Gatsby Benchmarks

St Mary’s has achieved the Quality Mark for careers education and guidance that is based on the Gatsby Benchmarks.

In 2014, Lord Sainsbury’s Gatsby Charitable Foundation published a report titled “Good Career Guidance.” The report identified eight benchmarks that are the core dimensions of good careers and enterprise provision in schools and these are:

1. A stable careers programme
2. Learning from career and labour market information
3. Addressing the needs of each pupil
4. Linking curriculum learning to careers
5. Encounters with employers and employees
6. Experiences of workplaces
7. Encounters with further and higher education
8. Personal guidance

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

We are signed up to The Careers and Enterprise Company – The Enterprise Advisor Network –programme. This is a free provision managed locally by Hertfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership to support us to achieve all 8 Gatsby Benchmarks– a target set by the department for Education in their Careers Strategy (Dec 2017).

Further information about The Careers and Enterprise Company can be found here:
https://www.careersandenterprise.co.uk/