Futures

Our designated futures leader is Dr Richard Lee (rle@osfc.ac.uk), but for careers enquiries, please contact one of our careers advisers, Kevin Reece (kre@osfc.ac.uk) or Janet Murphy (jmu@osfc.ac.uk).

Christine Horrocks is our Link Governor for Futures/Careers. 

Parents and employers can contact careers at: futures@osfc.ac.uk or through the College reception on 0161 287 8000.

Careers meetings with the Futures Team can be booked via the college Futures Site Please note! Parents are also very welcome to attend these meetings.

At OSFC, we have two qualified careers advisers, Kevin Reece and Janet Murphy, with over 40 years of experience between them. Both hold the Post Graduate Diploma in Careers Guidance and the Diploma in Careers Education. Kevin and Janet are based in college and are on hand every day to give you advice and guidance about Higher Education, apprenticeships and career opportunities.

Parents are always welcome to attend careers appointments with their son/daughter too.

Cindy Bramhall is our Employer Engagement Officer and Meherun Ali is our Employer Engagement Assistant. The team work closely with our Progress Tutors to help you plan the next exciting step in your journey post-OSFC.

• Dr Richard Lee
  Assistant Principal
  Dr Richard Lee

• Kevin Reece
  Careers and Employability Manager
  Kevin Reece

• Janet Murphy
  Careers and Partnership Officer
  Janet Murphy

• Cindy Bramhall
  Employer Engagement Officer
  Cindy Bramhall

• Meherun Ali
  Employer Engagement Assistant
  Meherun Ali

The work of the team was a fundamental part of the College receiving the Social Mobility Award at the prestigious Educate North Awards ceremony in 2017, and we pride ourselves on providing the highest quality careers education, information, advice and guidance. We have a clear Strategic Careers Plan that is reviewed and updated regularly.

Each of you will create an individual Careers Action Plan during your time with us, which helps you to identify your future route in education and employment and understand the steps to reach your goals.

We offer you a wide range of careers and employability activities, throughout the year, to prepare you for life beyond OSFC. These include:

• A Year 12 Careers Day, involving over 30 universities,  plus employers, apprenticeship providers and voluntary organisations.
• Apprenticeship and Volunteering Fairs.
• A Progression and Higher Education evening for parents and carers.
• University Open Day visits and visits from a variety of universities, such as the University of Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan University, Oxford and Cambridge universities, amongst others.
• World of Work networking events with local employers.
• Employability skills workshops.
• Our Xtras programmes for aspiring medics, lawyers, and other health professionals.

You also have access to the innovative Unifrog Career Management Software, which helps you research your career ideas via the electronic careers library with over 1000 job profiles. You can use Unifrog to search for every single university degree course in the UK, as well as for all live apprenticeship vacancies and school/college leaver programmes. You can also explore MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), which are short online courses that you can do in your spare time via distance learning. These include courses from some of the most prestigious universities and employers around the world, such as Harvard, MIT and Microsoft. They look brilliant on any university or job application and we fully support you during this process.

OSFC helps students in your career planning through:

• A programme of careers lessons, delivered in tutorial sessions throughout Years 12 and 13. These outline all the options available after college, sources of information, research skills and application skills. They include specific lessons to support you in career related activities at important points e.g. writing university personal statements in Year 12, and submitting applications and attending interviews in Year 13.
• Access to 1:1 careers interviews with qualified careers advisers in college. You can make an appointment by asking at any reception.
• Easy access to careers resources and online information via the Futures Web Page.
• Additional careers related activities through your individual subjects and additional careers events, as publicised in the Careers Blog.

If you’re an AS/A Level student and want to apply for a university course that requires particular vocational experience prior to application, we can help arrange work shadowing placements in the college holidays. This allows you to gain important employment experience, as well as first-hand knowledge of the specific career and work place your studies may lead to. If you’re applying for a vocational course, you’ll be involved in work related activity as part of your programme.