Short courses, online courses for non-academic teen

[Clueless9294]

Please help!

Short story- ds17 is struggling with exams. He's bright but studying and exams are not working out for him right now. What can he do instead to boost his more all-round skills, make his cv look better?

We are planning to withdraw him from one of his subjects which he is finding stressful and is unlikely to pass. He doesn't even enjoy it, it was a bad decision to choose it. But we can't go back. This will leave a gap in his timetable. His school are so shit that they will agree to anything. That's a whole other thread but we are where we are.

We (and he) would like him to use this extra time, partly to do better in the subjects he's still sitting, but also to do other things that might make him more employable or whatever in future.

For example we're going to sign him up for a St John's first aid course.

I wondered about an online course in touch typing, that seems like a useful life skill to me, but maybe it's not so useful any more when people have tablets and smart pens and all.

I did something at one time called the European Computer Driving Licence (?), does anything like that still exist any more?

He's applied for a summer job at the local leisure centre, I wondered if an online safeguarding awareness course may be good? I know the online ones can be fairly basic but at least it would be a start and another line on his cv?

Does an employer rate any of the Open University short courses, or Futurelearn, or anything like that? He could easily pick something that would interest him and do okay at it I think.

He's got a good range of hobbies, has done some volunteering, plays trombone to a good level in a brass band. But he's got no paid work experience so far.

Does anyone have any other ideas? If you employ teenagers with average academic results what other things would boost their chances?

ECDL doesn't seem to be a thing anymore.

As he's 17, is it A levels he is struggling with?

There are plenty of online learn excel/word etc courses that to be honest are better than the ECDL.

What does he want to do for a job? If he's not academic, might it be an idea to ask him about vocational skills?

I wouldn't bother with the touch typing. Most young people are excellent typists these days as they are so active on screens.

Does he have any thoughts about what he wants to do?

So if he wants to work in retail, he could volunteer in a charity shop to get experience. (Won't fill the gap at school).

Many Jobs require IT skills - word/excel etc.

If the intention is purely to make his CV look better I wouldn't bother with touch typing. Most younger folk are fast typists as it is. I also wouldn't bother with the first aid course (unless he's doing it for other reasons). It won't particularly add much to his CV and any first aider at work I believe will need the specific "first aid in the workplace" course from St Johns or equivalent, not just their regular first aid course.

Is it A Levels he's struggling with? What is he dropping and what is he keeping? Does he have any idea of what he'd like to do for work?

It does depend on his interests, but the National Careers Service does free courses. I assume he already has Maths and English qualifications. The NCS has short courses on things such as Bookkeeping, financial management, management. All of which would look good on a CV.
Local colleges sometimes offer free courses in things like Health and social cafe, computing etc.

He would have wanted to study sociology or international relations at university if he had a free choice but he's not going to meet the grades and based on his performance so far at school he wouldn't keep up with the academics of it all either.

So his next choice is a part time HNC course in sociology at the local college for a year along with some paid work, and re-assess after that time. If he doesn't get onto that course he'll just get a job of some sort and see what happens.

As for a proper grown-up career, he doesn't have a plan. He's going to be one of these kids who gets to wherever he's going to end up in a roundabout way rather than the a-levels, uni, graduate career route.

And that's fine, we just want to use his free time as usefully as we can to add anything to his chances. If we could go back in time we'd choose a different school and different subjects, or wouldn't have stayed on to a level, but there's nothing we can do about that now.

Is there a foundation year for sociology he could look into? The grades needed will be lower than their normal degree but could get his foot through the door?

My local adult education/community learning centre offers loads of different courses including the computer 'driving licence' one. Some are free, some you can get concessions for.

The courses range from IT, crafts, basic skills like cooking, maths, photography, all sorts. Could you maybe look at your local one for ideas as well as the ones you've suggested (all excellent btw!).

There are lots of good things run by adult education near us @OldTinHat , thanks for the suggestion, I'd forgotten about them, but they all seem to start in January or September. Nothing shorter or starting at random times throughout the year. And all the good ones look full now anyway. He could do beginners crochet but that's about it.
I'll make a note to look again when bookings open for September. If he doesn't get a college place there are a few courses I can see him enjoying

If he's thinking about sociology, presumably he wants to work with people rather than tech. On that basis, maybe some office managent type courses on cousera or udemy combined with work experience almost anywhere might work, so that he can gradually move up to line manager or HR type roles. Alternately, would he consider cadets and a military career? If he likes first aid, paramedic or nursing training might be a way to go, where he starts as assistant or apprentice and builds up the academic side later.

Does he have decent gcses? If not, doing some maths and English additional qualifications might be the best thing he can do with his time.

His gcses are fine. Not great, but fine. Which is probably the point where we should have decided a-levels were not the best choice at this point in time. But there we are.

He has had mental health problems that I think would rule him out of the army. Although in many ways the strict routine and physical side of things would suit him. I don't think he'd cope though.

I've never heard of udemy. I'll look that up.

There are so many online options and online colleges though, I'm not sure which are worthwhile and which are just a bit of a waste of time.

If someone put one of these courses on a cv would an employer think "oh great, this kid is pro-active and trying to improve himself" or would they think "ha, this kid is having a laugh adding all these worthless online courses to his cv"? That's what I can't figure out.

I thought a first aid course is a fairly well recognised thing, even if he would have to do some other training to be a first aider at work. At least it would show he was willing to learn?

Having said about the army, maybe some sort of physical gym instructor type courses might work in the future? He loves the gym.

But right now we're just thinking about filling the time during the school day if he drops an a level from his timetable. He could easily fill his time just messing around playing games on his phone but that's not what we want. He could be sitting in the school library doing something more useful on his laptop.

I know you said he wants to do this but does he really, will he actually do it?

To be blunt, touch-typing sounds like something my mum would have done, and first-aid is a waste too.

Go for his driving licence if he's got the time, and something like an online language course?

Skillshare is another good website that he could browse to get career ideas/skills

If he enjoys the gym could he aim for a level 2 and 3 PT course?

Do you not have a local.post 16 college in your LEA ?
They offer all.kinds of courses at all.levels .

Yes and we should have chosen that. But we didn't. I so regret that choice now.

So now he's dropping an a level which he should be sitting this year and I'm just looking for suggestions for how he can fill the empty hours in his timetable. It's only until May, June when he'll be leaving school anyway, hopefully with one decent a level, so I don't suppose it matters that much if he doesn't do anything else.

Can't afford much in the way of driving lessons unfortunately or that would have been a good use of his time.