2026 – 2026 Highlights: Careers and Higher Education

Channing students know that their career is their ‘living, learning and working’, so it could be said that everything they do is part of their careers education. Within the school curriculum, careers is addressed in all academic subjects, enrichment and PSHE, as well as through various special events and Enrichment Week. Our aim is for all Channing students to have good self-awareness, be informed about the huge variety of different career pathways they could follow, and be suitably skilled so they can make the right choices about their futures. Much of the specialist input about careers depends upon an army of willing parents, alumnae and supporters who give talks, undertake mock interviews, host students at their companies and enable networking opportunities. We are most grateful to you all.

In Year 7, students were enthusiastic board game inventors during ‘Across the Board’, their entrepreneurship activity, but we mustn’t forget that arriving at Channing, making new friends and settling into secondary school academic and extra-curricular life are key steps in their individual career journeys. In Year 8, students completed the ‘Step into the NHS’ national competition in Biology, seeing the direct link between careers and their classroom learning. CREST Awards in Science and Teentech in Year 9 continue the curriculum-embedded careers programme, along with opportunities to start the Duke of Edinburgh Award. Engaging with the Morrisby Aspirations Questionnaire ensured students were well prepared to make their GCSE choices, and trips to Bletchley Park and the National Museum of Computing showed how career opportunities for women over the last 80 years have developed considerably.

Year 10 undertook the ‘Future Options’ course as part of the enrichment carousel and were enthusiastic participants in the summer Careers Convention, listening to talks on careers ranging from investment banking to documentary filmmaking. Some students completed a ‘business start-up’ day when they planned and pitched a charity, and everyone attended a Work Insight Visit, which included a university science research department, an architecture and design consultancy and the Supreme Court. All became proficient at logging their activities in Unifrog, our destinations platform, and using it to research different subjects and careers for the future. Year 11 focused on choosing their A levels, some attended the Springboard Higher Education Fair after school and many are arranging work experience for the period after their GCSEs.

Sixth Form is a particularly intense period of planning and preparing for the future. Year 12 students had their 1:1 careers discussion with our visiting qualified Careers Adviser. Unifrog was their constant companion for shortlisting courses and universities and researching careers. At the Higher Education Information Evening, with their parents, they learned about the process of applying through UCAS, and on Springboard Day heard talks on studying different subjects, and how to choose a university and course. At the Springboard Fair they discussed matters in detail with university representatives from nearly 40 institutions and organisations. Ongoing support was provided for Oxbridge, Law, Medicine, Veterinary Science, Dentistry and overseas applicants. The Careers Convention and more Work Insight Visits gave further opportunities to consider different career pathways they might follow ‘After Channing’. Returning alumnae shared their wisdom on University Applications Day, ensuring that, like the Year 13s before them, the autumn term will be a focused and productive period of applying to and receiving offers from universities, and working hard on their A levels in order to meet them.

This year, students also had the opportunity to attend lunchtime talks on careers in science research, architecture and design, fintech, medicine, Norland nannying and paramedicine, with the Sixth Form also hearing from a leading art gallery curator and a barrister and founder of a leadership consultancy. All careers talks and activities encourage Channing students to be ambitious, develop resilience and be 10% braver.