For the past decade, trusts have rightly focused on attendance, attainment, inclusion and school improvement. But what happens next?
As I write this ahead of the much-anticipated publication of Milburn’s solutions, we know that nearly one million people aged 16-24 are NEET. 39% of those young people are seeking work; 30% have good GCSEs or equivalent and 15% are graduates. Access to high-quality careers education remains unequal, while lack of meaningful work experience continues to be a barrier to positive transitions.
Positive destinations are increasingly becoming a key test of whether a trust’s mission is being realised. As the Curriculum and Assessment Review reminds us, education should enable young people to flourish as fulfilled individuals, active citizens and members of a thriving workforce. If this is our ambition, we must look beyond examination outcomes and consider whether learners are equipped for successful next steps.
This shift has significant implications for governance. Careers leadership is no longer a compliance task; it is a strategic trust responsibility, sitting alongside discussions about equity, inclusion, attendance and trust improvement. Trustees are being asked not simply to monitor careers education as peripheral activity, but to understand whether it improves progression outcomes.
The Careers & Enterprise Company (CEC), in partnership with CST, has developed new guidance to strengthen trustees’ strategic oversight of careers education. Strategic Careers Leadership in a Trust clarifies statutory expectations and helps trustees focus on learner outcomes.
Learners do not have to be "ready" for work experience; meaningful workplace experiences can build readiness, confidence and aspiration.
The evolving role of work experience illustrates this shift. Modern work experience is increasingly recognised as a lever for wider trust priorities, including attendance, engagement, inclusion, wellbeing and attainment. Work experience reform requires a strategic shift from single placements to deliberately designed workplace experiences that support progression. By connecting workplace learning with curriculum and personal development, trusts can help learners develop the knowledge, confidence and skills needed for successful progression.
CEC’s third National System Review: Impactful and Equitable Work Experience explored how meaningful work experience can help meet otherwise unmet need. The review identified three interconnected areas of impact: engagement and inclusion, equity and social mobility, and progression and destinations. This suggests meaningful workplace experiences can be a powerful lever for improving long-term outcomes, particularly for those who need it most.
One school serving a community affected by industrial decline concluded that a Year 10 placement alone could not broaden horizons sufficiently. By using CEC’s equalex framework, leaders introduced employer encounters and experiences from Year 7 onwards to help learners explore sectors and pathways they may not otherwise consider.
By helping learners understand the relevance of learning and build networks beyond their circumstances, work experience becomes part of a trust's wider strategy for improving learner outcomes, inclusion and belonging.
The next chapter of education reform should focus on purposeful progression: creating a system that values successful transitions alongside academic achievement.
England faces a progression challenge as much as an attainment challenge: achieving well in education does not necessarily guarantee a successful next step. Trusts are uniquely placed to respond because they sit at the intersection of schools, employers, communities and local partnerships.
Through my Churchill Fellowship, I visited Australia, Canada and Ireland to explore inclusive Work-Connected Learning: connecting curriculum and workplace experiences to build knowledge, skills and progression readiness. In the strongest systems, work experience and careers education form part of coherent local approaches connecting curriculum, employers and qualifications to create clearer pathways into employment, further study and adult life.
Progression is designed, not left to chance. Equitable progression emerges when curriculum, experience, partnerships and place are organised around learners. England already possesses many of these building blocks. The challenge is to connect them through a coherent system that values purposeful progression alongside attainment.
Through CEC’s forthcoming Purposeful Progression Co-Mission, we are bringing together young people and sector partners to explore how a progression entitlement can be delivered for every young person. Meaningful pathways into adulthood require collaboration between educators, employers, communities and young people, with trusts playing a vital convening role.
As trustees and leaders consider the next phase of school improvement, the challenge is clear: how do we ensure every young person leaves education ready to progress and thrive?
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Nicola Hall is Director of Education at the Careers and Enterprise Company. Learn more about the Co-Mission: purposefulprogression@careersandenterprise.co.uk and CEC’s Trust Community of Improvement.
We welcome perspectives from a diverse range of guest contributors. The opinions expressed in blogs are the views of the author(s), and should not be read as CST guidance or CST’s position.
For trustees considering what stronger strategic oversight of careers education looks like in practice, our Your role as a careers trustee course, starting on 1 December, explores the role of the careers lead trustee, the assurance boards should expect, and how trustees can help shape a clear vision for careers education across their trust. Book your place.
