I don't want ds to do work experience.

I spent a lot of my spare time as a student working in a great spoon Happy Eater. It was a great laugh.

I went on to Uni and took rofessional and run my own business

You're just being ridiculous now. Part of the point of WE is for the child to experience work. As soon as you start saying 'well I don't envisage x or y in ds's future' you are firstly reducing the chance that he will find a placement with interesting and interested partie and secondly you're setting him up with a huge amount of pressure to live up to what you envisage for him. I don't expect my daughters to spend all their lives working in a cafe either but I think it would do all of them a hell of a lot of good to do so for a bit. Getting on with people, following instructions, working till a job is done are things you can learn in any workplace and are things ALL teenagers should learn. They will not learn them at home with mum.

"schools have to do work experience in either year 10 and 11 at some point"

Not if there is no funding for it. In my earlier post I wrote that DD's school can't afford to fund WE this year and the parents are furious.

Why not? If nothing else it'll give him a crash course in how the other half lives-no bad thing, IMHO. Partly because anything that builds empathy is an unqualified Good Thing and also because nothing concentrates the mind on getting decent qualifications quite like finding out what life can be like without them ( and with them in some cases, come to that!)

It is worth washing greasy spoons if it helps educate him about what a lot of people have to do for a living, what a hard day's work can be like and also to help him work out what he doesn't want to do in the future.

I think that point was made very well up thread.

Surely its upon you to make sure he does have a worthwile placement he still has to do it though...

yes, our school does exactly the same thing. It is designed to bring all the trips and extra curriculuar stuff together.

However, and this is the important thing to note, schools have to do work experience in either year 10 and 11 at some point

So the work experience isn't something your school is doing to keep year 10 occupied whilst everyone else is out on a jolly, its an essential requirement of the KS4 curriculum that your school has cleverly timed to happen with least disruption to their GCSE studies.

What's wrong with washing up in a greasy spoon? Many, many people do it for a living and you know, it's quite useful for over-protected children to learn the value of hard work. Do you mean to sound so precious?

Sorry-it sounded like AIBU -my fault-should read.
However OP is set on ignoring the majority, so I am sure we were just supposed to have a general rant.

I'm not appreciating the narky tone of the OP either. Yes you're wrong. Really wrong. Quite amazingly wrong in fact.

Poor ds - forced to spend two weeks being tutored instead of actually getting sight of the real world.

The thing is, WE isn't just about the work itself. It's about learning what it's like to be in the workplace. That means working out how to get to work, being there on time, dressing appropriately and interacting appropriately with other members of staff and (depending on the job) members of the public.

It's a huge life lesson, and as such is can only benefit him.

whilst this thread is not on AIBU, I would recommend that the op actually takes note of the overwhelming support for year 10 students completing work experience and the benefits that are gained; not for the job itself but the whole experience of being in an actual place of work.

Op; you asked for opinions from teachers/parents and you have been told by everyone bar 1 that it is a -

positive thing for a student to do
it is required by law
your son will have 10 days unauthorised absence on his record if he fails to complete it

I think that you really need to take heed of this and admit that your son will be best served by you changing your opinion

This isn't AIBU.

I don't know why people post on AIBU if they have a set idea of the answer, and don't like disagreement? Were we just supposed to have a general rant about work experience?

I should add, I dont think workexperience is important for the CV, but for the self esteem. At least it was for me!

Work experience is important.

He should go in in person. He needs to show the manager that he has the confidence to deal with customers, so he needs to go himself and ask.

I was keen on music when I was a teen. So I marched up to the owner of the coolest independent cd/record shop in town, and told him that we were doing two weeks workplacement, and I could think of no better place to work than in his shop.

I had two fantastic weeks. I was helping customers, working the tills, and in quiet moments I was cleaning record covers and dusting. But mostly, I was actually working.

I was not supposed to be paid, but the owner let me chose a cd for my hard work. It did lots for my self esteem, and I really enjoyed it.

auntie
You are probably right. I think it was the implication that schools only did this to give teachers an easy ride at the end of term that set the tone in the op wrong and wound me up good and proper

its very clear to me that, with the ecomony imploding big time, kids need every edge they can get in order to do well in the ever diminishing world of work.

My understanding is that you pretty much need lots of work experience in the relevent fields for medicine, vetenary science and dentistry. Those who start in year 10 and build through to year 12 are in a very strong position.

but..you clearly think you know best. Not entirely sure why you bothered asking for opinions if you had already made up your mind.

Crikey, some people are very intolerant of the OP daring to have a different view, aren't they?

Oh and it is not the easy way for schools to clear the decks - most work experience placements are during the summer term, because it's takes alot of time and preparation for schools to organise. H&S checks have to be done, insurance sorted etc. It's alot easier and cheaper for schools to keep the students in school than to let them go out.

If he doesn't do his work experience and doesn't attend school because you are having him tutored then this will be classed as unauthorised absense. Two weeks worth will probably end up with Education Welfare becoming involved. Also, if he applies to anywhere then his reference from the school will be affected as it will show poor attendance rate. Two weeks does make a big difference even if he has 100% attendance at the time he does his work experience.

"He's just one of those kids who needs to work to get good results. I'm not really appreciating the narky tone of deux & SoupDragon some posters. "

If you don't want to hear things you'd rather not then don't post. I stand by what I said on both counts. If someone is choosing between two identical candidates, one who has absolutely no experience and one who has at least put in some work experience, which do you hunk they will go for? The unproven, molly coddled child or the one who has actually done something?

School don't do work experience for the fun of it nor do they do it for their benefit just to "clear the decks".

"How about an alternative approach - organise the work experience in a role far removed from their likely career path? I organised my son to go out with the Landscape team at our local council - 7am starts and hard physical labour. Mind you - at their school they only do a week. He is now certain that he wants to work hard at school and not settle for a job requiring no qualifications"

MIL did that with SIL when she wouldn't work hard at school. She got her a placement waitressing at a local pub, and she hated it. MIL told her that this would be the only kind of job open to her if she didn't knuckle down. It worked.

This was years ago, way before work experience existed.