Careers (Old)

At Lotus Academy we are committed to providing students with personalised and independent advice and guidance, to prepare for life beyond school. We will provide ‘real life’ experiences for students to enable them to make informed choices. Our planned programme of activities through Preparation for Adulthood lessons, PSHE lessons and Careers specific days/activities/visits prepare students for their own future pathways, enable them to plan for future careers and sustain employability throughout their lives.

We will support students by responding to their needs and interests, opening doors to experiences and opportunities that help them to progress and achieve success.

We will ensure a careers curriculum where learning takes place through engaging activities that are appropriate to student’s stages of career learning, planning and development.

Ours students will receive a CEIAG provision which meets professional standards of practice and is person-centred, aspirational and impartial. The programme will raise aspirations, challenge stereotyping and promote equality and diversity.

End points:

Have the life skills to be able to make informed choices.

Develop social skills to be successful at interview and in the world of work.

Be able to solve problems in a social or work context.

Understand what opportunities are available to them.

Be confident in own abilities and set own aspirational targets.

Aspects of careers learning at Lotus Academy:

Personal and Social Development through the curriculum

Develop personal, communication and social skills in a range of situations

Encouraged to think about their skills

Life Skills through the curriculum

Empower young people, providing them with the tools to handle a range of relevant life situations.

Active Citizenship

Consider issues in their community and how they can positively influence change in their area.

Careers Guidance

1:1 guidance interview with a trained Careers Adviser (Y10 and 11). Guidance interviews are made available whenever significant study or career choices are being made and timed to meet individual needs.

Unbiased information about potential next steps (formally from Y8 onwards). Helping students to make informed choices about which courses suit their academic needs and aspirations.

Encounters

The school has links with the Careers Enterprise, See it be it team, Job centre plus and local businesses to enable students to:

Think about their future career ambitions and make plans to realise them

Receive advice on the labour market

Experience a range of encounters with employers and post 16 providers through external visits and guest speakers/visitors.

These activities are designed to boost their confidence, improve self-esteem, attainment, behaviour and attendance. These skills and personal qualities support the young people to achieve more, both at school, and in the future.

Post 16 Destinations/transition

Opportunity to understand the full range of learning opportunities that are available post 16. As such, access to a wide range of post 16 providers will be arranged (Further Education Colleges, Higher Education, Training providers, Apprenticeship and Traineeship opportunities).

Support completing applications to post-16 learning.

Support with transition to post 16 learning.

We monitor the impact of our curriculum and student offer on Compass+ with support from the Careers Enterprise. Please see our progress for our 2025-26 evaluations against the Gatsby Benchmarks, these are completed and actioned termly:

We track student progress on our Preparation for Adulthood and Careers tracker that is regularly shared with students and their families.

Our careers lead is Adele Hetherington, Assistant Head for Personal Development, she can be contacted at ahetherington@hphm.org. Tel: 0114 2456305

Our careers advisors in school are Qamar Nawaz qamar.nawaz@sheffield.gov.uk, and Jennifer Hallam jhallam@nexusmat.org. They will ensure each child in school has access to impartial careers advice and strive to be part of the Annual review process in Year 10 and year 11 to support with transition to post-16.

Careers success stories

Over the last 3 years we have had students enter the Big Challenge, an enterprise competition open to all Y7-Y9 students in Sheffield. Each team has the opportunity to design and grow a business from a £25 start up loan. Through the hard work of one of our young entrepreneurs he has won multiple awards and opportunities for his company ‘Torched Views’. He was honoured to be welcomed back as a guest judge.

The information published on this page will be updated regularly with yearly reviews taking place, date of next review Dec 2026.