Careers and Development
A Helping Hand and Guide for Parents and Carers
Welcome to our Careers and Development Toolkit.
The toolkit is designed for parents, carers and family members who want to help their children and young people make informed subject and career choices.
The toolkit can be used alongside other toolkits in this series, namely:
Making an Early Start
(Years 7 to 9)
Positive Choices
(Years 10 and 11)
A Leap into the future
(Years 12 and 13)
Guidance for Coaches and Mentors
Each section of the toolkits contains useful tips and strategies, resources, contacts and information to help raise educational and career aspirations. For further information about this toolkit or to ask about other support opportunities please contact info@positivefuturesgroup.org
An introduction video to our toolkit
A HELPING HAND AND GUIDE FOR PARENTS AND CARERS
Most parents want their children to be successful, financially secure and to have a good quality of life.
How we help them to do this is important.
Some parents and carers take complete control of decisions relating to their children’s subject and career choices. This is often based on their own ideas of what is a good job or an ideal life, their life experiences or the desire to prevent their children from making the same mistakes they made.
Other parents prefer to be sounding boards, offering a listening ear without interfering.
Some encourage, signpost and work alongside their children. They learn about each other in the process including their strengths and weaknesses and how those can help the child to develop and thrive.
The question most parents and carers often ask is ‘how do I give my child the best advice and support they need to them make informed choices for the future’?
There is no right or wrong way to doing this.
What we do in this toolkit is to provide you with some tips, tools, resources and links to help you support your children in their subject and career choices.
PRACTICAL THINGS YOU CAN DO TO HELP YOUR CHILDREN
Before we start, please look at Appendix 1. This will help you to understand the different entry requirements.
Appendix 2 also provides further information about the new GCSE grading system.
And you can find out about UCAS’s tariff points to see how many points your child may need in in order to enter the University of their choice.
UCAS has its own calculator here – you can also ask your child to use the drop-down boxes to input their qualifications and grades, and the total will automatically be calculated. There is also a full, in-depth guide to different qualifications here, and from Btecs to the International Baccalaureate.
However, UCAS also advises that not all qualifications attain points, so you shouldn’t worry if yours doesn’t feature in that guide – very few international qualifications are included, for example.
Let’s Get Started
At the end of Year 8, young people would have tested themselves against several subjects and interest areas.
Many will know what they like and do not like, and you will find that they do well in:
- Subjects they are good at - ABILITY
- Subjects which inspire them - INTEREST
- Subjects they want to learn in detail which can help with their career choices - MOTIVATION
What we must not forget is that there are some subjects which are compulsory in secondary school. Maths and English are compulsory from Years 7 to 11.
If your child does not like some of these compulsory subjects, or that they are struggling in those subjects, you can help them by doing some of the following:
- Additional support and guidance at home from parents
- Paid tuition (if this is affordable)
- Encouraging them to work with their peers who do well in those subjects
- Speak to your children’s teachers and ask them for help, explore ways in which you can help them at home, including resources you can use
- Committing extra time at home, using books, links and resources provided by the school and parents.
Practical things you can do to help your child make informed subject and career choices:
- Praise them for their achievements and everything else they do outside of school
- Discuss your own work with your children, tell them what the job involves, good, bad and ugly. Ask other family members including friends to do the same.
- Do some research into those professional areas together. You can also try out some of the career quizzes shared in this toolkit:
- If your child shows interest in a particular profession or career, you can help them by seeking someone from that profession to speak to your child.
- Encourage them to volunteer or find work placements in those professional areas.
- Speak to your child’s school about ways in which you can help your child with their career aspirations.
- Search for job opportunities in those professional areas and discuss it with your child so they can understand the skills, experiences or qualifications needed for these roles.
- Encourage them to attend subject selection days in school. Before doing this, you can sit down with them and run through some of the tips and tools we have provided for children in Years 7 through to Year 13.
- Some employers are very happy to be contacted by young people for advice. Together with your child, research into an organisation, find out who is around to help and contact them.
Once you have a named contact sit down with your child and discuss areas to cover including questions to ask.
- The skills or qualifications required for a particular profession
- How they recruit into the profession
- What they look for when recruiting people
- If there are apprenticeship, volunteering or work placement opportunities
- Progression opportunities open to people in this profession
- The organisation itself and how it supports its employees
- Good aspects of this profession as well as the bad aspects
- How they engage young people
- Their talent and succession strategies
- Things to add to a CV and covering letter
What other areas can you focus on or questions to ask?
- …
- …
- …
Encourage them to attend job and career fairs in school and outside of school so they can talk to employers and ask as many questions as they can. Before visiting a career fair, sit down with your child and discuss some of the questions to ask employers. Why don’t you try it now?
- …
- …
- …
Helping your child with their CV
Some useful tips when helping your child with their CV for that all important work experience placement, volunteering opportunity, internship or apprenticeship.
Tips for writing a CV
- Use a simple business font such as Arial, Calibri, or Verdana
- Ensure you have used the same font and letter size throughout
- Use bold or italics to emphasise text, such as job roles, rather than underlining
- Use bullet points, numbering and dashes to format content
- Ensure new paragraphs, bullet points and headings are all in line with each other and of a consistent style
- Aim for two pages in length; less is okay, more and you risk losing the reader’s interest
- Split your CV into sections and ensure those sections are obvious (e.g. Profile, Work Experience, Education)
- When listing experiences within these sections keep to a reverse chronological order, with your most recent experience/education at the top
- If a hard copy is needed use high quality A4 paper
CV Sections
The following are key sections to include in your CV. Make sure you build relevant content under each section.
