Encouraging development & preparation for the future careers of our students

Ms A Penney is the Careers Lead at St Augustine’s, responsible for ensuring the school uses the Gatsby Benchmarks to underpin all things careers and enterprise.

Please do get in touch if you would like more information about our careers programme, or if you are an organisation wanting to become involved with St Augustine’s. please email Ms Penney at careers@st-augustines.wilts.sch.uk or call the College on 01225 350001

Year 10 Work Experience

 Work Experience for Year 10 will take place 23rd - 27th March 2026. We are hoping to see as many students as possible out in a work environment. This year, we are continuing to use our Careers platform, Unifrog, to initiate the process from student, to employer, to parent/carer & then to Ms Penney for overall approval. This process ensures that relevant insurance, alongside health and safety requirements are present to safeguard our students whilst on placement. If you wish to check any details please email Ms Penney at careers@st-augustines.wilts.sch.uk or call the College on 01225 350001

Careers Programme 2025-26

The scheduled events that make up the careers programme are shown in the St Augustine's Careers Programme. This is reviewed annually at the start of the academic year during term one; relevant documentation will be added to the careers section once reviewed and agreed.

Review and Monitoring

The school believes that it is important that robust measurement, monitoring and review procedures be put in place to provide a framework for on-going improvements. These will form the foundations for not only what we do, but how we do it and what we must endeavour to improve.

Local Enterprise Partnership Support

We are lucky to have the support of Alison Samways from the Swindon and Wiltshire Careers Hub who advises on current policy and initiatives, Gatsby updates and organises best practice sharing with other Wiltshire schools.

Parents in Partnership (PiP!)

We are all too aware that our students benefit the most from hearing outside speakers from the real world talk about real jobs! If you are happy to speak to students, either in a short assembly or as part of a small group, or perhaps even offer a small number of Year 12 students a week of work experience in the summer term, parents can now register their contact details by downloading and completing the PiP form in the Documents section above and returning to reception. Or drop Ms Penney an email careers@st-augustines.wilts.sch.uk  if you want to know a little more.

The careers programme will be reviewed annually. The next review date is scheduled for September 2025.

Useful Links & Information

Students

General careers advice

Unifrog- The universal destination platform, helping students to navigate their career pathways. All students at St Augustine's have a unifrog account and the platform is used to support careers, education, information, advice and guidance, as well as logging work experience placements https://www.unifrog.org/ 
Career Pilot www.careerpilot.org.uk
E-Clips https://www.eclips-online.co.uk/home  ( login: yoisco20)
National Careers Service https://nationalcareersservice.direct.gov.uk/
Call 0800 100 900 to speak to an adviser

No career Ideas, No Clue – try these quizzes to match your personality, skills and interests to a career!
https://sacu-student.com/
https://www.prospects.ac.uk/planner

Higher Education
UCAS- University application service as well as providing  information, advice and guidance and search tools for apprenticeships, teacher training, and postgraduate courses,  and operates the admissions service for UK conservatoires https://www.ucas.com/ 
Which Guide to University https://university.which.co.uk/
Help with choosing a degree www.ukcoursefinder.com
If I were to do a degree in a certain subject, where could it lead?
https://www.prospects.ac.uk/careers-advice/what-can-i-do-with-my-degree
Review and Compare universities https://discoveruni.gov.uk/

Job Hunting and Apprenticeships
What are apprenticeships?

https://www.apprenticeships.gov.uk/influencers/what-is-an-apprenticeship# 
https://www.prospects.ac.uk/jobs-and-work-experience/apprenticeships

Amazing Apprenticeships- resources for schools, employers, students and parents https://www.amazingapprenticeships.com/ 

Amazing Apprenticeships- Higher and Degree Listing document https://www.amazingapprenticeships.com/higher-degree-listing/ 

Apprenticeship vacancies https://www.findapprenticeship.service.gov.uk/apprenticeshipsearch?searchMode=Keyword
Part-time/Full-time/ Apprenticeship vacancies www.indeed.com
CV and Interview tips https://www.prospects.ac.uk/careers-advice/applying-for-jobs
Where are the skills shortage areas, what are the sectors set to grow and who are my local employers? https://workwiltshire.co.uk/lmi/

Parents and Carers

Parents remain the dominant factor behind all future choices made by young people. They offer huge support at key moments. But with new growth areas being created at such a fast rate, having a look at some of the resources below might help you confirm what you already thought, or indeed help you support your daughter/son with more information to hand.

