Meet Miranda
Tell us about your role
I have been a careers adviser for nearly 20 years. I founded Elev8Careers in 2012 in response to government defunding on Connexions and the gaps in provision. Over the last 15 years the landscape has changed significantly with Gatsby and the CEC and I’ve been privileged to be able to grow Elev8Careers with the changes and develop the offer.
I have a brilliant team of careers advisers who work delivering numerous contracts in about 50 different schools, colleges, alternative and specialist provision. We run various funded programmes and are a delivery partner with Get Career Confident.
How do you work with SLN?
We deliver on Get Career Confident through which we get to create lots of fantastic content and resources for young people as well as delivering in person sessions across the region. We get to do some wonderful work with the targeted learners with 1:1 guidance, predominately year 9 -14. We also run workshops and help with events. We have a fantastic website with a lot of information for staff, young people and parents and carers to access. We deliver the ‘What Next’ series of webinars and create a range of videos including ‘See to Be’ interviewing people who lived or studied in Sussex about work they do and the ‘How to videos’ across a range of topics in careers. Alongside the website, we engage with young people through our social media, through mediums that engage them. We also run CPD for anyone working in the careers field.
With result days happening over the summer how can school and college staff prepare their students?
The first thing is to make sure it’s incredibly clear on how your students can access their results. While it sounds obvious it’s something that comes up each year. Especially with A Level or equivalent results where decisions might need to be made quickly. My recommendation is always to encourage students to go into school for results day because if something happens which isn’t expected, having a support system around you to steer you is incredibly helpful. If possible, it’s a great idea to have a careers advisor present on results day to support students. They will be able to help students speak to the right people and help them think through alternative plans if needs be.
Being aware of the mental health aspect build up around results is very important. Some young people will take it in their stride whereas others won’t, so be mindful in the run up and on the day. Do whatever you can to ensure they feel supported. Encourage your students to be doing other things over the summer rather than focusing just on results day. Provide them with information on how to create a plan for their results, a plan for if they get what they are hoping for and one if they don’t so it’s not panic stations on the day. This can really help relieve the anxiety in the run up to results day.
How can schools and colleges help parents and carers prepare for results day
Similarly, making sure the practical information is clear. When will results be available, how do the students access their results, what to do on results day. Give parents and carers information and reminders about being aware of the mental and emotional element of results day. Ensure parents and carers know how they can support their young people and the support available at your school or college. Let them know that they and their young people can speak to one of our qualified careers advisers through the live chat function from any page of our website.
After the results are in, what should Year 11s and Year 13/14s be doing to prepare for September?
We have a great section on the GCC website that gives a lot of useful information about this, moving on from school and college. The section has resources for:
- Moving onto college
- Moving onto university
- Moving onto an apprenticeship
- Moving onto work
Each section has a range of videos which are targeted to support students in their next steps and are free to access. Please do share them with your students.
I do think it’s important to remind young people to have a break over the summer and that can tie into taking care of themselves and any stress or anxiety they may have about their next steps. There are things that can be done after results day that are straight forward and simple reminders to students and their parents and carers can help with that. While it sounds obvious, we always remind students to make sure they’ve accepted their place once they get their results. It can be easy to get caught up in the results and forget! Remind them to check their emails over the summer as they’ll probably get some communication from their college / 6th form / university / employer.
What is your top tip for school and college staff to do before the end of term to prepare for CEIAG at the start of next year?
The first thing I’d suggest is to look at your careers strategy and remind yourself what your overall aim is. What do you want your young people to have achieved by the end of the school year? Have clear goals and then build your programme around that. Make sure everyone in your school / college is aware of it. It isn’t just the responsibility of careers staff. Consider what things your colleagues can do in different areas to make sure the strategy is realised. Staff can always get in touch with the Get Career Confident team if they would like any support hello@getcareerconfident.co.uk
Finally, is there anything new over the next year that we should be looking out for?
We are developing our social media and website. We’re running a work experience project at BHASVIC giving the students a project to unpick our social media and website content. We need to hear from the youth voice to make sure we’re meeting their needs. This project allows us to get their feedback and for them to have the opportunity to create content. Their work will directly influence how we develop Get Career Confident’s virtual presence.
At Elev8Careers we’re developing ‘the possibility pack’, a virtual and hard copy resource which will connect the dots for young people between what they are learning, who they are, their future and the labour market. This is a work in progress and the students at BAHSVIC will also be giving us their feedback into this.
How can people get in touch with you if they have any questions or want to find out more?
They can email me, use the resources on the Get Career Confident and follow us on our socials.