Operational Plan

Support young people and adults to make positive transitions into education, employment or training, including apprenticeships and understand the skills required to succeed in the labour market and contribute to the future economy of Wales.

Key Stage 3 (Years 8 and 9)

Young people in Year 8 and 9 will begin their career journey when they choose their option subjects. Group sessions will be offered to all mainstream and special schools and can be delivered face to face, digitally or shared via school platforms. All schools will be offered one session for the whole year group.

Topics include:

• Decision Making
• Challenging Gender Stereotyping
• Windows of Opportunity
• Bilingual skills in the workplace - highlighting the benefits of Welsh language skills for the workplace

Short Guidance and coaching interviews will be offered to young people who self-refer.

Key Stage 4

There will be 4 levels of support for pupils in KS 4. In Year 11 the breakdown will be:

• Universal Support
• Career Check Support
• Targeted Support (See Strategic Outcome 2)
• Additional Learning Needs (ALN) support (See Strategic Outcome 2)

Young people will be made aware of all their options at Post 16; they will be introduced to the ever-evolving world of work as well as the skills that are in demand, including bilingual skills.

In Years 10 and 11 the aim is to support young people to make informed and effective decisions through the offer of:

• Group sessions in Year 10 with a focus on Labour Market Information as a precursor to the Career Check survey sessions (not all Career Check completion will be facilitated in a face-to-face group work session)
• Group sessions in Year 11 with a focus raising awareness of Post 16 options and decision-making

Career Check Support

Guidance and coaching interviews will be offered to young people who are identified through Career Check as requiring one-to-one support.

These could include young people who are:

• Unfocussed
• Seeking an apprenticeship
• Talented but underachieving
• Labour market entrants
• Lacking in confidence or motivation to make things happen
• Unrealistic

Universal Support

Approximately 28%¹  of the Year 11 cohort will be offered the universal offer of group work, attendance at employer engagement events and information via digital format.

All Year 11 young people will be contacted by their Careers Adviser as part of the case loading model.

Transition Support for Young People Seeking Work-Based Learning (WBL)

Targeted 1-1 interviews during the Easter Term for young people seeking to enter work or training after Year 11, culminating in the completion of Assessment and Referral Reports (ARRs) for the Jobs Growth Wales+ programme or support with finding work

Careers Advisers will refer young people who are planning to transition into Further Education (FE) but who may need additional support to maintain engagement to the ‘Get Ready’ element of the Engagement strand of the Jobs Growth Wales+ programme. This replaces the Summer Sorted programme and is now open to young people in Year 12 – 13 and those in FE who need support to maintain engagement over the summer period programme

Young people seeking employment or self-employment opportunities directly after leaving Year 11 will be supported by Working Wales advisers. Referrals to WW advisers will be undertaken during the Summer Term.

Post-16 Education – Young People in Year 12 and 13

• Careers Advisers will continue to support young people in Year 12 and Year 13
• One group session per 6th Form
• Guidance and coaching interviews for those requesting support either through self-referral or referral by school and those young people identified as Tier 4
• The ‘Get Ready’ element of the Engagement strand of the Jobs Growth Wales+ programme is now open to young people in Year 12 – 13 (this replaces the Summer Sorted programme). Advisers will refer young people who are planning to transition into FE but who may need additional support to maintain engagement

Post-16 Education – Young People in Further Education (FE)

The offer of a blended model of support to students in FE colleges. This will include:

• Follow up of young people identified as Tier 4 by an adviser
• Follow up of young people with ALN who transition onto mainstream courses in FE
• Attending college events around the 3 campaigns - Freshers week, Stop Don’t drop and Moving on Moving Up
• The ‘Get Ready’ element of the Engagement strand of the Jobs Growth Wales+ programme is now open to young people in FE (this replaces the Summer Sorted programme). Advisers will refer young people who are planning to transition into FE but who may need additional support to maintain engagement
• As part of the partnership agreement with colleges a bespoke offer for each campus will be negotiated that will encourage collaborative working with Student support services and complement the digital offer

Digital and Communications

A pilot will take place which looks to expand Connect’s first point of contact digital employability support via digital group sessions.

New LMI videos for the website will be designed covering the current and future world of work (WOW), how technology impacts on the WOW and skills employers want with supporting resources to be used in group sessions in schools

A range of impactful marketing and communications activities will be designed and delivered which for SYP will be at key transition stages in the year aimed at young people, parents, teachers, employers, partners. Working Wales campaigns will support those 16+ to succeed in the labour market through the variety of programmes and services available. Corporate campaigns (those that run across all customer groups) will include key themes such as LMI and Welsh language skills etc.

