Assessing your needs
Compass+ has been designed to provide you with the data you need to plan and deliver an effective careers activity programme. You may however find that you have gaps in your Plan, and need to provide more targeted activities for some groups and individuals.
Using the Dashboard
The first data visualisation on your Dashboard shows your progress towards achieving each of the Gatsby Benchmarks. In the example below, we can see that the institution is scoring 25% towards achieving Benchmark 5:
Reviewing an Evaluation
A Careers Leader may decide to plan activities to increase their Benchmark 5 score. Before they do this, it would be useful to review their last complete Evaluation in more detail. To do this, they firstly click on Evaluations > Your Evaluations in the navigation bar:
They then select their most recent completed Evaluation from the list and click on ‘View results’:
The Careers Leader reviews the Evaluation report. They scroll down to Benchmark 5 and click on ‘Show details’ to learn more about the assessment areas for the Benchmark:
They can see there is a single assessment area for the Benchmark:
The Careers Leader knows that the school has provided meaningful encounters with employers for some pupils this academic year, but is unsure of all the classes/years participating.
Reviewing Benchmark activities
They decide to drill-down further and review the activities that have been planned or completed for pupils so far. To do this, they click on Plans > Your Plans on the navigation bar, then View/Edit Plan. They are shown a list of all their planned and completed activities for the academic year. To easily find all Benchmark 5 activities, they sort by Main Category:
They scroll down and review which years/classes/pupils have been included in Benchmark 5 activities, and the providers/employers used:
The Careers Leader sees that Years 9 and 10 have nothing planned for Benchmark 5. They firstly decide to plan a Careers Day for Year 9 to take place in the summer term.
Finding the right provision
There are a series of resources to help Compass+ users find the right careers activity provision. Continuing the example from above, let’s look at how a Careers Leader might use each of them.
Using the Careers Partners database
The Careers Leader selects Careers Partners > Your Careers Partners from the navigation bar. They view the database of providers and employers that their school’s Compass+ users have already created:
The Careers Leader wants their Year 9 Careers Day to feature talks from employers spanning a range of industries. After reviewing their partners database, they have a good range of employers to call on, but ideally need more speakers representing STEM industries.
(To learn more about using the Careers Partners database, see How to use the Careers Partners database.
Intelligent provider suggestions
The Careers Leader decides to use Compass+’s intelligent provider suggestions to access further providers who might be able to offer STEM-focused talks.
They return to the new Year 9 activity they are creating in their Plan. Here they scroll down to the ‘Add providers or employers to your activity’ section and click on the ‘See potential organisations for this activity’ link. A pop-up window suggests providers in their area who can deliver Benchmark 5 activities:
The Careers Leader contacts two of the providers and find speakers who are able to speak on STEM subjects. The Careers Leader adds the providers to their partners database and the Year 9 Careers Day activity.
CEC Resource Directory
The CEC Resource Directory is also available to help Careers Leaders in their planning. It features lesson materials, strategic tools and other supporting information, and can be filtered by category to help you quickly find what you need:
To access the Resource Directory, click on 'Training and Resources' in the navigation bar:
Next, click on Access Resource Directory in the panel provided. This is an external link, and will open the Resource Directory in a new window:
