Gatsby Benchmarks
The Careers Department is extremely proud that we are working hard to achieve 100% on all eight of the Gatsby Benchmarks.
What are the Gatsby Benchmarks?
The eight Gatsby Benchmarks of Good Career Guidance:
- A stable careers programme
- Learning from career and labour market information
- Addressing the needs of each pupil
- Linking curriculum learning to careers
- Encounters with employers and employees
- Experiences of workplaces
- Encounters with further and higher education
- Personal guidance
The Benchmarks are a framework for good career guidance developed to support schools in providing students with the best possible careers education, information, advice, and guidance.
We work closely with Services for Young People (SfYP) to provide 1:1 careers guidance interviews for students with a Level 6 Qualified Careers Guidance Advisor. This support is in addition to meetings with Form Tutors, Heads of Year, the Careers Leader and members of the Senior Leadership Team to ensure all students are fully informed when making career-related decisions.
We also work closely with The Careers and Enterprise Company. The Careers and Enterprise Programme is a free provision managed locally by Hertfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership who review the Careers, Employability and Enterprise provision provided and support us to ensure we are working towards meeting all all 8 Gatsby Benchmarks (a target set by the department for Education in their Careers Strategy Dec 2017).
CDI Framework
The careers provision within school works hard to ensure that the 6 key elements of the CDI Framework are fully integrated within the Careers Programme in order that all students are able to work towards a positive career.
The Career Development Framework, updated in 2021 describes the six career development skills that people need to have positive careers.
The word ‘Career’ describes our journey through life, learning and through work. The purpose of the CDI Framework was to actively work on and develop our careers to make the best of them, to clarify the skills, knowledge and attitudes that individuals need to have a positive career.
Compass+
Compass enables us to evaluate our careers activities against the 8 Gatsby Benchmarks. It assists us in discovering the strengths in our careers programme and enables us to find areas for improvement.
We complete a Compass+ Evaluation at the end of every term and work closely with our Careers and Enterprise Coordinator to improve in all areas.
Here is our most recent evaluation (March 2024).
