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Teach First: Careers Leader Programme [2022]

Talent and Skills

Teach First’s Careers Leader programme has now helped over 400 Careers Leaders nationally since it began in 2015. Teach First has also been a recognised provider of careers leader training through the Careers and Enterprise Company since 2018. The programme is targeted at schools serving a high proportion of disadvantaged young people.

The programme provides tailored support for Careers Leaders to draft a careers strategy and plan specific to their school’s needs. They are also given support to implement a pilot of the strategy in school Spring and Summer terms, recognising that implementation is often the hardest part of the role.

To enhance flexibility, the programme now offers a number of blended in-person and virtual training sessions and seminars providing greater personalisation as well as reducing travel time and the time participants are out of school. 

One-to-one meetings are offered to reach teachers from schools in isolated areas and increase the frequency of formal touchpoints. Time is also allocated within the programme for members to visit other schools and learn from seeing good practice in action. 

The programme continues to receive very positive feedback. From Teach First’s most recent evaluation, 97% report that the programme supports them to know what an excellent whole school approach to careers and employability looks like. Long-term evaluation of the programme also shows statistically significant increase in the average percentage of students going on to sustained destinations post KS4 (90.8% to 92.2%) in schools participating in the Careers Leader Programme.

The ScaleUp Institute will watch closely how the improvements in the programme delivers practical results for those leading careers education.

Teach First: Careers Leader Programme [2022] website