Creation of Phase 2 of About Jobs for ALN customers (20 videos)

Enhancement of products on the website which help to inform customer’s decision-making and opportunity awareness:

• Expand Course Search database to include FE Full Time courses and tag all Personal Learning Account (PLA) courses in the portal
• Enhance Support Finder to include an admin system, access point for professionals to search, inclusion of RSP and local support finder provision and a log-in for customers
• Develop phase 2 of CMQ adding in new features e.g., saving specific job titles to profile, adding personality types to the results as well as developing an ALN version of the quiz
• Develop Buzz Quiz to add a log-in facility so results can be saved and edited within customer profile as well as incorporating subject areas/job titles and industries to each personality
• Develop further phases of Future Jobs Wales to provide regional Labour Market Information (LMI) in line with the Regional Skills Partnerships (RSP’s) priorities as detailed in their employability and skills plans as well as adding further sectors that are economically important to Wales
• Develop a Job Search application. Live opportunities will be made available to customers sourced from the DWP’s Find a Job service and vacancies stored in Atlas

Evaluation

‘Bilingual skills in the workplace’ group sessions have been delivered during the 2022-23 academic year. This crosses both the 2022-23 and 2023-24 business years. These will be evaluated at the end of the 2022-23 academic year and offered to all schools as part of the wider offer.

2023-24 will see the continuation of the longitudinal tracking exercise which will follow a selected group of 400 young people from the four levels of support through their career planning journey over the course of Brighter Futures to better understand the impact of Careers Wales work on young people’s career outcomes.

Young people in Year 11 will continue to be surveyed after their first guidance interaction to seek their views on the quality of their interview and the impact they felt it had on their Career Management Skills.

Key Performance Indicator

95% of pupils who receive a guidance and coaching service enter education, employment or training on leaving school.

¹ The 2022-23 academic year saw an increase in the number of universal support pupils self-referring for a career guidance interview.

Customers who have benefitted from enhanced levels of support make positive transitions into appropriate provision.

Targeted Group Support

Targeted Group support will provide young people who may be under-represented in EET with additional Careers Adviser time.

Targeted support will be offered based on individual characteristics:

• Free school meals
• Looked After Children
• EOTAS (PRU and Alternative curriculum)
• At Risk of becoming NEET
• Young Carers
• School Action +
• Poor Attenders
• English for speakers of other languages (ESOL)

It is estimated that the above groups will represent approximately 30% of the cohort. Careers Advisers will complete an assessment of need for each young person that will indicate the level of support required. It is estimated that around 25% of the cohort will need a High-level of support. Young people identified as requiring High level support will be provided with x3 additional one-to-one support by their adviser.

Careers Wales will measure the distance travelled by these young people by completing the assessment tool and by asking the young person to reflect on their guidance needs. This will be facilitated three times during the year (beginning, end of year and beginning of Post-16 EET).

Education Other Than at School (EOTAS)

Analysis of destination data shows that young people accessing EOTAS provision are more likely to become NEET (Tier 2 and 3). Additional support will be provided for EOTAS young people, involving earlier intervention in Year 10 and transition support during Year 11.

Home Educated (EHE)

Guidance and coaching support will be offered to all known young people who are educated at home:

• 70% of the ones we know about will have the offer of two guidance and coaching interviews
• Agree a service level agreement with every Local Authority

Additional Learning Needs (ALN) Support

The ALN Model will deliver support to young people who have moved to the ALNET support as well as those who remain under the old special educational needs (SEN) system.

ALN customers will continue to receive:

• Impartial guidance and coaching support
• Attendance at transition reviews for young people with IDPs, with priority given to young people entering the labour market
• Delivery of group sessions
• Attendance at parent events
• Support to Local Authorities in implementing Transition support

Key Stage 3

Key stage 3 pupils will receive support through:

• Attendance at Year 9 transition review
• Guidance interview for 90% of ALN young people

Key Stage 4

Key stage 4 pupils will receive support through:

• Attendance at 50% of transition reviews (prioritising leavers)
• Attendance at 80% of transition reviews
• Interviews with 60% of Year 10
• Interviews with 90% of Year 11
• One group session in special schools

Key Stage 5

Key stage 5 pupils will receive support through:

• Attendance at 90% of Year 12 reviews
• Attendance at 75% of year 13 reviews
• Two Interviews offered to all before end of time at school
• Two group works in special schools

