News and Social Media

PGC News Autumn Term 2024
12th September 2024

What’s new in the PGC?

The Professional Guidance Centre (PGC) has been very excited to start the new academic year in their newly designed and furnished PGC Hub. The space is designed to allow team members to meet and talk with students about their plans and aspirations, against the backdrop of inspiring and informative wall designs, highlighting the breadth and variety of global university choices.

It reflects beautifully our ethos of supporting students to make informed and brave decisions about their futures, something the Class of 2024 have epitomised. We have loved hearing from our recent leavers as they begin their next steps at universities around the world, from Columbia to HKU, from Cambridge to Edinburgh, from Harvard to Parsons Paris.

We are also delighted to welcome our newest Global Universities Adviser, Miss Green, who has joined College to work alongside Miss McCarthy, Miss Bowden and Dr Sherwood in the US team.

How is the PGC helping students this term?

Our provision for the wonderful students here at College has begun in earnest already. The SFC2s (Year 13s) are continuing with their applications, supported with subject specific university classes and admission test support. Our weekly interview club with Mrs Revell starts on Monday and our US applicants are being supported by their individual counsellor, our US skills adviser and the US team.

We were delighted to host all the SFC1s (Year 12s) on Saturday to introduce ourselves and let them know how to access PGC support and all the many events, workshops, university talks and networking opportunities we have in store for them this year. Mrs Hale’s jeopardy quiz showcased the driven and competitive nature of our students as the houses battled against each other to prove their knowledge of all things higher education and careers (and more varied topics such as Nando’s spice levels!).

The UC5s (Year 11s) will be taking their My Future Choice test this Saturday, which will be followed by sessions supporting them with their Sixth Form subject choices, understanding what competitive universities are looking for, covering strong US applications and introducing our US application programme. They will also attend sessions about how to secure employability skills and work experience. They will all, in small groups, have an interview workshop to start honing these all-important skills.

We continue with our emphasis on hosting university admission representatives, this term including NYU, Canadian universities, Glion and Les Roches and the University of Chicago. The SFC1s will have the opportunity to attend a talk by the University of Oxford next week.

The return of ‘Those Who Dare’

This term will see our famous ‘Those Who Dare’ networking events recommence – if your daughter is in UC5 and above then please do encourage her to attend as it is a fabulous chance to meet some really inspiring people from an exciting range of careers. A little later in the academic year, when they have settled into their new routines and academics, we are also very much looking forward to our networking events, careers and skills workshops for UC4 (Year 10) and the Lower College years (Years 7-9).

All students have access to a software called Unifrog which includes a wealth of information and resources about universities all over the world, as well as careers and employability resources. Parents can also use this service, contact us (see below) for the details.

Come and chat with us!

If you would like to meet (in person or virtually) with any member of the PGC team to discuss your daughter’s plans then please do get in touch with us (pgc@cheltladiescollege.org) and we would be delighted to set up a meeting.

Please do encourage your daughter to make the most of all the PGC opportunities and also, for the older year groups, to sign up for CLC Connect, our online networking resource run by our Development Team.

Also please do let us know if you would consider sharing our own career experiences with the students at a networking event this year – we would love to hear from you!

Dr Sherwood, Assistant Head of Sixth Form and Head of Professional Guidance Centre