The top 5 ways we increased careers engagement at our school
Technology is changing at a faster pace than we can ever imagine. Over the past 5 years, we have seen a huge change in the technology landscape in schools.
DEVICES
We now releaise that students are connected in ways that we couldn’t have imagined.
IN SYNC
Over 5 years at college, students will use multiple devices, operating systems and tools.
We took this knowledge
and it got us thinking – students get bored of doing careers worksheets and quizzes over and over again. They fail to see the meaning to it, or that fact that it assists them in building their life long learning foundations.
CONNECTION
Students were not connecting the dots over their years of career education
RESULTS
We struggled to measure the results of teaching students.
Method One: Opening the door
We found that we have a segment of students who are willing to take Careers Education ‘under their belt’ and explore themselves.
We gave these students the opportunity to login to our careers management system, and perform self directed study and research. We found that over a 1 year period, this provided exception results, with students contacting future education providers, and asking questions we hadn’t thought that they would ever ask! Success!
Method Two: Regular Simple Contact
Meetings, Daily Notices, Newsletters, Signage, Leaflets, Drop ins, Study Classes, Moodle, Google Classroom, KAMAR Messaging, Emails, Forms – we found that students were getting overwhelmed with how to get in touch with us, and how to ask questions.
I was always to shy to visit my Careers Advisor. Often I didn’t understand what I had to do or want to seem dumb, so I never went
In my last year at college, I struggled to find time when I was free, and my Careers Advisor.
I never really was into doing quizzes, and I guess that I slipped through the cracks.
To simplify the communication process, we directed all communication through Career Central. All our communications linked back to Career Central – creating a clear channel of communication for all.
Method Three: We bought in the whole team!
I only worked part time as a Careers Advisor, and found that often, I wasn’t able to achieve the amount of careers conversations that I wanted with students.
We decided to turn our Careers programme school wide, and encouraged our staff to have and record their careers conversations with students.
The flow on effect of this is that more students were willing to freely discuss their future plans, with staff, teachers and more importantly, us!
We became Career Facilitators.
Method Four: Stop the Noise
As a school, we were communicating Career opportunities through the daily notices, and through other channels. We found that we were putting students into ‘Information overload’ which made students tune out of listening to more information about careers.
To combat this, we created a process to only show targeted information to certain students. For example, Y13 students looking to study accounting receive information about accounting study options via Career Central – this keeps students engaged, and listening to the information they receive.
Method Five: Enforce the mindset
We engaged students early on in their pathway – we started conversations and thinking at Y9. The flow on effect is that in our school,
Careers Education is viewed as important and on par with other subjects.
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