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    • Careers

    Ponteland High School is committed to providing high quality career education to ensure that our students are happy, secure and achieve exceptionally well in their future lives.

    Our Career Leader in school is Mr J Greenshields, Deputy Headteacher.

    If you are interested in supporting our career programme you can contact him via his details: j.greenshields@ponthigh.org.uk 01661 824711

    At Ponteland High School we aim to provide all students with a rich careers education. We want all of our students to have the knowledge, skills and experience to access the career of their choice. In doing so we utilise the eight Gatsby benchmarks of the high-quality careers provision to regularly evaluate and improve our offer.

    1. A stable careers programme
    2. Learning from career and labour market information
    3. Addressing the needs of each pupil
    4. Linking curriculum learning to careers
    5. Encounters with employers and employees
    6. Experiences of workplaces
    7. Encounters with further and higher education
    8. Personal guidance

    You can find out more about what is going on in school currently through our Twitter page – https://twitter.com/CareersPontHigh 

    Careers Newsletter 27th JuneCareers Newsletter 4th JulyCareers Newsletter 11th July

    March 2025

    Find out all about our events for National Careers Week and beyond during the month of March.

    National Careers Week

    Our careers education is delivered in a variety of ways:

    • Sessions delivered through pastoral including our weekly ‘career of the week’ input.
    • Making links to careers throughout our taught curriculum
    • Assemblies
    • Encounters with employers, employees and experiences of workplaces at events inside and outside of school
    • Targeted personal guidance
    • Developing links to Pont High alumni and local businesses.
    • Opt-in events such as our CV-Builder and Interview Prep drop-in sessions.

    Students will have the opportunity to speak with our Careers Coordinator, who will provide impartial guidance to them on a one-to-one basis. This will include information on a wide range of education and training options and will show no bias towards a particular institution, education or work option.

    Since January 2018 all local authority maintained schools and academies must give education and training providers the opportunity to talk to pupils in years 8 to 13 about approved technical qualifications and apprenticeships. Schools must have clear arrangements in place to ensure that all pupils have opportunities to hear from providers of post-16 and post-18 options.

    Our Provider Access Policy can be accessed here If you are a provider/employer and would like to offer apprenticeships, information and guidance, work experience placements or alternative provision for our students at Post 16, please contact Mr Jonny Greenshields, Deputy Headteacher.

    Reviewing our work

    The school uses a range of measures in order to review the impact of our careers programme on our students.

    This includes:

    • Regular student voice reviews
    • Discussions with external partners such as our Enterprise Co-ordinator from the North East Local Enterprise Partnership and Enterprise Advisors.
    • Termly reviews using the Gatsby Benchmarks as a framework for evaluation and planning.
    • Reviewing students’ destination information at the end of Key Stage Four and Five study.

    Destination Data

    Gatsby Benchmarks Review

    We complete a review of the Gatsby Benchmarks each term. At this time we will also review the information published for accuracy and relevance.

    Information for Employers

    We welcome the opportunity to work with local and national employers in providing opportunities for our students. If you would like a further discussion regarding how you could support our work please contact Deputy Headteacher, Mr Jonny Greenshields: j.greenshields@ponthigh.org.uk

    Online Guidance and Labour Market Information

    It is never too early to begin thinking about potential careers and future choices. We encourage students to be proactive in this and suggest the following as a good starting point.

    To support our work we will invite a range of education and training providers to visit our school and further information can be found in our Provider Access Policy here.

    Our Careers provision is overseen by DeputyHeadteacher, Mr Jonny Greenshields, he can be contacted at j.greenshields@ponthigh.org.uk

    Post-16 Options

    We know that for the majority of our students choosing to remain in school and progress to our highly successful 6th form will be the preferred option.

    Further information our 6th form offer can be viewed by following the link below.

    Some students will prefer to explore other options that may better suit their needs. Information about local colleges and apprenticeships are listed below.