIAG?

Access to high quality Careers Education, Information, Advice and Guidance (CEIAG) is a learning entitlement of all of our learners. Career’s education enables young people to develop the knowledge and skills they need to make successful choices, manage transitions in learning and move in to work.

Bolton St Catherine's Academy Careers continues to develop a wide range of innovative strategies to encourage every learner within our school community to take ownership of their own individual career plan. We aim to develop and embed careers education to be on par with other schools and colleges and create a plan that shows impact at a local and national level.

A dedicated Careers Department has been built up within the school and strong links have been forged with local employers, colleges and universities to ensure all students have the knowledge and skills to manage their transitions. We strive to help our students and their parents to make informed decisions about subject choices and future career pathways. At Bolton St Catherine's Academy our Career Leader ensures that our students are given high quality, impartial information, advice and guidance in line with the Department of Education statutory guidelines and the Gatsby Benchmarks. 

Our Vision

Our vision is to live the BSCA values of Believe, Strive, Care and Achieve through our careers programme. We have rewritten the programme to reflect the Gatsby Benchmarks and this is evidenced using the online Compass+ tool on a termly basis.

The BSCA careers programme is evaluated for effectiveness each year using systemic feedback from students, teachers, employers, parents/carers.

The eight Gatsby Benchmarks serve as a framework for careers provision and have been adopted as part of the Government's Careers Strategy.

B1. A Stable Careers Programme:  The careers programme will be written down in the form of a strategic implementation plan, development plan that will be reviewed termly and a monitoring and evaluation plan to be reviewed each year.

B2. Learning from Careers and Labour Market Information: Every student and their parents/carers will have access to good quality information about future study options and labour market opportunities.  Students will have used up-to-date career & LMI to help inform study and career decisions by the time they leave Bolton St Catherine's Academy. We will encourage parents/carers to use career path and LMI to aid the support given to their children, supported by an informed advisor to make best use of available information.

B3. Addressing the needs of each student: Advice and support will be tailored to the diverse needs of each student from year 7 – 11. The programme will raise aspirations of all students and embed equality and diversity considerations throughout.

Destination data will be used to assess how successfully students make the transition into the next stage of education or training, or into employment and to inform future CEIAG provision at Bolton St Catherine's Academy. We will work with the local authority and careers advisors to provide careers guidance to our vulnerable students and SEND students.

B4. Linking curriculum learning to careers: Careers and enterprise education will be part of and included in students' standard lessons, linking curriculum to real world career path. All teachers should link curriculum learning with careers. By the time students leave school, they will have had an experienced career learning as part of English, Maths, Science and PHSE lessons as a priority. Tailoring it to their context and targeting different key stages or cohorts of students. This will include planning of lessons for each year and partnering with employers to support subjects.

B5. Encounters with employers and employees: All students will have multiple opportunities with employers and employees that result in a better understanding of the workplace and the potential career paths open to them. This will also include trips that students go on, form time activities, assemblies, motivational speakers, mentoring, enterprise schemes and any external delivery hosted in and out of Bolton St Catherine's Academy.

B6. Experiences of workplaces: It is important for students to experience the workplace environment to help their exploration of career opportunities, expand their networks and understand the context in which they could one day be working in.

Year 10 – 1 week work experience - this could also be part of their course, voluntary work, work visits, work shadowing and/or part-time jobs that they hold. There will be an additional programme to at risk of NEET students and LAC students in order to allow all students to access work experience.

B7. Encounters with Further and Higher Education: Students will have the opportunity to meet with representatives, staff and students from HE, FE and apprenticeship programmes in and out of school. This includes both academic and vocational routes, and learning in schools, colleges, universities, and apprenticeships.

B8. Personal Guidance: Every student will have opportunities for guidance interviews with a qualified careers guidance practitioner, who is trained at level 6 and is a Registered Practitioner with the Careers Development Institute.  These will be available whenever significant study or career choices are being made. They will be expected for all students and timed to meet their individual needs. All students will have had one interview with a professional and impartial careers adviser by the end of year 11. Students will have an action plan with SMART goals that they can reflect on.

Provider Access Policy

This statement sets out the Academy's arrangements for managing the access of providers to students at the academy for the purpose of giving them information about the provider's education or training offer. This complies with the Academy's legal obligations under Section 42B of the Education Act 1997. Bolton St Catherine's Academy is developing very fast and we would like external agencies on board supporting us through this journey to achieve the best for our students.

