Careers

Information, Advice and Guidance at Iford Academy

Our vision is to prepare pupils for a safe happy and productive adult life, so careers information, advice and guidance is an important focus for pupils at Iford Academy.

As parents and carers you have an important role in supporting careers decisions and choices. We produce a fortnightly careers newsletter which is emailed to you and you can access copies below under the section Newsletters.

The Iford Academy curriculum content highlights real life application of subjects being taught to Careers and life skills. This is particularly evident in the close links to the content of our Personal Development lessons.

Linking careers to learning features across our curriculum subjects along side our careers strategy.

The Gatsby Benchmark

The Gatsby Benchmarks are a key part of the Government’s careers strategy for schools

The Gatsby Benchmarks have a key role in:

raising young people’s aspirations and promoting access to all career pathways;
enabling all young people to develop the skills and outlook they need to achieve career wellbeing, including adaptability and resilience;
underpinning the Department for Education guidance to schools on meeting their statutory responsibility for careers guidance.

Our careers programme is based around achieving the Gatsby benchmarks. The Gatsby Benchmarks are a framework of 8 guidelines and our Careers Strategy is founded on these. As well providing a framework for a holistic careers programme across Years 7-11, these guidelines are also embedded within our curriculum

The Careers team

Our careers team are available to offer help and support on careers education and guidance:

Careers Advisor and Co-Ordinator : Michelle Bradnam

Michelle.bradnam@ta.weareauthentic.education

01202 424361

Careers Leader: Francesca Martin

Francesca.martin@ta.weareauthentic.education

01202 424361

Policies for Careers

There are a number of key policies that support our careers programme and strategy. These are:

Transitions Policy

We know many young people struggle with the transition to post sixteen provision and we are keen to provide support to our students for this process.

Please see our Transition policy for more information on how we support our students to prepare for the future:

Iford Academy Transition Policy 2025

Work Experience Policy

We work with a range of employers to offer work experience and opportunities to interact with employers and work places. Please see our work experience policy for more information:

Iford Academy Work Experience Policy 2025

Provider Access Policy:

We work with a variety of local and national organisations to ensure our students will leave Iford Academy having had contact with a variety of employers and providers. This will enable them to get the most out of their learning and to enable successful progression to further education or training and to have a clearer focus on their career goals.

For more information on how to visit Iford Academy please see our Provider Access Legislation policy:

Iford Academy Provider Access Policy Statement 2025

Parents & Carers

You are able to contact the careers team to attend careers meetings or for any advice or help you may need by email.

Useful Careers websites:

Explore careers | National Careers Service

Apprenticeships

Careerpilot : Plan your future work & study

Careers Newsletters

As parents and carer’s you have an important role in supporting careers decisions and choices. We produce a fortnightly careers newsletter which is emailed to you and you can access copies here: