In July 2022 as part of our commitment to delivering high-quality careers education, Co-op Academy North Manchester was awarded ‘The Quality in Careers Standard’, this is the national quality award for careers education, information, advice and guidance (CEIAG) in secondary schools, colleges and work-based learning. 

Our pupils are fully prepared and informed to choose the career path which is right for them. We are committed to ensuring that our pupils have the highest aspirations and expectations of themselves and that they develop skills that are needed for the next steps of their journey in leading happy and successful lives, both throughout the key transition points in school, as well as transition to KS5. 

All young people in our academy experience our careers offer, which is underpinned by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation’s Benchmark. With this in mind, the programme set is to aid:

Self-Development – Throughout KS3 and KS4 we find that our CEIAG Programme enables students to understand themselves, their strengths and what it is within their environment that influences them. Whilst ensuring that they are given every opportunity to develop the core competencies and skills necessary to enable them to feel confident in accessing opportunities made available to them.

Career Exploration – Enabling students to investigate those opportunities made available to them in learning and work. Providing them with the most up-to-date information about the changing world of work and labour market information.

Details of the careers programme is available here.

Our Careers, Education, Information, Advice and Guidance (CEIAG) Policy can be found here.

Our Pupil Career Learing Journey can be viewed here 

 

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The Careers Team

Leaders and staff work effectively with pupils across the academy to provide a high quality careers provision. Though the school also has a dedicated careers team who are on hand to help guide students through their career and future options.

Our CEIAG provision is reviewed annually and evaluated on a 3 year cycle. The CEIAG provision is monitored by:

CEIAG Link Governor – The academy has demonstrated its commitment to a rich careers offer by appointing a link governor for careers education who also works in the Higher Education sector. They provide support and opportunities for pupils at the academy.

Co-op Academy North Manchester works in partnership with an independent Advice and Guidance company – Our Futures – who provide designated careers advisors to also fulfil their legal duty to ensure that independent careers advice and guidance including information on apprenticeship and technical courses, is included in the offer. Careers advisors are on site Monday, Tuesday and Friday and are:

Jacquie Dawson 

Mike Murray

The academy also has a STEM coordinator who focusses on providing a range of opportunities outside the classroom-based curriculum to increase pupil interest and passion for the Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths subjects.

The academy collates relevant impact data which is relevant to the careers provision and is also working towards the quality careers standard. We are part of many partnerships with a range of external agencies. Labour market data has been used to consider which areas we might wish to increase our offer in, for example, job roles in digital.

Our careers programme actively seeks to raise aspirations and challenges stereotypical thinking by ensuring that initiatives are promoted to all. The academy works with a number of different organisations who all contribute to our careers. For example, The Co-op group, The Co-op Academies Trust, MUFC Foundation. The Manchester Metropolitan University, Into University, Our Futures and Greater Manchester Higher. 

Every pupil in the academy has at least one career interview by the age of 16 with an external provider at an appropriate level. A careers drop-in service is also available to all pupils, and the academy offers mock interviews with individuals from businesses and access to a careers fair during their time at the academy.

The school is made available during parent/carer evenings for local post-16 providers to come to discuss their post-16 offer. Providers leave copies of their prospectus or other course literature which we display in our careers area and these are available to pupils during the day.