This article is intended for schools and colleges
As part of the 2024 Gatsby benchmarks update, greater emphasis was placed on parental engagement. This included both providing parents with good information about the career pathways available to their children as well as practical ways parents can use this information. If you're interested in parent-specific resources that cover both of these criteria, read on to find out how we could help you.
The Parents' Guide to helps parents support their teens through years 10-13 by providing guidance on post school options and teenage wellbeing. Parents can access our resources directly through our website. Many schools like to share our guides with their parents (rather than parents buying their own individual copies). Our school membership programme includes a licence for this. School membership is designed to make your life easier throughout the academic year, by having a range of up-to-date, reliable resources to answer parent questions and show them how to support their teens at home.
Membership also supports schools in meeting school inspection criteria and Gatsby Benchmarks. In this article, we explain how, referring to extracts from: Gatsby Good Career Guidance, The Next 10 Years, Nov 2024.
Introduction
As part of the 2024 Gatsby benchmarks update, greater emphasis was placed on parental engagement:
“Updates embed parent and carer engagement into planning and specify the need to share information with parents and carers and support them to use it with their children”.
With membership, you'll have access to our specialist guides written specifically for parents, personalized with your school logo
Updated every year, they contain information about career pathways for teenagers and include actionable steps parents can take at home so they feel confident in having meaningful conversations about careers with their children
We'll include reminders of good times to share these resources with your parents so they get the right type of information when it's most useful to them
Benchmark 1 : A stable careers programme
Engagement of parents and carers is now included in Benchmark 1
“We have added a new criterion that careers programmes should set out how parents and carers will be engaged throughout … In practice this means ensuring parents and carers use and understand good-quality, up-to-date information about all the pathways available, what different education routes and qualifications involve and where they can lead”
Our guides include information on the pathways available after GCSE and sixth form
We guide parents on which qualifications are needed to embark on each pathway, what to do if their teen doesn’t have the qualifications they need, where each pathway can lead, and why different qualifications may suit some students more than others
Our guides are updated each year to ensure content includes the latest information and is relevant
We offer member schools an annual calendar to support them in sharing information with parents at timely intervals throughout the academic year
“Throughout the framework we emphasise the importance of not only sharing information about education and careers options with parents and carers, but also supporting them to access and use it in conversations with their children.”
All our guides include actionable steps parents can take at home to support their teen. This includes:
Step-by-step advice on how to start conversations
Examples of types of questions they can ask their teen to help them make the right decisions
Where they should intervene and where they should step back
What to do at home to give their children the best opportunity of success
Benchmark 2: Learning from career and labour market information
“All pupils, parents and carers, teachers and staff who support pupils should have access to good-quality, up-to-date information about future pathways … We have added that parents and carers should be encouraged and supported to access and use information about careers to support their children”
Our guides are updated each year to ensure the information we provide is relevant and current. To support parents in using our resources:
We provide twice termly live video calls with parents so they can talk through aspects of career pathways and ask us any questions they may have
We provide members schools with a monthly newsletter, highlighting key messages to share with parents throughout the academic year, aligned with school and national events (i.e. Exams, National Careers Week, National Apprenticeship Week, Green Careers Week, UCAS application timetable, future subject choices, work experience week)
Member schools can access our online calendar with key events and recommendations of good times to share our resources with their parents
Parents can join our parent club with fortnightly email updates
Our social media channels offer bitesize information aligned with our overall messaging so parents have greater choice in how they receive information
Benchmark 7: Encounters with further and higher education
“Research shows that there can also be misconceptions about certain pathways, so institutions may need to make more effort gathering information and encouraging encounters with providers that are less well understood … for example, uptake of apprenticeships is 16% higher in schools that provide information on apprenticeships to most or all pupils, compared with schools who provide information to only a minority”
We provide dedicated guides for all available options after GCSE and sixth form (The Parents’ Guide to Post 16 Options and The Parents’ Guide to Post 18 Options)
We provide specialist guides on T Levels, apprenticeships and university
Our guides include advice for parents on how different qualifications can suit different types of learners and how where their children study can influence outcomes
Benchmark 8: Personal Guidance
"Benchmark 8 has been updated to state that information about personal guidance support and how to access it should be communicated to young people and parents and carers, including through the institution’s website."
As a member school, you can share our specialist parent guides, personalized with your school logo, directly on your website so parents can access the information from anywhere at any time
You can share the whole guide or extracts from it, in any way you feel useful for parents
Overview: Parent engagement goes beyond just sharing information, it equips parents to have informed career conversations
“Although a considerable amount of information is shared with parents and carers, they are not always supported to make best use of it or to get involved in the opportunities offered. Parent and carer engagement goes beyond just sharing information. It equips parents and carers to have informed careers conversations and ensures they can better support their child’s career decisions”.
Our guides don't just give information—we offer step-by-step actions, including practical ways to start discussions and what parents can do at home to support their teens with their studies
We also include The Parents’ Guide to Standing Out, detailing how hobbies, interests and co-curricular activities help develop skills and experience and why that's useful in future interviews
"Parents remain one of the biggest influences on many young people’s career decisions"
The Parents' Guide to helps parents recognize their influence, providing them with tools and guidance so they feel comfortable having meaningful career conversations with their children. Our information is up-to-date and easy to understand, with plenty of suggestions on different ways parents can talk to their teens about the future.
School membership enables participating schools access to a range of dedicated parent resources which you can share with your parents at no cost to them. Membership is available for KS4, KS5 or whole school.
Want to know more?
Join us for a two-minute tour of membership and see if it can help you - click here
Alternatively, if you 'd prefer to chat, arrange a 15 minute discovery call with us.
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