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• The majority of surveyed schools have a stable and embedded careers programme in place offering a wide range of activities and opportunities and covering a broad range of topics. However, schools seem to prioritise academic over technical and vocational career routes, and do not sufficiently cover matters related to job demands and working life. Schools rarely integrate parents into career guidance provision.
• Engagement with local employers is typically integrated into schools' career guidance programmes. However, some of the respondents from surveyed schools indicated that they had experienced challenges building relationships with local employers, for instance in relation to arranging work experience for students or engaging employers as mentors. Around two-thirds of schools wished to expand or develop their career guidance programme to include new or increased opportunities for work placements, experience and shadowing, and a closer relationship or greater collaboration with local employers.
• All surveyed schools work with at least one external career guidance provider. A number of providers operate in the region and schools can be overwhelmed by the range of choices in career guidance services, with some overlap in the services offered by different providers, combined with a complex funding landscape. A schools' choice of provider(s) is often constrained by time and funding.
• Interviewed career guidance providers stated that they monitor the quality of their services by proactively seeking feedback from schools. There is, however, a lack of sector-wide measures of quality, one reason for this being insufficient recognition of career advice provision in the Ofsted assessments frameworks. As career guidance services often aim to achieve longer-term outcomes that are only measurable when students have left school, it is also challenging to assess and measure longer-term outcomes and impact.

This report, commissioned by Cambridge Ahead, examines the provision of career guidance in schools and colleges in the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough area. Findings are informed by analyses of primary data collected via an online survey of staff at 54 secondary schools and colleges in the region and interviews with 10 career guidance service providers. Most schools in the region have a careers programme in place, offering a wide range of activities and opportunities. However, schools seem to prioritise academic over technical and vocational career routes, do not sufficiently cover matters related to job demands and working life, and rarely integrate parents into career guidance provision. Some of the schools indicated that they had experienced challenges building relationships with local employers, for instance in relation to arranging work experience for students or engaging employers as mentors. Schools can be overwhelmed by the range of choices in terms of external providers of career guidance services and the complex funding landscape. Schools also face challenges in assessing the quality of services provided by external providers and monitoring the longer-term outcomes and impact of career guidance activities.

• Chapter One

  Introduction

• Chapter Two

  Research findings

• Chapter Three

  Conclusions and recommendations

• Chapter Four

  References

• Chapter Five

  Appendices