Written by Andrew ‘Bernie’ Bernard, The Ladder: Supporting students towards successful futures and confident career choices contains everything educators need to know in order to be effective advocates for young people and their future aspirations, pathways and career aims.

Foreword by Colonel Dame Kelly Holmes.

Regardless of one’s plans for the future, many people’s careers are founded on a series of chance encounters, experiences and serendipity. School, college, university, jobs, family, sports, hobbies, friends, relationships – these are all fertile grounds for career-related conversations and explorations.

What if teachers, guides, mentors, parents and peers started to notice these seemingly unconnected happenings and, indeed, started to engineer and encourage them to happen?

Using the mantra ‘every adult is a careers teacher’, The Ladder will inspire teachers to explicitly link their subject area to students’ futures, both in school and outside its walls, and support them in doing so. Bernie draws upon his 30-year career in education and business development to bring clarity, focus and ideas to educators as to how they can best start students on their own ladders to success.

In doing so, Bernie provides a range of user-friendly, engaging and downloadable materials for teachers to use with the young people they work with to help uncover their talents and link those talents to opportunities for growth. He also shares invaluable advice on how best to reach out to local businesses and external organisations to support your students’ careers education.

Ultimately, in writing this book Bernie’s aim is to bring young people’s futures to life with some personal skills reflection and forward planning designed to help them as they embark on their fulfilling futures – regardless of their upbringing, academic achievements or ethnic background.

Suitable for all teachers and educators, particularly those with responsibility for career guidance, wanting to help their students on the path to a successful future.

The CASK poster – a framework for self-reflection and recording of skills and knowledge on students’ career journeys, is available to download here.