"Careers guidance and planning for the future are admirable." ... "Transition arrangements are carefully planned and appropriate." - Ofsted 2019

This section of the website is intended for pupils, parents/carers, teachers and employers, who are interested in learning more about our careers education programme and the personal development it offers. 

Vision statement

Our careers education programme aims to develop and prepare our pupils to make important choices around their intended futures, as they aspire to fulfilling and economically active lives as adults.   Our intention is pupils and parents should be supported to investigate all potential available options, at various stages in school life.

Key careers staff

• Our designated Careers Leader is Debra Waterfield and she can be contacted on 01442 256915.
• The Senior Leadership team member responsible for Careers is Scott Martin, Deputy Head Teacher.
• The Trustee with responsibility for careers is Alan Clarke.

Summary

Parents and carers play a very significant role in helping pupils to make informed choices about both their further study options, and potential future careers. We encourage discussion and input around individual aspirations. We recommend that all parents attend both parents evenings and EHCP meetings, where each child’s future will be discussed. We are immensely proud of our bespoke enabling approach and work hard to ensure we support each pupil to secure their chosen pathway.

The school has met – and continues to meet - the requirements of the eight Gatsby Benchmarks and complies with the Department for Education's Statutory Guidance. 

In addition, we successfully met all the requirements for the Quality In Careers Standard in December 2018 and was renewed in June 2022.  This standard is the national quality award for careers education, information, advice and guidance in schools, colleges and work-based learning. The trustees and senior leaders of the James Marks Academy Trust are committed to retaining this standard, as it ‘quality assures’ all aspects of our careers programme; including what our own staff deliver and the external professionals and organisations we work with (see below for more details).   

Our careers provision in context

Outcomes for disabled people in the UK: 2020 (published by the Office for National Statistics)

• The table and graph below show that disabled people with autism were among those disabled people with the lowest employment rate. 

• For all countries in the UK and across all English regions, disabled people had significantly lower employment rates than non-disabled people.

• The highest employment rates for disabled and non-disabled people in English regions were seen in the South East (60.2% disabled people, 83.7% non-disabled people).

With employment rates significantly lower for autistic people than those with other disabilities, preparing our pupils for the world of work is critical. We want our pupils to try a workplace in a supported capacity, so they are able to recognise that one day they can and will be successful, economically active adults. 

We are predominately a KS4 provision (primarily years 10 and 11) so our key activities and employment opportunities are therefore focused around these year groups.

We promote equality of opportunity at all times. 

Who we work with

The following are some of the external organisations which support our careers education programme:

HOP

We are using the Hertfordshire Opportunities Portal and would encourage all pupils, parents, carers and teachers to use this portal as a one-stop shop for a variety of up to date information about the Hertfordshire jobs market. This should provide both inspiration and information around the wide variety of careers on offer in the locality including current live job and apprenticeship vacancies.

Our Careers activity plan

We deliver a flexible careers education plan, which is individually tailored to meet the needs of our pupils, and this is reviewed on an annual basis. We use the CDI's Career Development Framework and the Hertfordshire Skills Framework.  We have a dedicated careers room where there are visual displays and prospectuses.

The key activities scheduled currently are:

Employer engagement

As statistics prove, employment prospects for the cohort we serve, are still limited; we want to be an instrument of change, as we recognise the diverse range of talents our pupils have. For this reason, we have formed strong working relationships with local employers, some of which were first established many years ago, so our pupils can access the world of work. 

We would still welcome further support from any employer however, as it is our intention, to get to a position where we can send all our pupils to work placements for a couple of hours every week, so they are able to benefit fully from this incredibly valuable opportunity.

Destinations data and alumni

We keep destinations data, but have chosen not to publish this due to our small pupil numbers, as the consequence of this is the difficulty in anonymising the data.

What we can say without fear of contradiction is that according to a study around sustaining Post-16 destinations from Alternative Provision settings (published in January 2022), by Andrew Malcolm who is a Lecturer in Applied Social studies at the University of Bedfordshire, Roman Fields sits in the best practice category recognised as ‘high performing’ and is often quoted. For those interested in exploring this document further, Roman Fields is listed in it as 'HP3'.

We are proud of our alumni and what they have achieved. We have many case studies in school, detailing those who have gone onto colleges, apprenticeships, universities and more general workplaces.  We have a school Instagram account so that current and past pupils and parents can easily keep in touch with us.  It is a private group called JMATRF11.

