See It Be It in Sheffield brings together educators, employers and local authorities to collaborate on high‑quality careers education.
Back when I was at school, there wasn’t much attention paid to careers education. I left at 16 with minimal GCSEs but was lucky enough to play professional rugby league. This kick-started my career and developed my confidence before I retired from the sport and entered education. Now, for a little over two years, I’ve been Careers Coordinator at Castleford Academy in West Yorkshire. When I started working at Castleford, the school hadn’t run a work experience programme in 15 years. Last year, we took part in a work experience pilot developed by the Careers & Enterprise Company, delivered locally by the Education Development Trust. This involved sending a small, mixed cohort of high achievers and students at risk of becoming NEET on work placements – both virtual and in-person. Even before the placements happened, we saw the benefits. Attendance went up because students had to be in school to participate. And afterwards, the more disengaged kids in particular were keen to find out about the next opportunity.
This year, we launched our own work experience programme for all Year 10s – around 300 students. 163 registered interest and 75 have now secured a placement, with more underway. We were clear that we would support them, but that they’d have to find their own placements, contact employers and write their own emails. Even so, the admin is substantial. Risk assessments, public liability, safeguarding and parental consent all have to be checked off. The careers management platform we use helps a lot with this, tracking Gatsby benchmarks, automating some admin and communicating with our management information system. But it’s primarily a management tool, not a placement broker. For contacts, we needed something more. That’s where Careerbay came in – a platform that connects students directly with employers offering work experience. Alongside other resources, we recommended students use Careerbay to help secure placements. But it quickly became their go-to option. Every workshop, every question, was about Careerbay. I knew Daniel Peacock, the company’s founder, through LinkedIn and events. He and his team have put serious effort into building a database of businesses that have actively signed up and are open to placements.
So when a student makes contact with an employer, they’re not firing emails into the void but are contacting businesses who are already warm to the idea. That removes a huge amount of legwork for school staff and makes the process less daunting for students.
They’re putting themselves out there, practising professional skills, but with a greater chance of a positive response. It was Maximus UK, through their Local Impact Fund that made this possible and funded the campaign to bring those employers to the Careerbay platform.
Every Careerbay interaction has been positive. Daniel also runs workshops for our students, explaining how to show their personality and outline why they want to work somewhere. He explained that no work experience is a bad thing – even if they hate it, they’ve learned something valuable! And he was clear that students might contact five employers before one replies . Most employers on the platform are independent, local businesses. They range from nurseries and beauty salons to bars and restaurants. This is a huge benefit in my opinion. With smaller businesses, students have more opportunities to get hands-on, while the businesses themelves understand the local economy and job market better than larger firms might. This is hugely relevant to kids who’ll be looking for jobs in this area. The flipside is that we’re asking a lot of these companies – taking on a 15-year-old for a week costs time and energy. There’s a real case here for more government support, whether funding for schools and brokerage services, or incentives to make it easier for small employers to say yes. Once the placements are complete, I’ll look into the data, particularly around which students didn’t engage and why.
Instinct tells me there will be more Pupil Premium kids in that group. Is it confidence? Limited networks? I want to find out. Eventually, I’d love to run a work experience fair – get all our employer contacts into the sports hall and let students meet them face-to-face before they apply. That’s a very different proposition from a cold start. With new DfE guidance coming into force in September, every school will have to figure this out. I’m aware how lucky I am to be a full-time Careers Coordinator, which not every school can offer. But brokerage services like Careerbay can make all the difference. I left school at 16 with no idea what I was doing. Some workplace experience could have really changed that. But for the kids heading out on placement today, maybe it will.
Written by
James Clare, Careers Coordinator at Castleford Academy