Who Can I Speak To?

The best person to speak to would be our Careers Guidance Manager:

Joe Clarke

Clarke.j@tmbss-shropshire.org.uk
 

The career Guidance Manager is available in TMBSS Secondary centre’s on the following days:

Sundorne: Monday

Hook a Gate: Tuesday

Bridgnorth: Wednesday

Oswestry: Thursday

Ludlow: Friday

There will be three opportunities for year 11s to access a careers meeting throughout the academic year (one each term). Letters will be sent to students and parents to highlight the dates and times of the meetings. Students can also ask any member of staff about their career journey, at any time during the term.

What does the careers programme look like?

The TMBSS careers team have made a student-friendly careers roadmap, so you can easily view the 2023-24 careers interventions and guidance that you will receive throughout the year. This can be seen here. Alternatively, you can view the full careers programme in the careers homepage. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact the careers team.

Work Experience

In KS4, TMBSS students will experience a work placement during their STEM day visit to AICO in Oswestry. TMBSS students will spend the day at AICO and will take part in:

• Exploring the facilities
• Learning about work expectations
• Taking part in a work-based activity

TMBSS student are also supported to find a suitable work experience placement related to their interests and future career plans.

The Work Experience placements that we use are all authorised by Shropshire Education Business Links (EBL), so we know that they have all the appropriate safeguarding policies and insurance in place to ensure student safety. Students who attend work experience placements are given targets to achieve and their progress towards these targets is regularly monitored by TMBSS staff. We encourage students to approach placements themselves as they would finding a job in the future. TMBSS will only use work placements that have a relevant DBS in place.

Click here to find support on finding a work experience placement:

How to find work experience | Pearson UK

Students can gain work experience online by clicking on the below link:

Free Virtual Work Experience | Springpod

Off-Site Alternative Provisions

At TMBSS, we also work closely with a range of off-site alternative provision placements, which offer an alternative educational experience and hands on work experience in a specific area. We have possibilities for this in a range of different work areas such as:

• Farm work
• Construction
• Hair and Beauty
• Sports
• Crafts

Students may undertake a vocational placement as part of their timetable. This may be ongoing or a short-term block to give them a taster of the vocational area. TMBSS staff use the alternative provision pathway, to assess if the provision is a suitable option to form part of the student’s timetable. The Off-Site Alternative Provision Pathway can be seen by clicking on the link below:

Off-Site Alternative Provision Pathway

Assessing Impact on our students

To ensure that the Careers Programme at TMBSS is having a positive impact on our student’s post-16 progression, we monitor the destination data and the individual progression of all our students.

We would also like to know what you thought of our careers programme. To leave anonymous feedback, please complete the survey by clicking here.

Helpful Career Guides and Resources

• Interview Game Interviews are a big part of the world of work, so it’s important that you know what to expect and understand how to prepare. Not all interviews are the same, so here you’ll have a chance to watch how candidates deal with three different types of interview.  
• Career Plan of Action Template A career action plan is a written statement that clearly sets out your career goals and the targets you need to meet to make them a reality. 
• Future You Podcast Future You will help you take the next steps in your journey, whether you already have a detailed career plan in place or you're not quite sure where to turn next.
• Information About Apprenticeships This is an interactive and online guide to help you understand and learn about apprenticeships.
• Information About T-Levels This guide provides you with advice and signposts you to useful resources to help you prepare for or understand T-Levels.
• Useful Tips & Information for Year 11s This is an online guide to provide you with useful tips to support you with post-16 and to provide information regarding different post 16 options.
• Essential Guide to College This is an online guide to help you think about important decisions and know what is involved in going to college.
• Curriculum Vitae (CV) Template CV Template
• Curriculum Vitae (CV) Help Sheet CV Help Sheet
• Personal Statement Support How To Write Your Undergraduate Personal Statement | Undergraduate | UCAS

STEM

You’ve probably seen the term STEM before, and you might already know that it stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math's. It’s not just involved in obvious things like designing and building cars, aircraft, houses and mobile phones, if it wasn’t for STEM, we wouldn’t have food and water, clothes to wear or computer games to play.

TMBSS provides opportunities for students to participate in STEM based activities. This is done through the variety of vocational placements offered to our students, as well as within day to day lessons and activities in centres.

We also offer visits throughout the year to STEM employers local to us. This year, we will be visiting:

AICO – Oswestry

AICO lead the way in Fire and Carbon Monoxide protection and HomeLINK technology, offering a network of alarms and sensors that provide data insights to improve home life safety.