Careers
Careers Lead: Mr C. Jasper
Email: CJasper@CRGS.co.uk
“High-quality careers guidance is essential to enable all children and young people to understand the range of options available to them and realise their potential.” Ofsted, 2023
At Colchester Royal Grammar School we hold the aim to enable all our students to reach their fullest potential. In our context, this means students are supported to reach the highest aspirations – alongside guidance throughout their time with us – to go on to their next steps.
Our careers programme:
• Gives students an insight into what options are available to them post-16 and post-18
• Supports students in taking up the opportunities and experiences that will aid them once they leave us
• Promotes and empowers independence and resilience
• Educate students on what it means to work
• Challenges stereotypes and promotes inclusion and diversity
• Enables our students go on to sustained employment, alongside personal and economic wellbeing.
The Gatsby Benchmarks
Our Careers Policy uses the national Gatsby Benchmarks to underpin its success. This eight benchmark can be found here; at CRGS, this means:
• We have embedded our careers provision throughout students’ PSHE
• Students are given information on the current labour market at intervals, through our careers newsletter
• Offering students dedicated personal careers guidance in Year 10 and 12, aimed to support their next-step decisions
• Linking our curriculum to careers during National Careers Week
• Give our students opportunities to engage with both employers and educators through visits, talks and our annual careers fair.
Measures of Success
Careers guidance is only valuable insofar as it meets the needs of our students. At the start of the year, students are encouraged to complete the Future Skills Questionnaire. This allows us to identify our priorities throughout the year, and we routinely audit our students’ opinions following careers events.
Careers Events
Careers Fair
Our in-house careers fair occurs in Summer Term, and our Year 10 and 12 students are invited to meet with a range of employers from multiple fields, including medicine, law and engineering. Alongside this, students are given a session on what makes a good CV and interview technique.
Super Saturday
A central part of our careers-offer is Super Saturday, which sees 70 volunteers offer more than 200 ‘interviews’ to our Year 13s in supporting their future applications. These interviews are carried out by specialists in the fields our students of thinking of applying for, alongside more general interviews.
Headmaster’s Appointments
All our Year 11 students are invited to a one-to-one discussion with the headmaster to discuss their academic progress and thoughts on their next steps.