Further Education (FE)

Students in further education will receive support through:

• Contact with all students during first year to check on progress
• Interviews with 90% of students in final year of discreet provision
• Transition support provided for those entering the labour market – ensuring warm handover to Working Wales advisers

Young people 16-17 in the labour market (NEETs)

Responsibility for the provision of support for Tier 3 customers (Unemployed 16 and 17-year-olds who are NEET but actively seeking EET) sits with Careers/Working Wales. Support is also offered to those Tier 1 (Young people whose whereabouts have become Unknown) and Tier 2 customers (Unemployed 16 and 17-year-olds, who are not available or unable to access EET) referred to us by the Youth Service or other agency nominated by the local authority Engagement and Progression Coordinator. The offer for young people in the labour market is aimed at supporting them to make informed and effective decisions in order to find appropriate learning, training or employment and will include a range of employability support options including:

• Vacancy Bulletins
• Support with job-search and applications
• Advocacy and liaison with relevant partners to ensure smooth transitions
• Referral to appropriate provision

Employability coaches will provide those 16+ with job search, CV and other support at first point of contact either digitally via our Careers Wales Connect service or in-person at careers centres and Job Centres.

Supporting Young People in the Secure Estates

Careers Wales will continue to work with Youth Justice Board and Welsh Government (WG) to support young people who are placed in secure estates by:

• Supporting them whilst they are in the secure estate to agree a plan for their release and to ensure successful progression
• Making contact with the young person or their Youth Justice (YJ) worker within 10 days of the notification of release
• Offering a blend of support incorporating group sessions, interviews, signposting and referral to appropriate employment, education or training

Evaluation

The result of an in-depth evaluation of the Targeted Group Support that took place in 2022-23 will become available and enable a better understand of how effectively the programme was delivered in Year 1 and its impact on the outcomes achieved by the young people who received the service. This will be used to inform the continuous improvement of the programme.

2023-24 will see the continuation of the longitudinal tracking exercise which will follow a selected group of 400 young people from the four levels of support through their career planning journey over the course of Brighter Futures to better understand the impact of Careers Wales work on young people’s career outcomes.

Key Performance Indicator

85% of young people who receive targeted support enter EET on leaving school.

Raise customer awareness of EET and other progression opportunities.

Opportunity Awareness is a key skill for effective career planning and is a feature of one-to-one guidance and coaching interviews, group sessions and employer events.

Many of the Digital and Communications developments outlined under Strategic Outcome 1 are designed to raise customer awareness of EET and other progression opportunities.

Evaluation

As part of their post-interview survey young people will continue to be asked the extent to which they feel their interview raised their awareness of EET and other progression opportunities.

Awareness of opportunities and LMI as a theme will be key features of the revised observation monitoring framework for employees’ work with customers.

Key Performance Indicator

90% of young people in education report raised awareness of opportunities.

Improve access to the benefits of careers guidance and coaching support through collaboration and engagement with partners and influencers.

Partnership Agreement

Partnership Agreement will continue to be negotiated with all mainstream schools, special schools and FE colleges as well as Pupil referral units (PRUs).

Work with Parents/Carers

Parent strategy will continue to be delivered to achieve its 4 goals:

• Engage parents/carers earlier on in their child’s academic life
• Engage with parents/carers in targeted groups as set out in Brighter Futures
• Improve reach to all parents/carers, particularly via digital means
• Better engage parents/carers in influencing and shaping the development of our services

This will be achieved through:

• Attending parent/carer evenings in schools
• Attending transition events with Year 6 parents/carers
• Connect with parents/carers of young people in the Targeted Groups to follow up actions
• Invite parents/carers to Career Fairs and events
• Engage with parents/carers through community groups via our Working Wales teams
• Develop communication material that can be shared with school governors
• Continue to develop our Parent section on the website
• Exploration of the possibility of delivering a virtual regional Careers Wales parent evening/event

Evaluation

Parent/carer feedback is gathered following events and interactions and features amongst the company performance indicators.

Key Performance Indicator

Partnership Agreements with 100% of partner organisations that enable improved access to the benefits of careers guidance and coaching.

Inform and motivate young people about the world of work through engagement with employers and role models.

Primary Schools – Introduction to CWRE

‘Career Discovery’ - a package of resources (employer videos and tasks or activities set by employers) that can be accessed at any time, launched first week of February (rebranded from Career Discovery Week (CDW).

