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Know Your Options
Explore your future career path
Know Your Options
Status: Live
In Brief: A career resource for young people to find opportunities

What is Know Your Options?

Know Your Options is a collection of helpful tools, links, quizzes, videos and case studies aimed at inspiring young people to think about their career path in a new way. There are literally hundreds of resources available on the web and Know Your Options signposts the best of what is out there. You can rate and add comments to each one so take a look and let us know what you think.

How can Know Your Options help you?

Whether you are looking for the perfect career, searching for a specific course or have no idea what the future holds, Know Your Options may have the answer. We have over 20 different links in three sections, ‘Courses’, ‘Careers’ and ‘Other stuff’ so you are bound to find something that helps you. By browsing Know Your Options you can find out about practical and vocational careers that you may never have considered possible.

The benefits

Increasingly young people are spending more and more time on the internet, gathering information and learning in new ways. Despite this, few think to find out about their potential career options using the sites they use every day, such as YouTube and Facebook. Know Your Options is designed to make exploring your career path fun. By engaging with young people in this way, Edge hope to give practical and vocational careers the status they deserve, illustrating to young people that there are many paths to success.

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What's your view
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Tom
Schools are way too focused on exams, however this is partly because of the sheer amount of them (GCSE'S, AS etc.) the government should do more and scrap AS, which universities now look much less at than A levels or GCSE. This would give students an extra year to explore and study in more detail the subjects they enjoy, rather than just knowing what you need to know for the exam.

Alex, Liverpool
I think the new schemes involving teenagers who go to school stepping out for a few days introducing them to the work world is a brilliant idea & I know I would have loved that when I was in school but the actual subject being taught in schools need to be expanded. As far as the core subjects go they should stay mandatory but there should be a bigger range of classes like more media based ones & they shouldn't be limited to certain sexes (cookery classes usually being available in girls schools) . I think the school system is still a little bit old fashioned and needs to move with the majority of what young people are interested in. -Alex

Kim
I think schools and gcse's prepare you enough for moving onto college/sixth forms, there is a huge step there and like alot of young people i didn't make it and didn't feel i had the right support at my college. If you weren't interrested in furthering your education either the support got less and less. I left college without A levels and i think vocational studies is a much better approach, for one it's getting people interrested in what they're studying and seeing how their chosen profession works physically and not just on paper. Schools and colleges should give more oppertunities to their students to get involved out of the classroom with their studies. I know i'd of benefitted!

lewis crawford
i think theres too much of a divide between key stage 3 and gcse's, i mean, when we pick these options of what we want to do for the last two years of our highschool, were still young, and whatever we pick at this time does have an effect on what we do in future life i believe, so i think we should be eased into what subjects we pick and should get more of an insight to how they can help in future life.

Rebecca
At secondary school i worked hard and did well in my GCSE's. I went to sixth form thinking it was the right thing to do- it was completely different and two years on I have just started a national diploma in art and am struggling at that.
If I had the oppurtunity to do something hands on I would but as it stands all I've been told about is the academic routes and that shouldnt be the case these days.

Laura
In my opinion, good careers education MUST underpin the curriculum in any school. Young people NEED to be taught how to become self-aware and to become informed about their strengths and challenges, in terms of their characters and personalities; their skills, qualifications and levels of emotional and social intelligence. Sadly, overworked staff sometimes disregard the fact that we are training young people to become effective and contributing members of society at some point in the future, and that league tables are less important than the business of equipping youngsters for a competitive world in which they have a role to play. Careers' education is a corporate responsibility, not merely the province of the Connexions' PAs! Staff NEED to be trained and informed about this topic so that they can meet their obligations to the youngsters in their care.

anonymous
I agree in part with Tom, however I do have to say as an A2 student at college presently, studying 4 AS subjects did allow me to figure out what subject I wanted to study further. By discontinuing one subject, I was able to focus my learning. Exam wise though, the majority of the courses I applied for were coursework based. I chose to do this as I prefer coursework to exams.

anonymous
I agree in part with Tom, however I do have to say as an A2 student at college presently, studying 4 AS subjects did allow me to figure out what subject I wanted to study further. By discontinuing one subject, I was able to focus my learning. Exam wise though, the majority of the courses I applied for were coursework based. I chose to do this as I prefer coursework to exams.

David Thomas Crawley, E.Midlands
Schools and FE Colleges need to provide more in making the new qualifications work. I personally believe in the new 14-19 diplomas in theory but hope that any red tape can be ironed out. As an educator of A Level and GCSE I believe that qualifications of our young people should move toward the new technologies in keeping them switched on and not getting bored as so many of us feel. Please listen to the teachers and lecturers in schools and colleges as so many good staff are leaving the profession due to this red tape and ill feeling. I am debating whether I should stay or go? Look at the Japanese and South Korean model. Come on UK catch up!

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