Careers Education, Information and Guidance (CEIAG) Intent:
At Ovingham Middle School, we provide all of our pupils with a carefully-planned programme of careers education from year 5 to year 8. Our careers programme ensures that pupils acquire the necessary knowledge, and have access to specific resources, so that they can not only strive for the career of their choice, but also make informed choices about their future lives.
Our core HEART values underpin all that we do. We encourage all of our pupils to aim high and strive for excellence, whilst promoting the value of teamwork and highlighting the necessity of co-operation within the workplace. Our programme is robust, develops resilience and provides pupils with a broad worldview. Honesty is key and we talk to pupils openly about certain careers from the point of view of how “futureproof” they may be. Additionally, we introduce pupils to the importance of having a healthy work/life balance and also study “Green Careers”, again, reinforcing the idea that the job title and the associated salary are not the only aspiration that pupils should nurture. Where possible, we strive to include and involve external stakeholders, including employers and further education institutions to provide a broader perspective for our pupils.
Our CEAIG Lead liaises with an external Regional Careers Coordinator, who specialises in career provision across all the middle schools within Northumberland. To ensure that pupils are ready for their next steps in education and beyond, we monitor and assess the resources and provision of our careers programme via regular external audits with the Regional Careers Coordinator using the Compass+ tracker system in accordance with Gatsby Benchmarks.
Through our work with the Regional Careers Coordinator, we have been assigned an Enterprise Advisor: an external business professional who has previous experience of working with schools, providing both guidance and external networking opportunities from the world of work. This is obviously a really exciting development for OMS and we are presently utilising this invaluable resource to help coordinate our first Career Fair.
The ethos within OMS is that we should remain open-minded to every and any chance to develop the career education of our pupils: recently we had an external professional visiting the school for the day at the invitation of the Modern Languages department to talk about French Crepes. While the visit was an opportunity for the children to learn some French from a native speaker and to savour some of his native fayre, it also provided children with a fascinating insight as to how a person could leave his native country, settle in the North East and develop a successful business based upon his passion for introducing the cuisine of his homeland into his adopted city.
Other high-value interactions that our children have with external professionals include:
- Author Visits organised by the English Department: as well as hearing about brand new books, children learn how aspiring writers came to be successful authors.
- Sport Ambassadors and Role Models coordinated by the PE Department.
- Opportunities for girls to discover careers in Science, Mathematics and Engineering through STEM visits.
- Broadening children’s experience of Technology through Robotics visits.
CEAIG Lead:
Mr P Addyman
Tel: 01661 833215
[email protected]
Please see the below link for details of our Careers and enterprise programme.
