Careers Entitlement Statement
The College is committed to ensuring that high quality, timely, accurate and impartial careers education, information advice and guidance is provided to support people to make informed decisions. This involves making realistic choices about future plans and developing skills to prepare for progression into further study or employment.
View our Careers Strategic Plan here
View our Intent, Implementation and Impact Framework here
Careers Education, Information, Advice & Guidance (CEIAG), Work Placements & Employability Skills
Bishop Auckland College is a unique, diverse and inclusive environment in which everyone is supported to grow, develop and really flourish. We treat each student as an individual, with their own unique talents, circumstances and aspirations. For all students, our intent is always the same; from the moment they are welcomed into our College community, we aim to transform the life chances of every student, helping them to progress into fulfilling careers and contribute to the productivity and prosperity of our local economy. We focus on really getting to know our students, what motivates them, their career aspirations and supporting students to progress towards a bright future.
Our friendly, highly qualified and experienced Student Progression Team offer a personalised service to each individual at Bishop Auckland College main campus, our specialist engineering centre in Newton Aycliffe, South West Durham Training (SWDT) and our Durham Gateway School, providing high quality information, advice and guidance on career pathways, employment and further study opportunities. This journey begins with your very own personalised career plan and the team are dedicated to intensively supporting and nurturing students on their route to an exciting positive destination!
Here are some amazing Impact Case Studies showcasing students progression into employment, apprenticeships and higher education.
Jennifer Phillips - Head of Community and Careers (Level 7 Career Leader) jennifer.phillips@bacoll.ac.uk
Emma Rowntree - Progression Coach (Level 6 CEIAG Specialist) emma.rowntree@bacoll.ac.uk
Julie Shafto - Progression Coach (Level 6 CEIAG Specialist) julie.shafto@bacoll.ac.uk
Roxanne Howard - Progression Coach (Work Placement Specialist) roxanne.howard@bacoll.ac.uk
Clayton Lucas- Progression Coach (Work Placement Specialist) clayton.lucas@bacoll.ac.uk
The team are located in the Student Progression Hub, located on the ground floor at the main campus. We look forward to discussing your career options so please drop by, call or email to book an appointment to speak to one of our Progression Coaches. We are available: 5 days a week Monday to Thursday 8.30 am – 5.00 pm Friday 8.30 am – 12 noon. Evening appointments are also available.
Tel: 01388 443059 email: careers@bacoll.ac.uk
Our service includes:
• Personalised career plan
• Confidential one-to-one career appointments
• Access to a full programme of careers education tutorials
• Support with CVs
• Help with researching and identifying suitable vacancies
• Support with job applications
• Helping you to prepare for interviews
• Employability skills development through individualised mentoring
• Help you to find a job (part-time and full-time employment)
• Help you to find an internship, traineeship or apprenticeship
• Support you with applications into FE & HE programmes
• Support you through the UCAS application process for University
• Access and support you with your eTrackr Careers Student Portal
If you are unsure about your career pathway or which course to do, book a one-to-one confidential careers appointment with one of our Progression Coaches. We offer careers appointments for all students (full-time and part-time), higher education students, apprentices and members of the wider community.
Every student and apprentice will be offered the opportunity of a one-to-one careers guidance interview during their time at College and full-time students will have access to a programme of careers education tutorials throughout their learning journey. Progression Coaches work closely with tutors to arrange career sessions that cater to their ability, are linked to vocational areas, and include a range of topics relating to careers and employability.
View our Careers Programme Calendar 2024 to 2025
Additional services include:
• Signposting and referral to college departments and external agencies
• Visits and trips to employers and universities
• Learning Bursary, Advanced Learner and Higher Education Loans
We offer a wide range of resources including labour market information, routes into employment, apprenticeships, higher education and much more. Students and apprentices have access to our online careers platform which contains fully up to date resources, via the College VLE (Moodle), which you can access both in college and at home.
The careers platform also allows you to explore a range of destinations and pathways you may be interested in or may not have thought of before, and how these choices can lead to different career paths and further education. You can explore how to successfully apply for employment, an apprenticeship or university course, including universities abroad. The Student Progression team will complete regular tutorials with students to access all resources across the platform throughout the academic year.
