Mr P Allen (Head of Department)
Dr N Cully (Sixth Form adviser and UCAS Applications)
Dr G Hull (Careers Adviser)
Miss ML Montgomery (Work Experience Co-ordinator)
Mr S Gault (Career Talks Co-ordinator)
What we are trying to achieve with our careers programme at CAI may be summarised under the three headings set out below.
Education is intended to enable young people to realise their full potential. Throughout all their activities at school or college, students will be getting to know their strengths, interests, values, attitudes, hopes and aspirations. In the careers context, particularly, young people will be given opportunities to reflect on their self-development, and to consider how their attributes and ambitions relate to their future lifestyles, education, training and employment opportunities.
Young people need to have a broad understanding of the opportunities which may be open to them. Consequently, CAI provides opportunities for them to become aware of the relationship between what they are studying at school and the possible routes into further education, training and employment. In addition, students will be able to make more realistic plans if they are informed about issues such as jobs that are in decline, skills and capabilities required by employers, and the occupational structure of firms not only locally but further afield. Knowledge of opportunities will be enhanced when young people have planned contacts with the world of work.
Having developed a greater understanding of themselves and investigated opportunities, young people should have the skills and confidence to reach decisions for themselves and to act on these decisions. Clearly, many decisions may be of a short-term nature and students will review and evaluate what to do next. Coping with change is very much part of career development. Young people should be in a position to know where to seek further advice and weigh up the information which they may be given.
At CAI we hope that through the Learning for Life and Work programme in Years 8-12, along with dedicated careers lessons when major decisions are looming, that all pupils will make use of the opportunities provided so that they find themselves in a career that they find fulfilling and enjoyable.