Bolton St Catherines Academy: Provider Access Policy Statement (To include The Department of Education, July 2021: “Baker Clause” and the Provider Access Legislation, January 2023) Ownership: The Bishop Fraser Trust Date updated: June 2024 Policy Coordinator: Olivia Bradburn Policy Reviewed: June 2025

Management of Provider Access Requests Procedure

An employer or provider wishing to request access, should contact Miss Bradburn obradburn@boltonstcatherinesacademy.org.uk

 Providers can also make contact via the 'contact us' section of the academy website.

Opportunities for access

We would like our students to develop high aspirations and consider a broad and ambitious range of careers. Inspiring every student through more real-life contacts with the world of work and further education establishments that can help them to understand where different choices can take them in the future. A number of events, integrated into the school's programme, will offer providers an opportunity to come into the Academy to speak to students/or their parents/carers.

BSCA Careers Programme

Bolton St Catherine's Academy is committed to providing high quality, independent and impartial careers advice and guidance service to all our learners in Years 7 to 11 with a comprehensive, impartial programme of careers education, information, advice and guidance (CEIAG) and work-related learning (WRL). Bolton St Catherine's Academy has a structured careers programme that has the explicit backing of the senior management team and an appropriately trained person responsible for it. The careers programme will be regularly evaluated with feedback from students, parents, teachers and employers as part of the evaluation process.

We aim to prepare our learners for an ever-changing world of work, raising aspirations and driving achievement. The programme will be a whole school endeavour supported by the headteachers, SLT, Governors, teaching staff, careers Advisors, other staff in school, students and parents. The programme will help students with their choices and support each transitions points they have within the school, but also equip them with the knowledge and skills to deal with the career decisions they will face beyond school.

To see our full careers programme please click here.

Subject Careers

There are lots of career choices through all subjects.

Click on each subject to find a list of exciting careers.

Work Experience

Work experience is where you will spend time on an employer’s premises undertaking tasks and duties as an employee, gaining valuable work skills to assist you in your future career path.

This may be the first time you have had to apply for a job, but it will not be the last! If there is anything you do not understand, please ask your Form Tutor or Miss Bradburn

There are lots of different ways in which you can look for a work placement, here are some suggestions below: finding a placement guide will be handed out in form time.

The internet - use search engines such as Google to look for local businesses. Type in key words related to the area of work that you would like to work within.

Social media - lots of small businesses have a large presence on social media (Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok and Twitter) and these businesses are very active and responsive on their social media platforms, so you could get a quicker response from them.

Be alert - when out and about in your local area, have a look around you, what businesses can you see, new businesses pop up all of the time. If you feel confident enough, you could go in and ask them if they can offer you a work placement, if not, take note of the name of the business and when you get home you can look them up and make contact with them.

Ask family and friends - people that you know might be able to suggest some businesses that you can try, they may also be happy for you to do your work experience with them in their business or at their place of work.

Remember: your work placement may not be a career you would like to do in the future but you will learn lots of new skills.

This is for you to experience what work is like and give you an insight into the wider world of work.

Contacting an Employer/Business – where able try to speak with your potential work placement in person, start by saying something like this…

Hello, My name is ………….. I am a student at Bolton St Catherines Academy and I would like to ask, do you offer work experience placements for students?

Once a business has agreed to offer you a placement, please ask them to sign the self-placement form and attach a copy of their Employers Liability Insurance.

There are two ways that the necessary information can be provided.

Option 1 – Paper Forms

Consent letter – your parent/carers must complete and sign your consent letter, stating any medical requirements you have. Or, this can all be done online via the parent portal (details below).

Self-Placement Form – Your employer must complete and sign your self-placement form while also attaching a copy of their Employer’s Liability Insurance to the form. Or, this can all be done online via the employer portal (details below).

Deadline date: both forms must be completed and returned Miss Bradburn by the 13^th December.

Option 2 – Online Portal

Log in - You will need your own personal login details and these will be provided by your form tutor and emailed to you by Our Futures so please monitor your school emails.

Our Futures, the school’s work experience provider, have created QR codes for you to use.

Please get the employer to scan this QR code so they can input your placement details.