AEIAG0100

Written evidence submitted by the AET Schools

About AET Schools

AET Schools is a national network of schools providing high support and challenge to over 33,000 pupils, aged 2 – 19, across the country. Our schools focus on being excellent every day through powerful intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution. From the Isle of Wight to Hull, AET Schools is organised through deep and purposeful collaboration. Our approach - which is national in scale, regional in structure, and local at heart - has been established to deliver lasting school improvement.

Is the current system of careers education, information, advice and guidance (CEIAG) serving young people?

AET Schools supports the Gatsby Benchmarks introduced in 2017, which has ensured that interpretation of the Gatsby Benchmarks is increasingly consistent across schools. The benchmarks have provided a national language for careers and established stability to the careers system.

From a standing start, the Gatsby framework has supported a strengthened approach across our schools to install the components of excellent careers programmes. In September 2018, 5 of our academies achieved 0 benchmarks (21%), 15 academies achieved 0-2 benchmarks (67%) and only 1 academy achieved 6-8 benchmarks (4%). After implementing a new careers strategy in 2019, which explicitly focussed on meeting the benchmarks, all of our secondary schools are achieving over the national average of 3.98, with 100% achieving between 6-8 benchmarks, and 38% of schools achieving all 8 benchmarks.

This significant progress has had an overwhelmingly positive impact on the quality of careers guidance across AET Schools:

Our most recent internal destination data indicates we are mirroring the national outcomes of the Gatsby Benchmarks[2]. Our data reveals increasing aspiration within our student cohort and, crucially, demonstrates that our students have the tools to realise their potential. Support from the centre of the trust helps our schools to effectively plan the most impactful provision for their students. As a result, the rate of Higher Education Institution (HEI) progression continues to rise exponentially, as well as the quality of destinations across the board.

National and local stakeholder partnerships are key to our success in engaging with our communities, ensuring effective employment, and securing HEI progression routes. For example, at Ryde Academy on the Isle of Wight, opportunities on the Island are showcased, but students are also encouraged to broaden their horizons, by visiting universities on the mainland and working with large employers to showcase the variety of jobs. At Greensward Academy in Essex, the school prioritises a two-week programme of work experience so that pupils have the opportunity to experience workplaces, expand their networks, and use these experiences when applying to their next destination.

The contexts of our schools vary significantly within our trust. Pupils come from diverse backgrounds: The Free School Meals (FSM) percentage across our trust sixth forms is 23.4%, compared to the national average of 17.5%; English as an Additional Language (EAL) is substantially more than national averages, at 32% compared to 19.3%; and our special educational needs and disability (SEND) cohort is in line with national levels at 12.2%. As our schools operate in different contexts, The Gatsby Benchmarks focus on input measures, rather than outputs, have enabled staff to tailor their career programmes to meet the needs of their unique situations.

The Gatsby Benchmarks define what ‘good’ careers provision looks like, but should be viewed as a minimum standard from which to build. For example, Benchmark eight sets an expectation for every student to have at least one interview with a career adviser by the age of 16, and an opportunity for an additional interview by the age of 18. If all schools complied to the minimum threshold set by this benchmark it would unlikely to lead to substantive impact in isolation. Schools can of course build a provision that goes beyond this minimum expectation - giving pupils more than one or two opportunities for an in-depth discussion with a qualified adviser to explore the many sectors, industries, and pathways available to pupils in England’s diverse economy.

Recommendation: To strengthen the proven success of the Gatsby Benchmarks, standards should continue to be endorsed and where appropriate minimum thresholds should be bolstered.

Recommendation: There should be a stronger emphasis on best practice, with schools and trusts learning from each other about how to grow impact - rather than just meet the minimum standard of the benchmarks.

How careers and skills guidance could be better embedded in the curriculum across primary, secondary, further, higher and adult education, to ensure all learners are properly prepared for the world of work

Although critical, The Gatsby Benchmarks should not be considered a panacea for successful careers provision. It’s essential that the benchmarks are recognised as yardsticks to structure careers provision. High-quality CEIAG is much more than compliance to eight indicators; it should be measured on how the whole school embeds careers provision throughout the culture and the impact this starts to have on outcomes. If interpreted incorrectly they could lend to a tick-box culture in schools.

