Careers

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Investors in Careers full accreditation

After a robust validating process, we are delighted to announce that Dartford Primary academy has achieved the Investor in Careers Award which fully incorporates the Gatsby Benchmarks. This is an excellent achievement and recognises the quality and breadth of our careers provision.  

We are one of very few primary schools to achieve this – well done to the staff in ensuring our children have high aspirations and goals.  A careers programme that opens the world of opportunity!

Career assemblies

During assembly time, we explore the ‘soft skills’ that the government and most employers look for.  These skills are essential in the world of work and in the classroom.  Our assemblies also look at challenging stereotypes and exploring different careers. View the assemblies below:

Significant People

Through our exploration of the IB Learner Profile attributes, we have assemblies introducing the focus attribute of the month.  Within each attribute, we highlight a significant person from the past and the present and the career they followed. 

View our Learner Profile Attribute assemblies below (Inquirer, risk-taker and reflective learner profile focus presentations coming soon..):

Class Careers

Each class has a dedicated set of jobs.  Students are selected for these job roles on a weekly basis.  These jobs allow students to explore their responsibility and employability skills. 

Enterprise Week

Dartford Primary Academy holds a careers focused Enterprise Week annually in February.  This year we were excited to have students take part in person, following last year’s virtual week. 

During the week students:

  • explore our vision and that of the IB – Determined persistent achievers – learning to change the world.
  • understand how to take action in the form of social entrepreneurship. 
  • learn how to respond to events as global citizens.

Key events:

  • Students plan, design and pitch a product or service in response to a global problem or in response to something worth supporting. [This will be linked to their current or past curriculum inquiry.]
  • Their product or service addresses a UN Sustainable Development Goal. 
  • The pitches can be recorded in class to share across the academy.

Some of our favourite ideas from our past events can be seen in the small gallery.

Visitors and Guest Speakers

At DPA, we love having guests share their passions for their jobs.  We encourage visitors to join us in person for assemblies, workshops or talks and virtually if desired. 

Here are some recent guests we have had:

  • Dr Marcia Philbin:  Chief Executive, Chief Disrupter, and Chief Navigator leading The Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine.  Dr Philbin joined year 2 to talk about her love of science. She told us about her career at NASA and how anyone can be a scientist!
  • Dr Ayman Ali:   Doctor at  Darent Valley Hospital.  Dr Ali joined us to speak about his job and training involved in being a doctor of medicine.  Dr Ali showed us how anyone can achieve their dreams.
  • Michael Range:  Director of ACA Law and a Criminal Law solicitor.  Mr Range spoke to us about his job as a criminal solicitor, the training routes involved and the importance of his career in our lives.
  • Glen Blackwell:  Children’s Author. Author of The Blitz Bus.  Mr Blackwell joined us to share his story and tell us about the life of an author.  He spoke to us about the process of being an author.
  • Dr Andrew Mcgonigle:  A volcanologist and university lecturer.  Dr Mcgonigle spoke to us from the slopes of a volcano via Google Meet.  He told us about his incredible job studying volcanoes around the world.

Thank you to all of our guest speakers!  If you would like to be a visitor, please contact the school office at office@dartfordprimary.org.uk

Transition

Transition within and from Dartford Primary Academy is incredibly important, especially due to us being an academy split across two sites. Every year, staff carefully plan transition events so that our students are safe and secure in moving up through the school.  In particular, year 2s are provided regular opportunities to visit the KS2 site, such as when using the specialised DT suite.  Transition from year 6 to 7 is supported by our LAT colleagues, with talks and visits being facilitated by academies.  

Keep an eye out for our transition updates via Facebook, ClassDojo and Parent Mail.

To view our full careers strategy, head to our Careers Education page and our Policies page for our Careers / Personal Development policy.

Careers Education page Careers Policy