Versión en castellano
Ryan Gibson is an expert in career guidance at Academies and Enterprise Trust, one of the largest school groups in England. Gibson holds the position of National System Leader in this entity, where he is responsible for the career guidance of 32,000 young people in 57 schools.
Gibson led the benchmarks for Good Career Guidance for the Gatsby Foundation, which became statutory public policy by the British government in 2018 after the success of the pilot process showed positive results in the guidance of young people. Ryan was awarded ‘UK Career Educator of the Year' in the United Kingdom.
The expert has recently appeared at the Xcelence-Escuelas que Inspiran: una mirada internacional a la orientación, an event organised by Fundación Bertelsmann and Empieza por Educar, where he shared the most relevant results on the Good Career Guidance model. It is based on the well-known Gatsby benchmarks, a series of indicators that have shown to improve effectively guiding students.
Why is it essential to offer career guidance to students?
We want to equip all young people to make fully informed decisions about their future. Social mobility sits at the heart of good career guidance. Put simply, if young people and their families know more about the range of careers open to people with the right qualifications, they will have a clearer idea of the routes to more and better jobs.
If an individual has career guidance inputs described by the Gatsby benchmarks, they will develop career management knowledge and skills. This will enable them to make informed study and work choices that lead to sustained destinations. Ultimately, we hope that every individual will experience a career that is financially and socially rewarding and that they will be happy.
How the career guidance should be so that it develops positive effects among the students?
There is no single magic bullet for careers. It is about doing all of things, outlined in the benchmarks, doing them well, doing them consistently and doing them for each young person over a consistent period. It is essential that every school has a careers leader who leads a careers programme that is well sequenced, and that delivery is timed to meets the needs of every young person.
What do you think of the career guidance offered in Spain schools? What recommendations would you give to improve the career guidance offered in Spain?
Xcelence programme has provided a very good adaptation of the Gatsby benchmarks, drawing out key themes from within the English benchmarks and turning them into two additional benchmarks - family involvement and strategic coordination. In England we are doing lots of work in relation to career leader training and we know when a school has a trained careers leader, they achieve more benchmarks. Similarly, we know that parents continue to be a significant influencer of a young person's career decision and therefore we are doing lots of work with parents, through an initiative called Talking Futures, to ensure parents have access to up to date information and the tools to be able to interpret the information and use it to support their children.
Xcelence has also identified the crucial role of the careers leader and the value of connecting leaders together in networks and giving them access to networks of employers - these were crucial learnings from implementation of the benchmarks England, and it is great to see these incorporated into the adaptations for Spain.
Why has the Good Career Guidance model been adopted as public policy by the UK government? What evidence have you collected to know that it really works?
In England the government recognised the transformational impact of the benchmarks. They could see the difference they were making in schools and to employers and young people.
Evidence indicates that in schools that adopt, implement and achieve the benchmarks young people become more motivated to learn and study. Young people are making better study and work choices because they have experienced the full range of options available to them and have had a chance to discuss these with trained career guidance professionals. This is reflected in their sustained destinations after school.
Indeed, evidence shows that for every benchmark achieved the likelihood of students sustaining a destination increases. Similarly, we have seen increases in career readiness amongst young people, meaning that they leave education more prepared for the world of work.
What other countries have adopted the Good Career Guidance model and what was its impact?
The Gatsby benchmarks are based on international evidence of what works and define the world class standard of careers provision. The 2014 Good Career Guidance Report includes examples of international study visits to the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Ireland, Canada, Finland and Germany.
The 8 Gatsby benchmarks all contain a number of characteristics and to fully achieve a benchmark, schools must fully achieve all of the key characteristics. Achieving all 8 benchmarks is therefore challenging - but careers is too important to be easy. Countries are adapting the benchmarks for implementation in their context. In addition to Spain, the Gatsby benchmarks are inspiring practice in countries such as Hong Kong and Norway.
How can teachers contribute to the career guidance of young people? Could you give us two examples?
In school, young people spend most of their time in a classroom. They trust their teachers and will often seek their advice. Teachers therefore need to understand careers information and be able to signpost students to sources of support. Even more importantly, benchmark 4 in England is about ‘linking curriculum learning to careers', and therefore teachers have a crucial role in helping young people to connect what they are learning in the classroom with its relevance and application in the wider world of further learning and work.
In the original pilot of the benchmarks in England (and since) some teachers have participated in externships - spending a day or more in industry developing links and resources that can be used in the classroom. Teachers also identified areas of their curriculum / subject that could be enhanced by employers and would ask employers to come into school to provide a talk, a workshop or to take students to visit a workplace so that young people could see how their learning could be applied in the world of work. This often resulted in more engaged and motivated young people.
What role should companies play in the career guidance of the students? Why?
Employers play a crucial role. In England benchmark 5, encounters with employers, and benchmark 6, experiences of workplaces, give employers a key role in helping young people to explore the workplace, understand what skills employers value and often inspire young people, about the future by helping connect what is being taught in the classroom with its application in the world of work.
We know that when career leaders are connected in networks with employers, they achieve more benchmarks. When schools achieve more benchmarks, we know that more young people progress into employment, education, or training. We also know that four or more employer encounters when in school reduces the risk of students being NEET (not in education employment or training). Therefore, employers have a vital role to play in student career guidance. Because of the Gatsby benchmarks, in England over 3.3 million children are benefitting from regular employer encounters.
