We have a dedicated team of staff at Little Heath School that work together to provide a varied, outstanding programme of careers education, information, advice and guidance activities for all year groups.

Our dedicated Careers Leader, Mrs Wooller, is based in the Careers Office (Business Studies block, daily between 8am-4pm). She can be contacted via email at ewooller@littleheath.org.uk or by phoning 0118 9427337.

She is available to help and support students and staff, to advise how and where to look for essential information and to provide prospectuses for local colleges, universities and apprenticeships. On Thursday she is based in the Sixth Form library. Careers information and opportunities are communicated weekly via the Careers Bulletin in the News Bulletin, and daily via targeted emails directly to parents, internal digital signage, the school social media pages, posters and tutors.  Designated areas are available in both the main school and Sixth Form libraries for a wide variety of Careers resources.

Our aim is to provide an outstanding programme of careers education, information, advice and guidance activities that satisfies national requirements and provides guidance which enables us to address the career development needs of all our students. We welcome the opportunity to audit our current delivery against the Gatsby Benchmarks in order to assess, review and improve our current Careers Education programme.

Gatsby Benchmarks

The Charitable foundation, Gatsby, commissioned Sir John Holman to examine what could be done to improve career guidance in England’s secondary schools. After international research, judgements were made on what “good” career guidance looked like.  These judgements are in the form of eight benchmarks, identifying different dimensions of good career guidance. The benchmarks are summarised in the table below. These benchmarks underpin and run through the careers programme at Little Heath School.

Source: Good Career Guidance (2014), Sir John Holman

Gatsby Good Career Guidance Summary for Schools

Careers support at LHS

 

Careers Education is delivered through exciting and varied events, tutor time activities and the mentor programme, as well as through timetabled PSHE lessons in Years 7 – 10. We run a number of activities with outside organisations and local companies, giving students a first-hand experience and often a hands on, interactive, fun careers sessions. Our Year 12 students are also given the opportunity to take part in a week of work experience.

We circulate a weekly careers bulletin which advertises local opportunities available to our students.

Here is an overview of careers activities and events by year group. For a more detailed summary of our careers programme, please click here. The programme is reviewed annually, and the next review date is July 2026.

Further information about upcoming careers activities are included in the weekly careers bulletin. If you require more details about any of the activities listed, please contact Mrs Wooller directly via email at ewooller@littleheath.org.uk or by phoning 0118 9427337. Students can visit Mrs Wooller in the Careers Office (Business block) or in the Sixth Form Library on a Thursday.

View our online gallery here for an insight into some of the exciting opportunities offered to our students over recent years.

Post 16 and Post 18 Options

The documents below can help you with the options that are available to students at Little Heath School Post 16 years old and Post 18 years old:

• Post 16 options
• Post 18 options

Where are they now?

Here are the destinations of our Year 13 students (2023-24):

Apprenticeships include:

• Amazon – Logistics
• James Cowper Kreston – Accounting
• NG Bailey – Project Engineer
• AWE/EMCOR – Facilities Management
• Assistant Forensics Investigator – Police

Gap Year destinations include:

• Global travel

Here are the destinations for our Year 11 (2023-24) students:

Can you help?

We are always looking for support from employers, parents and ex-students in the following ways:

• Mock Interview – From 1 hour up to 6 hours
• Talk – 20 minutes live to year group in assembly or to a class at tutor time 2.05pm 
• CV lunch time clinic – 1 hour
• CV clinic for Sixth Form students – 1 – 2 hours at your convenience
• Subject specific talk to a class or year group – 1 hour
• Apprenticeship / Traineeship talk to a class or year group – 20 minutes 
• Set a challenge
• Work Experience
• Volunteering Opportunities
• Job Shadowing
• Advertise your opportunities
• Annual Careers & Higher Education Fair

Please contact Mrs Wooller, our Careers Leader if you can help or would like more information on any of the above. Email: ewooller@littleheath.org.uk or call 0118 9427337.

Where to get advice

Students and parents also have access to Unifrog, a platform where they can easily connect to university courses, apprenticeship opportunities, careers research and personality profiles.

Labour Market Information

The latest Labour Market Information (LMI) can be viewed below.  This gives up-to-date statistics for current high employment sectors, predicted growth areas, average salary and employment/unemployment rates across the Berkshire region. 

It helps students to see what skills local employers are looking for and what jobs are available; information including working hours and holiday entitlements; and what skills gaps exist and what skills are expected to be needed in the future, which can be very helpful when planning their future career path.

Have a look at the current information here:

Careers Policy

You can view our Careers Policy here.