Tim Holmes: Careers Coordinator Bristol Met. Academy
How do you use Careerpilot?
Careerpilot is embedded in Bristol Metropolitan Academy's career strategy, we have a direct link via our website and this is going to be adopted on every Cabot Learning Federation secondary school website. A formal lesson in Year 7 has developed an early appreciation of what's on offer, information goes home and students are encouraged to utilise Careerpilot in their own time, thereafter. We revisit the website in all our drop-down Employability days in all years and during parents/carers evenings I talk to families and signpost them to the Parents Zone. Year 10 and 11 students are particularly encouraged to use Careerpilot and I run many Learning Family sessions where I introduce it.
How does Careerpilot help young people make informed decisions?
With up-to-date information about what's out there and with direct signposting to other national sites. Our students like the local aspect and with a careers interview Careerpilot acts as a further motivational tool. Options at 13/14, 16 and 18 is always useful as is when students register to use 'Career Tools'.
What impact do you think it has on students?
Excellent, it empowers our students and makes them feel they are in the driving seat. Some students prefer to have more face-to-face contact, some prefer to go about their future planning utilising their own resources, Careerpilot is one of them. I often hear students describing how they have sat down at home and talked through some of the plans they have for themselves with parents/carers.
How does Careerpilot support your role as a careers co-ordintor?
I prefer students to have a mixture of both online and face-to-face, students leave my sessions with a Careerpilot 'business card'. It is an excellent resource also when having some of those tricky conversations with parents who want something different for their child, the explanations of qualifications and routes into employment, as well as the short films of young people aid my meetings.
How does Careerpilot contribute to partnership working?
Much of our work is partnership building, attracting companies into schools and empowering our students to enquire about the possibilities open to them ...they start to 'demand' employers and colleges come in, as well as they go out and visit open evenings/days.
A recent example of partnership working is a training session I ran with Mentors from our school business partner, DAC Beachcroft, whereby I lead an introduction to Careerpilot for the potential mentors. Those mentors now use Careerpilot in their sessions and have also used amongst their friends and colleagues.
At every Careers Fair we always advertise Careerpilot and very much value the work of Sue Lewis and her team.