# 3 What do you need to know and do?

## 3.1 Transition points for 11–19 year-olds

> When 16 year-old Mike Barker told people he wanted to be a film director they laughed at him… Mike's long journey to Hollywood stardom as a director began with a teacher at his school who instilled a sense of confidence into the discouraged teenager. ‘I was going to leave school at 16 and get a job because I wanted a motorbike, but she persuaded me to do my A levels. I told her about wanting to be in the film industry and she introduced me to her husband who was a BBC cameraman. He took me around the country doing jobs in my holidays.’ That was just the beginning. Confidence, plus tenacity and talent have brought him to his latest film release: A Good Woman, starring Scarlett Johansson.

> Cambridge Evening News, 3 June, 2005

As a teacher, you can have a lifelong influence on your students’ career pathways – but with out-of-date knowledge of the opportunities available and the routes to them, however well intentioned you are, you can waste students’ time at a very busy stage of their lives.

There are three main transition points for most 11–19 year-olds:

- subject and course choices around age 14

- at the end of compulsory schooling to post-16 education and/or training;

- at age 18 to higher education or employment.

Activity 4 will help you gain some basic knowledge of the opportunities available. You should refer your students to the Connexions resource centre (in England), the school's Connexions PA (in England) and the school's higher education specialists to give them the more detailed knowledge they need.

You will also need to know what financial help is available to students who need it to enable them to continue in full-time education after 16. More information for colleagues in English schools is available from the Cegnet website, click on Managing CEG from the navigation at the top of the page, then download the document on 'Into 14–19 learning'.

## Activity 4

Review the QCA booklet Informing choices, and then read the case studies (click 'view document' below'. Choose one of the case studies, working out what information, advice and guidance you would give to the student who features in it.

Click 'view document' below to read the case studies.

View document

There are no ‘correct’ solutions to the issues raised in these case studies. They are best considered by a group of teachers being led by a careers specialist so that ideas can be exchanged and specialist knowledge tapped.

OpenLearn - Careers education and guidance
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