CAD0018

Written evidence submitted by the NAHT

1. NAHT welcomes the opportunity to submit a response to the inquiry on careers, advice, information and guidance. NAHT represents more than 29,000 school leaders in early years, primary, secondary and special schools, making us the largest association for school leaders in the UK. We represent, advise and train school leaders in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. We use our voice at the highest levels of government to influence policy for the benefit of leaders and learners everywhere. Our new section, NAHT Edge, supports, develops and represents middle leaders in schools. This puts us in an excellent position to provide evidence to the sub-committee on Education, Skills and the Economy.

2. NAHT believes that good quality careers advice, information, and guidance (CAIG) is important to all pupils in our schools. We have continually stressed that CAIG should be appropriately resourced and of a high standard in order to support pupils to make the best choices and maximise their life chances. Our members are reflected in the research of the 2013 Gatsby report where school leaders were asked to judge the importance of their careers programme to their school culture and ethos. 89% of them believed their careers programme to be important and 88% wanted to extend their current provision.

3. Despite this support for CAIG from school leaders, the current provision remains underfunded and therefore inconsistent. The failure to transfer to schools any budget with which to provide impartial and independent CAIG means that provision is increasingly difficult to fund.  A report by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation in 2013 set out a number of benchmarks that would lead to ‘good careers guidance’ and Price Waterhouse Cooper assessed the cost to schools of implementing these benchmarks. The conclusion was that the cost of implementing all the benchmarks a medium-sized school outside London is estimated at £53,637 in the first year. This figure would clearly have increased in the two years since this assessment. The NAHT “Breaking Point” survey conducted in Autumn 2015 found that almost two thirds of respondents (64%) said they balanced their budget for this year only by making significant cuts and/or carrying over a surplus. So although the annual cost of providing good CAIG may be a small proportion of a school’s overall budget, schools do not have even this small percentage available unless cuts are made from other areas which could be considered just as, or even more, important.

4. NAHT supports the development of high quality CAIG and programmes to get young people thinking about their future employment, but this cannot be left to secondary schools alone. CAIG allows pupils to develop their aspirations and encourages further engagement in education and training. NAHT believes that CAIG, linked to raising aspirations, should begin at primary school by helping pupils to understand how working hard at school can bring fantastic opportunities in later life and giving primary age pupils an insight into different careers. That is why we lead the successful Primary Futures project which helps inspire pupils with 26,500 volunteers and over 2,300 schools registered. With Primary Futures CAIG is not seen as an added extra or something to think about just before leaving school.

5. The NAHT led Primary Futures project, in partnership with the Education and Employers charity, aims to support the raising of standards of achievement for all primary age children, broaden horizons and aspirations with regards to their own futures, whilst reinforcing the importance of literacy and numeracy in their learning both in school and later life. Helping pupils to see a clear link and purpose between their learning in primary schools and their futures is a central theme. A school led model, Primary Futures provide ideas and any support needed to enable schools to do what is right for their children and community. In addition project work is being piloted in coastal towns and developed in Blackpool with a group of primary schools, with the Reach2 Academy Trust in East Anglia, the North Tyneside Trust and the Birmingham Education Partnership. In October, Primary Futures worked with the medical profession on “Who's In Health?”, raising pupils’ levels of aspiration and self-belief to offer them the chance to see the possibilities of becoming the next generation of doctors, nurses and other essential healthcare professionals. The success of this project and the requests received from schools has led to “Who’s in Health?” becoming an on-going programme.

6. With the success of Primary Futures, NAHT are now working on plans for what might be called ‘Special Futures’, to be piloted in 2016, to bring relevant CAIG to Key Stage 2 and 3 pupils with SEND. The model will be somewhat different to Primary Futures as the needs of the pupils involve will differ, but there will be a focus on employer engagement and on helping them to understand the potential of the pupils whilst accepting the challenges they may be seeking to overcome.

7. Primary Futures has volunteers from multi-national companies to local employers and so provides an excellent working example of how employers can play a greater role in CAIG in schools. Those volunteers inspire the next generation and they find working with the pupils highly rewarding. They may talk to groups or classes of pupils about their background, their journey through the world of work to their current post and how their primary school learning, particularly in literacy and numeracy, was so important. The work of Primary Futures also challenges stereotyping, for example, by gender, ethnicity and social background, through activities with pupils.

8. NAHT ask that funding is provided for Primary Futures in order to continue its success and develop it to support more schools and pupils. Although having full support from the main political parties in England, the limited financial backing for Primary Futures comes from NAHT with some additional charity support. Increased funding would enable Primary Futures to support and recruit more schools in England, expand projects into Wales and Northern Ireland, develop the SEND model and target areas of the country which are as yet inactive.

9. With good quality experiences of CAIG at primary school, such as Primary Futures, pupils can start secondary school with more understanding of career opportunities, higher aspirations and a better understanding of the importance of their education. Secondary schools can then build on this, maintaining engagement with employers, showing pupils the importance of the workplace skills they require and helping to motivate them to think about their future plans.

10. Pupils at secondary school are making choices which have an impact on their future career opportunities. They need to have access to good quality information and advice as they make those choices. In order for this to happen effectively, sufficient curriculum time needs to be allocated, teachers need appropriate training and resources need to be made available. Making PSHE a statutory part of the curriculum will support these key elements to happen, as will provision of further funding for schools to ensure school staff receive high quality training to support pupils to make well-informed choices.

11. In developing the quality and consistency of provision of CAIG at secondary level, there is a need for an increased number of independent, well trained and well-resourced careers advisors and action should be taken to meet this need. Funding should be provided to schools to enable them to access this provision and deliver it to pupils.

12. There should be further development of the online tools and advice provided by the National Careers Service as well as the activities and support of the Careers and Enterprise Company to support schools in meeting their responsibilities. NAHT suggest there is a larger role to be played by the local authority to engage high quality and good value services for schools in the local area.

13. NAHT also support increasing schools access to independent, well trained and well-resourced careers advisors in order to improve the quality of CAIG pupils are given about vocational education and apprenticeships. Increased recognition of the value of vocational education and support for schools to deliver it would enable many pupils enact their career thinking and prepare for the next stage of their education or training.

14. NAHT agree that work related learning at secondary age is crucial to help pupils form opinions about their future, whilst providing them with valuable lessons in the world of work. We support the business community’s call to make work experience available to all pupils and ask that schools are supported with appropriate resources, common sense regulations and good connections with local businesses to enable this to happen.

January 2016