At Ardingly we recognise that the workplace is changing rapidly and many students will end up in jobs that don’t yet exist; while others won’t necessarily be ‘employees’, but will instead found their own businesses or work as freelancers.
Our forward-looking approach to equipping students for a changing world of work was recently recognised when Ardingly received The Week’s “Best Preparation for Life” Award and the College is also a finalist in the upcoming Independent School of the Year Award for Student Careers.
Our Approach
In the last few years we have moved away from the traditional ‘Careers Guidance’ function and instead embedded our award-winning ‘Enterprise & Employability’ programme throughout the curriculum as one of the key six components of our over-arching mission to equip our students to be World Ready.
“I feel I am equipped with the skills I will need to succeed in a changing world of work.”
Whole College Enterprise & Employability initiatives include:
- Integrating our Matrix of Top 10 Employability Skills (according to global employers) throughout the curriculum.
- Launching our World Ready Passport: a digital platform called Xello now enables students from Year 7 to build a digital, evidence-based portfolio of all their employability and enterprise experience; progress is tracked in Tutor Groups and their ‘World Ready Passports’ will be awarded at the end of the Upper Sixth.
- Ensuring Life Skills – eg presentation skills, financial planning/budgeting, business etiquette are now on the curriculum for all students.
- Increasing opportunities for students to develop entrepreneurial skills – with every year group now participating in an enterprise competition or initiative.
- Using our alumni network for ‘real world’ mentoring and work experience placements.
Director of Enterprise & Employability
Our Director of Enterprise & Employability joined us from the corporate sector where she has 15+ years of employability training experience across three continents.
While the greatest concentration of our Enterprise & Employability programme initiatives remain in the Sixth Form, our Director of Enterprise & Employability has also integrated the following initiatives throughout the College to ensure younger students begin developing the employability and entrepreneurial skills they will need to succeed in this changing world at as early an age as possible.
