It was liking animals that always did it.
The question would pop up: “Do you like animals?” If you answered “Yes”, then the expertly calibrated, state-of-the-art careers tool that your school had invested in would have one recommendation for you above all others: you should become a zookeeper.
No matter that you wanted to study History and Philosophy at university. No matter that you hated getting dirty, and ranked “Working in an office that has one of those special taps for sparkling water” as your number-one career priority. Nope. If you liked animals, the algorithm had decided, then you were destined for a career in zookeeping.
It is possible that careers guidance has improved since the days of gnomic print-outs on greenish computer paper with holes up the edges. (It is equally possible that the zoos, inundated with applications from dirt-hating History and Philosophy graduates, petitioned the careers services to please, please, please change their algorithm.)
We will soon find out, as Ofsted has launched a year-long review of careers guidance in schools, to identify strengths and weaknesses in provision. Inspectors will look at how school leaders fulfil their statutory duty to provide independent, high-quality careers guidance, with the aim of making recommendations to improve practice.
Until they do, however, our hearts can only go out to those people who – thanks, presumably, to the enigmatic workings of their school careers tools – have ended up in entirely the wrong job.
Take, for example, this month’s education secretary, Gillian Keegan. She has somehow found herself in a job that requires her to prioritise education above all else. Which is odd, because, it turns out, Keegan doesn’t.
In an interview with Times Radio this week, Keegan suggested that tackling soaring inflation was more important than boosting school budgets. “Without doing that, any other discussion is kind of irrelevant,” she said, “because inflation will just eat up any gains.”
And spare a thought, too, for primary-school teachers. Most of them are still adjusting to the fact that they listed “Nurturing creativity and self-expression in young children” as a career priority, and yet the careers tool blithely sent them off to do a job that involves endlessly preparing pupils to sit government-mandated tests.
But now even those primary teachers who selected “Endlessly prepare pupils to sit government-mandated tests” as their career priority are feeling cheated. The Department for Education has announced that schools should close for the bank holiday to mark the coronation of King Charles next May, even though it will clash with Key Stage 2 SATs.
The extra bank holiday, on 8 May, is the first day of Sats week. The DfE has said that the Standards and Testing Agency will clarify what this means as soon as possible. (Hint: lots of barbecues; probable rain.)
Meanwhile, let’s not forget the sorry fate of all those people who enthusiastically listed “Enhancing and enriching young lives” and “Managing people” as their top career priorities, and were promptly sent off to become headteachers.
A survey of more than 11,000 school leaders, conducted by the National Association of Headteachers, reveals that half are looking at reducing the number of teachers, or of teaching hours, in an effort to deal with rising costs. Two thirds say that they will have to make teaching assistants redundant or reduce their hours.
Only five per cent of schools say that they will be able to pay their costs without going into deficit next academic year – which means that more than nine out of 10 schools will not be able to balance their budgets without drastic action.
Good careers education can, of course, transform lives. But, equally, the effect of bad advice can be felt for decades. The woefully inadequate careers guidance received by today’s headteachers, for example, is surely the only thing that can explain why they are so outraged when confronted with the realities of their role.
The Association of School and College Leaders is planning a consultative ballot on industrial action, in what the union has called an “unprecedented step”. From next week, members will be asked informally what they would be prepared to do (write a stern letter; strike; take over a failing government and turn it into an academy) in response to reductions in funding, pay and conditions. The NAHT is also to ballot members on strike action over pay, for the first time in its 125-year history.
It is worth noting, however, that the effects of substandard careers guidance are not confined to the schools sector. Children’s commissioner Anne Longfield has this week highlighted failures in social-care, family-support and mental-health systems. This can only be attributed to school career advisers’ shameful inability to ensure that only students with the skills to alchemise effective services out of a lack of time and resources enter these professions.
In her report Hidden in Plain Sight, Longfield proposes extending free school meals to all families on universal credit, re-establishing the Child Poverty Unit and launching a £1 billion mental-health recovery programme. She also suggests that school buildings should be used out of school hours – including weekends – to provide a safe place for teenagers to hang out.
It is possible, of course, that Longfield’s own careers adviser mistakenly led her to believe that she was applying for the role of children’s commissioner under a government that cared.
There are signs, however, that things are changing. Teach First, the teacher-training programme for high-achieving graduates, this week revealed that it has recruited the lowest number of trainees for four years: only four-fifths of its target.
While bad news for the teaching profession, there is a silver lining here: students considering a career in teaching in 2022 are all too accurately aware of what the job might involve. So, Ofsted, here it is: the clear evidence of improvement in careers education that you’ve been looking for.
Click here to read Adi Bloom’s This Week In Education column every week.
