Careers and aspirations

We encourage our students to live by the Vale of York Academy motto of ‘Always giving the best.’

As a school, we are committed to enabling our students to do this by providing them with the very best opportunities during their time with us, but also by equipping them with as much information, advice and guidance about their future choices and progression routes as possible.

Our students have access to careers guidance and information from their first day with us in Year 7 until they move on to further education or training after their examinations in Year 11. In reality, it doesn’t always end there as we are very happy to help past students where we can too!

We have a team of people in school lead by Assistant Vice Principal, Mrs Hardy and outside of school too including the Prospects Service and City of York Council’s Careers Service. We also have a fully stocked careers library and can point you in the right direction when you’re looking online at the wealth of careers information out there.

Our careers guidance and information is impartial, confidential and always provided by a qualified careers adviser. And most importantly it is focussed on the individual student.

Careers Education Programme

All students will take part in a careers education programme which is part of the PSHE curriculum for Years 7 to 11 to help them to:

understand the future opportunities in education, training, and employment
develop the necessary skills to help them plan career progression
understand how and where to access information to help make informed decisions
be given the opportunity to give feedback to support the coordinator improve careers provision in the academy.

You can see the schedule for the full year here

Throughout the school year, we will provide a range of opportunities that can inspire, inform and encourage students to make important career choices including work experience, events, outside speakers and workshops.

Take a look around our Careers pages:

Careers advice and guidance