Careers

Careers at the Core: Guiding Every Student Towards Their Future

At Melbourn Village College, we believe that careers education is not just about choosing a job – it's about helping students discover their interests, develop their strengths, and build the confidence to shape their own future. Beyond the MVC Futures Programme sits our full careers offer across the school. Our careers curriculum is designed to broaden horizons, spark ambition, and ensure every student is informed and prepared for their next steps.

Here’s what each year group can expect in addition to our MVC Futures Programme:

• Year 7 – Whose Line is it Anyway?
  A fun and engaging introduction to the world of work, helping students explore different job roles and how they link to everyday life.

• Year 8 – Take Your Child to Work Day & Careers Carousel
  An opportunity for students to gain first-hand insight into the workplace, followed by a carousel event where they meet people from a variety of professions.

• Year 9 – Enterprise Day & Visits to Colleges and Universities
  A creative and collaborative day where students take on business challenges, alongside visits to explore post-16 and post-18 education options.

• Year 10 – One-to-One Careers Interviews & Sixth Form Visits
  Personalised guidance through careers interviews, helping students begin to focus their plans for the future. Visits to local colleges and sixth forms also take place during the year.

• Year 11 – Careers Support & Open Evenings
  Continued individual guidance as students prepare for life after MVC. We support applications, provide advice on options including sixth form, college and apprenticeships, and encourage attendance at open evenings and events.

Our work is benchmarked against the national and international standards for school careers provision. 

Career Guidance

We provide all students with access to career guidance. This is all high quality, impartial and independent careers advice. Impartial advice is provided by a level 6 qualified external careers advisor, our teaching and other staff. 

Our students are also encouraged to have high aspirations, to aim for excellence, and to consider the broadest range of career areas and appropriate educational and personal development routes.  For some students, this will mean encouragement and mentoring for applications to the most selective universities. For others, it will mean similar encouragement and mentoring for a directly career-related or talent-related path. 

Below are some further useful resources to help you find the right path for you:

• National Careers Service
• First Careers
• Springpod
• Careers Box
• GOV.uk – Apprenticeships
• U-explore
• Icould
• Not going to Uni
• UCAS
• Keep your Head
• Kooth
• SACU
• MyChoice@16

If you need more advice or information in school you can contact:

• Your child's Form Tutor
• Head of Key Stage 3: Mrs Coghlan
• Head of Key Stage 4: Mr Barlow
• Assistant Principal, Raising Aspirations: Mrs Elvin
• SEND Administrator: Mrs Vinci (for additional SEND support with post 16)

Parental Guidance

Sometimes you struggle to decide what you would like to do once you have left school. At Melbourn Village College, we want to ensure that your child chooses the correct career path for them, whether it would be college, a Sixth Form, an Apprenticeship or heading straight into a job.

For further support Youth Employment UK provides expert careers advice for parents who want to help their child understand and explore their next steps.

Work Experience

Work experience for all Year 10 students takes place in July. Examples of work experience placement forms and information leaflet are available to download from the left hand menu.

Everybody is somebody