Careers Education
Incorporating careers education into your programme helps students to consider their career options and plan how they will get where they want to be.
“Good student presentations, about their placements, have not only earned very positive feedback from employers but have also encouraged other students to go on similar placements”.Dr Andrew Smart, Cornwall College, Newquay
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Case study
Cornwall College, Newquay
Our careers education programme is based on three elements, tied into student work experience.
Part One - Report: Students have to identify suitable employment opportunities and complete an application form and produce a CV. This is assessed. The student then has a mock interview which involves a potential employer e.g. staff from Newquay Zoo. The students are then given feedback from all staff involved.
Part Two - Placement: Students complete 180 hours of work experience. They also carry out a risk assessment exercise and submit a signed log book.
Part Three - Poster presentation: This event covers a whole afternoon and evening in which students present to Year One students and any stakeholders who want to attend. Involving first year students really helps them to start thinking about their own placements. Good presentations have caused enthusiastic students to then go on similar placements.
Tips
- Get employers involved at the start as there is competition for their help
- Do the poster presentations in November so that there is enough time to get the Year One students to think about what they want to do
- Create an agreement between student/college/provider about what is expected of a placement
- Pull together a team of staff to mark the poster presentations so that these are all marked and moderated on the day
Pitfalls
Some students just will not turn up for interviews etc and so fail the module, but you have to fail them in order to maintain standards.
Resources
Time: this takes a lot of organising.
