WHY and HOW Careers Leaders Collect Intended Destinations.
Get this resource
WHY Collect Intended Destinations
“We track intended destinations to ensure all pupils have a September guarantee, but also to ensure realistic destinations and support needs are covered.”
Collecting and analysing intended destinations allows Careers Leaders to:
- Support students and key stakeholders to understand all pathways.
- Support students at risk of NEET.
- Support students to pursue the BEST next step for them.
- Support students to make a successful transition.
- Inform continuous improvement and impact evaluation.
HOW to Collect Intended Destinations
Careers Leaders use a range of methods and approaches to collect intended destinations
“We not only ask students for their intended destination, but we also capture whether they feel they require further support and where they have applied. This then informs us further as to who should be priority for a 1:1 appointment. SLT like to physically meet with Year 11 several times throughout the year to discuss their intentions. They keep a record of these interviews on a spreadsheet that also contains subject data and suitability for our 6th form which is RAG rated by the Head of Year”
Example approaches Careers Leaders use to collect intended destination data via:
- Tutor 1:1s or via pastoral/tutorial systems (google forms, templates etc)
- 1:1 Careers Guidance interviews
- SLT interviews and support
- Parents Evenings
- Parent/carer engagement
- Shared spreadsheet trackers with input from tutors, pastoral teams, heads of year, careers adviser, SENCO, etc.
“Via 1:1 appointments we identify pupils who may be in need of additional support and guidance. Sometimes we may invite a parent/carer to attend a meeting to have a more supportive meeting to ensure pathways are correct for the young person”
“Students are asked to complete google forms to indicate their intended destinations at the start of Y11 and 13. After Christmas we send out a paper form to gain permission to track their destinations/contact over the next 3 years, and again a completion of google form just before exams.
This allows us to see any disparities with what students are telling us from one term to the next, identify any students who do not have a clear pathway, recognise any shortfalls in our provision, identify lack of aspirations and to provide interventions”
“We have a new system in place this year as we are setting up Grofar to track our careers activity. The planned system will be that careers action plans will be added to Grofar once the interview has taken place. This will then be imported into Compass+. Any updates form EHCP reviews, Preparing for Adulthood Meetings, careers activities, conversations are sent to me as Careers Lead and I enter them into Compass+. If information is available to update the destinations section of the individual pupil profile I add that. Staff in school will add careers activities/conversations to our school tracking tool -CPOMS and we have a Careers tab they can tick which then send that information through to me.”
Using Compass+ to record and report on Intended Destinations
Improve your careers provision with Compass+
With our free Compass+ digital tool you can benchmark, manage, track and report on your Academy’s careers provision at individual student level.
Once populated with student data, Compass+ provides great features that assist you to:
- track individual students’ careers interests and intended destinations
- track individual students’ actual destinations
- plan and track careers activities for individual students and link you to resources which will help with this process
- assess your careers provision against the Gatsby Benchmarks
- download key information into reports, for the following purposes:
- for analysis and reporting within your school
- to provide data to local authorities to support you in your statutory duty to record the intended destinations of 16-year olds
- to provide systematic records to each student of the individual advice given to them as recommended in the Gatsby Benchmarks.
More than 2,000 secondary schools, academies, special schools, sixth forms and PRUs across England have now upgraded and are using Compass+ to improve their careers provision.
Find out more about Compass+ and how to onboard here.
“Compass+ has replaced all our previous provision mapping, maintaining spreadsheets and has revolutionised my work.
Paula Davidson, Careers Practitioner, North Lincolnshire