Continue to explore ways to support primary school learners with careers related digital content. This will include the repackaging of CDW employer videos and a series of videos to supplement our ‘Careers City’ resource.

Secondary Schools

‘Career Discovery’ - a package of resources (employer videos and tasks or activities set by employers) that can be accessed at any time, launched first week of July (rebranded from Career Discovery Week).

All schools will be offered up to five employer engagement activities across KS3 and KS4 including multiple employer events (including speed networking, world of work / carousel days) and single employer events (including presentations, site visits). The menu will include a mix of face to face and digital approaches to accommodate school demand.

Facilitation of large-scale careers fairs, including regional ‘Choose Your Future’ events aimed at learners from Year 9 onwards, regional ‘What Next’ events for learners with ALN and a pan Wales ‘Welsh in the Workplace’ event to promote the value of bilingualism in the workplace for Welsh medium learners. These events will continue to be delivered on a face-to-face basis following the successful return to this format in 2022/23.

Expansion of the Alumni Project with the aim of Business Engagement Advisers supporting a minimum of one school each, not including those involved in the 2022/23 project, to develop an alumni community and to use alumni in employer related events.

Further support for the Valued Partner Initiative in schools. This initiative seeks to formalise relationships between schools and key local employers, via direct support from Business Engagement Advisers through termly meetings etc, so that the partnerships can become sustainable. Aim to increase the number of partnerships from 75 to 100 during 2023/24.

Further promotion of the six digital ‘packages’ based on the AoLEs in Curriculum for Wales developed during the pandemic, with a formal review in 2024-25.

Continuation of Tailored Work Experience (TWE) placements as part of the Renew and Reform action plan, delivering 250 placements during 2023/24.

Deliver key elements of Big Ideas Wales work including the promotion of entrepreneurship in primary schools and the facilitation of workshops in secondary schools by entrepreneurial role models.  

Special schools / Pupil Referral Unit (PRUs)

Bespoke employer engagement support to all special schools and PRUs. The offer will include an average of two employer events per setting which will enable them to better meet the needs of learners.

Support for employers

A live Valued Partner Awards ceremony in the Autumn Term. 

Promotion of the webpages aimed at helping employers to understand their potential role in supporting learners in education in line with Curriculum for Wales that was launched in January 2023.

The Education Business Exchange (EBE) will continue to be made available to schools during 2023/24 as an option to support education business work (although not a requirement to use EBE to engage with our services). Schools will be asked to ensure that if they use EBE, any requests are co-ordinated in line with curriculum planning to manage demand.

Digital and Communications

Develop further phases of CareersCraft and new VR resources to raise young people's awareness of the world of work.

Evaluation

Stakeholder Services events are evaluated for customer satisfaction and impact on career planning through the year.

Key Performance Indicator

CW facilitates at least one employer engagement event in 95% of secondary schools in Wales.

Raise young people’s awareness of the skills required by economic priority sectors and how they link to the curriculum.

The actions lined out under Strategic Outcome 5 also apply to Strategic Outcome 6.

Evaluation

Stakeholder Services events are evaluated for customer satisfaction and impact on career planning through the year.

Key Performance Indicator

80% of customers reported that they have a raised awareness of the skills required by economic priority sectors.

Enhance the capacity of schools and Careers Leaders to deliver careers and work-related experiences (CWRE) within the Curriculum for Wales.

CWRE Co-ordinators will continue to offer secondary schools, special schools, PRUs and FEIs a bespoke consultancy and training service. This includes use of the CWRE toolkit to support the design, implementation and evaluation of CWRE programmes. The toolkit will be reviewed during the business year having been published in January 2022.

CWRE Co-ordinators will continue to develop and roll-out a revised Professional Learning offer. The offer will be available for teachers across the 3-16 age range and will be linked directly to the new curriculum and CWRE statutory guidance. Careers Wales will work with a range of partners to support the development of professional learning including regional consortia.

The offer will include:

• The publication of Hwb playlists
• Live sessions via Microsoft Teams
• Clinics
• Regional forums for Careers Leaders
• Video tutorials
• A new national cohort of teachers on the National Academy for Educational Leadership (NAEL) endorsed Level 6 Certificate in Careers Leadership
• Non-accredited versions of the Certificate in Careers Leadership for colleagues in primary and secondary settings

Careers Wales CWRE resources promoted through the Careers Wales section of Hwb will be revised during 2023/24 in line with a Welsh Government review of resources, and further content added, most notably through structured case studies.

