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Teach First: Careers Leader Programme
Talent and Skills
Teach First’s ‘Careers Leader’ programme provides fully funded training to improve employability and careers provision in schools to ensure every child can reach their full potential. Targeted at schools serving a high proportion of disadvantaged young people, Teach First’s Career Leader programme has worked with 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.
Through the programme, Career Leaders are supported to design, implement and evaluate a revised careers strategy and detailed action plan targeting all staff and pupils. This allows Careers Leaders to assist the school in their progress towards all eight Gatsby Career Benchmarks and the Quality in Careers Standard (QiCS), delivering immediate impact.
The programme is tailored to meet the needs of each school and provides a foundation for long-term improvement through blended learning modules including in-person training, online learning and personalised support. To enhance flexibility, the programme offers a number of blended in-person and virtual training days; virtual seminars of 1- 1.5 hours during the school term and virtual meetings with their Teach First Careers Expert at key points throughout the year. Training has been developed in collaboration with experts from different sectors to ensure content is relevant and up to date.
Schools that have partnered with Teach First through the Careers Leader programme have reported positive outcomes. 99% of surveyed programme members have reported a change in their confidence in identifying key priorities in their careers’ strategies and data from 60 schools in the 2019 cohort showed an increase in the average number of Gatsby benchmarks achieved per school from 3.1/8 at the start of the programme to 4.2 at programme completion.
The ScaleUp Institute will continue to watch closely to see how improvements in the programme deliver practical results for those leading careers in education.
The Careers Leader programme is definitely worth it. It’s great for upskilling and it will help you to focus on exactly where you want to take your school. For the second year running, we’ve got all eight of the Gatsby Benchmarks.
