As parents and careers we want our young people to be happy and successful. The world of education and employment is changing at an incredible rate and it can be difficult to keep up to date.
The school careers adviser is here to help. This page has additional information just for you as parents, carers and guardians as you help your teenager make important decisions. (All references to parents on this site includes carers and guardians).
URGENT MESSAGE TO PARENTS – can you help year 12 students? Click here for more details.
It is often difficult for teenagers to navigate their way through the various routes on their own. Here are some tips which may help you.
Helping your teenager!
Your teenager must be the one to make the final choice but the role of the parent in supporting these decisions can be compared to using a SatNav. The SatNav will suggest a route and often can also point out that there are other ways to your destination.
This SatNav is gathering all available data to make these decisions and your role will be to ensure that all data is available and all the options are fully explored. For some degrees and careers there is often only one main option. For many other degrees and careers, there are often many different routes into that career.
The work we do in school during an individual career interview and in the PSHE days are intended to make the student fully aware of what is realistic and achievable for them. For some students finding out what grades they need for a career can motivate them to work harder to achieve these grades.
It is helpful if parents help their daughter/son to be aware of their strengths and the things which are weaker. However, while some career suggestions can be helpful to the student it doesn’t help if the parent /guardian is too dogmatic about what the student should choose. Students will often achieve their best grades in subjects they enjoy. Some degrees and careers strongly recommend certain subjects should be studied. A student not taking note of that advice can put themselves at a disadvantage later on. See other pages on this website for links to useful websites.
Decision making and researching options is an essential life management skill. We all need career management skills as we start university or employment. We use the career skills on our journey through modern day working life of promotion, redundancy, changing jobs, job seeking, freelance or self-employment and the effect of the fourth industrial skills revolution.
Some facts about the changing educational and employment landscape.
University – over 50,000 courses in the UK at over 300 institutions.
Employees needs to be adaptable and prepared to retrain as jobs change or disappear.
Higher level skills will constantly be required as machines, robot and AI replace the physical/ mundane jobs. Think back to the jobs people had when you were young that no longer exist.
Many job information websites will have over 400 different job profiles. These job profiles can then be sub divided into many more. The UK official job classifications have over 8000 titles. How many do you know?
Please encourage your teenager to do the research we recommend. It can help if you do this alongside them. There is lots of information on the different pages of this website.
What is a career?
Introduction
A career is an individual’s “journey” through learning, work and other aspects of life. There are a number of ways to define career and the term is used in a variety of ways. The term covers different stages of our lives.
We have our Education Career. Your son or daughter is currently in this stage.
This has different parts such as Statutory Education including primary, junior and secondary education.
Since the 1980’s this has frequently been followed by Further Education between the ages of 16-18.
Since 2000 more young people enter Higher Education if they have the ability and this is right for them.
Following their Education Career comes the Job Career phase where we work and put into practice what we learned through education. Of course, we never stop learning and an important part of most jobs is keeping up to date with all the latest developments.
Increasingly, a number of adults retrain for new jobs during their working life.
Choosing GCSE Option Subjects
During year 8 students will choose the subjects they will study in year 9-11.
With careful planning by school there is very little that can go wrong at this important stage of life.
Some subjects are compulsory and have been decided by national government or by school. These are Mathematics, English, Science and can include Religious Studies.
The remaining subjects are put into blocks and students choose a subject from each block. Each year school will provide students and parents an up to date list of the choices.
The impact of career ideas on GCSE choices.
Fortunately, due to good planning by school the main career considerations are:
Is your son or daughter very good at Art and may want a career involving Art. If so, they need to choose Art as one of their options.
The same can be said about GCSE Music. However, if the student is taking formal music lessons and examinations (music grade) this is less of an issue.
How to decide on which option subjects to study.
The young person should choose:
- What they enjoy
- What they have shown they are good at doing
- If they have a job idea – then choose a subject that will be useful in the job.
Examples can include
Engineer, dentist, surgeon, motor mechanic = Resistant Materials.
Nurse, social worker, doctor, lawyer = psychology, Health & Care, sociology.
The above are not essential subjects for the jobs listed, they are just useful subjects.
Very Important Message about Young People
As a Careers Adviser I often meet year 11 students who regret having chosen a subject in year 8. It is important to remember why that subject was selected.
At the time they probably enjoyed it and wanted to study it. Now they realise they do not like it or are not very good at it. This is the purpose of education- to give them an opportunity to try a subject for a few years in a safe environment.
Providing they have done their best and achieved the highest grade they can they should be proud of themselves. It also means that they will not make the mistake of taking this subject at Further Education. Students should understand that once they start a subject it is not usually possible to drop that subject.
What if….
Sometimes a sixth form student will consider dropping out of their studies for various reasons. The careers adviser will help your teenager consider all of their options before they make this decision.
The good news is that for many students they are just experiencing a blip and after becoming aware of their options and the consequences of dropping out of sixth form they make a decision to stay with their studies. At this point they often make a new commitment to work harder.
For those students who now feel that academic study is not for them, they should seek careers advice at the earliest opportunity, to consider all their options. The careers adviser works to a code of ethics the basis of which is impartiality. They will not feel any pressure to continue with their studies, but all options will be given equal importance, that they may choose that which is right for them. Giving up a course is not a sign of failure if they have given it ‘their best shot’. A sign of strength is having the courage to look at alternatives which can bring them success.
We encourage students to complete the KUDOS careers quiz.
This career quiz helps the young person to explore their likes and dislikes before it suggests some careers to research. You, as a parent/guardian/carer, can help in this process.. Often a student will need reminding to complete the quiz and they should do it on their own. However, you can help them make sense of the results. There isn’t a computer programme good enough to read our minds and ‘know’ what is best for us. However, we believe KUDOS is a useful tool which has been shown to be helpful for young people thinking about the job they may like to do.
Here is a link to a parent’s guide to Kudos
Perhaps you want to try a different test – this is about your relationship with your child and come from Euroguidance Test for Parents
The Office for Students has provided some very good information about degree apprenticeships. Well worth reading. (also see the Degree Apprenticeships page on this site.
