Careers & HE Advice

Careers Programme

• Student Entitlement Document
• Careers Policy

If you have any questions about Higher Education/Careers, including advice about the subjects you might need to take at QE for progression to university or employment, please contact one of the following people using the links below:

• Our designated Careers Lead in College is Rachael Duff, Higher Education and Careers Advisor.
• Sarah Griffiths is our Higher Education Co-ordinator and Careers Adviser,
• Meirion Baker is Assistant Principal.
• If you have any questions about the Future Me scheme or work experience please contact Lydia Elliott
• Any other queries, including questions about your application, should please be directed to the College or to Laurence Job

We are committed to the development of our careers programme and are currently working to achieve the highly prestigious Quality in Careers Standard.

When a provider achieves the standard, it is a national recognition that it provides its students with careers support of the very best quality.
To achieve the national quality award, schools and colleges submit their CEIAG programme for rigorous external assessment and accreditation by the Licensed Awarding Body. The assessment is made against national standards, which fully incorporate the Gatsby Benchmarks for “Good Careers Guidance” by an expert CEIAG assessor who is independent of the school or college.

• More information about the Quality in Careers Standard

By achieving the externally assessed Quality in Careers Standard students and parents can be confident that the career support provided by the college will help every student to gain the knowledge, skills and confidence to take control of their futures.

When you enrol at QE, you will create a Study Programme and you will be able to discuss your subjects to see which will best suit your abilities and qualifications and allow you to achieve your long term goals. For more information, please see the Courses and Study Programmes sections of the website. We ask all students to include at least one A Level in their Study Programme so that they have as many progression options after College as possible.

When thinking about choosing your subjects, you could consider the following:

• Continue a subject you enjoy – if you enjoy studying a subject at school you might continue to enjoy the subject at QE.
• Try something new – there is a wide variety of courses available including subjects that will be completely new to you like Psychology or Geology.
• Select subjects that complement one another – this can be a good approach if you have an idea about what you want to study or you are strong in a particular area. Look at the subject leaflets on the courses section of the website for recommendations.
• Pick subjects that you need for your future – many jobs and degrees have specific entry requirements so you may want to look ahead and find out which subjects you might need. Please contact our HE/Careers advisers if you need any advice.
• Select a subject that suits your learning style – you may like to complete coursework rather than exams, or perhaps you enjoy subjects that include essays or practical work. Think about your strengths and look at the course assessment methods on the subject leaflets in courses section of the website.

The Russell Group have created an interactive digital tool called Informed Choices which you can use to get ideas about A-Levels that suit you and your aims.

Last summer over 670 students progressed to a total of 89 different universities across the country, including 194 students to Russell Group institutions. We also consistently enable students to secure places at Cambridge and Oxford universities with more than 100 progressing to these highly prestigious establishments in the past 10 years.

A good number of students move on to competitive Higher Level Apprenticeships or take up employment in a range of highly-valued occupations. Students interested in these opportunities benefit from one to one application support, visits to employers, mock interviews and workshops from expert apprenticeship services.

You can be confident that, by studying at QE, we will help you to achieve your ambitions. We are confident that we provide a first class service to our students.

So whether it is a Degree apprenticeship or a gap year volunteering abroad everyone at QE is committed to helping you to move on to your next step. If you want to get started in your career planning please see our guide.

Higher Education includes both University Education and Higher and Degree Level Apprenticeships. On average, people with higher qualification levels have a greater earning potential so when considering life after QE many students want to go into Higher Education.

Future Me is an organisation based in the North East that promotes routes into Higher Education. Sarah Griffiths is our Future Me Raising Aspirations Co-ordinator and will help you to learn more about Higher Education.

The College has very strong links with local employers, including connections through subject departments. In addition to the visits to workplaces and employer engagement in college time, you will also be supported to gain meaningful placements to enhance your skills. We encourage all students to take part in work experience throughout the academic year but especially during our work experience week.

Developing skills and helping you to progress is an integral part of the QE experience. Our curriculum Employability Lead supports the integration of employability skills into lessons, helping you to identify the skills that you are developing in your Study Programme. You will be helped to have meaningful subject specific encounters with employers through our local Subject Employer Champions and the Employer of the Month scheme.
If any employer or provider would like to support our Careers & Employability Programme please review our Provider Access Statement.

Click here for ‘Making Sense of Labour Market Information’ presentation.

We encourage students to take part in Enrichment opportunities to enhance your skills and we offer a very diverse range of activities including sector specific groups like Young Enterprise Career Programme, Future Engineers, Medic Society and more.

For a more extensive list of our enrichment opportunities please click here.

When you enrol at QE, you will have access to the College Careers Website.The site contains extensive resources including labour market information and guides for students on a variety of routes including higher education, apprenticeships, work experience, widening participation schemes and much more.

In your first year at QE, you will gain access to Unifrog, a destinations platform that supports good careers guidance with information and search tools that allow you to filter your options and find the best route for you.

In addition to our online resources, you will have access to our Careers library, which contains up to date resources and books covering a range of topics.

We encourage Parents/Carers to get involved in the progression process via the extensive resources available in College, including one to one appointments. We run careers events during parents’ evenings giving you the opportunity to talk to providers about options. Additionally, our qualified careers staff are happy to speak directly to Parents/Carers throughout the QE journey. If you would like to get in touch with a member of staff please email the named people at the top of this page or qe@qeliz.ac.uk.

Please check out our Careers Website to find out more about :

• Careers guidance
• Applications to Oxford and Cambridge.
• Work Placement opportunities