London Ambitions Careers Offer

25 June 2015

This report sets out the rationale for the 'London Ambitions Careers Offer'. A distinctive London offer has to tackle the challenges of diversity and fragmentation. It needs to be applicable to London's huge variety of schools, colleges and other education providers. It also has to be relevant to – and readily understood by – a range of audiences.

The report proposes seven key elements that are needed to allow the London Ambitions Careers Offer to transform the landscape of careers and employment support for young people across London. The seven elements are evidence-based and designed to establish a coherent framework to apply to all young people, regardless of the particular school or college they attend:

1. Every young Londoner should have access to impartial, independent and personalised careers education, information, advice and face-to-face guidance in their local community.
    
2. Every young Londoner should have completed at least 100 hours experience of the world of work, in some form, by the time they reach the age of 16. This may include career insights from industry experts, work tasters, coaching, mentoring, enterprise activities, part-time work, participation in Skills London and The Big Bang Event, work shadowing, work experience/supported work experience and other relevant activities. Lessons from this and other elements of a young Londoners’ employability journey should be captured in a personalised digital portfolio. This will provide a strong foundation for London’s young people to take responsibility for capturing learning and experiences from an early age (and beyond the age of 16) and support their careers activities with employers.
    
3. Every secondary school and college should have in place an explicit publicised careers policy and Careers Curriculum on young people’s experiences of the world of work, links with business, careers provision and destination outcomes. That policy should be reviewed and approved by the governing body at least every three years. All schools and colleges should also report annually on delivery of the careers policy and curriculum. 
    
4. Every good institution will have a governor with oversight for ensuring the organisation supports all students to relate their learning to careers and the world of work from an early age. 
    
5. Every secondary school and college should have up-to-date, user-friendly labour market intelligence/information (LMI) readily accessible by young people, teachers and parents/carers drawing upon the Skills London Match, UKCES ‘LMI for All’, National Careers Service local LMI data and other reliable sources of information. 
    
6. The quality of careers provision should be strengthened by developing ‘careers clusters’ to share resources in improving awareness of London’s labour market and supporting school and college leaders in a whole-school approach to plan and deliver careers provision. 
    
7. The London Ambitions Portal should enable more schools and colleges to easily find high-quality careers provision designed to support the career development of all young Londoners. 

These seven key elements of the London Ambitions Careers Offer must be supported by a fundamental understanding of a young person’s ‘learner journey’, with the aim of building a brilliant CV as they move through schooling.

The report also includes a checklist and practical toolkit for teachers – 'the London Ambitions Careers Curriculum'.