Good morning, we are looking forward to seeing many of you tomorrow at our first Inclusion Conference. To those of you that have booked to attend final reminder to let us know if you can no longer make it as we still have a waiting list.
For Action
South Midlands Careers Hub Annual Conference 2025 – priority bookings now open!
Date: Thursday 25th September 2025
Time: 9:00am – 3:00pm
Venue: Delta by Marriott, Milton Keynes
This year’s theme, Careers Reimagined: Innovation, Impact, Inclusion reflects our mission to continuously improve careers provision and embed meaningful, modern work experience into every young person’s journey.
What to Expect
- Inspiring keynotes
- Interactive workshops
- Collaborative networking
- Opportunities to shape the day – tell us what content and workshops you’d like to see!
A full agenda and the opportunity to sign up for specific workshops will be published in mid July.
One week of priority booking for South Midlands Career Leaders remaining, book now here.
Compass Time!
As we head towards the end of term, please plan in time to complete what will be your final compass evaluation against the original Gatsby Benchmarks.
Please be aware that from May 2025, additional questions have been added to the Benchmark 6 section of Compass evaluations to establish a national baseline to support measuring progress against the future work experience guarantee policy. These questions do not contribute towards an institution’s Gatsby Benchmark score. We have added the additional questions in the ‘For Information’ section below.
In September Compass evaluations will be paused until after Autumn 2025 half term, at which point the questions will be updated to reflect the updated benchmarks. The new questions are currently being piloted nationally and the schools in our hub that have engaged with Peer to Peer reviews have been invited to express an interest in being part of that testing.
Last call – Hub Buddy requests
As we mentioned in our statutory guidance briefings, we are pairing up professionals supporting careers in schools and colleges across our six local authority areas. If you or a member of staff at your school would like a Hub Buddy please complete a request here by 03/07 as we will be pairing people up and sending out introductions on Friday 4/07.
We have had a few questions about where to find the updated Gatsby ‘making it meaningful’ checklists you can find these on the Gatsby website (senior leader summary, pages 6 & 7). To make these easier to find, we have added to our FAQ Padlet under BM6 & 7.
Upcoming Dates
Hub Induction – today, 30/06 15.30 – 16.15 link to join here
Employer Engagement masterclass 09/07/25 15.45 – 16.45 link to join here
Career Leader Training – local cohort – register your EOI here
- 17/09 @16.00 – Information webinar including course content, sign up funding conditions
- Part one – workshop 1 – 15/10/25
- Part one – workshop 2 – 16/10/25
- Part one – workshop 3 – 11/11/25
For Information
As mentioned earlier, from May 2025, additional questions have been added to the Benchmark 6 section of Compass evaluations to establish a national baseline to support measuring progress against the future work experience guarantee policy. These questions do not contribute towards an institution’s Gatsby Benchmark score.
The additional questions are;
- Approximately what proportion of pupils have accessed a variety of meaningful workplace experiences by the end of KS3 totalling:
- 5 or more days, or equivalent
- 3-4 days, or equivalent
- 2 or less days, or equivalent
- No workplace experiences
2. Approximately what proportion of FSM pupils have accessed a variety of meaningful workplace experiences by the end of KS3 totalling:
- 5 or more days, or equivalent
- 3-4 days, or equivalent
- 2 or less days, or equivalent
- No workplace experiences
3. Approximately what proportion of pupils have accessed a variety of meaningful work placements by the end of KS4 totalling:
- 5 or more days, or equivalent
- 3-4 days, or equivalent
- 2 or less days, or equivalent
- No workplace experiences
4. Approximately what proportion of FSM pupils have accessed a variety of meaningful workplace experiences by the end of KS4 totalling:
- 5 or more days, or equivalent
- 3-4 days, or equivalent
- 2 or less days, or equivalent
- No workplace experiences
Response options for all four questions are:
- None
- A few (1-25%)
- Some (26-50%)
- Most (51-75%)
- Overwhelming majority (76-90%)
- Almost All (91-99%)
- All (100%)
- Don’t know