An internal leadership review is based on the Careers Impact Maturity Model, which provides a shared language of how careers can be positioned as a driver for school, special school and college improvement.
Undertaking an internal leadership review supports the quality assurance of your careers provision and encourages continuous improvement aligned to your whole institution's priorities.
Within your annual evaluation processes, undertaking a Careers Impact internal leadership review will:
- Engage Leaders through informed and impactful SLT and governor engagement in and vision for sustainable and strategic careers leadership
- Align priorities through intentional distributed leadership of careers as a driver for whole institution improvement
- Embed best practice through Improved understanding of best practice in careers leadership and of meaningful and sustained achievement of the Gatsby Benchmarks
- Celebrate success through recognitions of strengths in and impact of careers leadership and provision
- Sustain quality and impact through internal quality assurance and impact evaluation of careers leadership and provision
The full models are available through Compass and Compass+, here is a snapshot.
Preparing to complete a Careers Impact Internal leadership review
A Careers Impact internal leadership review needs a collaborative approach and is a reflection on the maturity of careers leadership across a school, special school or college.
Who should take part?
All those involved in the distributed leadership of careers should be involved in the review process e.g.
- Careers Adviser
- Careers Coordinator
- Central Strategic Careers Leader
- Enterprise Adviser
- Head(s) of Year/Head(s) of Department
- Headteacher/Principal Careers Leader
- Link Governor
- PSHE Lead
- SENCo/Head of SEND
- SLT; Pastoral, Personal Development, Curriculum, Progress, Teaching & Learning
- SLT; Vice Principal/Assistant Principal Head of Inclusion
- Student Support/Student Services
What does a review involve?
The review involves colleagues reflecting on a range of statements in the Maturity Model, then selecting those that best describe the practice in their institution. Colleagues consider the statements and the responses, which indicate progressive maturity within each of the six themes. Colleagues should do this ahead of coming together to discuss and agree a final response for each statement that represents their institution.
How can you make the process collaborative?
Here are some examples of how different institutions have approached the review process, to bring the appropriate colleagues together and achieve agreement on the statements that best reflects practice.
The digital feature allows you to centrally record responses agreed in your internal leadership review discussion.
You will also have instant access to a summary of your institution's responses, including a visualisation showing a snapshot of your institution’s indicated areas of strengths and priority action areas.
Signposting to support and resources for each theme area is provided to drive continuous improvement. You will also be able to share this visualisation and recommendations for support with colleagues involved in the distributed leadership of careers.
Each time you complete a Careers Impact internal leadership review, you can record your responses and compare with previous reviews to track your progress.
Next Steps
Before undertaking a Careers Impact internal leadership review you can find out more about how to prepare via
You can also read about how it fits within our wider Careers Impact System approach to driving continuous improvement across the system.
Watch the recording of our fifth Careers Excellence Seminar to hear inspiring stories from other practitioners driving impact in their careers provision.
‘Careers is the cornerstone of education, and the internal leadership review showed us how much we haven’t thought about yet.
The maturity model takes a lot of that thinking work away – it enables us to work out where we are and what we need to do next because it’s written down for us – so we can focus on strategy and implementation.’
Senior Leader, May 2024