Gatsby partner with the Careers & Enterprise Company to celebrate excellent practice in career guidance

This week (Tuesday 5 March), as part of National Careers Week, Gatsby was proud to support the Careers & Enterprise Company (CEC)’s hosting of Careers Excellence 2024 – a celebration of outstanding practice in careers.

Hosted by Baroness Morgan of Cotes at the House of Lords, the event featured presentations and Q&A sessions from ten Careers Champions – organisations and partnerships who have been contributing to excellent careers education for young people.

The CEC made use of powerful new and existing data, including from the national Compass tool, which measures schools and colleges’ progress against the Gatsby Benchmarks, to inform the selection of the Champions. Schools, colleges, special schools, charities, local authorities, careers hubs and employers large and small were all represented, reflecting the broad ecosystem of stakeholders which supports a modern careers programme.

Champions highlighted included Lancaster & Morecambe College, a partner in the Lancashire and Cumbria Institute of Technology; Altimex Limited, an electronics firm with 19 employees dedicated to high quality employer encounters; and Morgan Sindall Construction, whose work to develop a diverse workforce of the future includes providing T-level industry placements, as profiled elsewhere by Gatsby.

We heard about leading practice from some of the Champions, such as the all-through special school The Chiltern School, and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. We have also witnessed this great practice in action as part of Gatsby’s Good Career Guidance: The Next Ten Years programme, which is focused on ensuring the impact of the Gatsby Benchmarks continues for the next decade.

Cross-party speakers at the event, Baroness Morgan of Cotes and Lord Blunkett, were united in their recognition of the power of the current ecosystem of support for careers in education, underpinned by the Gatsby Benchmarks, and the impact this is having. The CEC’s Now and Next report, also launched at the event, draws on newly comprehensive national data (including from young people and employers) to show that both schools and colleges’ performance against the Benchmarks, and young people’s career readiness, is improving. This echoes what we have been hearing in our widespread stakeholder consultation since 2023: that the framework of the Benchmarks is highly valued, it is driving improved outcomes for young people, and that stability is vital.

Congratulations to all the Careers Champions celebrated at the event – you can read more of their stories here. For more information on Gatsby’s Good Career Guidance: The Next Ten Years programme, click here.