Newsletter 5

Welcome

Welcome to our fifth edition of our newsletter which is a special edition to keep you and students updated with National Careers Week 2024 which takes place from the 4th to 8th March 2024. National Careers Week (NCW) is a one-week celebration of careers guidance in education across the UK. The aim is to provide a focus week for careers guidance activity at an important stage in the academic calendar to help support young people develop awareness and excitement about their future pathways. This compliments the work school does throughout the rest of the academic year. There is a range of exciting opportunities available for students throughout the week from online webinars from providers such as google, the NHS and many more. All lessons during this week will also have a careers focus within them to enable students to really think about what they may do in the future. There is a section about the launch on our online careers platform, MyDirections created by C and K careers our independent careers service. This week coincides with our Year 9 options evening where Year 9 students and their

Welcome to our National Careers Week special edition of the Appleton Academy newsletter. In this edition we would like to share the excellent work going on in the academy relating to careers.

• National Careers Week Guide

• Appleton Academy Careers Program – What's happened so far and what's yet to come

• Careers information and opportunities nationally

• Information for parents

• A focus upon apprenticeships

NEWSLETTER 5 SPECIAL EDITION

• Duke of Edinburgh – Giving you the Edge

• Apprenticeship Aspirations – A Year 11 Work Experience Story

• My Directions

ALL ABOUT CAREERS

Appleton Academy's Careers Programme 2023/24-the year so far

Year 11 one-to-one careers guidance meetings to discuss what's next after Appleton

Year 11 assemblies delivered by local colleges and apprenticeship providers.

On-going Career of The Week in which students in all year groups learn about a new careers each week including salary, skills and qualifications required.

Year 11 Mock Results Day with Post 16 Careers fair - offering our year 11s another opportunity to speak to local colleges, apprenticeship providers and employers.

ear 11 Bradford College Visit – A taster day where the whole year group had a taste of a day at college

Staff CPD – sharing tips and resources to allow staff to offer quality careers information to our students.

You Bring The Band - Where some our students learnt how to make and mix their own music.

NEWSLETTER 5 SPECIAL EDITION ALL ABOUT CAREERS

Careers Period 6 – Two tailored workshops from external providers planned prior to post-16 applications teaching application writing and interview skills.

Apprenticeship Evening - An evening for students and parents to meet local and national employers to learn more about apprenticeships and hear about up-coming vacancies.

National Apprenticeship WeekThrough curriculum learning, our students found out about apprenticeship pathways within each of their subjects.

https://www.worl

Click each image to head to the website of each provider to find out more.

Did you know that at Appleton Academy all students have access to a careers advice website?

MyDirections - a new, innovative and interactive online careers resource for students created by C and K careers, our independent careers advisers. It contains careers and labour market information, activities, events, vacancies, virtual world of work opportunities - all personalised to individual student interests and preferred options.

Every young person will have their own unique login and will create an individual profile by answering a short questionnaire. The site will then use the latest technology (via a specially designed algorithm) to understand the needs and interests of users and tailor content accordingly. Content will reflect an individual’s year group (choosing options/post16+ choices), or specific interests around job types or sectors.

NEWSLETTER 5 SPECIAL EDITION

ALL ABOUT CAREERS

MyDirections has been designed to complement the work of our in-school careers advisers. If you encounter any problems whilst usiing the site, pop along to the careers office and speak to John or James , they will be happy to help. Ask your tutor for your username and password.

Access the site here: https://ck.mydirections.co.uk/

Appleton Academy's Careers Programme 2023/24-still to come!

National Careers Week – Students will learn through curriculum about 5 key areas ; making decisions at different stages; employability skills; labour market information; pathways and higher education.

Year 9 Options Evening - year 9 students will explore the wide range of subjects open to them as options for GCSE. They will have the opportunity to meet a range of local colleges to discuss next steps. As well as get expert advice from our C&K Careers Advisors.

Uni Connect activities: Select students in Year 7, 9 and 10 will take part in university focused activities. Year 7 will be receiving sport coaching sessions, Year 9 will be learning creative English with 'The Rap School' and Year 10 will be taking part in Virtual Work Experience.

Annual Careers Fair – All students will visit our annual careers fair where they will speak to colleges, universities, apprenticeship providers and employers. This will inspire, inform and help students to make decisions about their next steps

NEWSLETTER 5 SPECIAL EDITION ALL ABOUT CAREERS

Mock Interview Day – Year 10 will each write a CV in English lessons, receive expert advice at an interview skills workshop, and experience a mock interview at which they will receive helpful feedback for future interviews.

