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Advice for the future

Our Sixth Form girls are motivated, inspired and ambitious. They’ll be thinking of the future and exciting possibilities. With so many opportunities available to them, it’s important that they have all the help they need in making those decisions that will shape the rest of their lives.

Expert staff – expert advice

There is no shortage of people in our school community to help with those all important decisions about the future. Our Head of Sixth Form Mrs Sommers (left) knows the girls perhaps better than they know themselves. Her advice is invaluable, as is that of our Head of Careers who is a Registered Career Development Professional, guiding students on career options, and leading our expert careers advice programme. 

 

Our Head of Careers ensures girls receive up to date and accurate guidance and advice across all areas of interest including careers, GCSE options, A Level choices and higher education opportunities. She offers one to one meetings and an inspiring and informative PSHE programme. All students in Years 9-10  have been using Career Pilot  which is a piece of careers software to help them think about their future choices.

 

 

 

Former students return to talk to current pupils about their experiences of university life.

 

We guide our girls through the university application procedure, often with the help of former students who have been through it themselves and are happy to share their experiences. We run specific guidance sessions for Oxbridge applications, and for girls applying to professions that require specialised applications such as Medicine, Law and Veterinary Medicine. The GDST app, Rungway, is also a fantastic resource available to the girls, empowering them to contact GDST alumnae with questions or mentoring.

Through regular talks and seminars planned with guest speakers from a wide range of career backgrounds, we have everything covered. Our NGHS and GDST alumnae community play a great part in this too, gladly returning to school to offer their advice and share their own inspirational stories. They come from a diverse range of backgrounds with unique insights into the world of work, giving our girls a head start in researching their options.

 

We’ve also introduced a ‘Spotlight On’ series of events each month which focus on specific subjects. These ensure the girls are aware of all the different options available to them in relation to where studying a particular subject may lead them in the future. With a focus on STEM subjects and sectors in which girls are under-represented, and areas where there is an employment need and drive for these, we encourage our girls to break the mold.

Alumna, Susie Allen-Sierpinski, works for NASA and spoke to our students about her career in aerospace.

 

Girls benefit from our wide relationships across many professions. We enable work experience, shadowing, teleconferences and insight days in the work place alongside our many careers talks, as well as bespoke one to one mentoring.

It’s not all about careers though, some girls choose to opt for gap years, travel and adventure when they leave us. We have that covered too. Our careers evenings include guests from voluntary and gap year organisations to assist and advise those who want to expand their horizons in an alternative way before settling into Higher Education or a career path. The world is their oyster and the treasure is theirs for the taking.

Whichever path our girls choose to take, we’re with them all the way, confident in the knowledge that they are armed with fantastic exam results and strong life skills to ensure that they’re the best and happiest they can be.