Skills for Success
Newark Orchard School is committed to ensuring our careers programme is the embedded across our curriculum for all students. This ensures the experiences and encounters have real purpose for our young people and allow them to build the skills that will help them prepare for adulthood.
Our Careers programme is based on the key areas of:
– Things we are good at/personal strengths.
– Jobs people do/preparation for adulthood.
– Rules and laws/diversity, rights & responsibiities.
– Taking care of the environment.
– Money/managing finances.
– Belonging to a community.
– Skills for learning.
Each area is organised into a 6 step sequence of skills that have been carefully written to match the needs of our students.
Our Careers Lead is Kate Fell. You can contact her on:
kate.fell@newarkorchard-cit.co.uk
Careers Programme
Our careers programme is reviewed every 3 years to ensure it continues to meet the changing needs of our students.
We use the Gatsby Benchmarks to strategically plan and measure the impact of our careers programme through termly evaluations. In addition, we use pupil, parent, staff and stakeholder feedback of events to inform future planning.
Over recent years, we have developed links with lots of local businesses to enhance our curriculum learning and provide our students with meaningful encounters with employers:
Transition Programme
Our transition programme starts at Year 9 with our careers fair in October. From Year 11, we start our visits to local colleges and day services. This is based on the individual needs and interests of the students and can include vocational courses and supported internships.
Work Experience
We are proud of the contributions our students make to our local community through their work experience. Newark Orchard students have been on placements at GXO, Barnby Road Academy, as well as internal placements here in school. Here are some others, showing what the students get up to…
Sconce and Devon Park
The Grove Pub & Restaurant
Warm Space Cafe
Preparing for Adulthood
At Newark Orchard School, we want to celebrate all types of progress made by our students. We already have systems in place that celebrate the academic and vocational progress our learners make but wanted a curriculum that recognises and celebrates the non-academic learning across the school.
Learn more about Preparing for Adulthood at Newark OrchardLife Skills
At Newark Orchard School, we want our students to spend their time with us learning to be the best versions of themselves that they can possibly be. We want to prepare them for their next steps, to drive their independence and foster their resilience and get them as ready for adulthood as we can. We recognise that this will look very different for each individual, which is a reflection of our school vision and ethos.
With this in mind we designed our Life Skills curriculum, with a preparing for adulthood focus. As a staff we believe that our students need explicit teaching of these essential skills and put a high value on delivering them throughout the day. These may be skills such as developing personal care, remembering manners, managing relationships and recognising our strengths and talents as well as things such as preparing simple meals, learning to do simple tasks and to use household equipment safely; and developing first aid and health knowledge.
