Y10 work experience - ugghhh

[SleepEatSnoozeRepeat]

DD is completely stressed and upset over the prospect of work experience next year. Y10 usually do it in April and the school are getting them to sign up to things now. There is a very limited range of options, or the kids can sort their own, but DD is completely overwhelmed by the whole thing.

She is very quiet and introverted, anything public facing would destroy her. She cannot stand noise, busy environments, small children. She is likely on the autistic spectrum and has some adaptations at school for accessing the support hub, being able to leave class if overwhelmed, and uses ear plugs in very noisy situations. When she gets overwhelmed she just shuts down, will sit and cry or rock. She refused to go on the school residential due to no private space or quiet time. She does well academically and has ideas about higher education but no real idea about a job or career.

I can see many jobs that would suit her well, but none of them seem to fit with work experience! She has excellent attention to detail and does well in English, something in editing or writing would probably suit her. Working from home, data entry, analysis type work. But right now she is refusing to engage with the whole thing and apparently in school they are getting pushed about it endlessly. Nothing has been sent home though! Both DH and I work in public facing roles and with high security clearance needed for projects so work experience isn’t an option.

Does anyone have experience of kids just not doing it? Or work in a school where you deal with this sort of thing? DD is already starting to fret and I can see her mind spiralling - I want to tell her to not panic and she can opt out like the residential if it comes to it, but suspect it’s being pushed on them all the time in school. She has a massive fear of getting in trouble to go with all the rest! I can’t help but think that it’s all a bit pointless anyway, my own work experience was a boring waste of time and this might be affecting my judgement on it.

It is pointless and outdated. I scarcely even bothered with it 37 years ago. Most of my peers ended up in banks and insurance offices doing menial unpaid crap.

Ask the local library? Quiet?

Ultimately she will need to engage with people in adult life so maybe with some adaptations she can tick the box?

Totally agree.

My son didn't get anything organised for his work experience and just stayed in school as normal. Everything we applied for was already filled 🙄

We didn't find a placement in time for our Year 10 and they stayed in the school and were basically a teaching assistant marking year 7 tests, helping set up classrooms etc.

Perhaps this could be an option as it's a familiar setting.

How about asking around local/small professional offices, such as accountants or solicitors or financial advisers. Small professional offices are usually "quieter" places because staff are usually working quietly on "hard" stuff and generally aren't gossipping/talking all day, and they'd suit someone with attention to detail and no steady stream of general public to deal with like it would be in a shop or cafe etc.

I've worked in a number of small accountancy offices and they've all taken on one or two week work experience pupils from local schools, and have generally done a pretty good job of a bit of training, a bit of data input, to give them an insight into the work, rather than lazily giving them filing or coffee making duties!

My son never wanted to follow me into accountancy, but when it came to work experience week, I got him to email some local small accountancy offices and he got the offer of two of them, he chose the nearest and had a pretty good time overall. He was also a "quiet" person and didn't really want to do work experience, would have preferred to stay in school, etc., but in the end, he actually really enjoyed it, not the work, but he actually enjoyed the "adult" working environment and was pretty sad when it was his last day!

Yes. Find a marketing person and ask about data entry and crm management.

Works experience could be taking your ds through creating an email marketing campaign. Writing the email, defining who the audience is, what sort of thing would appeal to them, then understanding how to set criteria on a CRM system to get the data set you want. Creating the email with branding & graphics.

Quiet, calm, creative with an intro to data setting.

Where are you in the UK? If you think she might like it, dm me, I might be able to help.

We have a Work Experience student in at the moment. They are having a fab time. We are a manufacturing company so they are busy choosing something to build at the moment and will spend the week putting it through all our systems, building and checking it then get to take it home.

Wow, that's quite defeatist.

My ds has done two days in a marketing department, a week shadowing a land manager, a week helping a slater and two days working at a fishery doing water sampling and stuff.

He now knows he doesn't want to spend his life in an office, and really likes scientific testing.