Ryan Gibson is an expert in career guidance at Academies and Enterprise Trust, one of the largest school groups in England. Gibson holds the position of National System Leader in this entity, where he is responsible for the career guidance of 32,000 young people in 57 schools.
Gibson led the benchmarks for Good Career Guidance for the Gatsby Foundation, which became statutory public policy by the British government in 2018 after the success of the pilot process showed positive results in the guidance of young people. Ryan was awarded ‘UK Career Educator of the Year' in the United Kingdom.
The expert has recently appeared at the Xcelence-Escuelas que Inspiran: una mirada internacional a la orientación, an event organised by Fundación Bertelsmann and Empieza por Educar, where he shared the most relevant results on the Good Career Guidance model. It is based on the well-known Gatsby benchmarks, a series of indicators that have shown to improve effectively guiding students.
Why is it essential to offer career guidance to students?
We want to equip all young people to make fully informed decisions about their future. Social mobility sits at the heart of good career guidance. Put simply, if young people and their families know more about the range of careers open to people with the right qualifications, they will have a clearer idea of the routes to more and better jobs.
If an individual has career guidance inputs described by the Gatsby benchmarks, they will develop career management knowledge and skills. This will enable them to make informed study and work choices that lead to sustained destinations. Ultimately, we hope that every individual will experience a career that is financially and socially rewarding and that they will be happy.
How the career guidance should be so that it develops positive effects among the students?
There is no single magic bullet for careers. It is about doing all of things, outlined in the benchmarks, doing them well, doing them consistently and doing them for each young person over a consistent period. It is essential that every school has a careers leader who leads a careers programme that is well sequenced, and that delivery is timed to meets the needs of every young person.
What do you think of the career guidance offered in Spain schools? What recommendations would you give to improve the career guidance offered in Spain?
Xcelence programme has provided a very good adaptation of the Gatsby benchmarks, drawing out key themes from within the English benchmarks and turning them into two additional benchmarks - family involvement and strategic coordination. In England we are doing lots of work in relation to career leader training and we know when a school has a trained careers leader, they achieve more benchmarks. Similarly, we know that parents continue to be a significant influencer of a young person's career decision and therefore we are doing lots of work with parents, through an initiative called Talking Futures, to ensure parents have access to up to date information and the tools to be able to interpret the information and use it to support their children.
Xcelence has also identified the crucial role of the careers leader and the value of connecting leaders together in networks and giving them access to networks of employers - these were crucial learnings from implementation of the benchmarks England, and it is great to see these incorporated into the adaptations for Spain.
"Teachers have a crucial role in helping young people to connect what they are learning in the classroom with its relevance and application in the wider world of further learning and work".
Why has the Good Career Guidance model been adopted as public policy by the UK government? What evidence have you collected to know that it really works?
In England the government recognised the transformational impact of the benchmarks. They could see the difference they were making in schools and to employers and young people.
Evidence indicates that in schools that adopt, implement and achieve the benchmarks young people become more motivated to learn and study. Young people are making better study and work choices because they have experienced the full range of options available to them and have had a chance to discuss these with trained career guidance professionals. This is reflected in their sustained destinations after school.
Indeed, evidence shows that for every benchmark achieved the likelihood of students sustaining a destination increases. Similarly, we have seen increases in career readiness amongst young people, meaning that they leave education more prepared for the world of work.
What other countries have adopted the Good Career Guidance model and what was its impact?
The Gatsby benchmarks are based on international evidence of what works and define the world class standard of careers provision. The 2014 Good Career Guidance Report includes examples of international study visits to the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Ireland, Canada, Finland and Germany.
The 8 Gatsby benchmarks all contain a number of characteristics and to fully achieve a benchmark, schools must fully achieve all of the key characteristics. Achieving all 8 benchmarks is therefore challenging - but careers is too important to be easy. Countries are adapting the benchmarks for implementation in their context. In addition to Spain, the Gatsby benchmarks are inspiring practice in countries such as Hong Kong and Norway.
How can teachers contribute to the career guidance of young people? Could you give us two examples?
In school, young people spend most of their time in a classroom. They trust their teachers and will often seek their advice. Teachers therefore need to understand careers information and be able to signpost students to sources of support. Even more importantly, benchmark 4 in England is about ‘linking curriculum learning to careers', and therefore teachers have a crucial role in helping young people to connect what they are learning in the classroom with its relevance and application in the wider world of further learning and work.
In the original pilot of the benchmarks in England (and since) some teachers have participated in externships - spending a day or more in industry developing links and resources that can be used in the classroom. Teachers also identified areas of their curriculum / subject that could be enhanced by employers and would ask employers to come into school to provide a talk, a workshop or to take students to visit a workplace so that young people could see how their learning could be applied in the world of work. This often resulted in more engaged and motivated young people.
What role should companies play in the career guidance of the students? Why?
Employers play a crucial role. In England benchmark 5, encounters with employers, and benchmark 6, experiences of workplaces, give employers a key role in helping young people to explore the workplace, understand what skills employers value and often inspire young people, about the future by helping connect what is being taught in the classroom with its application in the world of work.
We know that when career leaders are connected in networks with employers, they achieve more benchmarks. When schools achieve more benchmarks, we know that more young people progress into employment, education, or training. We also know that four or more employer encounters when in school reduces the risk of students being NEET (not in education employment or training). Therefore, employers have a vital role to play in student career guidance. Because of the Gatsby benchmarks, in England over 3.3 million children are benefitting from regular employer encounters.
