Careers education

The Dixons City Academy careers programme aims to provide all students with regular access to employers, expert guidance and workplace experiences to support students in making informed and educated decisions about their next steps. The careers programme is an integral element of the Dixons City curriculum and careers information is interleaved with subject specific content.

Our commitment to careers provision extends beyond the legal minimum entitlement for students and is underpinned by the Gatsby framework with a commitment to meeting all eight benchmarks.

Careers Lead: Thomas Lorryman. You can contact Thomas via email, or contact him via telephone on 01274 776 777.

The intended outcomes of the careers programme include, but are not limited to:

• Students will undertake various work related experiences
  
• Students will reflect upon and refine their aspirations
  
• Students will increase their knowledge of education, training and career opportunities
  
• Students will develop a career plan to help them achieve their sentence and realise their potential
  

For full details of our careers programme for the current academic year, download the 'What to do - Careers' document at the bottom of this page.

Resources for students

Prospects: careers information and guidance – use this to find out more about different careers and what qualifications you would need to climb your mountain. You can find all of the ‘Careers of the Week’ and ‘Careers Spotlights’ you will see in lessons here too.

Future Goals: this website uses Labour Market information, as well as employers and employees from local businesses to give an insight to employment opportunities within different sectors, including how the subjects you study link with future career options.

Amazing Apprenticeships: Apprenticeships explained – what are you looking for?

National Apprenticeship Service: search for apprenticeship vacancies or register for alerts and to apply.

BBC Bitesize: where could your favourite subject take you?

NCS: a chance to embark on exhilarating challenges, make your mark and build skills for work and life.

National Careers Service: a range of flexible contact channels - phone, email, webchat and SMS - providing information, advice and guidance relating to decisions on learning, training and work.

UCAS: online HE application system, information and guidance.

Success at School: explore Careers, employers, jobs, courses and advice.

Careermap: a magazine connecting students and their parents with helpful information about careers and qualifications, employability skills and CV writing.

Courses Online: guides covering what a role entails, the required qualifications, potential earnings etc.

Unifrog Sign-in: use this link to take you to the Unifrog log in page. You will need your school email address and your password.

Unifrog Password Reset: use this link if you have forgotten your password to Unifrog and need to reset it.

Independent Careers Adviser: Karen Hodgson

Karen Hodgson is an external careers practitioner who works for the Shine team at The Opportunity Centre, a social enterprise who are committed to providing impartial and quality advice and guidance to people at transition points in their lives. Karen has an informal discussion with students to find out more about their goals, both short-term and long-term. She will find out more about them as people and what makes them happy, and about their strengths and skills.

This information is then coupled with their current predicted GCSE grades to give the student tailored options related directly to their goals and strengths. It is important to know that students do not need to have a career plan prior to their meeting, Karen can help develop some ideas. At the end of each session, Karen will write up a summary of the conversation which will also have some action points for the student to undertake to best help them make their post-16 and career decisions.

Resources for parents

Apprenticeship Service - October Parent Pack

Advice for Parents when helping Young People plan their future

Parents' Guide to Careers in Engineering

Student Finance - What Parents need to know

Higher Education Progession Partnership (HEPP) - resources for Student and Parents

Amazing Apprenticeships – Parents’ Pack

Resources for career and Labour market Information

Future Goals: this website uses Labour Market information, as well as employers and employees from local businesses to give an insight to employment opportunities within different sectors in the Leeds City Region

iCould: real stories to inspire your career

Nomis: official Labour market statistics

Office for National Statistics: statistics about employment rates in a national picture.

Prospects: careers information and guidance

Informed Choices - a Russell Group Guide to making decisions about post-16 education

What is an Apprenticeship?

Higher and Degree Apprenticeship listings for 2020 recruitment

Apprenticeships - infographic

A Level Explorer - see where your A level choices will take you

Higher Apprenticeships - infographic

Degree Apprenticeships - infographic

Which? University: search by university, by predicted grades and by category or use the A-level explorer tool.

Higher Education access for disabled and disadvantaged students

Resources for staff

Thomas Lorryman is the careers lead for our academy and is responsible for supporting the planning and delivery of the careers programme across all year groups.

Please contact Thomas by email at tom@dixonsca.com if you would like to get involved with facilitating or delivering any aspect of careers at Dixons City or have any questions regarding the careers WTD.

Unifrog Advisor Tracking: track your advisories interactions on Unifrog and support them to explore career options using the tools on the platform.

Useful Links

Future Goals: this website uses labour market information, as well as employers and employees from local businesses to give an insight to employment opportunities within different sectors, including how your subject links with a range of careers.

A Level Explorer: see where your A-level choices will take you. Direct students here to support them to consider how they can use your subject in future career options.

Prospects: careers information and guidance.

BBC Bitesize: where could your favourite subject take you?

Information for employers

We are always looking to invite employers from different sectors to come in and work with our young people. If you are interested in hearing more about the opportunities that you could get involved in, please get in touch with our careers lead.

Dixons City Destinations

We are committed to supporting all of our students, not only during their time with us at Dixons City, but also throughout their post-16 options and beyond. We are so fortunate that many of our previous students come back to Dixons City to share their experiences of their next steps and this is an invaluable message for our current students. If you are an alumni of Dixons City and would like to come back to share your story, please get in touch with Mr Lorryman, we would love to hear from you and arrange for you to come back and speak to our current students.

Coming Soon…

We are excited to be able to share the stories of some of our alumni students who are on their own individual journeys. Their stories will be added to this page soon – so watch this space!

Careers Education Review:

The careers education programme at Dixons City is constantly under review and refinement. A formal, annual review takes place each August when we publish the ‘What To Do – Careers’ which sets out the intended careers programme for the academic year ahead.

The next annual review is scheduled for August 2024