Work Ready (Careers)
The Work Ready programme runs through the entire curriculum at Hoe Valley School.
Beyond academic success, our students leave us with skills transferable to any walk of life and fully equipped to enter the 21st-century workplace. From Year 7 onwards, we focus on the importance of communications technologies, we foster creativity, adaptability and time management. Later in their time at Hoe Valley School, students meet employers, discover the options available after the age of 16 and visit appropriate workplaces.
At the heart of this are links with universities, industry experts and different places of work, with students undertaking ‘real world’ projects in the fields of Robotics and Digital Learning. This focus on Work Ready skills sees the latest technology used routinely in teaching and learning, with students using their school-issued Chromebooks to complete tasks that would once have been slower and less effective.
Beyond this, though, the Work Ready ethic pervades all areas of school life, with for example professional sound and lighting equipment used in school plays, the latest digital cameras enabling students to transport themselves into their learning thanks to our chromakey video wall, and an online library making reading for pleasure easy to access at home.
Combining curriculum learning with the Work Ready Skills ensures that by the time students leave HVS they are well prepared to excel in their chosen field.
The Work Ready Skills that underpin this all are:
| Adaptability | Able to quickly adapt to working in new and efficient ways in an ever-changing work environment |
| Creativity | Imaginative and innovative in creating something new and effective |
| Time Management | Excellent at planning how much time to spend on specific activities and able to meet a deadline |
| Persuasive Communication | Able to argue, convince or persuade someone to accept a desired way of thinking |
| Teamwork | Thrives on working collaboratively to achieve a common goal |
| Digital Skills | Advanced knowledge of modern technology for the workplace |
Impact
Hoe Valley School is rightly proud of our Work Ready programme, with a strong track record in placing students in the most appropriate possible post-16 education, employment or training achieved partly through out insistence that every single student spends time to discuss their options with a qualified independent careers advisor from our partners Innervate Careers. Internally, we constantly evaluate the impact of the Work Ready programme through surveys, student voice and by analysing the success rate in placing leavers into whatever they may do next. Hoe Valley School is a leading member of Local Enterprise Partnership EM3, and we work closely with our Enterprise Coordinator and outside Enterprise Advisor to audit our performance against the Gatsby Benchmarks. We have taken innovative steps to integrate the Work Ready skills into the curriculum, and this aspect of the programme is currently the subject of University led research through the University of Roehampton. Pending the result of this research, we intend to become regional leaders in this key area, sharing best practice with other schools and colleges.
Y11 Intended Destinations – Summer 2023
Please click here to read our latest Work Ready Bulletin. This contains a host of useful information about the latest careers opportunities for Hoe Valley School students.