CareerPilot Parent Zone http://parentzone.careerpilot.org.uk/parent
University Options http://university.which.co.uk/teachers/introduce-higher-education-options/university-parent-guide
Financial information for higher education – http://media.slc.co.uk/sfe/quickStartFinanceGuide/Parents-Of-Students.html
Life skills Parent Zone – https://www.barclayslifeskills.com/parents/
Apprenticeships https://amazingapprenticeships.com/

Advice for parents of children with special educational needs or disabilities (SEND)
http://www.careersadviceforparents.org/p/sen.html
Wiltshire Local Offer http://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/local-offer

For further information on careers and related learning activities at St Augustine’s, please contact:
Mrs Rowlatt-Weston or Mrs Portingale-Cowper (Co-Heads of Sixth Form/ SLT link for Careers) or Ms Penney (Careers Lead)

Employers and Alumni and External Organisations

We are always looking to work with employers and ex-students to improve our career offer for our students between Year 7 to 13! Some events that we hold which may be of interest include:

• Year 11 and 12 Careers Fair – We would be interested in working with current apprentices, employers of all sizes, and people within the business community. Of note this could be providing some time during the morning to do 4-5 mock interviews – Employers AND FE and HE Providers are most welcome!!

• Work experience Programmes – we run a Work experience week for Y10 in March and Y12 in May/June. We are always in need of employers to help with this.

• Extended Assemblies – Ex-student wanting to share their inspirational journey to career success? An apprentice who wants to spread the word about their benefits? A local company that wants to discuss the roles they offer and the pathways into them? Please let us know…Ms Penney, Careers Lead (careers@sta.cc) can talk through what your offer is, and work with you.

Teachers and Governors

Teachers interested in the statutory requirements framing our Career Programme should read this.

Of note, the guidance states:
“……The Government wants to go beyond the statutory duties and introduce a framework around which schools can develop and improve their entire careers programme. This will help to promote a shared understanding of what excellent careers provision looks like and a consistent approach to achieving it. The Government expects all schools to use the Gatsby Benchmarks to improve their careers provision…” (Page 13, Para 13).

The Gatsby Benchmarks are as follows:

• A stable careers programme

• Learning from career and labour market information

• Addressing the needs of each pupil

• Linking curriculum learning to careers

• Encounters with employers and employees

• Experiences of workplaces

• Encounters with further and higher education

• Personal guidance

More information on them can be found here.

How can I embed some career learning into my teaching?
Perhaps the most important role teachers can have is to embed careers education into the lessons they teach. Benchmark 4 above, Linking curriculum learning to careers, should be regarded as a whole school benchmark. The Gatsby Toolkit is an excellent read and sets out ‘what good looks like’, as well as what that means in practise. This can be found here

Is there anything I need to be aware of in St Augustine’s specifically?
Yes – all departments have been set the challenge of designing the minimum of at least 1 stand-alone lesson for Year 7s in the summer term. This should be delivered to all the teaching groups taught by the respective teacher! e.g. a teacher will be delivering the one lesson 3 times because they teach 3 year 7 groups.

What can I use to help a student with Year 9 and 11 and 13 future choices?
First to say is that if it’s a Year 10 or 11 or sixth former in a real muddle, let me Ms Penney know. She can offer a full 60 minute interview if needed, and she works between 1-3 days a week up until the May half term, depending on need and her other roles.