Personal details/header: These are standard and required by all employers, but note that you should not include your date of birth, marital status or gender. The essentials to include are your name, address, email address and contact number
Personal profile: This is an optional section of a graduate CV template which can be used to show the employer you are focused and determined to pursue a career in their field. It should appear at the beginning of your CV, be no longer than 2-4 sentences and give an overview of your current situation e.g. “I am looking for work experience/employment in …”
Your education: Write in reverse chronological order, so start with your university degree. This should be a snapshot of you as an academic e.g. your qualifications
Work experience: Include voluntary work and summer placements, extra-curricular activities…
Interests and activities: Write about you as a person, outside of work, hobbies, sports teams, societies/clubs, travel interests
References: Two references usually one academic and the other you’re your school, work experience or priest…
The one thing you can do for your children is giving them the tools they need to make an informed decision. You can do this by:
- Setting a good example for your child, socially, personally and professionally
- Having a strong relationship and communication with them
- Be patient and encouraging
- Allow your child to express their views and opinions and guide them calmy to where necessary.
- Allow your child the time and opportunity to discover what they like, do not like, their strengths and weaknesses.
- Instil a responsible attitude into them, including an attitude of self belief. Let them see their own value and strengths and encourage them not to be self critical.
- Be careful not to dictate the decision-making process, rather support their decisions
- Similarly, do not sway their decisions about their subject or career choices. If the decision making is swayed by your preference, they may end up doing subjects or in a career they do not like. This can only reduce their confidence, they may struggle to achieve good grades or end of not enjoying the profession.
- Focus on offering practical guidance and support, be there when they need you and gently help them to make their own decisions.
- Expose your children to activities which might be of interest and which could inform their subject or career choices.
- Give them space and time to discover what they want to do.
- Ask them to speak to careers coaches and councillors if they are unsure.
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Remember life is about self-discovery and new skills and talents are developed. At age 11, 15 of 18, not many people know the careers they would eventually end up in. We make decisions based on what we know about ourselves at the time.
If you find your child feels under pressure, take some of that pressure off them by assuring them that it is okay to be unsure. What they need to do is to be proactive in finding their own path.
Useful Resources
https://www.myworldofwork.co.uk/my-career-options/choosing-my-subjects
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zmskpg8
https://www.ucas.com/careers/buzz-quiz
Subject Choices tool | My World of Work
https://targetcareers.co.uk/career-sectors
https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/
https://www.truity.com/test/type-finder-careers
Useful Links
Quizlet: (https://quizlet.com/en-gb)-
Seneca Learning : https://senecalearning.com/en-GB/)-
Freesciencelessons on Youtube: (https://youtube.com/c/Freesciencelessons
Physics and Maths Tutor: (https://www.physicsandmathstutor.com/)
Sparknotes: (https://www.sparknotes.com/)
Tutor2u: (https://www.tutor2u.net/
Fast Tomato: (https://www.fasttomato.com/)
Mr Swift History on Youtube: (https://youtube.com/user/TheJonas1917
UCAS Tariff https://www.ucas.com/ucas/tariff-calculator
Pearson career choices: https://www.pearson.com/uk/learners/secondary-students-and-parents/career-choices.html
MI5 careers: https://www.mi5.gov.uk/careers/ssq
Construction careers: https://www.goconstruct.org/learn-about-construction/find-the-role-for-you/ultimate-quiz/
Psychology careers: https://careers.bps.org.uk/
Ucas careers: https://www.ucas.com/careers/buzz-quiz
Skills assessment | National Careers Service
Prospects Career Planner : https://www.prospects.ac.uk/planner
SACU Career Quiz: https://sacu-student.com/?page_id=2850
CITB – Go Construct: https://www.goconstruct.org/
NHS Find your career : https://www.healthcareers.nhs.uk/findyourcareer
Cogent Career Choices: https://www.cogentskills.com/careers/
WISE Campaign (Women into Science & Engineering) –My skills my life, try out the quizz:
https://www.wisecampaign.org.uk/how-to-get-involved/my-skills-my-life/
Appendix 1
Understanding the different entry requirements.
You can also visit for more information: https://careerpilot.org.uk/qualifications
Level 1
GCSEs, NVQs/VQs, awards/certificates/diplomas. Vocational and work-related qualifications may be studied full or part-time inschools and colleges from the age of 14. They are offered at levels 1 to 4 and are usually ‘BTECs’, ‘Cambridge Technical’ or ‘City and Guilds’qualifications. Broad range of subjects on offer eg engineering, artand design,construction, health and social care, business, IT and
leisure. Often course work based however changes mean that somecourses now include exams or practical assessments.
Level 2
Level 3
A levels, T levels, NVQs/VQs, awards/certificates/diplomas
and other qualifications
Level
4 to 6
Level
7 to 8
Foundation Degree
Appendix 2
GCSE Grading System
The numerical grading was phased over four years, starting with the core compulsory subjects – maths and Englis`h GCSEs – in 2017. Most of the main subjects switched over in 2018, including the humanities, sciences and most modern languages. All remaining subjects such as Biblical Hebrew, Persian, Portuguese and Turkish switched to the new grading system in 2020. Explaining the new grades The 9-1 grading scheme was brought in alongside a new GCSE curriculum in England. The highest grade is 9, while 1 is the lowest, not including a U (ungraded). Three number grades – 9, 8 and 7 – correspond to the old-style top grades of A* and A – this is designed to give more differentiation at the top end