Careerometer

Please use the widget to research careers and labour market information. 

Provider Access statement for Roman Fields and Forest House Education Centre (part of the James Marks Academy Trust) 

This has been updated to include the Provider Access Legislation, January 2023

This policy statement sets out the trust’s arrangements for managing the access of providers to the schools for the purpose of giving pupils information about the provider’s education or training offer. This complies with the trust’s legal obligations under Section 42B of the Education Act 1997.

Aims

The trust’s policy for access to other education and training providers has the following aims:

• To develop the knowledge and awareness of our pupils of all career pathways available to them, including technical qualifications and apprenticeships;

• To support young people to be able to learn more about opportunities for education and training outside of school before making crucial choices about their future options;

• To reduce drop out from courses and avoid the risk of pupils becoming NEET (young people not in education, employment or training).

Pupil Entitlement

All pupils in years 8 to 13 are entitled:

• To find out about technical education qualifications and apprenticeship opportunities, as part of a careers programme which provides information on the full range of education and training options available at each transition point;

• To hear from a range of local providers about the opportunities they offer, including technical education and apprenticeships;

• To understand how to make applications for the full range of academic and technical courses.

For pupils of compulsory school age, the trust offers six provider encounters, as required by law, and a number of additional events, integrated into the school careers programme. These encounters are mandatory and there will be a minimum of two encounters for pupils:

• During the ‘first key phase’ (year 8 to 9);

• During the ‘second key phase’ (year 10 to 11).

For pupils in the ‘third key phase’ (year 12 to 13), particularly those that have not yet decided on their next steps, there are two more provider encounters available during this period, which are optional for pupils to attend.

These provider encounters will be scheduled during the main school hours of the trust and the provider will be given a reasonable amount of time to, as a minimum:

• Share information about both the provider and the approved technical education qualification and apprenticeships that the provider offers;

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• Explain what career routes those options could lead to;

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• Provide insights into what it might be like to learn or train with that provider (including the opportunity to meet staff and pupils from the provider) and answer questions from pupils.

Pupils may also travel to visit another provider as part of a school-organised trip.

Meaningful Provider Encounters

One encounter is defined as one meeting/session between pupils and one provider.

We are committed to providing meaningful encounters to all pupils. Meaningful online engagement is also an option, and we are open to providers that are able to provide live online engagement with our pupils. The trust will make the training room, classrooms or other rooms available for discussions between the provider and pupils, as appropriate to the activity. The school will also make available AV and other specialist equipment to support provider presentations. This will all be discussed and agreed in advance of the visit with the Careers Leader.

Previous Providers

We have regularly invited the following providers from the local area to speak to our pupils:

• Ask Apprenticeships
• Colleges including Oaklands, Springboard (part of North Herts College) and West Herts College;

• Jobs Centre Plus for Schools.

Destinations of our pupils

Our year 11 pupils move to a range of providers in the local area after

school:

• Apprenticeship providers
• Colleges (Bucks College Group, Capel, Oaklands, Springboard, West Herts College, apprenticeships, other specialist school provision).
• 6th Forms (Longdean and Parmiter's)
• Our year 13 pupils have typically moved to universities or set up a business. 

Development

This statement has been developed and is reviewed annually by the Careers Leader and Line Manager (Scott Martin, Deputy Head Teacher) based on current good practice guidelines by the Department for Education.

Links with other policies

This statement supports and is underpinned by key school policies including those for Careers, Child Protection, Equality and Diversity, and SEND.

Equality and Diversity

Access to other providers is available and promoted to allow all pupils to access information about other providers of further education and apprenticeships. The James Marks Academy Trust is committed to encouraging all pupils to make decisions about their future based on impartial information.

Management of provider access requests

A provider wishing to request access should contact Debra Waterfield, Careers and Transition Lead, by telephone on 01442 256915 or by email, debra.waterfield@romanfields.herts.sch.uk

Complaints

Any complaints with regards to provider access can be raised following the school complaints procedure or directly with The Careers & Enterprise Company via provideraccess@careersandenterprise.co.uk

Finding out further information:

Careers and Transition Stakeholder Feedback

Please complete this survey

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/6H7KR7Y

Reviewed in November 2023 - review annually