Parents/Carers Career Hub
Welcome to your parent/carer careers hub, here you will find various information that will help advise and guide your daughter through their next steps.
The Role of Parents in their Child's Career Choices
Ensuring your daughters set up for a successful career, future financial security and a good quality of life is a pressing challenge for every parent. As parents, your daughter will look to you for advice and guidance even if they don’t like to admit it!
Parents have a key role to play in the decision-making and the general career path your daughter chooses to pursue; but how involved should you be in this decision-making process? Should you adopt a hands-on role? What is the best advice you can give your daughter at this point?
Many of us make the mistake of trying to shield our children from the mistakes that we made – whether knowingly or unknowingly. While we can guide them away from some of the pitfalls we encountered, they’ll inevitably make mistakes and hiccups along the career pathway – but these mistake are vital for their personal growth. And your daughter will learn from her mistakes.
The best thing you can instil is a mature and sensible mind-set, giving your daughter the tools to make their own informed decisions.
How you can influence your daughter:
- Having a strong, mature parent- daughter relationship.
- Set a good example (socially, personally and professionally) for your daughter.
- The attitudes, views and values you adopt and express.
- The expectations you set for your daughter education, career and life.
- The opportunities you provide for your daughter to learn and develop.
In terms of career choice, you should:
- Aid, but not dictate, the decision-making process.
- Support your daughter’s decisions.
- Give your daughter freedom and time to discover their skills.
- Provide motivation to develop and achieve.
- Provide encouragement to pursue interests and ambitions.
- Try to instil a responsible attitude and mature outlook.
- Instil an attitude of self-belief by being positive and never critical – as a parent your words will have the biggest effect on your child.
What should you bear in mind when helping your daughter with education choices?
The decisions we make in our early life (e.g. what school we go to, the subjects we chose to study, the decision to go to university/college, the courses we choose) can impact our career pathway. If this decision is heavily swayed by parental preference, the student may end up following a vocation that, deep down, they aren’t interested in. At the same time, without practical guidance and support when pursuing interests, poor choices can be made.
Everyone has a unique set of skills and aptitudes. Each student is individual in their own way, and so may possess different skills and abilities to their parents. With this in mind, adopting a similar career role to either parent may not be the right course of action.
We all take time to ‘find our feet’. Parents will often say things such as “pick a course you think you’ll like” or “why don’t you apply for this job”. Though it may seem they’re doing the right thing in terms of steering their daughter in the right direction, parents also need to understand that we all need space and time to discover what we truly want to pursue. University, for example, isn’t for everyone – and engaging in relevant work experience and/or undertaking an apprenticeship can be just as valuable in finding a suitable vocation in which you can thrive.
Tracking and monitoring: Flixton Girls School uses the Compass+ platform as a Careers Leaders planning tool, provided by the Careers and Enterprise Company (who are nationally funded by the Department for Education). It is on this platform that we evaluate, record, track and monitor our full programme of careers events. This allows us to reach many of the elements of Gatsby Benchmark 3 ‘Addressing the needs of each student.’ Parents / Carers / Students who wish to see their record of attendance at careers events can request to see a copy via email to our careers team on Flixton-student-admin@vantageacademies.co.uk. Please note that tracking on Compass+ began in September /2022.
Policy & Reports
This short guide sets out the main points what the school are required to provide.
What is the Baker Clause? Click HERE to find out.
Schools should make every effort to improve their performance against the 8 Gatsby Benchmark
Gatsby Benchmarks | CEC Resource Directory – Click HERE to learn more.
FGS has a Careers Policy so that you can see exactly what the Gatsby benchmarks are and how we meet them.
Post 16 Open Events
Discover all you need to know…
That first day at college/6th form is just as daunting as your first day at Flixton Girls, but with the knowledge gathered at an open day students are given the confidence and clarity they need to thrive from day one. Open days provide all you need to know about student life at your new college/6th form.
Most open days run workshops and activities for prospective students and their parents to discover more about the courses on offer, giving you the information you need to decide which vocational or A-Level subjects are right for you. If you’ve already decided on the courses you’d like to pursue, open events are still worth attending.
Meet tutors and students…
There’s nothing more informative than listening to the experiences of students who are already studying. As well as being given the opportunity to view student work and demonstrations, you’ll get to meet current students and the tutors who teach them, and may even teach you in the coming years. Student ambassadors will also be on hand to give you the lowdown on student life at the college/6th form.
Take a tour…
Touring the facilities available at college/6th form is another benefit of attending an open day. You’ll get to see first-hand where you’ll be studying, and get to grips with the logistics of travelling to, from and around campus. Some colleges/6th forms have more than one campus, so be sure to find out which locations your shortlisted subjects will be studied at, and explore! Take a tour of the surrounding area too, you may just find some hidden gems to spend those lunchtimes and free periods.
Making the most of your open day…
There’s no doubt that college/6th form open days provide parents and students with a taster for their potential college of choice. Making the most of your open event however is the key to making an informed decision about where you will continue your education. “It’s a good idea to think of some questions to ask – maybe about particular courses, the routine and timetable, length of classes, free periods, study facilities, numbers in a class, exam results, social events or opportunities to get involved in clubs, sport and drama.”
Click HERE to learn more about services through Trafford Connexions
Qualifications For Your Child
A-Levels are the traditional qualifications offered by schools and colleges for 16-19 year old students. Click HERE for a Parent’s Guide To Key Stage 5 (A-Levels)
Vocational qualifications provide a practical and creative approach to learning, with a less classroom-based approach than A-Levels (or equivalent) and often provide the opportunity for students to gain work experience. They are usually examined via ongoing assessments and coursework.
Click HERE for the Path to Careers Parental Guide.
Work Experience
- Year 10 work experience week end of June to early July
- Year 12 work experience week early July
Work Experience is an opportunity for young people to gain an insight into the ‘World of Work’ and to help prepare them for the responsibilities and opportunities of adult life. Students carry out a range of tasks and duties as if they were regular employees, but with the emphasis on the learning aspects of the experience. Year 10 students from Flixton Girls’ School going out on Work Experience in late June for one week. We will strive to ensure that all students have good placements where Health and Safety is good. Many students prefer to arrange their own work placement but, where this is not possible, we will allocate a placement from our own database of contacts in the Trafford and Manchester area. Due to the checks that have to be made and the amount of paperwork involved in the process, we have strict deadlines. It is, therefore, very important that you return all documentation by the dates specified.
Take Your Daughter to Work Day
During the school holidays is your daughter bored at home? complains that there is nothing to do, then why not ‘Take Your Daughter To Work Day’ it’s a day to honour the future female workers who will change our world and propel our community forward through their innovation, inspiration, and bold moves in whatever field they choose. These young girls are the future of our country and our world, and it’s important to note that many of them are still in primary school. Regardless of their age, their background and their passions, this day is an important opportunity to lead by example and engage our children in an ongoing conversation about what it means to work hard, to set goals, to empower others, to serve — and above all it’s an opportunity to teach our daughters that they can be anything they want to be.
Click HERE to watch a video about Take Your Child to Work Day.
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