What Next after School

There are many different options when you reach school leaving age, stay at school? go to college? Leave and get employment or an apprenticeship.

Whatever you choose to do a good starting point would be a Connexions Personal Advisor. Connexions advisors can help with careers, further education options, help with filling in application forms.

If you have a disability most Connexions centres have specialsts dealing with Learning Difficulties and disabilities who can give you advice.

For your local connexions centre contact www.connexionswakefield.co.uk

Courses and Qualifications

If you decide to continue gaining qualifications there are several ways in which you can get these.

Vocational Courses

These courses help you do a specific job. Vocational courses cover occupations such as – catering, tourism, hairdressing, building trades, mechanics and many many more. These qualifications are normally done part time whilst working or doing an apprenticeship. Most vocational courses lead to National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs)

Work related courses

These courses help you develop skills and knowledge around future careers such as health and social care, business, art, leisure and many more subjects. The qualifications you can gain from these courses are BTEC’s, OCR Nationals and Diplomas and A Levels.

General Courses

These are courses that continue on from school in subjects such as English, Maths, Science etc At AS/A level there are also other subjects you can study which will help in future careers. This option generally leads onto higher education.

Looking for Employment

There are several places you can look for a job

Local Newspapers
Connexions Centre
Job Centre Plus
Shop Windows

Other things you can do

Ask Family/Friends
Call into businesses and ask about any vacancies
Sending a CV to companies

CV’s and Letters of Application

A CV (curriculum Vitae) is up to date information about yourself and your employment experience/history. A CV should be kept short and ideally typed up. If you need any help in doing a CV speak to your local connexions centre.

A company may ask for a letter of application when applying for a job some points to note when doing a letter are: