Careers Policy Statement

Ark Soane Academy uses the Gatsby Benchmarks as a guide to plan our Pathways and Enrichment programme.

As part of our commitment to informing our students of the full range of learning and training pathways on offer to them, we are happy to consider requests from training, apprenticeship and vocational education providers to speak to students.

Ark Soane Academy also proactively seek to build relationships with these partners as we plan our Pathways and Enrichment activity throughout the school year to ensure that providers have multiple opportunities to speak to students and their parents across years 7-13, to offer information on vocational, technical and apprenticeship qualifications and pathways.

Ark Soane ensures that Academy staff involved in personnel guidance and pastoral support are up to date on their knowledge of these post 16 and post 18 pathways, through a programme of Continuing Professional Development. Opportunities for providers to speak with students may include school assemblies, employer and provider engagement events or opportunities to speak with students and parents on a one-to-one basis supporting GCSE, post 16 or post 18 option choices.

Ark Soane’s Pathways and Enrichment programme is monitored for quality and impact by the Academy’s Senior Leadership and Governance Teams and monitoring of access to and opportunities to engage with, technical, vocational and training providers will form part of this process.

In the first instance, requests by providers should be sent to the Academy’s Pathways Lead, Harry Morgan (h.morgan@arksoaneacademy.org) with a minimum of 6 weeks’ lead time. All requests will be considered on the basis of; staffing availability to support the activity, clashes with other planned activity, trips or visits to the Academy, interruption to preparation for examinations or rooming and space availability to host the activity.

For questions on this or Ark Soane’s wider Pathways and Enrichment programme, please contact the Academy’s Pathways Lead, Harry Morgan.