Good news for graduate employment

The latest leavers’ survey found that the proportion of graduates in work or further study is at a record high, with more going into professional jobs. Overall, 90% of graduates were in work or further study sixth months after graduation. 71% of those are in work roles which are classed as 'professional employment', a rise of 3 percentage points on the previous year. 

The survey also found that the gender gap in pay was increasing, with men in work having a mean salary of £24k compared to £21k for women, the gender gap in the previous year was £2,000. The highest unemployment rate was in Computer Science, 10%, although this has fallen from 14% in 2011/12. The highest employment rate was Dentistry and Medicine, both of whom had 1% unemployment. This is the penultimate leavers’ survey, as the intent is to use employment information from national data sets in the future, which will be far more accurate. The effect of Brexit on graduate prospects will not be known until next year.  [ source: CES newsletter ]

Most expensive cities for students

A study by the Royal Bank of Scotland has concluded that Edinburgh is the most expensive UK city for students. However, Edinburgh students are still the highest social spenders and spend above the weekly average on alcohol. The survey of 2,500 students took into account a range of factors, including how much students spend on going out, how much time they spend studying, accommodation costs and average term time income. The survey found the majority of a student's income came from student loans, on average £161.14 per week. That figure was four times higher than any other source, including part-time work. After loans, parental support was the largest income source. [ source: CES newsletter ]

List of the top 25 most cost-effective cities for students in the UK:

1 Portsmouth	10 Dundee	19 London
2 Liverpool	11 Manchester	20 Sheffield
3 Newcastle	12 Norwich	21 Plymouth
4 Belfast	13 Leicester	22 Oxford
5 Exeter	14 Brighton	23 Cambridge
6 York	15 Reading	24 Southampton
7 Cardiff	16 Glasgow	25 Edinburgh
8 Nottingham	17 Leeds
9 Birmingham	18 Bristol

Need a "Plan B"?

If your GCSE results were not what you expected and you need to re-think your options, DON'T PANIC, help is at hand! There are lots of things you can do. Start by reading this ...

• Talk to someone at school. Senior Staff will be available in school on Results Day (Thursday 25th August, 9.00-11.00am.) and you can book an appointment to speak to someone to get advice about what you can do next, for example, if you need to change your Sixth Form courses.
• Talk to our Youth Connexions Personal Adviser, Claire Blanchard. She will be in school on Results Day and you can also contact her through the St Albans Youth Connexions website. She can work with you on a late application to College or help you with other pathways such as entering employment, training or an Apprenticeship. 
• If you have an offer from College but need to change course or your level of entry visit Oaklands on Results Day and talk to the tutors there  - they are expecting visits from potential students.
• Visit the Youth Connexions "one stop shop" in Catherine Street. You can find out the details here. It will be open on and after Results Day  -  details here.
• Think about an Apprenticeship. You can find all the information you need at Apprenticeships.gov. You simply fill in your details - like a mini CV - and then you can search the opportunities available and applying is easy as your information is stored.
• Think about applying to Oaklands College. They have Open Days this month for late applications. You can find the details here as well as on the Oaklands website. 
• Check out ChannelMogo for general information and advice.
• Use the 'search' tool on this blog to explore further options.

Keep calm and talk to someone to get the impartial advice and guidance you need ... Good luck!

ANOTHER new league table for universities ...

Researchers from the Times Higher Education supplement (THE) have used the same criteria that will be employed for the teaching excellence framework (TEF), student satisfaction, graduate employment and retention, to create a new league table. The new table judged Cambridge to be 12th, whilst Oxford was 28th, and Imperial College 37th, Loughborough, Aston and De Montfort were the top three. There were no Russell Group universities in the top ten and just three, Cambridge, Durham and Birmingham, made it into the top 20. The TEF is to be the main criteria of whether universities are allowed to raise their fees and thus is a very important benchmark. The TEF is to be piloted in 2016-2018, before formal assessment begins in 2018-19.  See below for the best and worst performers in the table:

	TOP TEN			BOTTOM TEN
1	Loughborough		111	St Mark & St John
2	Aston		112	Bolton
3	De Montfort		113	Leeds Becket
4	Swansea		114	Glyndwr
5	Kent		115	West London
6	Coventry		116	Wolverhampton
7	Keele		117	Trinity St David
8	Surrey		118	East London
9	Bath		119	Queen Margaret
10	Lancaster		120	London Met

Applying to Medical School

Applying to study Medicine is always a potential "minefield", with conflicting advice from different sources. That said, the more information you have at your fingertips the better.

You can view slides from a PowerPoint, titled Applying for Medicine, which was delivered at a recent national careers conference, here.

Also useful, is a table of information about which Medical Schools will take any A/S level qualifications you have into account when applying for Autumn 2017 entry.  View it here.

Two pathways planned at 16+

The first skills white paper in a decade will bring an end to mixed provision and make 16-year-olds choose between academic courses leading to university or a new Technical Professional Education (TPE) route into work. The leaked, government  paper, is likely to be controversial for fear the plans will create a two-tier system between academic schools and vocational colleges. A three-year course could also be an option, with the first year preparing students to start on TPEs. There will be a substantial work experience element within each college-based TPE “pathway”, within its relevant industry.

Impact of the Digital Revolution

Students should be able to take Computer Science instead of a language at GCSE and schools should offer a 'technical stream' for 14-18 year olds, according to a new report, which also says the Ebacc is forcing students into a “19th century diet of academic subjects for all”. In The Digital Revolution, former education secretary and chair of the Edge Foundation, Lord Kenneth Baker writes that radical action is needed to help prepare children for the the impact of the digital revolution, which he terms the "fourth industrial revolution".

“The economy is changing at an unprecedented pace,” he said. “Every day, jobs are being lost in professions we used to regard as careers for life. artificial intelligence, robots, 3D printing and driverless vehicles will impact on sectors as varied as the legal profession, transport and construction.

“The UK’s future workforce will need technical expertise in areas such as design and computing, plus skills which robots cannot replace – flexibility, empathy, creativity and enterprise.

“Right now, this thinking is almost entirely absent from the core curriculum in mainstream schools.”

His report was prompted by the Bank of England’s prediction that up to 15 million jobs are at risk of automation across the UK economy.