Careers Education

Mrs Sarah Harden is the Careers Manager for Careers and Guidance at The John Wallis Church of England Academy. Mrs Harden co-ordinates Year 10 Work Experience and supports students throughout their time at the Academy, finding the correct career pathway for them. Careers guidance begins in year 7 and is a mixture of employer encounters, visits to colleges and universities, career fairs, 1:1 career guidance interviews and various workshops to support employability skills.

Mrs Harden is a fully qualified career professional and has a wealth of experience within careers.

Careers Resources

Barclay’s Life Skills

There is a wealth of information on; developing a CV, preparing for interviews, how to write a personal statement and a financial skills section.

Barclays Life Skills

Morrisby Career Profiling

The TJWA careers service has a licence to the Morrisby Careers service which if you are undecided about the right career , enables you to answer a carefully crafted questionnaire which looks at your preferences and strengths to make careers suggestions based on your answers. This is a paid for service provided for TJWA students and you can request a password from Mrs Harden at sharden@thejohnwallisacademy.org

iCould 

A very useful site using films and actual experiences  of people working in a career. Films on apprenticeships, etc.

icould.com/focus-on/choices-at-16/

National Careers Service

The National Careers Service provides information, advice and guidance to help you make decisions on learning, training and work opportunities. The service offers confidential and impartial advice. This is supported by qualified careers advisers.

The National Careers Service website aims to

  1. Help you with careers decisions and planning
  2. Support you in reviewing your skills and abilities and develop new goals
  3. Motivate you to implement your plan of action
  4. Enable you to make the best use of high quality career related tools.

National Careers Service

Careers Helpline for Teenagers

Call the National Careers Service helpline for information and advice about jobs, careers and training if you’re 13 or older in England.

National Careers Service helpline

Telephone: 0800 100 900

Text messages: 07766 413 219

Textphone: 0800 096 8336

Monday to Sunday, 8am to 10pm

Contact the UCAS Exam Results Helpline for free advice if you’ve received exams results that weren’t as good as you were expecting. UCAS Exam Results Helpline 0808 100 8000

  • National Insurance Numbers - Change of name or address or have not received National Insurance number or lost it contact HMRC on 0300 2003502

Apprenticeships

If you have a career sector or path in mind and want to start earning and learning an apprenticeship could be for you. You'll do real jobs for real employers; training on the job, working towards an industry-standard qualification.

  1. Start your career and start earning at 16 while you learn -  the current average weekly wage is £100 for 16 year-olds and £170 for 18 and over
  2. Choose from more than 250 careers - from health and social care to management, construction and engineering to banking and media, leisure and tourism
  3. Choose from 3 levels of qualification  - from GCSE and A-Level equivalent up to degree level
  4. Boost your career prospects - 85% of former apprentices remain in employment. 32% are promoted within 12 months
  5. Boost your earning potential - former apprentices can earn on average £100,000 more than other employees during their lifetime
  6. Get the same benefits and discounts as college or university students but avoid the costs of further education

www.apprenticeships.gov.uk

www.kent.gov.uk/jobs/starting-your-career/be-an-apprentice

www.kentjobs.co.uk/apprenticeships.aspx

Job Web Sites:

Kent Messenger

National Jobs Website

Reeds jobs site

Countryside Jobs Service

NHS Jobs

Childcare Jobs

British Army

National jobs web site

Total Jobs

The Monster Jobs website

Fish for Jobs

Application forms

Some employers prefer you to fill in an application form rather than send a CV, particularly for public sector jobs. The main rules are to follow the application instructions, present the information neatly and sell your most relevant skills. Read on to find out how you can make your application form stand out.

Many employers prefer application forms to CVs. Forms are easier to compare because, unlike CVs, they follow the identical format.

If you're filling in an application form, you'll still need to work out the best way to present your skills and experience. This is why completing an application form often takes just as much time and effort as writing a CV and covering letter. However, the more forms you fill in, the quicker you'll get at doing it.

Some jobs ask you to apply online, which you might not have done before. Read the instructions on the form very carefully and follow them. Taking it step by step and using the guides on this site will help you to give it your best shot.

Online application forms

If the form is online, draft your application offline first – in a word processing package like Word – and save it to your computer. This way you'll be able to run a spell check before you copy the information into the online system. It also means you'll have a back-up if there's a problem with the form.

More and more sites offer the option of storing your application online and coming back to it. If you do this in more than one sitting, keep a record of any usernames and passwords so that you can get back in.

Online forms can be longer and more complicated than paper forms – follow the instructions carefully and check how many screens you have to fill in before you can submit your application. Some employers will ask for a ‘personal statement‘.

If necessary, copy all the questions into an offline document – that way there’s no danger of submitting an incomplete application.

Paper application forms

If you are filling in a form by hand, write as neatly as you can in black ink. Use block capital letters if the form asks you to do so.