Moving on

At QE, we are committed to helping all students progress to exciting and meaningful higher education courses, jobs or apprenticeships. Guidance members of staff are able to give advice on career pathways and opportunities well beyond the sixth form.

All students receive first class careers and higher education guidance while at College and develop employability skills. There are planned programmes that include workshops, talks by visiting speakers, work experience opportunities and visits.

Where to Find Help

• Our designated Careers Lead in College is Rachael Duff, Higher Education and Careers Advisor, rduff2@qeliz.ac.uk
• Liz Bryan is our Higher Education Co-ordinator and Careers Advisor, ebryan@qeliz.ac.uk
• Meirion Baker is Assistant Principal, mbaker@qeliz.ac.uk

Since the courses at QE are usually only for two years, you are expected to review your career aspirations regularly and to seek advice as necessary. Providing careers guidance is a whole college effort and QE staff are committed to delivering excellent support. Integral to this support, the Progress Tutor assists you on a one-to-one basis as part of the regular interview cycle and will also deliver sessions covering a range of careers topics, making sure that you have the information essential to making informed choices.

The College’s Higher Education and Careers Advisors provide advice and in-depth interviews for students. These Advisors have expertise in employment, apprenticeships and higher education applications.

Our Raising Aspirations Co-ordinator, Sarah Griffiths sgriffiths@qeliz.ac.uk, supports students to explore their potential with targeted activity including: university visits, talks, practical activities, mentoring and contact with employers.

We have a designated Oxbridge Co-ordinator, Simon Nicholson, snicholson@qeliz.ac.uk, who has successfully supported students to gain places at Oxford and Cambridge.

Work Experience

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, students are also supported to gain meaningful placements to enhance their skills. We encourage all student to take part in work experience throughout the academic year but especially during our work experience week in July.

Employability

Developing skills and helping students to progress is an integral part of the QE experience. Our curriculum Employability Lead supports the integration of employability skills into lessons, helping students to identify the skills that they are developing in their study programme. Students are encouraged to have meaningful subject specific encounters with employers through our local Subject Employer Champions and the Employer of the Month scheme.

Destinations

This summer over 650 of our students progressed to over 100 different universities including 181 to the Russell Group. 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.

Enrichment

We encourage students to take part in enrichment opportunities to enhance their 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.

Careers resources

Students 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 their first year students will gain access to Unifrog, a destinations platform that supports good careers guidance with information and search tools that allow students to filter their options and find the best route for them.

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

Support for Parents/Carers

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 contact us on 01325 461315 or email qe@qeliz.ac.uk

For more information about our careers provision please see the resources below:

HE Parent’s Information Leaflet

Careers Newsletter January 2021

We welcome feedback on our careers provision so if you would like to share your views please do so here.