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Promoting Effective Careers Practice in Partnership with the CEC

AoC is working with The Careers and Enterprise Company to provide resources, webinars and information for the leaders, governors and careers guidance professionals in the FE sector to help support colleges in their careers guidance offer.

Join the College Careers Community. CEC is encouraging colleagues within FE to join a virtual community to share best practice and resources to drive innovation in careers education.

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CEC Careers Impact Leadership Reviews

The Careers Enterprise Company is excited to share with you the new Careers Impact internal leadership review, an approach that provides a shared language of how careers can be positioned as a driver for college improvement.  The internal leadership review supports Education Leader engagement, allowing you to embed a quality assured, sustainable, and strategic approach to careers leadership in your provision. It involves a structured conversation focusing on six themes, each aligned to the Gatsby Benchmarks, and it enables leaders to identify effective action areas to drive continuous improvement. 

The process includes a free digital feature to record and analyse responses in Compass+/Compass, with data visualisations to aid strategic action-planning with SLT and governors.  

Getting started 
1. Visit the Resource Directory to further your understanding of the internal leadership review and how to prepare for one. 

The Careers Enterprise Company Action Research Report and Toolkit 2023/24

In October 2023, The Careers and Enterprise Company (CEC), in partnership with the Association of Colleges (AoC) created the opportunity for colleges and independent training providers to participate in a careers education-focused action research project.

Action research is a powerful tool which promotes innovation and improvement within a range of professional sectors as day-to-day practitioners are empowered to identify issues, find solutions and build in best practice within their everyday working environment.

Three providers were selected to run their own research project, Coventry College, Leicester College and The Learning Curve Group. This report aims to capture the learnings from the projects and to provide a toolkit in order to support other post-16 providers develop their CEIAG provision. The report highlights some great practice in preparing students for hybrid working environments; managing systemic change to ensure high quality careers provision across a multi-site institution; and increasing work experience opportunities for learners with additional needs.

We hope you find it a useful document and that you can use it to develop your own effective careers education programmes.

Click here to view the Action Research Report and Toolkit Click here to watch the action research projects webinar

CEC Parental Engagement Action Research Report and Toolkit 2024/25

The careers action research project proposed by CEC and supported by AoC was designed to focus on the provision of CEIAG in FE colleges and independent training providers, with a specific lens on the relationship between parent/carer engagement and careers support in the sector.
Parental engagement has recently been given more prominence in the revised Gatsby Benchmarks, with the relaunch document stating that “parents and carers are one of the biggest influences on young people’s career decision making” and that the updated benchmarks have been designed to support organisations to “embed parent and carer engagement into planning and specify the need to share information with parents and carers and support them to use it with their children.”
This report explores the insights gathered from two further education colleges and one independent training provider who took part in an action research project on parental engagement and highlights how
and why a strategic focus on parental engagement improves the quality of careers advice and guidance, with a positive impact on students, parents, and the institutions themselves.

Click here to view the Parental engagement report Click here to see the parental engagement webinar

Showcasing Best Practice

Please view the following short films showcasing some innovative work in careers education being done in three colleges. The films have been produced by the colleges with support from the Careers and Enterprise Company and focus on linking sustainability and careers, developing a skills framework and creating effective employer engagement.

Middlesborough College

Lancaster and Morecambe College

Barnsley College

Projects