Preparing for the future

Whatever you want to study, we will prepare you well for the future. Almost all girls go on to university or Art, Drama and Music Schools. Every year we have a significant number of girls achieving places at Russell Group institutions in a vast range of subject areas.

To help you make the right choice, we have a substantial programme of activities and support. Oxbridge candidates are able to attend a GDST Conference to help support them while making their applications. Girls wanting to pursue Medicine, Dentistry and Veterinary Science have specialist support and opportunities to practise interview technique. Our Sixth Form Team including our Head of Careers are on hand to guide and support all girls in their choice of course and university. We also explore alternative routes such as taking a higher apprenticeship, spending a year in industry or joining the Armed Forces. Whatever route you choose, you will be assigned a personal tutor to help you with your application and Personal Statement and the Director of Sixth Form and Head will meet with you to discuss your application to ensure it is the best that it can be.

NHSG Careers

The NHSG Careers programme aims to open your eyes to a wide range of career options and put you in touch with professionals from a wide range of businesses and organisations. As well as our biennial Careers fair, we will be inviting a variety of speakers to School to tell you more about their careers and to offer you advice as you begin to focus on your choices for higher education and beyond. In addition to this, various careers-based activities run throughout the year, such as the NHSG Higher Education Conference, a GDST Oxbridge Conference and the UCAS Day for Year 12. There will be many opportunities throughout Sixth Form to gain specific insight into specialist career areas and university applications through our CEF programme (Careers, Employment and your Future).

Acquiring Additional Skills

It is important that you develop skills for life beyond your academic studies. Our enrichment activities are further strengthened in Sixth Form by the GDST CareerStart programme designed to help girls develop the skills they will need for university and the workplace. Girls in Year 12 attend a networking workshop and then have to host their own networking event attended by local business leaders and VIPs; it is a challenging experience but highly valuable and praised by employers.

GDST Insight days

Through the GDST, we offer Insight Days with businesses to help Sixth Form girls learn more about industry and employment and gain commercial awareness. The GDST run these in partnership with businesses such as PWC, Barclays, Siemens, InterQuest, Broadway Malyan, Rolls Royce and Engie. These Insight days provide girls with crucial exposure to genuine working environments, the opportunity to network with senior professionals and to gain a valuable insight into the competitive graduate recruitment market – something which is becoming increasingly important.

GDST Scholarships and Awards

Another of the significant benefits of being part of the Girls’ Day School Trust is the number of special scholarships and awards for which girls can apply. These are unique to the GDST and include: • GDST Travel Scholarships • GDST Creative Writing Prize • Johnston Memorial Scholarship for Law • Minerva Prize for all-round achievement • Pearson & Silver Awards for financial assistance in attending courses or meetings with a classical content • Frederica Lord University Scholarship and Lorna Cocking

Scholarship • Laurie Magnus Poetry Prize • Anne Hogg Modern Foreign Languages Prize • Somerville and Gurney Awards

GDST Life and Rungway

GDST Life allows our family of 25 schools to collaborate and share expertise to help girls learn without limits. Our network of alumnae is the largest of its kind anywhere in the world, a community of women from all walks of life and around the globe who are there to support and inspire each other. GDST Life is the gateway to this community. You can access it from any device and it allows you to connect with pupils from across the GDST who share your interests, to get involved with GDST-wide groups, societies and events, and learn new things on topics that matter to you such as wellbeing, university applications and the world of work. You can also take advantage of Rungway, our mentoring app, to ask GDST alumnae the questions you have about future study, career options and life after school. You can sign up to Rungway at www.go.rungway.com/gdst.

GDST Alumnae Network

Even when the Sixth Form years are over, results received and university places accepted, we will continue to help. All girls join the unique GDST Alumnae Network – a powerful and supportive group of over 75,000 women offering a gateway to professional and social coaching, mentoring and networking opportunities. You don’t need to wait to become an alumna to benefit from the network. When you join the Sixth Form at NHSG you automatically become a member of the GDST Alumnae Network and can take full advantage of everything it offers.

Work

In addition to the careers support you receive from staff in school, the GDST Alumnae Network can also put you in touch with people in all kinds of jobs, who can tell you about their own experiences and the routes they took to get there. You can also apply for work experience with GDST alumnae who are happy to help. In addition, we have relationships with a number of major employers who offer Insight Days. We can provide advice, examples, opinions, opportunities for personal experience – everything you need to help choose the career path that is right for you.

GDST Life for Alumnae

We’ve already referenced GDST Life, the platform that links you with GDST Sixth Form pupils and a wealth of information to guide you through the Sixth Form. Once you have left school, you will be able to tap even further into the benefits of being part of this unique network. You will be able to meet up with GDST alumnae at universities, find a mentor or become one yourself, and join professional networking groups all designed to help you throughout your life and career.

The academic programme ensures we are challenged to be our best and overcome obstacles.