Parental Engagement
Parents and Carers
Parents and carers play a very significant role in helping students make informed choices about their study options and decisions about their future careers. Parents and carers are encouraged to talk with their child about their options and future aspirations as often as you can. Parents, carers and guardians are the biggest influence in young people’s lives.
Research shows that many career conversations at home start as early as Year 7, and that these conversations have an impact. Further research from a survey undertaken in autumn 2020 shows that four in five parents note action was taken as a result of these conversations.
What would we suggest? Keep talking! We encourage all parents and carers to regularly talk about careers, jobs, sectors and access the resources we have available in our Careers Library and through your child’s Unifrog account.
Students are able to log into their Unifrog account at any time, through any device. Students will be able to use their Unifrog account for up to 4 years after they have left St Mary's. The account will deactivate after 4 years of inactivity.
If you are not confident on speaking with your child about careers or their options, why not have a look at this website. Talking Futures is a resource created to help you have informed and constructive conversations with your child about the different training and education pathways available to them. Click on the image to go to their website.
We value parents and carers input and strongly encourage you to attend events at school such as GCSE and A Level options evenings and Year 11 Futures Meetings.
Can you be more involved in our careers programme?
Engaging in our careers events and activities such as mock interview days and our Careers Carousel is extremely welcomed.
You could be a mock interviewer, or represent your company or field of work by having a stall at our Careers Carousel or conducting a careers talk in an assembly or to small groups.
We invite apprenticeship employees and apprenticeship provider employers to come in and speak with the students about their experience, sector and opportunities they offer to inspire the students.
If you would like to help in these careers events please contact Mrs Knight, Careers Leader at info@stmarys.net
Parent Database
To help enhance our careers education to students across the school we are trying to develop a database of parent contacts to allow all students to have encounters with employers. This database will help us reach Gatsby Benchmark 5, which states that every pupil should have multiple opportunities to learn from employers about work, employment and the skills that are valued in the workplace.
If you are interested in joining our Parent Database and supporting our careers programme, please click on the link below:
We reach out every year to parents and carers asking if they or their employer are able to host any of our Year 10 and Year 12 students for Work Experience.
If you are able to help with Gatsby Benchmark 6, Experiences of Workplaces, please get in touch via the above Parent Database form.