Careers

Careers at St Francis Special School is accessed in a range of ways, depending on the learner. For some students it may be the opportunity to engage with employers and experience life in their world through events such as our Have A Go Day, for others it may include regular work experience in order to prepare them for the world of work.

We engage with many local employers and organisations who will visit and host us. In recent years we have visited the Quavers factory in Lincoln, with its owner Pepsico a regular attendee at school events. Currys have both visited and hosted students at the school, the Sureserve Group (formerly Aaron Services) are another company that have worked closely with us over the last few years. These engagements are beneficial in a number of ways. It enables students to explore career choices they may not have been aware of and see that a business will feature many career paths, regardless of the specific industry they are in. It also helps to build aspiration for being in employment – we also have former students come back into school to share their positive stories. Additionally, these visits are a wonderful chance for students to experience places that they would perhaps not have come across previously.

As well as engagement with local employers, we look at careers as part of our PSHE lessons. This will feature elements of the job environment such as CV writing, searching for jobs and applying for jobs.

For some of our young people, the most important aspect of careers comes in the form of work experience. We want to give our learners as thorough an opportunity as possible to experience the world of work in a realistic manner. Again, we work with local employers in order to facilitate these placements – Stokes Café, Sureserve and Lincoln City football club are current employers working with our young people. For some of these roles, an application process will take place, with interviews carried out by the company itself. Our work experience offering builds gradually, with students adding skills as their understanding grows. Initially they will have a school kitchen placement before moving on to a supported external placement – often at the Lincolnshire County Council’s Quad Café facility. We have an in-school café, Saints and Dinners, which enables students to take the next step towards independence in a supported-environment. For those students ready for external work experience, the starting point will be a charity shop or perhaps a social enterprise, somewhere that can offer a level of support similar to that of the school environment. Finally, for those that are ready, experience at our business partners can be applied for. We have had many success stories, as you will see from the case studies elsewhere on this page.