I don't want ds to do work experience.

doh! not any but many

one girl I teach was a published author by 13, has skuba diving qualifications, has been to Africa as part of a charity holiday and has been on work experience in a hospital for a year....

She is exceptional but that's just one of any in my state comp who impress me.

Go, compete....

I don't agree that we is important for his cv, but I completely agree thatvany kind of we, whether it be washing up, office tea boy, whatever is important for life skills.

Most teenagers don't have the best jobs, but they learn the value of money earning their own and they learn about teamwork, punctuality and many other things listed by pp's.

It does sound like you are being precious about any kind of work for him. I also don't see why he can't have a job while doing a levels. It doesn't have to be too many hours, but would make a massive difference to his cv.

Strictly - fair enough, think I'm just old At mine all they care about is 24 points a 2.1 at least and the results from the recruitment centres.

I appreciate it has other benefits though - learning exactly how dull some jobs are is good to know and also getting there on time/dress code/working with others etc.

Brian - graduate applicants i interviewed had an amazing amount of stuff on their CV's. Mind boggling, but it is really, really competitive out there. Anything which adds to all round skills and demonstration of these is important.

Don't get why people think WE at 14 is important for a cv, really?? Who on earth would care what a child did at 14?

misshappiness makes a good point: your ds is not only going to have to explain the lack of WE on his CV to future employers, he will also have to explain it to his mates- so will it be "my mum didn't think there'd be any jobs good enough for me" or "I'm the only one in the school who can't afford to take time off revision"? Either way, it won't make him look very big- which does matter to teen lads.

Sorry about the quote marks, didn't mean to imply that you had actually said this.

I agree with all the other posters about the value of work experience.

You will also make your son a laughing stock amongst his friends if you stop him doing it because he can't get a job that is 'good enough for him' and make him work with a tutor instead.

I would have thought if he is only average and has plans for a non-average career it would extra important for him to start as early as possible adding extra job seeking skills; he will need something to give him an edge over and above those other students who achieved his GCSE results with ease.

Dd is also hoping to work in a career that she cannot possibly gain direct work experience in at her age. But there are literally hundreds of jobs where she can get general work experience skills: the skills involved in getting the placement in the first place, in developing initiative and ability to deal with other adults who are not there specifically to look after her and have no special training in doing so. All those are transferable, if the actual details are not.

Could he do work experience with the tutor?

Work experience is good for your child. It will teach him what it is like in the real world. There are so many skills he can learn from work experience that he cannot learn in the classroom.
He needs to be rounded in life, he needs to be able to relate to adults, he needs to see what a real job entails.
Even if he has a boring job for two weeks, it will still teach him something. Let him do it...teachers will not appreciate you saying that you will get extra tutoring for him instead of work experience.
Somtimes work experiences can be related to what the child wants to do later in life other times it can't be facilitated for whatever reason but that still is not a reason to opt out.

If your son is extremely average and he has to work extremely hard to get good results, it is even more important to build up his CV in order to compete with people with better grades.

He can stand out by mentioning interesting WE on his CV which proves he is a go-getter and grafter. Working in a greasy spoons as a 15 year old, does make you stand out in a very positive way, as it is exactly the person they are looking to employ.

Am I the only person who thinks that WE in mining sounds very interesting? I wish I had done that when I was younger! My WE was filing books in the stacks of a library, and I learned a lot about arriving on time, dressing for a job, breaks, pacing myself, getting on in teams, being the butt of banter, talking to strangers etc Nothing fancy and nothing much different from working in a greasy spoon, but actually really really important life lessons.

I've heard that too, Titanic, along with the fact that they respect students who've bothered to earn money themselves whilst at school and that they would rather a student spent a gap year in a real, dull job than going to the antipodes 'on mummy and daddy's money' (that last is verbatim).

OP, there are plenty of kids in rural areas who get paid jobs, it's very short-sighted to prevent him doing a paper round which he clearly wants to do because you feel he has to work like an automaton 'to get results'. That paper round, if sustained, could be worth more to him than a couple of extra grades - but you'd probably find it made not a jot of difference to his grades in any event. Indeed your insistence on work and more work is highly likely to backfire.

FWIW mine have done extra work experience in holidays and half-terms beyond the school set weeks and a significant portion of each of their Personal Statements have been pretty much based on what they did, learned and observed (and the PS's have all produced the desired result). The eldest referred back to some of her work experience in her application to one of the top City law firms and again, it yielded results.

If your objection is that work experience will be dull, make some suggestions for placements that you don't think will be dull! (though as lots of posts have said, dull has a quality all of its own :)). As for the justification that giving him lifts will mess up your day....

It takes a huge amount of effort for schools to administer the work experience programme, and schools need to deal with the logistics of all the things going on in different year groups - that's exactly why all the groups are out at one time. Sensible and efficient, so why not?

Op. You never explained that he wanted to go into mining! Of course he can't go down a mine until 16, actually I think it might be older than that ;)

If your ds goes through life with an attitude of "I don't envisage myself ever having to descend to this" he is going to find it difficult to land a job at all; it's not really an attitude employers take kindly to. I don't care that much what dd does for her work placement because the very act of finding herself a placement and adapting to the requirements of a job will make her far more likely to land a job she really wants later. I have never heard of anyone who failed a great business or academic career because they had been a success at working in a cafe when a teenager. But I have known people who have left school, and even university, with excellent paper qualifications and struggled to cope with job interviews because they had no flexibility.

The patent difference between mining and other jobs that demand hard graft (which you describe as "shitty"). Is that mining is dangerous. So your analogy is not working for me.

I am another person who firmly believes that these types of job can teach all of us valuable lessons. Many many successful people will tell you about valuable lessons they learned in these so called "shitty" jobs. The very best graduate schemes place their new recruits at the sharp end of the business when they start work- the ones who are not up to the job get swiftly weeded out if they can't stick it.

Your attitude towards these type of jobs is the most offensive thing about this thread. Did you not think it is rude of you to describe some people's job as shitty and proclaim that this type of thing is beneath your son. Are you and he better than people who work damn hard and don't earn much money?

People are touchy about it because you are limiting your sons opportunities in life by considering not allowing him to take up on this part of his education - it's like saying you don't want him to take maths. Uni and his first few jobs will all notice that it is missing.

One of my single most useful skills I have I learned as a student -silver service waitressing. I worked in all sorts of places in lots of countries- and I coiled always get a job whenni needed one. Why deny your son the opportunity to earn his living if he needs to?

Alouiseg - are you trying to be offensive?

I am 23, I worked in a greasy spoon from when I was 14. I then worked all through university and whilst completing my MA. So many people are applying for jobs that I am going for and it is very stiff competition with everyone having amazing academic results. The reason I have got a job in my very specific field is that a lot of people I am against are from a much more privileged background than I was, where focusing on school/uni work was their only priority, whereas I needed the money to drink in pubs.

It does come across when you are being interviewed that you know you are the bottom of the pile, that it will be boring and that you are use to working bloody hard...so many of my contemporaries haven't quite grasped that they will not be running the company two weeks in and it is mainly due to their parents protecting them from life basically.

Work experience is important because it is that start of realising that there are much bigger fish in a much bigger pond than you and you need more than just academic results to get a good career.