Year 10 work experience

Agree on local authorities ie councils. We have someone who coordinates all work experience under early careers. All departments are encouraged to take them.

We are doing this at the moment too. DS emailed a contact from a database provided by his school of suggested companies/roles. He emailed himself and cced me in, no response after four days so I rang up to ask for a contact name for him to email. He has now emailed them direct.
I wonder if it's going to be an uphill struggle since the school suggests 'family and friend contacts' and perhaps this is the route most people go.

This worked for us:

Lots of research on LinkedIn and websites to find the name and ideally the email address of the CEO.

Really clear email header, and very tailored email specifically to each company claiming an interest in their area of expertise, the departments etc.

out of 10 emails DS got 2 offers!

If the student is in Key Stage 4, they flip legal status, to become regarded as an adult, in the workplace. The placement needs to be part of a statutory school programme, so the excuse about under 16s does not apply to work experience, which is not paid - https://www.hse.gov.uk/young-workers/employer/work-experience.htm

I used to manage a team of 6, in an Education Business Partnership, until the government scrapped the funding, so 25 years of work / engagement disappeared overnight! We placed 3,500 - 4,000 KS4, 5, FE, HE into work experience placements, so I hope some of the below helps:

• If you don't have a contact name, then an email generally fails to hit the target. Your son needs to ring up, explain his request, and ask for a name or contact and often that gets a far better response than a parent contacting.
• Use your network, who does what for a job role and often a personal contact will get a placement (companies like a degree of personal responsibility and recommendation for wex), that a random request will not.
• What kind of engineering? Helps when focusing the requests.
• A key part of work experience is for the student to find the placement, so ringing a company and even popping into a premises to ask if they take students on work experience makes a difference.
• Garages - electric vehicles / conventional / farm vehicles and equipment for hire, Parts Departments, Electrical / Electronic Component Wholesalers, Colleges / Universities that run engineering courses (sometimes offer roles where the students act as workshop helpers, so approach them too), Heating Engineers, Component Manufacturers, Food Production Companies, Local Authorities, Police, Fire sometimes have their own workshops / technical departments.
• https://www.theiet.org/.
• Quote that he changes legal status - employers need EL insurance etc.,https://www.hse.gov.uk/young-workers/employer/work-experience.htm

I imagine this is getting harder tbh.

But one thing I would say - don't email, call. I know it's scary but if necessary draft a short script - introduce himself and say do you do work exp for 14yo at all (as many only take 16+) - if not then at least he knows.

I drafted similar scripts for lots of my tutor group when I was a teacher as an email can just get ignored.

The best thing is to have a direct contact - friend, family. DD did a week in the city library and then a week at my school (!) in the drama dept and also making displays. DS1 did two weeks at different catering outlets and DS2 did two weeks at an outdoor activity place.

Our local council were really good, and there are a number of departments they can work in. DD worked in the library which she enjoyed but there were others there the same week in the IT department and other departments. They were really organised, much better than where I work where people struggle to find work for you to do. You had to apply early though as it was very popular.

In response for your son, I'd encourage researching any top tier engineering companies, but have a back up list of working in any health and safety team - get him to put together a CV of his interests as well as a list of contacts, it's all good experience but it's alot for them to do all at once, so focus on supporting one step at a time.

Went through this with my eldest, to be honest it was a very hard lesson for those without family contacts - alot of kids went to work in their parents jobs or family businesses.

DD went the hard way round and we made it clear to her it was a numbers game, so she did individual emails to all companies with a finance or legal team to secure some admin experience, as she was clear she wanted to work in an office.

On the plus side, she did learn a really valuable lesson in perseverance with the volume of no replies/knock backs. But the amount of coaxing and tears we went through made me curse the whole system.

DD did get work experience that she sourced and organised all herself, but it took over a hundred emails to get that one offer.