Help for young people in Years 10 & 11
How Connexions can help
Your son/daughter can speak to their Connexions Personal Adviser (PA) for help/advice with their work experience placement and post 16 choices.They can find their PA at their school or nearest Connexions Centre. If you would like more help, get in touch with you son or daughter’s PA. Our PAs can meet and talk to you about any questions or concerns you may have. They can see you at your son or daughter’s school, at your local Connexions Centre, at school parents’ evenings, options evenings and career events. Personal Advisers provide free, friendly and impartial information, advice and guidance about any issues that may affect your son or daughter. In some cases, if a student is identified as needing extra help deciding on their options a PA may produce an action plan to help him or her decide what to do next.
During the Year 11 ‘Results Day’ period, our PAs are on hand at schools and colleges and many of our Centres have additional opening hours. We are there to provide information, advice and guidance to any young person who may wish to re-evaluate their next steps based on their exam results being better or not as good as they’d been hoping for.
We continue to contact young people up to the age of 19 (or up to 25 if they have a learning difficulty or disability) to make sure they are on track with their plans for the future. We may contact them by telephone, text, letter or, where appropriate, home visits. If we get in touch with your son or daughter, please encourage them to get back to us - we might have found that very opportunity they’ve been looking for.
How you can help
During Year 11 your son or daughter will have important choices to make about whether to continue in learning or enter employment. Below are some tips on how you can help your son or daughter decide what to do next:
- Do they plan to continue in education after Year 11? Do they know what courses are on offer at local sixth forms, sixth form colleges, colleges of further education and other learning providers? Encourage your son or daughter to check out prospectuses to see what courses they have on offer or visit www.way2go.me.uk for a database of all local courses. Make time to go to open days/ evenings run for students, parents and carers. Check application deadlines and make sure your son or daughter returns their form in good time - the earlier the better - as some courses are very popular and fill up fast!
- Are they interested in starting an Apprenticeship? A good place to start looking for an apprenticeship opportunity is www.apprenticeships.org.uk. Vacancies are regularly updated on the site. Employers may also advertise apprenticeship vacancies in local or national newspapers. If your son/daughter is unable to find an employer to take them, they could enrol on a training course – their Connexions Personal Adviser can help them.
- Do they want to get a job? Are they hoping to enter a career with good long-term prospects? If they are applying for jobs, are they applying for jobs which offer training or the opportunity to gain further qualifications? You son or daughter might like to consider applying for a full-time course in the kind of work they want to do. This way, if they can’t find an employer, they’ll be picking up valuable skills that can improve their long-term chances of getting employment - it could even improve their future promotion prospects. Encourage your son or daughter to talk to their Connexions Personal Adviser about local training opportunities