It doesn't all have to be dull office work.

I think it's utterly ridiculous doing work experience in year 10. It's so much more limiting because many places would not entertain taking on a year 10 because of their age. ( e.g. 14/15)

My DDs school did work experience in the month after GCSEs where most were 16. There were so many more options for that age group available.

It is pointless. I didn't enjoy it when in school. I've had work experience kids, clients made the request, and couldn't easily say no. I found it slowed my productivity down and is a pita. When they had work experience a bit older, during university for example, they could be useful. But not at 15.

@KnottyKnitting Aren't most 16 year olds spending the time after their GCSEs doing actual paid work? I know I was.

I think a library is a good shout. I volunteered in one and spent the time sorting out books on the shelves.

A library or museum would be great. I worked at my local museum in year 10 and went on an archaeological dig, sorted out artefacts and went on a roman tour in the local town

Thanks for the ideas, as and when decisions need to be made I will see if anything will work for her. She takes ages to settle anywhere new so marking y7 work in school would be just fine! I just want to relieve the stress for now, and ensure she doesn’t get into trouble over something that feels very unimportant for her age. Ultimately I guess they can’t force a business to take a 15 year old, and she would willingly go into school that week as she did when her class was away in y7 and 8. In fact she said it was lovely without all the noisy idiots around 🤦🏻‍♀️

@SleepEatSnoozeRepeat I found out recently that there are virtual work experience options. I don't know any details I'm afraid but one of DC's friends did it a couple of weeks ago (Yr 10). They attended Teams meetings and had to complete pieces of work etc. Might be worth looking into?

Check out Springpod for virtual work experience opportunities.

My DS did his in his old primary school. Apart from one session where the work experience students were put with the Y6 for a Q&A about secondary school, he spent the entire week sticking name labels on exercise books for next year, that kind of thing!
Not very educational for him but a pretty chilled week the three of them doing menial stuff and chatting to a teacher….

Have a think about your own contacts and if there’s anything on the quiet side she could do?

My niece is doing work experience at the mo, she’s 15. She’s done a week at a school with her teacher aunty - mainly helping in the library - a hospital for a week with grandma, they put her with the junior doctors she wants to be one now - and this week she’s in a charity shop in our village sorting donations, sorted by me. She’s been getting a lot out of it.

Meant very kindly OP, the work experience is the least of her /your problems here. You need an autism diagnosis as quickly as you can l. Can you pay privately? Because if the world is so overwhelming to her that a couple of weeks of work experience is scaring her and making her feel she can't cope, that needs immediate manager of some kind. Else she'll never be able to work, or cope with stuff like university, etc. She can't always control her environment and people won't be patient. But saying that an autism diagnosis can change a lot and people will be more understanding. Best of luck to her.

Mine has just had a week at home because of it. We weren’t given proper notice/information (she’s only in part time). I had a few ideas but it was a terrible time of year for a lot of places. Some people don’t want them as they are under 16.
She had similar requirements to yours. We came up with somewhere she would be interested in far too late sadly (not even sure if they would have said yes anyway).
I think library is a good one. I know lots don’t do it full time as it depends on what they can accommodate. Libraries are often closed one day around here.

I would look at somewhere where she might layer get a Saturday job. E.g. small local cafe or farm shop. Have a look around your local area. Alternatively what about bookshop or library.

It's not easy finding somewhere that takes Y10s, especially if it's a specific week.

DD did it at her old primary school last term which was great; a familiar location and staff, she spent a lot of time reading with the Y5s in the school library so a quiet environment. I think primary schools are more accommodating for work experience so it might be worth an early chat to one if you're interested, to discuss your DD's concerns - my DD doesn't want to be a teacher particularly but it's an experience of the workplace so useful in that respect.

The school helped with both my daughters. One went to a big uk company in London and it gave her the taste and drive to push herself. The other did something she's going to do at degree level and again absolutely loved it.
Engage with school as we found it an all round positive experience