The Careers team helps to prepare your daughter for the opportunities and responsibilities of adult life by offering them a varied and challenging programme throughout their education. We aim to encourage their self-development, facilitate career exploration and so enable them to make the choices that will lead to fulfilling working lives in the future.
The Team:
Mrs Beth Lowe, BA Manchester: Head of Department
Mrs Karen Bell: Careers Assistant
Mrs Chris Sutcliffe: Careers Assistant.
Our Resources
The Careers room, which is staffed by our two full-time careers assistants, Mrs Bell and Mrs Sutcliffe, and shared with the Boys' Division, contains an excellent bank of resources which can be accessed by your daughter throughout the day. Here she can consult prospectuses and a wide range of current publications as well as making use of DVDs, the Internet and software packages such as Kudos. Advice is available on numerous issues from education, training and employment, to scholarships, sponsorships and loans.We also have a partnership agreement with Connexions, the national careers service, and belong to the Independent Schools Careers Organisation.
An Overview of our Programme
Year 7 Work Sampling: all girls spend a day in the work place of a family member or friend so that they can begin to become aware of the demands of different kinds of work.
This is what some of our Year 7 girls said about the experience: "I learnt that, wherever you go to work you will always have a lot of responsibilities but I had a great time”; “I learnt that the working day is not just about physical work, but also about people and working relationships”; “I was having so much fun I didn"t want to go home!”
Year 8 Careers Day: in the post exam period, Year 8 spend a whole day looking at four different career areas. A short talk by a visiting speaker is then followed by a challenging activity drawing on the skills needed for a particular type of work. This year we were visited by a Clothing Designer, a Civil Engineer, a parent who ran a management exercise called "Stonehenge" and three Upper Sixth leavers who helped the Year 8s research five more career areas.
Here are some of the girls’ reactions to the sessions. On Clothing Design: “I liked using the different materials and learned that designing can be stressful”; on Civil Engineering: “This was lots of fun and a real brain teaser." Another girl added, "Today has been unique - amazing fun - but I still don't know what I want to do!"
Year 9: all girls use the Kudos programme to encourage them to consider how their interests and skills might lead them into a particular type of work.
Year 10 Challenge Day: the whole year is taken off timetable for a day of activities designed to challenge their skills and talents whilst testing their ability to work as a team. Although the content of the day is usually a well-guarded secret, we can reveal that in the past we have put Year 10 through dramatic, engineering, physical and creative challenges in a variety of formats and this year we have brought Young Enterprise into school to run a business masterclass.
Year 11 Careers Interview: your daughter will have a one-to-one interview in the Careers Room with a member of the careers team who will discuss her CV and possible choices at 16 and 18. Our approach is holistic; we examine both academic and extra-curricular interests whilst stressing the importance of work experience. Our aim is to provide the kind of support that will encourage her to make an independent and well-informed decision about her future.
Work Experience: all girls are given the opportunity to arrange a work experience placement through the careers department to be carried out after GCSE exams.
Sixth Form
The girls in the Sixth Form enjoy an extensive programme designed to help them:
- Develop a wide range of transferable skills in readiness for the world of work
- Build a better awareness of the business world
- Develop interview skills
- Make sensible choices about Higher Education and /or a career
- Prepare a strong application for Higher Education
The programme is delivered by outside speakers from the world of work and Higher Education as well as our own experienced teaching staff.
Biennial Careers Convention: all girls from Year 9 upwards are invited to attend this event which is held jointly with the Boys’ Division in the Autumn Term.
Where do students go after Bolton School? Click here to learn where students go when they leave the Girls' Division