It is important that Ofsted evaluates whether schools comprehensively prepare pupils for future success in education, employment or training. Ofsted’s strengthened focus on careers education within inspection, particularly within the ‘Personal Development’ section of the framework is a welcome step to monitoring the quality of careers provision across a whole school setting.

In the most disadvantaged communities school culture is essential to raise aspirations and outcomes, giving pupils something to aim for. Offering a curriculum which helps young people to make connections between what they are studying in the classroom and how this applies in the wider world of work improves motivation and engagement. To maximise the power of culture then careers education must be reinforced across the curriculum, by senior leaders and teachers, consistently.

At AET Schools, we have worked with a range of employers to create careers across the curriculum resources. For example, Maths teachers at Bexleyheath Academy worked closely with Pinewood Studios to create a series of lessons based on key learning objectives from the Maths curriculum. The resources were co-created with the employer, with students applying mathematical skills, knowledge and processes to real world tasks and exploring key job roles as part of the process. This process was replicated in English (with Tesco), in Geography (with The National Trust) and in Languages with (EKFB).

The conceptualisation of what careers education is for should be further refined to support long term approaches to careers education and how it becomes embedded in the culture of schools. There must be consensus on whether the duty of schools and trusts is to support transition into an immediate destination or to provide a more sustainable long-term destination through the development of career management skills. The Department for Education emphasises that good career guidance promotes pupils to enter “positive and sustained destinations”[3], yet sustained destinations are only defined in national statistics as “six months in the year after finishing key stage 4 or 16-18 study”. This headline accountability measure for destinations falls short of what many would consider a ‘sustained’ period.

Without shared understanding on the long-term purpose of careers education, there is a danger that the Benchmarks can be used by individual schools as administrative expediency to satisfy external requirements, without consideration for the lasting prospects of young people. At AET Schools, we’re focussed on preparing students for life at 25, rather than simply their next destination. We believe that is a more appropriate way to equip young people with a practical outlook for their long-term future: The seven-year secondary journey is mirrored for the next seven-years after school, and students and schools are encouraged to consider careers as a marathon, not a sprint.

There are issues with the way national data collection on destinations. National destinations data is significantly lagged[4]. The most recent data relates to the 2019 school leavers, and was only accessible to schools in October 2021. This leads to a lack of immediacy and limits opportunities for interventions and support. To support our pupils, we’ve developed systematic processes to monitor intended destinations data at trust level - monitoring aspirations of all pupils to identify their intended destinations in Year 11 and Year 13. We collect data twice - in Autumn and in Spring - which has been essential for monitoring trends and identifying students who require further support. All of our schools have destination action plans that are tailored directly to the findings from our data.

Recommendation: The Department for Education develops a mechanism to support schools and academy trusts to know the initial and sustained destinations of students in a timely fashion so that schools can provide support, as well as support to capture long-term destinations data, particularly through LEO data.

Recommendation: Curriculum programmes of study should be revised so that links between curriculum learning, careers and skills are more explicit.

Whether the proposals for CEIAG in the Government’s Skills for Jobs White Paper will effectively address current challenges in the CEIAG system

While we support the measure in the Skills for Jobs White Paper to expand independent careers support to year seven pupils, there is scope to go further. Research from UCAS reveals that 1 in 3 students begin thinking about higher education options when in primary school[5]. There’s huge value for early interventions to raise aspiration. AET Schools is currently developing a primary careers education model using the themes of the Gatsby Benchmarks. If reforms to extend careers support to primary education are pursued by the Department for Education, we believe it would be useful to pilot further approaches to identify what is most impactful and to share good practice nationally.

All of our schools would like to promote an exceptional careers guidance programme to their students, however, there are competing priorities facing schools which also require time and resources.

