How does the Careers Impact System work?
The Careers Impact System is a step-by-step staged and integrated approach to improving and assuring quality in the careers system, with peer and expert support all the way through. It is founded on the following approach:
- Internal leadership reviews - undertaken by and within schools and colleges bringing together key colleagues to examine current performance, identify what good looks like and how best to achieve it.
- Peer-to-peer reviews - administered regionally at scale through trained Careers Hub or Trust facilitators - involves Careers Leaders in a local area sharing practice and progress against the Benchmarks to identify what works well and areas for improvement.
- Expert reviews – administered centrally to moderate the peer-to-peer approach and to inform continuous improvement of the Careers Impact System and to feed into longer term impact evaluation.
- National system reviews – a deeper dive into exploring system-wide themes, good practice and shared challenges which build system wide intelligence to influence targeted action for improvement to encourage whole system improvement.
How does the Careers Impact System link to the Gatsby Benchmarks?
The Careers Impact System follows six themes, directly linked to the Gatsby Benchmarks with separate tailored approaches for:
- Schools and special schools
- Further Education
How does the Careers Impact System link to the Quality in Careers Standard?
The Careers Impact System is our approach to standardised continuous improvement and quality assurance of Careers Leadership across our networks. Since the DfE ‘strongly recommends all schools and colleges’ to work towards achieving the Quality in Careers Standard, the Department hopes that engagement in any element of the Careers Impact System will encourage more schools, special schools and colleges to consider working towards the Standard by increasing their confidence to seek external assessment.
Find out more about the Careers Impact System and the Quality in Careers Standard.
“…There is much commonality and synergy, as would be expected, between the Careers Impact System maturity model and the Quality in Careers Standard assessment criteria. Secondary schools, special schools and colleges that are working towards or have achieved the Quality in Careers Standard, for example, will be well-placed to make more informed self-evaluation reflections about their practice."
Excerpt from the endnote from the Quality in Careers Standard.