Year 10 Bradford College Visit –Following in the footsteps of year 11 in November '23, our year 10s will experience a taster day at Bradford College. #

Deloitte Partnership - Appleton Academy will be partnering with Deloitte with aim of offering our students an important insight into the world of work – more information about this to come.

Duke of Edinburgh – Giving You The Edge!

The benefits of achieving a DofE Award at any level are endless. DofE is about helping students along the path to a productive and prosperous future. For many of our students, it’s life-changing. Achieving an Award gives students skills, confidence and an edge over others when you apply for college, university or a job. Beyond your academic achievements, universities want to see evidence of so called ‘soft skills’ that you have developed through extra-curricular activities, such as communication, commitment, leadership and teamwork. Your DofE Award is a fantastic way to demonstrate and evidence these skills in practice. Our students also tell us that doing their DofE gives them character traits like confidence and resilience, that can boost their mental health and wellbeing and help them face and overcome personal challenges.

NEWSLETTER 5 SPECIAL EDITION

There are four sections to complete at Bronze and Silver level and five at Gold. They involve helping the community/environment, becoming fitter, developing new skills, planning, training for and completing an expedition and, for Gold only, working with a team on a residential activity. Any young person can do their DofE – regardless of ability, gender, background or location. Achieving an Award isn’t a competition or about being first. It’s all about setting personal challenges and pushing personal boundaries.

ALL ABOUT CAREERS

By taking part in DofE students get the opportunity to gain additional qualifications such as first aid, sports leaders and the John Muir Award. All of these additional experiences and qualifications can be added to a students CV or application form to 6th form, college or apprenticeships They can even be useful in gaining part time work in areas such as green careers, childcare, health and social or sport.

By Lorna Vance – Strong – Jennings

Together with our community, we can achieve extraordinary things.

Apprenticeship Aspirations – A Year 11 Work Experience Story

Did you know that engineering accounts for 18% of the UK's employment market? Knowing this, we have created links with local employers to introduce to our students.

Solenis is an international chemical engineering company with a plant in Low Moor. They have been kind enough to offer their time and experience to many of our careers events. Following our Apprenticeship Evening in January, year 11 student Josh Smith impressed the company who requested that he get in touch to discuss opportunities at the Low Moor plant.

Josh is keen to secure an apprenticeship after completing his GCSE exams in June and knows that gaining work experience will teach him valuable employability skills and allow him to gain a clear insight into the roles within Solenis. The company were struck by Josh's enthusiasm to learn more and motivated attitude and offered him a week's work experience during the February half term holiday. His story can be found on the next page..

NEWSLETTER 5 SPECIAL EDITION ALL ABOUT CAREERS

If you would like to find out more about apprenticeships – this video is a good place to start -

The MYPATH Guide To Apprenticeships

Solenis apprenticeship vanacies

Josh (Y11) work experience

"The time I spent at Solenis for work experience was brilliant, I really enjoyed checking out the different departments each day.

Monday, we started with mechanical engineering, going around the site looking at what the department does and the different buildings and some repairs they've been done by themselves and how long some repairs can take. I also got some practical work such as taking apart an air pump and having to find the fault and what we would do to repair it.

Tuesday, we did electrical engineering, going around the site looking at some of the instruments which are everywhere for the department to see the flow, pressure etc and looked at some videos explaining these instruments in a bit more detail. We also got some practical work taking apart plugs and sockets ( female and male ) and taking the live, neutral and earth wire connections and taking them out and swapping to put back together each other's.

Wednesday, we looked at automation engineering, going around the site at Conver belts and how they control the flow and where the chemicals or products going to and getting received and with a control panel.

NEWSLETTER 5

SPECIAL EDITION

Thursday, we looked and processor engineering/chemical, we went around the sight looking at the boiler rooms and how they have a temporary boiler and how some of the biodiversity part of the plant works and some products they produce.

ALL ABOUT CAREERS

Friday, I was with a site manager, who explained what job he does and helps with anything that goes wrong with the site and management such as the pipe work and how they would fix the situation that has occurred."

"Joshua has great career aspirations and is a lovely, bubbly character. It was a great way to advertise Solenis and the vacancies we have open for 2024, including Engineering, Labs and Manufacturing."

Holly McLeod Business Support Apprentice Solenis UK Industries Limited