SEND

Career Development for SEND

Everybody has a specific set of skills and attributes that enable us to enter, and find our pathways through, the world of work. Students with SEND have the same skills and attributes, however, we need to focus sharply on each individual’s explicit skills and attributes so that they can be clearly demonstrated to potential employers.

The early careers employment market for all young people is tough whereupon employers are looking for the right person to undertake a junior role and be prepared to train and develop. SEND students will come across a variety of barriers for different types of jobs but these need to be overcome with persistence and resilience. You also need to be able to identify and understand the different types of barriers that you will face:

Personal challenges where you may need specific support and accommodations to thrive.

Social Challenges such as not being able to travel far for work may limit the range of opportunities.

Systemic challenges to find the right education and training programmes that best suit you and making sure that the services you need are easily accessible.

The key is to know yourself. What are you good at? What are you bad at? What help do you need?

There are two broad career development pathways. Group One for those who may not achieve conventional Level 2 school qualifications and Group Two who those who can achieve Level 2 and above qualifications.

Group One pathways

This is all about building a portfolio of entry level vocational qualifications that help you to get a foot in the door for careers. This can include Food hygiene certificates, King’s trust certificates, Health & Safety qualifications, First Aid qualifications. Above all you need to show reliability, resilience and trustworthiness. You need to show that you are keen and try lots of different experiences.

You can even look at turning your hobbies and interests into a job and not be afraid of setting up your own business.

Group Two pathways

There is no limit to what you can do T Levels, Apprenticeships, FE College and University. All of these routes will then offer supported pathways for internships, apprenticeships and employment. All along the way you will need to be heavily promoting your personal abilities, skills and attributes supported by examples of where you have done this.

The links set out below are there to help you understand what is out there and some simple steps to take to help develop your own career pathway.

Unifrog

Unifrog is the school's career platform for you to record all your skills, interests, personality type and activities. Unifrog helps you to research everything from different jobs, tips on how to complete an application form or CV and research colleges, universities and apprenticeships. It is YOUR useful tool for you to use at school, home and on your smart phone.