Work Experience Timeline

• Year 10 – One full week in February.

• Year 12 – One full week in the summer.

Securing a Placement

Students are encouraged to take an active role in finding their placements:

• Independent Placements – Students receive their own Student Placement Form, which they can use to approach employers and arrange a placement aligned with their interests or career aspirations.

• Pre-arranged Options – Alternatively, students can select from a list of employers who have previously offered placements.

Important Attendance Guidelines

Work placements are a valuable experience, and students are expected to attend regularly. However, in cases of absence (e.g., illness):

• Students must inform both their employer and TCA.

• Employers must notify TCA if a student does not attend.

Further Information

For full details, please review the TCA Work Experience Protocol: 👉Click here to view the document.

Year 10/Year 11

• Options for the end of Year 11

Year 12/Year 13

• UCAS Undergraduate: Getting Started
• Tips on writing a personal statement
• Post 18 options - Year 12 
• University and College open days - https://www.opendays.com/calendar/ 
• Read useful student destination information Here
• Uni admissions test -Everything you need to know about taking admissions tests for UK Universities. Please click the following link www.uniadmissionstests.com/ 
• Student finance - Student finance revised 2025

All students

• Trip and events 2024-2025

Parents and carers, please see the following information: 

• Parent/Carer's Guide to career education and guidance
• UCAS Guide for Parents
• Student Finance 

At Thomas Clarkson Academy, we recognise the importance of engaging with employers and offering students the opportunity to experience the world of work.  This could be through careers events within school, work experience, talks with professionals or visits to businesses.  These types of activities are vital in ensuring that our students are ambitious in their personal goals and that they are prepared for making future choices, and ultimately entering the workforce, whether that be from university, college or through an apprenticeship.

We rely on employers working with us to deliver these experiences and ensure students are aware of the opportunities available not only within their local community, but also nationally and internationally.  We appreciate your time is valuable, but would welcome the chance to discuss how you feel you could be involved -  we’re happy to work with you to agree your commitment.  For example, you could:

• Host a stand at our Careers Event or apprenticeship fair for Year 10 and/or Year 12
• Provide a work experience placement 
• Come in to give a talk about your profession to interested students.
• Take part in a career activity – we often run these as part of developing employability sessions, enabling employers to share their knowledge and experiences with students, set them challenges or work with student groups to achieve a goal.
• Mock Interview - enabling students to practice their interview skills and understand how they need to prepare.
• Facilitate a visit to your workplace, allowing students to get a excellent idea about what you do and how a workplace operates.

Some Previous Work Experience Providers

Additional Information

For more information or to find out how you can get involved, contact us at office@thomasclarksonacademy.org or by calling 01945 585237.

We look forward to working with you to create an inspiring future!

What is Labour Market Information? 

Facts, analysis or interpretation of data gathered about work, workplaces and people. Knowing certain information makes decision-making easier. It answers questions such as: Will I need to go to university?

• Labour Market Information by Region
• NOMIS official census and labour market statistics

Click here to see the Careers framework 2024-2025

The Gatsby Benchmarks

The Government’s careers strategy, published on 4 December 2017, sets out a long-term plan to build a world-class careers system that will help young people and adults choose the career that is right for them. To achieve this aim, the careers strategy sets out that every school and academy providing secondary education should use the Gatsby Charitable Foundation’s Benchmarks to develop and improve their careers provision. 

The 8 benchmarks are set out below: 

PAL Access policy

Please see the link below to our updated Provider Access policy statement 2023

TCA: Provider Access policy

Careers Hubs

Since October 2015, the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, in partnership with the Careers and Enterprise Company, has also been running a Careers Hub in East Cambs and Fenland Enterprise Partnership area. This Careers Hub was put in place to build on the support provided through the Enterprise Adviser Networks to achieve benchmarks 5 and 6 and support schools / colleges to achieve all eight of the Gatsby Benchmarks. 

What is a Careers Hub? 

A Careers Hub is a group of secondary schools / colleges / SEN Schools located in the same geographical area, working with universities, other education and training providers, employers and career guidance professionals to ensure that ALL the Gatsby Benchmarks are delivered in each school and college within the Hub and that career outcomes are improved for all young people. Schools and colleges within the Hub should have a shared vision of how they will work together to improve outcomes for the young people in their area. TCA is supported by Alvina Morey (Senior Enterprise Co-ordinator) and Kieren Cross (Enterprise Advisor). The role of the Enterprise Co-ordinator and Advisor is to work directly with the school  careers leader to support their careers programme. They combine their passion for raising the aspirations of young people with their strategic skills to help put opportunities with local employers at the heart of a young person’s education.