Future Skills Questionnaire - Case Study
Sharon Carroll, Class Teacher and Careers Leader at Bradford Alternative Provision Academy, Jesse Street shares her insights
Sharon Carroll took part in our recent Future Skills Questionnaire (FSQ) working group. Set up to support hub schools to roll out the FSQ and in doing so identify gaps in provision, tailor careers activities to individual needs and measure progress of careers programmes over time.
How are you using FSQ at Bradford AP?
We used it to identify gaps in our students understanding of their career paths. We read the questions to the students individually so were able to discuss the answers they gave.
What value does it bring?
It helped us to recognise what lesson plans we needed to put in place in order to improve their understanding of what is available for them after year 11.
What will you do next with FSQ?
Share with our careers adviser and repeat next year to track progress.
Can you envisage this tool being used in mainstream?
This is a tough one as we found that to answer the questions we needed to simplify them and some of the questions they answered confidently but incorrectly, an example being the question regarding 'do you know which websites to look for to find about jobs' and they all said yes -google. Because we were completing this questionnaire individual with our students we were able to factor this into our plans but if the students completed without support we wouldn't have picked this up.
Any advice for other CLs who might want to try doing it themselves but are hesitant?
Maybe start off with a small group and provide individual support rather than just sending an email version.
There are five versions of the Future Skills Questionnaire, each tailored to transition points throughout secondary education and students with SEND.