Funding is a clear issue for the delivery of high-quality careers programmes. Between 2010–11 and 2019–20, funding per student in school sixth forms fell by 28%, in real terms[6]. Although the recent Spending Review led to £800 million new investment at post-16, that money has been hypothecated for additional learning hours, rather than an extension of quality in areas such as careers support. Because sixth-form funding has been hit harder than any other phase of education over the last decade, careers guidance risks falling short at the time when it is most relevant to pupils, particularly with an increasingly unsettled economic environment.

Evidence regularly reveals that teaching is an underrecruited career option[7] - we expect that this is even more salient for trained career leaders due to this area of the system being undeveloped for decades. The lack of emphasis for careers specialists within National Professional Qualifications (NPQs) is unhelpful to the prestige of careers specialist routes. For careers education to have parity with subject education then we need highly-skilled professionals at schools to deliver staffing support as well as personal support for pupils and teachers.

We’re also concerned that much of the available training focuses on career leaders. We would like to see careers education and destination training embedded into all levels of teacher training from Initial Teacher Training (ITT) to National Professional Qualification for Headship (NPQH). While there are toolkits and guides, it is possible that this CPD offer does not go far enough to institute meaningful change.

Regional disparities limit the universal success of careers education. The Sutton Trust recently revealed that 84% of students in London report that careers guidance from their schools is useful, compared to just 69% in Northern schools[8]. AET Schools has deployed regional career leaders to meet the specific needs of schooling in different communities, and each region has made significant progress against the Gatsby benchmarks. Our approach to secure even spread of success is underpinned by a close working relationship with regional Careers & Enterprise Company Career Hubs, which have been vital support structures.

Recommendation: The Department for Education focuses on careers leader supply within the next teacher recruitment and retention strategy, by including careers education within NPQs and ITTs.

Recommendation: The Department for Education commissions pilot programmes to understand where additional careers support at primary phase could successfully replicate recent reforms at secondary.

How schools could be supported to better fulfil their duties to provide careers advice and inform students of technical, as well as academic, pathways.

All of our schools comply with the Baker Clause: they share facts and encourage pupils and parents to explore all available information as it is their due diligence and duty to share information about available routes. With all the information available, if a pupil identifies that this type of provision is the right route then it is the right thing for students to leave us at this point, as in many instances they will offer a breadth of qualifications which is beyond the scope of our schools. However, in areas with low-quality providers some schools have expressed uneasiness with these alternatives for their pupils.

Vocational and technical education should be considered a credible and equal alternative to academic routes. Across our trust we offer 22 Vocational Courses in fields ranging from Child Play to Hospitality, which serve our pupils well in HEI progression. In a policy-environment that is actively encouraging technical and vocational pathways for pupils, we believe that there could be further support for teachers and senior school leaders to showcase these types of opportunities. Our principals, who tend to be older, have reported a lack of operational understanding about newer technical and apprenticeship routes. More support is needed to help schools navigate the different organisations and training providers that exist as genuine alternatives to HE for their pupils. A UCAS style system for apprenticeships could be a useful option to explore.

Technical and vocational pathways could be hugely beneficial for pupils with SEND. We’re concerned that careers advisers in mainstream schools may lack expertise to support the specific needs of pupils with SEND, and that there is likely a national shortage of careers advisers who specialise in supporting pupils with SEND. Existing careers training programmes may not be universally sufficient. Our most vulnerable learners should be prioritised with support that will help them to navigate education and training routes. Yet, in the most recent Key Stage 4 data the percentage of pupils with identified SEN in sustained destinations worsened[9][10].

For SEND pupils, additional support is required to help them explore and secure destination options. We welcome the role of The Careers & Enterprise Company funded activities, and their work to support pupils of all characteristics. Careers Hubs and Enterprise Advisors have enabled capacity for schools within our trust. This infrastructure could be advanced and specifically targeted to specialist settings that may not currently have access to this essential support system.

Recommendation: Special schools and mainstream schools must have access to SEND Specialist Career Hubs.

Recommendation: A review should be commissioned to explore the value of a simplified platform for apprenticeship opportunities, akin to a UCAS style system.

March 2022