Careers Education, Information Advice and Guidance

Careers Team:

Raising the Participation Age

All young people are required to continue in education or training until their 18th birthday. This does not have to mean staying in school, students can choose to study or train in any of the following ways:

Stay on full-time in a school, college or with a training provider (many young people also do a part time job alongside this).
Work or volunteer full-time, together with part-time education or training.
Take up an apprenticeship or traineeship.

The Careerometer Widget below, provides key information and comparable data on various occupations to support the process of identifying potential careers.

Careers Leader – Mr Cox – Assistant Principal

[email protected] 01234 332299

Curriculum

At Bedford Free School, we take careers, employability and enterprise seriously to ensure that every pupil has all the information required to help them access their chosen future path.

Please click here to find out more about the Careers Curriculum at BFS or to read our full pupil entitlement which can be found here. Bedford Free School careers entitlement v2.

If you have any feedback for the Careers, Employability and Enterprise area of the site, please email [email protected]

Labour Market Information for All (LMI)

LMI for All is an online data portal, which connects and standardises existing sources of high quality, reliable labour market information (LMI) with the aim of informing careers decisions. Click to pick a job (below) and type in the job you are interested in, this then gives you up to date labour market information about that job. There are two cards so you can compare your career choices.

The portal makes data available and encourages open use by applications and websites that can bring the data to life for a range of audiences. This is an open data project, which is supporting the wider government agenda to encourage use and re-use of government data sets.

Bedford Borough create a quarterly Labour Market report, please click here for further information Bedford LMI Quarterly Report (2022/2023)

Labour Marketing Information looking at Engineering & Manufacturing 2021

“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” ...

Employer engagement

BFS has joined the Enterprise Advisor network, which is delivered by SEMLEP in partnership with the Careers and Enterprise Company. Through this we hope to soon have a dedicated Enterprise Advisor who works with us to help develop our Careers and Enterprise provision.

If you are an Employer and would like to join our network, please email;

[email protected]

Employers can support us by;

offering talks to students interested in a particular sector or area of industry
delivering an assembly to students on a particular sector or area of industry to inform students about the world of work
offering interview experience
offering work experience
linking with a relevant department in school and allowing visits to the workplace for a class, where it links with a topic being studied, or coming in to speak to a class to bring real world context to a particular topic
and many more ways

Local Apprenticeship Providers

What are apprenticeships?

Apprenticeships combine practical training in a job with study. As an apprentice you’ll:

work alongside experienced staff
gain job-specific skills
earn a wage and get holiday pay
get time for study related to your role (usually one day a week)

Levels of apprenticeship

Apprenticeships have equivalent educational levels.

Name	Level	Equivalent educational level
Intermediate	2	GCSE
Advanced	3	A level
Higher	4, 5, 6 & 7	Foundation degree and above
Degree	6 & 7	Bachelor’s or Master’s degree

Local apprenticeship providers

Apprenticeships in Bedford – 3aaa

SSG – Education,Training, Activities, Experience

Bedford College

Parents

One of the best ways to support your child, is to have regular conversations with them and discuss their aspirations for the future. Sometimes the choices and options available can feel bewildering and overwhelming, but a conversation allows you to work together to identify some options.

The Labour Market Information above is a good place to start.

Additionally you can refer to:

http://www.parentadviser.co.uk/

https://www.careersadviceforparents.org/

A Parents Guides to Apprenticeships – fact sheet

https://nationalcareersservice.direct.gov.uk/