I’ve seen first-hand the power good careers guidance. It can be transformational, and the updated Gatsby benchmarks, which will become part of statutory guidance this spring, are another important step on the journey to ensuring every child benefits from it.
As a trust leadership team, my headteachers, senior leaders and I prioritise it. To us, it is not a ‘nice to have’ but essential to improving outcomes for young people. For any number of reasons, many of those we work with have limited horizons about the world and what’s available to them.
Good careers guidance, delivered under the Gatsby benchmark framework, has the power to open their eyes to ideas and experiences they or their parents may never have considered.
That’s why I’m pleased that the updated benchmarks aren’t significantly different to the original benchmarks, which we’ve been using to great effect for many years. Why take something that fundamentally works and change it?
We’ve seen career readiness improving, NEETs reducing and young people better equipped to make more informed decisions about their futures. That’s not just true across Acer schools, but evident in more than 4,700 schools and colleges that use the benchmarks up and down the country.
More than 90 per cent of schools and colleges now measure their careers provision using the eight benchmarks, and it’s evident that Gatsby have really listened to the sector in making these changes. All the updates are rooted in evidence, which is really important for leaders to know.
So what should you be doing to get ready for implementing the updated benchmarks?
Across Acer schools, we’ll be using this rare but welcome gift of time to read the report and absorb its findings. We’ll be bringing our headteachers together to take stock of where we are and to think strategically about how we embed the updated framework successfully across each of our schools.
As CEO, I see it as part of my role to ensure this happens
We’ll use the report to galvanise our staff and wider partners to ensure they are clear about their role too. Our career leaders will work together with careers advisers, teachers and other key support staff to plan, prioritise and prepare for implementation of revised career programmes in line with the updated benchmarks from September 2025.
Strong leadership is crucial for making the updated benchmarks a success; a senior leader has to make time to embed them within the school and then the framework can work its magic and be delivered by the empowered careers leader.
This bears emphasis: Whoever is tasked with implementation needs the wholesale support from a member of the leadership team to be really effective. As CEO, I see it as part of my role to ensure that happens in each of our schools.
It’s also important to make the time to plan strategically so that careers guidance isn’t just a ‘moment’. It shouldn’t just be something that students and teachers only think about it in Careers Week or when they do their work experience.
Effective careers guidance needs to be embedded into the planning for each subject. At our trust, each head of department ensures this is the case from Year 7 all the way through to 13. Careers needs to be a constant drip of information and guidance all year round, not just one or two quick splashes.
A core part of education is broadening horizons and preparing each young person to thrive in the next stages of their lives. Good careers guidance, tailored to meet each student’s needs allows us to do just that.
The updated Gatsby benchmarks are a crucial part of ‘breaking down barriers to opportunity’. They’ve proven their worth over the past decade, and I have no doubt they will help us reach every child over the decade to come.