Explore the development of a ‘Career Champions’ pilot by developing a framework that schools can follow. This will support the engagement of learners in the design and development of CWRE programmes in schools.

Consult with practitioners on a draft Careers Wales Quality Award with the aim of starting a pilot of the award with 30 settings from September 2023. This will include 16 secondary schools, 8 primary schools, 4 special schools and 2 PRUs.

The former Careers Wales Mark has been rebranded as ‘The Careers Development Award’ for use in further education institutions (FEIs). This will continue to be promoted in 2023/24 until a potential review in line with Commission for Tertiary Education and Research (CTER) developments.

Within the Big Ideas Wales project, there is an allocation of funding for 2023/24 to support development work which will include entrepreneurship resources and professional learning for teachers. This work will be led by a designated Project Manager but will have clear links with the work of CWRE Co-ordinators beyond the business year.

Digital and Communications

Develop a facility for schools to upload their criteria for the Careers Award.

Further develop the education and teaching professionals’ section of the website to support professionals deliver CWRE element of the curriculum.

Evaluation

All teachers who participate in consultancy and training are surveyed pre-session and post-session to measure the impact of the session on their ability to deliver improved CWRE sessions in their schools.

Key Performance Indicator

Training or consultancy support to improve CWRE programmes is delivered to teachers in 70% of the secondary schools in Wales.

Deliver personalised, customer-centred services, enhanced by technology, responsive to user needs and accessible to all.

In 2023-24 Careers will:

• Expand A365 contact channels to include What’s App and an integrated chat facility and pilot other new ways of working that enhance the digital offer.
• Develop campaign dashboards to track customer journeys through to guidance interview to enable greater responsiveness to user needs.
• Embed product development technical standards which improve consistency across all products as well as automate testing which increases the efficiency and robustness of products meeting user requirements.
• Carry out the discovery phase of an enterprise search for the website which will give customers a wider and more personalised response to their website search.
• Scope and make progress towards a self-serve facility on the website for customers to book their own appointments.
• If the new accessibility standards for website come into effect in 23/24, run a full site assessment, developing an action plan as required.
• Expand the offer for national events to target all CW customer groups.

Key Performance Indicator

85% of customers report that their needs were met by our CW Connect service.

Create a highly skilled, engaged, diverse and agile Careers Wales workforce.

Embed the new company communications strategy, which will strengthen the overall external and internal communications offer.

Learning and Development activities will have a focus on improving digital skills across the company (see Strategic Outcome 10 below), improving standards of guidance, leadership development, project management, skills development for administrators and employability coaches, raising awareness of how Welsh is used in the workplace, developing coaching skills in the lead worker role and with targeted groups, and raising awareness of the links between career guidance and mental wellbeing.

Pilot the where, when and how we work across the company to test out demand from customers for ‘out of hours’ support, and also to support the work/life balance of Careers Wales employees to enhance wellbeing and resilience.

Key Performance Indicator

100% of trainee careers advisers successfully complete their level 6 diploma Career Guidance and Development within the two years allocated.

75% of employees report positive levels of engagement with the company.

Optimise our use of technology to transform our ways of working and develop the digital skills and capabilities of all Careers Wales employees.

ICT

Work with other Welsh Government Sponsored Bodies (WGSBs) to share good practice with using technology to transform the way we work.

Meet with Microsoft and other suppliers to be aware of new technology developments that would benefit us introducing.

Take forward the results of the Digital Skills Survey completed by all employees in the second year of Brighter Futures and roll out L and D plan for digital skills to support employees to best carry out their day-to-day roles.

Key Performance Indicator

Improvement in the digital skills and capabilities of Careers Wales employees.

Inform our strategy, policy and service developments through customer insight, business intelligence, data and analytics.

Digital and Communications

Increase our media relations and public affairs activity generally and with new activity including thought leadership pieces and using 10 years of being an all-Wales company as a hook.

Embed GA4 as a replacement to Google Analytics for capturing website metrics.

Carry out user research projects to ensure customers are feeding into the decision-making as well as developing a company framework to improve the robustness of activity across the company. This will be supported by the development of a central repository to improve the way insights are shared internally.

Prioritise key evaluations on newly released products or sections of the website.

ICT

Continue to develop business intelligence expertise within the company to ensure strategy and policy decisions are backed by data and analysis.

Participation

The Brighter Futures Participation Strategy will be implemented to enable greater involvement of customers in the development of Careers Wales services. This will include the setting up of a Young Peoples Board in one region before rolling out to other regions.