Information for Parents
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Welcome to the parents section of the St Peter’s Careers pages.
Please scroll down to access the Helping Your Child Begin Their Career Journey book which is a very useful source of information.
Career resources for students and parents
The resources below can help students and their parents to start thinking about careers and ‘next steps’. They cover topics such as choosing a career and different routes into the world of work, as well as providing detailed information on specific careers. They can also help students to make decisions about the next steps in their education, from Year 7 through to choosing degree subjects in Year 13, whether or not they’ve decided on a career.
Year 7
Start to think about the future, what subjects you enjoy and what you are good at. Understand that men and women can do any job they want to, don’t be held back by stereotypes. Have a look at this video for inspiration!
Doctor! Doctor! My Midwife is a Man!
Year 8
Discover the world of work and what it is like to work in different jobs by watching short video clips and interviews.
Year 9
Explore career ideas using Fast Tomato, a highly regarded, accredited site that helps students and parents to explore career ideas. Parents can log in using their child’s details and take the test themselves! After completing a short interests-based questionnaire, Fast Tomato is able to produce an immediate report showing aspirational, career and subject suggestions matched to the individual. There are over 600 career descriptions including videos, case studies and useful links. In addition, there is information on entry requirements, routes to careers and salaries.
As students approach Options time, it is a good idea to re-do the Fast Tomato questionnaire and see how your child’s aspirations have changed.
The video below talks about what you need to consider when choosing Options.
Another website worth taking a look at is icould which has a page devoted to choosing options with tips, videos and information on subjects, careers, employers and much more.
A Levels
Read up on how to select subjects that leave doors open to careers or degree subjects you might want to pursue – even if you’re not yet sure what you want to do in the future. We have lots of career resources in the Library, including university prospectuses, career guides, apprenticeship information etc.
Icanbea has a great Career Wizard tool that can help to match subjects your child enjoys with their personal strengths and suggests career ideas that can then be investigated further.
Other useful websites for helping students choose their A Level subjects are Target Careers and Informed Choices.
University study
There are several excellent comparison and ranking sites that enable you to explore different courses. Once you have some ideas about courses and universities compare them using Unistats, a website which provides official data to help students applying for higher education courses decide what and where to study. It allows users to shortlist and compare information for undergraduate courses across the UK.
Alternatives to university
Get an overview of the choices available at 16 and 18 that combine earning and learning, including apprenticeships of different levels, sponsored degrees and similar programmes.
You should start looking for vacancies early as some employers advertise in the summer of Year 12 or early autumn of Year 13 (for apprenticeships to start the following summer/autumn). Others don’t advertise their vacancies until the summer of Year 13 so it is important to keep checking.
Some suggestions on where to look:
Findanapprenticeship - The official government website that lists all apprenticeship opportunities and is updated in real time.
NotgoingtoUni – A site that caters for all aspects of ‘not going to uni’ including apprenticeships, opportunities available for students wishing to take gap year, internships, work experience and other routes into training. All vacancies are updated in real time.