The College has excellent, strong links with local employers across a wide range of sectors. All full-time students will undertake a work placement alongside their study programme and many of our part-time students complete work placement to compliment their learning programme. Work placement is a fantastic opportunity for you to perform actual tasks within an external workplace which will be linked to your chosen career. In some cases, placements are so successful that students are subsequently offered apprenticeships or employment.
Your Progression Coach will:
• Discuss placement options/choices with you
• Secure a vocationally related work placement linked to your career goal
• Provide you with a DBS check for your work placement
• Access and support you with your Grofar Work Placement Student Portal
• Help you to secure a positive destination following your course of study
You will gain access to Grofar, your very own work placement student portal. Within Grofar, you have easy access to all of your work placement details at any time. You can create action plans and targets to achieve on placement, log all of your placement hours, experiences and photo evidence and your employer will provide feedback on your performance. At the end of your placement, you will receive a personalised placement completion certificate.
The contacts made during placements can be extremely valuable for future job offers. It is your opportunity to show an employer your ability to work to a high standard and that you are keen to develop your career!
Many of our students progress directly into employment from their College course or apprenticeship. We support students and apprentices with CVs, one-to-one application support and mock interviews. Developing your employability skills to help you to progress into your chosen career is an integral part of your College course. Throughout your time at College, you will have the opportunity to work with employers in your vocational area through careers fairs, virtual workshops, visiting guest speakers from employers in a wide range of sectors and visits to employer premises to explore real life businesses.
Progression Coaches provide advice and guidance on higher education programmes including degree, foundation degree and higher national diplomas. They work with students who are making an application to higher education, providing specialist support on a range of higher education topics including how to research course choices and how to write an effective personal statement. The team also support all students studying higher education programmes across the Bishop Auckland College Group. Students are offered career one-to-one meetings with a Progression Coach. In addition to supporting students with their career progression, we also help to source work placements and complete Enhanced DBS checks.
All apprentices have access to high-quality impartial careers advice to support them with their next steps. We offer appointments for apprentices to discuss career progression, continuous professional development and higher education.
We are passionate about helping you find that perfect job, university course, apprenticeship plus many more career opportunities!
The positive destination work undertaken by the Student Progression team provides a very ‘hands on’ approach that we term ‘FMAB’.
• Facilitation – helping students to locate suitable and realistic opportunities and make applications to a range of potential destinations, including further study in FE or HE, apprenticeships, traineeships, internships, part-time and full-time employment
• Mentoring – providing individualised support with CVs, applications, preparing for interviews and additional training needs
• Advocacy – working with the College apprenticeship team and external organisations to advocate for individual students and maximise their chances of securing a sustainable positive destination
• Brokerage – understanding the labour market needs of target destination organisations, as well as the skills and potential of individual students, in order to broker sustainable positive destinations
In 2015, Bishop Auckland College was one of only three colleges in the north east of England who were chosen to take part in a national pilot to identify good practice in careers guidance for young people in schools and colleges. The Gatsby foundation visited a number of countries to look at good practice in careers guidance and careers education. From this, they developed a set of benchmarks to demonstrate good practice for careers provision in schools and colleges. Following the completion of the Gatsby pilot, Bishop Auckland College has continued to work hard to meet those eight benchmarks and deliver a high quality careers service to our existing and future students.
Labour market trends play an important part in the decision making process for anyone planning their future career or looking at a career change. There is a broad range of local and national information available to help you make those all-important decisions and to explore the opportunities that may be available in the future. We suggest the following links as a good starting point:
- Labour Market Overview
- Office for Labour Market Statistics
- National Careers Service
- LMI Bulletin February 2024
Careerometer can be used to explore and compare key information about occupations, help you learn about different occupations and identify potential careers. It provides access to a selection of UK headline data relating to pay, weekly hours of work and future employment prospects for different occupations, as well as a description of the occupation.
Simply type in the title of the job you are interested in and the widget provides a series of options from which you can select the most relevant to you. You can then look up another two occupations and compare. You can also select ‘display the UK average’ and compare the information with the occupation you have selected.
We welcome Parents/Carers to attend careers appointments and to be involved in the progression process. You also have the opportunity to speak to the Student Progression team during College open evenings and Tutor Parent/Carer evenings.
View our Parents/Carers information here
We look forward to welcoming you into the Student Progression Hub!
