Careers Programme Information

We at The Polygon School value and take huge pride in our Careers Programme and the benefits that it has for our pupils. 

Peter Rooke - Level 6 Careers Advisor provides Careers Guidance meetings to all pupils across the school. 

Externally we work with EBP South to help us source Employer Encounters for our pupils.  With their support, we are able to offer our pupils at least seven meaningful encounters with employers in a variety of ways such as workplace visits, employer talks in school, work experience placements and careers events, many of which have cross-curricular links.

For the academic year, 2025 - 26 the school's career leader is Peter Rooke – Careers Educator, The Polygon School, Handel Terrace, Southampton, SO15 2FH. Tel: 023 8063 6776.

A copy of the 2025 - 26 bespoke Careers programme can also be found in this section on the school website and is available to access by all stakeholders. Also available is the school Careers Roadmap. This document outlines to all stakeholder the journey and offer pupils can expect in relation to Careers from Year 7 – 11. This document is available below and a physical copy is shred with parents/carers on transition and at Target Review Days.

LMI (Labour Market Information) is provided to pupils across KS4 in WorkSkills lessons on a scheduled timetable. LMI resources and information are also provided to parents via two parent information days (Target Review Days) held each academic year and Key Stage Annual Reviews. Parents are actively encouraged to engage with their child to look at LMI in relation to their career explorations.

The school measures their progress against the Gatsby benchmarks in line with government expectations.  In line with Local Authority and CEC (Careers and Enterprise Company) requirements our Gatsby Benchmarks are reviewed and recorded termly, three times per year.  These are shared with the CEC, Local Authority and published on our website below.  This system logs our progress against the benchmarks termly and allows us to evaluate our progress and identify areas for improvements. A link to our most recent evaluations are below.

There are 8 Gatsby Benchmarks to achieve as below.

1.  A Stable Careers Programme
2. Learning from Career and Labour Markey Information
3. Addressing the needs of each student
4. Linking curriculum learning to careers
5. Encounters with employers and employees
6. Experiences of workplaces
7. Encounters with further and higher education
8. Personal guidance

Our current Gatsby Benchmark score is 8 – Achieving 100% in all Benchmarks. Comparisons to other schools can be found by clicking on the link below:

We have also engaged with the CEC Careers Impact Maturity Model and results shared in Compass+. The outcome of this assessment has formed an action plan that we will be working on across the current academic year.  Our 2025 – 26 action plan can be viewed below.

Careers 2025-26

   Please click here for more details of our Gatsby Benchmark.