My Future - Careers Guidance and Education

At Pond Meadow Academy opportunities are provided for all students to encounter careers and employment throughout their time at school.

In the EYFS and Primary school, students will have meaningful interactions linked to careers such as visitors in school and local trips.

Careers guidance is embedded in the KS3-KS5 curriculum and delivered during discrete subject lessons. The careers guidance we deliver will incorporate preparing for life after Pond Meadow. This may be paid employment, a work experience placement, college placement or social care placement.  

Our Careers Programme focuses on ensuring our pupils and students develop the skills and knowledge to ideally be able to transition into suitable paid or unpaid employment. As a minimum, pupils at Pond Meadow will leave with the skills and knowledge for a ‘positive career’ which is defined by the Careers Development Institute as being ‘typically being happy with the way you spend your time, being able to make a contribution to your community and being able to have a decent standard of living’. ( https://www.thecdi.net/New-Career-Development-Framework).

Implementing the Gatsby Benchmarks

The Gatsby Benchmarks are a framework of 8 guidelines that define the best careers provision in secondary schools.

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

At Pond Meadow Academy we implement the Gatsby Benchmarks to continue to develop our vocational curriculum for students across the school. Our programme is inclusive of each student's individual needs and their post-19 destination. For an overview of how we meet the Gatsby Benchmarks please click here. 

Work Experience 

At Pond Meadow, students are provided with meaningful opportunities to experience volunteering or work placements.

Work experience may take place within our school or out in the local community. Our ‘job vacancy’ boards, throughout the school, provide a wide range of opportunities for students to choose their own individual tasks.

Students across the school enjoy taking part in Enterprise projects to raise money for local charities. 

In the Spring term we are offering several work experience opportunities. We differentiate our work experience offer at Pond Meadow to cater to the needs of our pupils and their future aspirations.

Farnham Community Farm is the Spring Terms offer for our formal and semi-formal learners. They take part in a range of horticultural activities, ranging from spreading compost, cultivating crops and weeding. The second offer this half-term is Cherry Trees. This is for our semi and pre-formal learners. They will be taking part in cleaning and gardening activities through accessible garden beds. This offer provides the opportunity for our learners to practise transitioning to an environment a lot will use as respite. Providing the experience of work as well as transitioning experience and allowing them to become more familiar with a setting they access. In addition to this, we provide certain formal learners with the opportunity to take part in work experience with Surrey Choices. This embeds our students in a workplace with 1:1 support. Providing them with opportunities to engage with the public and complete tasks in a professional environment. The feedback from employers offering this experience has been fantastic, and they are all impressed with the attitude, work ethic and quality of work our students provide. 

Looking forward into the Summer Term, we are aiming to create work teams as part of the Post-16 morning routine. Providing them with a work uniform, and different tasks around the school each morning to complete. Improving our work experience further. More information on this will come in the Summer Term!

Examples of previous work experience include:

1. Working as an assistant or kitchen porter at Starbucks  
2. Running a school pop up café for staff and pupils 
3. Gardening and maintenance for Surrey Wildlife Trust
4. Organising and delivering stationery orders for the school
5. Feeding wild ponies for the National Trust

Careers and Future Destinations Policy

Provider Access Policy

If you would like more information about the work experience programme please contact Jill Inglis and Yolandi Johnson our Careers Leaders, using the contact information below.

We are always looking for new volunteering or work experience placements for our students! If you would be interested in hosting a student then please contact us using the details below: 

jinglis@pond-meadow.surrey.sch.uk

yjohnson@pond-meadow.surrey.sch.uk

01483532239