Careers guidance policy: model and examples

Understand what information you must publish about your careers provision, and download and adapt our model policy to help you stay compliant. Plus, see example policies from secondary and special schools.

Last reviewed on 18 January 2024See updates
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Contents
  1. What you need to do
  2. Download and publish our model policy to meet your requirements
  3. Secondary school examples
  4. Special school examples

What you need to do

The DfE's statutory careers guidance applies to:

  • All maintained schools, including maintained special schools and pupil referral units (PRUs)
  • Academies and free schools, if their funding agreements include this requirement. If not, they're still encouraged to follow the guidance as a statement of good practice

The requirements do not apply to non-maintained special schools and independent schools.

Under these requirements, maintained secondary schools must and academies should publish details of their careers programme on their websites.

For maintained schools this must include, and for academies it should include, the following: 

  • The name, email address and telephone number of the school's careers leader
  • A summary of the careers programme, including details of how pupils, parents, teachers and employers can access information about the careers programme
  • How the school measures and assesses the impact of the careers programme on pupils
  • The date of the school's next review of the information published

In the