Secondary school teacher or SLT

Most secondary schools are doing the right things: employer visits, work experience, careers events. The gap is often not in the encounters themselves, but in what surrounds them. Students turn up without knowing what to ask. They leave without a framework for making sense of what they experienced. The moments are valuable but without structured preparation and reflection built around them, some of that value quietly disappears. What looks like a careers programme from the outside can still feel like a collection of disconnected events to the students inside it.

Only 45% of Year 7 learners are career ready. By Year 11 that rises to 67%, but the gap opens early and widens for those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Structured, progressive learning from the start of secondary is what closes it.

Careers Navigator builds the employer knowledge and sector awareness students need before they walk into a session, and the reflection tools to process and record what they took from it afterwards. The result is careers education that feels like a coherent journey rather than a series of calendar entries, and students who get more from every encounter because they arrived ready for it.

• Structured preparation and reflection that wraps around your existing employer encounters and work experience
• Employer-led challenges across 12 sectors building genuine labour market knowledge from Year 7
• Flexible enough to fit into form time, PSHE, careers lessons, or designated curriculum time
• Learner reports and confidence data showing how students are developing across the programme

Ignite XP! Years 7 to 11 |  Ascend XP! sixth form and post-16 | Gatsby Benchmarks