Benchmark 6
Personal Guidance for Developing Career Roadmaps
1. What good looks like?
Every student should receive personal guidance for identifying life goals, making their career roadmaps1, whenever significant education or career choices are being made.
- Each student2 should receive at least one personal guidance interview3 for developing career roadmaps from trained educators (e.g. career teachers, class teachers, other teachers, enterprise advisors/ mentors, social workers, etc.) by the end of Secondary 3 and at least one more by the end of Secondary 6, in prior to significant education or career choices are being made.
- Personal action plans with identified life goal for developing career roadmap are co-created by both trained educators4 and students after the personal guidance sessions.
- A record keeping system is developed to track the student’s development of career roadmap. The plan should be reviewed and tracked by both of the student and the trained educator at least once per year.
- Effective personal guidance for developing career roadmap should enrich students’ profiles by discovering their own competence, interest, values, attitude, skills, knowledge (VASK) and experience in expanded notion of work (ENOW5).
2. Why this matters?
- Personal guidance offers personalized support tailored to each student’s needs and abilities. It assists students in identifying, establishing and reviewing their individual career needs, goals and difficulties. According to Education Bureau (2019), career guidance is an essential element in the school curriculum to facilitate students’ life-long learning and whole-person development, and the school can offer personalized guidance and support to students (e.g., guidance on selection of courses and options, facilitation in formulating students’ profiles).
- Professional personal guidance from trained career advisors helps students articulate their values, attitudes, skills and knowledge (VASK), which allows students to have a better comprehension of their strengths and potentials for developing their career roadmaps.
- Personal guidance also can build student’s persistence, motivation and confidence to review and overcome any barriers preventing them from moving forwards, and clarify their goals and expectations on the pathways or options they want to pursue.
- Traceable and structured record-keeping system helps students connect their personal profiles to future development, and extend their understanding of different work experiences to help students make informed choices.
3. Top tips for schools*
PLAN
- Negotiate with the Senior Leadership Team (SLT) to allocate or deploy manpower to see if the number of teachers is sufficient and the qualifications are relevant. The teachers should be come from diverse background (e.g., teachers from different subjects) to make sure every student from F.3 & F.6 receive personal guidance.
- Prepare or create a user-friendly record-keeping system (digital or non-digital) and interviewing tools or guidelines to keep track and facilitate the personal guidance process.
- Ensure that trained educators (e.g. career teachers, class teachers, other teachers, counsellors, social workers, enterprise mentors, external service providers) are equipped with knowledge in:
i. career assessment including its analysis & debriefing;
ii. latest labour market information;
iii. career exploration and roadmap formulation; and
iv. debriefing of workplace learning and meaningful encounters. - Prepare the toolkit and package to inform trained educators the resource list on what materials (e.g. tools, guidelines, and websites) are available to plan for personal guidance. For students, worksheets or records should be prepared for personal guidance. For instance, student profile in an excel format is prepared to facilitate trained educators to understand students’ background, electives taken, etc. Feedback forms should be prepared for students’ evaluation.
- Update relevant and latest materials for teachers to be referencing resources, to provide professional consistent and accurate information to students during personal guidance.
- Summarize the past experiences and document the students’ concerns, their scenarios and examples for teachers as references to provide personal consultation and guidance.
IMPLEMENT
- Initiate meetings among career team and related personnel (e.g. trained educators, class teachers) to confirm the allocation of human resources on personal guidance and the implementation schedule for students from S.3 & S.6 before or at the beginning of a school term. Based on teachers’ strengths to allocate them in charge of different students, and consider if the teachers are familiar with the students (e.g. taught the students before, a science teacher will follow a science student). Teachers need to document the time spend on conducting personal guidance with the students and to allow flexibility (e.g. for S.3 and S.6 guidance).
- Brief trained educators the resources, the aims, expectations and expected outputs of the personal guidance, and updated information for attention.
- Brief students how to access personal guidance and the preparation before personal guidance (e.g. worksheets, reflective journal). Refer them to trained educators at appropriate times for individual advice and support. I Inform parents through effective communication channels (e.g. conduct subject selection talk for S.3 students’ parents) on the arrangements of personal guidance.
- Trained educators explore students’ strengths, weaknesses and the expected three possible pathways during the personal guidance to focus on life goals and career roadmap. A contingency plan should be prepared in response to emerging situation.
- Complete interview records (with consent from the suitable parties).
EVALUATE
- Review students’ personal actions plans or career roadmaps at least once per year by the assigned trained educators who have to report to the career team on the progress and obstacles.
- Collect students’ feedback/ evaluation (e.g. through questionnaires or online forms) after personal guidance to understand the guidance effectiveness from students’ perspective.
- Collect trained educators’ qualitative feedback (e.g. organize a review and sharing session) about the implementation of personal guidance to understand how this practice can be enhanced.
- Review and update existing record-keeping system, personal guidance interviewing guidelines, tools, materials, or resource package consistently and user-friendly.
4. Working with partners
- NGOs or Professionals: Invite NGOs or professionals specialized in career counselling to provide paid/ non-paid training for teachers/ other educators, or outsource personal guidance service to related NGOs or professionals when necessary.
- Other Schools: Learn from other school practices on how personal guidance is conducted, and exchange tips to conduct guidance effectively to students.
5. Insights gained from the pilot schools
- Encourage more teachers (e.g. class teachers, subject teachers) and the related personnel to have on-going professional development on personal guidance with updated CLD information. Colleagues’ continuous professional development (CPD) on personal guidance would be recorded in the school’s internal portal for planning and reviewing purposes.
- Distribute up-to-date resource list to the teachers involved in personal guidance to maintain professional consistency and ensure the guidance quality on giving information to students. Apart from sharing resources, the career team will conduct briefing meeting on personal guidance for teachers involved including:
i. Objectives
ii. Expected outcomes
iii. Evaluation matters
iv. Updated reminder
Reference:
Education Bureau (2019). Information Note on the Framework of Implementation Strategies for Life Planning Education at Schools.
Retrieved from https://lifeplanning.edb.gov.hk/uploads/page/attachments/Framework_Eng.pdf
Savickas, M. L. (2012). Life Design: A Paradigm for Career Intervention in the 21st Century. Journal of Counseling and Development, 90(1),
13-19.
CLAP (2019). CLAP Life Design: User Manual & Student Booklets. Retrieved from:
https://www.clap.hk
Notes:
1 Career roadmaps: Refer to a plan of student for actualizing a goal in his/her career development journey.
2 In terms of school self-improvement process, schools are encouraged to set their own interim target (%) if appropriate and predict the
timeframe to achieve the BM standards.
3 S.3 & S.6 as the latest opportunities for personal guidance interviews.
4 Trained educators: Refer to the front-line practitioners who have received CLD related training from a recognized body.
5 Expanded notion of work (ENOW): Refers to paid and unpaid work experiences in the development of an individual’s values, attitudes,
skills and knowledge (VASK) which are transferrable in the world of work.
More information is available at the CV360® User Guidelines (p.10-11)
https://www.clap.hk
6 In terms of school self-improvement process, schools are encouraged to set their own interim target (%) if appropriate and predict the
timeframe to achieve the BM standards.