Gatsby Benchmarks

Gatsby Benchmarks: The teaching and promotion of careers, in line with the Gatsby Benchmarks, is embedded within Gable Hall School. We create a culture that is ambitious for its students to understand different pathways into the wider world of work, encouraging students to actively contemplate different careers and the chances they must take now to help them achieve their employment goals, for example which academic qualification or work experience will best assist them.

The Gatsby Benchmarks are used as a strong model to underpin and enhance our careers provision at Gable Hall. Our careers programme is delivered through different strands of Personal Development Programme. A broad range of approaches, activities, events, communication channels and external partner workshops will be employed to provide students with a solid foundation of careers understanding and skills to develop further. Each strand is delivered through a variety of experiences, ranging from areas of the taught curriculum, to extracurricular opportunities and trips. The division into strands serves the main purpose of supporting mapping and evaluation of our current provision, and it is recognised that some activities or experiences may contribute to some or even all the strands.

The careers education strand is an age-appropriate sequence of lessons on specific careers themes. For example, in year 8 students are taught how to be self-reflective and consider the range of jobs available, so that they can begin to think about what type of career they may wish to pursue in the future. A year 10 student would receive lessons on how to write a CV and prepare for an interview for work experience. 

The employability skills strand is a sequential and age-appropriate series of lessons developing skills in the following areas: presenting, listening, teamwork, leadership creativity, aiming high, staying positive and problem solving. This has been adapted from the skills builder partnership, which are based on the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) most desired employability skills.

This embedded culture is achieved through a variety of ways:

• The tutorial programme, with one set day a week assigned to careers
• Weekly careers employability skill focus: listening; teamwork; leadership; aiming high; problem solving; creativity; staying positive; and presenting
• Thematic days
• Weekly 'career in focus'
• External speakers and trips
• Annual careers fair
• Educational Visits
• Careers mentoring and guidance. 

What Are the Statutory Careers Requirements?

As part of the statutory careers requirements, every school should aim to meet the 8 Gatsby Benchmarks. These Benchmarks are the framework to our careers programme at Gable Hall School. 

An Introduction to the Gatsby Good Career Benchmarks: