Careers Advice at Lasswade High School. Careers advice at Lasswade High School is provided by Skills Development Scotland. As the school’s Careers Adviser, I am here to give advice and information to help you make well informed decisions about what to do on leaving school. As a starting point, please register on Skills Development Scotland’s website My World of Work at www.myworldofwork.co.uk. You can use the My Strengths tool on the website to identify areas of study or employment which might suit you. The website can also give you lots of useful information on applications, CVs, interviews, college and university. You can also call Skills Development Scotland’s Contact Centre for advice on 0800 917 8000. If you have used the My Strengths tool and accessed My World of Work and other resources to research information, but are still undecided about what to do, please speak to your Guidance teacher, who can refer you to me for a face to face careers interview in school.
Advice in S6 So far this term, my focus has been on speaking to sixth year students, particularly those of you who have soon to make decisions about your choice of university courses. Earlier this term you were issued with a list of Higher Education Open Days. I hope that you have managed to visit any universities to which you are considering making an application. Quite a number of open days have already taken place, but check university websites for information on campus tours or visits, which may be held in October and November. When making your choice of university course, it is very important to do as much research as possible into both the subject you want to study and the institutions to which you intend to apply. Open days can help a great deal with this. You can attend talks on the subject which interests you, learn about what the university is looking for from applicants, not only the qualifications required, but what the university hopes to see in your Personal Statement, and find out about graduate employment routes. If you can’t visit a university, then read the prospectus and look for information on the university’s website. If you are applying for vocational course, it is important to show to universities that you have researched the job to which your course will lead eg teaching, nursing. Relevant work experience is also very helpful to demonstrate your knowledge of the work in which you want to train. By gathering this information you can write a well informed and convincing Personal Statement. It’s also important to make a realistic choice of university courses. The qualifications needed for entry to courses, which are shown on the UCAS website or in university prospectuses and on websites, are those which universities expect applicants to have achieved in fifth year. If you don’t already these qualifications and are taking several Highers in sixth year, universities will expect you to achieve more than the minimum passes over your two sittings of Highers. You may be asked for additional subjects at Higher or passes at higher grades. If you had a LEAPS interview earlier this term, LEAPS may have made pre application enquiries to universities, on your behalf, to find out the likely conditional offers you will be made. If you are not a LEAPS candidate you can still email university admissions staff yourself to make an enquiry. Once you have this information you will have to decide if you can realisitically achieve the standard required. It can be good to have a demanding offer to work towards. However it’s also important to apply for other courses, where the academic requirements are lower, and which you can have as your safety net choices. For some prospective university applicants, who currently hold only one or two Highers, it is important to put in place the further safety net of a college application. You can apply for a course
at Higher National Certificate level, lasting a year, or Higher National Diploma level, lasting two years. Entry qualifications are usually two passes at Higher. If you achieve good grades in your HNC you can progress on to the first or second year of a related degree and from HND to the second or third year. Applications for all levels of course, beginning at Edinburgh College next summer, will open in mid January 2014. Apply as early as you can and by mid February at the latest. Many students in sixth year will be planning to apply for a college course, because they are interested in going into the career in which the course offers training, rather than using the course as a stepping stone on to further study at university. When applying for a vocational college course its important that you are able to demonstrate in your application an understanding of the job to which the course can lead. Make sure that you research information on the job using the My World of Work website. It can also be helpful to try to arrange relevant work experience before making your application. If you are thinking about going into a job when you leave school, then begin looking for work from February/March onwards. Look for job vacancies in the local and national press. Use the Job Centre website www.direct.gov.uk as well as other recruitment websites. Check information on job vacancies in the Careers section of the school website. Many jobs are not advertised, so you may need to make speculative enquiries to employers, to ask about job vacancies, by sending them your CV with a covering letter explaining what type of work interests you. The Business Directory on Midlothian Council’s website, www.midlothian.gov.uk, lists local companies according to what they do and is a good starting point to identify employers to contact to ask about possible job opportunities. You may also hear about jobs from friends and family. Let them know what type of work you are looking for, so they can alert you to vacancies. During the rest of this term, I’ll continue to make contact with sixth year students. However don’t wait for me to speak to you. If you feel that you need advice now, please tell your Guidance Teacher, who will refer you to me.
Advice in S4 and S5 Later this term and throughout the rest of the year, I will make contact with students in S4 and S5, who are considering leaving school this year, or who are identified by their Guidance Teacher as likely to need some help in making decisions about their future. Any other students, who may need advice, for example with choice of subjects in fifth and sixth year, are also welcome to see me. Please try to do your own research using www.myworldofwork.co.uk, but speak to your Guidance Teacher, if you would like a face to face meeting in school.
Making contact I am in school all day on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and until lunch break on a Thursday. You can find me in Interview Room One on the first floor, opposite classroom 110. When I am not at Lasswade High School, I can be contacted by phone on 0131 653 1016 or by email at judy.tyler@sds.co.uk. Judy Tyler 15 October 2013