...to think there is a flaw in the system for school work experience placements?

[McGingery]

So my DD age 14 wants to be a vet, and has done for a couple of years now. She wants to do her school work experience at one of the local vets, zoos (there are 2) or animal shelters. NONE will take anyone under 18 because of their employee insurance.

I have reached out to the school telling them of this and their reply was that they couldn't do anything and that the problem was not just with us and 'animal' related jobs, but also in healthcare.

So all future vets, doctors and nurses can't get work experience in the career of their choice? This seems unreasonable to me.

Could she not try somewhere animal ajacent work placement like at a wildlife charity offices?

DFriend is a vet; I’ve know her since school. She did work experience at a local animal shelter on a Sunday morning before vet school, for a few years while at school.

One week of school work experience is pretty meaningless anyway.

Would you really expect a teen to shadow a vet, doctor or nurse though?? Surely not. Work experience is to experience the world of work, not specifically to experience the final destination career aspiration of each individual child.

That's annoying, I worked in a health care profession and found I was allowed to do work experience from 16 which makes much more sense.

I do think it's silly having work experience at 14. Ours was at 16 and that was hard enough. There are so many things they just can't do and most of them end up in their old primary schools or at their parents jobs.

Quite honestly, it's not that valuable as experience anyway. Apart from the enjoyment of it. If she knows that's what she wants to do then a week in Vets for Pets isn't going to change that.

Yes, I completely agree (currently have a DD in year 10) I work for a gov dept and we won't take anyone under 16, eg anyone under A level age. In addition to that so many professionals now work part/all of the week at home. My daughter is interested in architecture but we couldn't find a local architect with proper offices local to us, also tried graphic designers but same issue so has ended up organising something completely unrelated to her ambitions. I think work experience has ceased to be at all useful.

It is really difficult. My sister is a medical student and she only got work experience because my mum was a nurse in a gp practice, even then there was a lot of reluctance to do it. My sister said a lot of people in her course don’t have work experience, and they used things like working in care roles as examples instead.

Is it possible for your daughter to get in touch with a dog walker or even a local farmer and do some stuff on a voluntary basis. It may not be the formal work experience for the school but will help for a personal statement.

I think school work experience placements are more about learning about the working environment in general rather than getting a foot in the door to a particular profession.

DS1 did his in a primary school, and he has no interest in teaching, but it was good for him being around adults at work and being given a little responsibility (setting up activities, helping with some admin work, listening to children read etc).

We're dealing with exactly the same at the moment. Dd 14 wants to be a mental health nurse. School would prefer her to be in a placement that mirrors what she wants to do but she can't be in an NHS work experience placement because of patient confidentiality, which I understand.
We're trying primary schools of younger siblings and an SEN school one of our friends is a teacher at to see if we can find something but we're not hopeful.
Her boyfriends mum runs a cafe and she may well end up there at this rate (which is fine of course and still some experience but its annoying it has to be this hard)

Do you have an independent pet shop who would take her? Generally, it's getting the idea of a) having to organise your placement yourself, b) working business hours, c) getting yourself to your placement that are the key skills. It fits in nicely ahead of GCSEs when you need to be prompt on time for exams and manage your own revision.

It is much easier for those children who already have friends or family members in desired profession, which is unfair. I did think with my kids that school could have been a bit more proactive than just telling them to sort it out themselves, mine were at the tail end of COVID so it was extra tricky and they ended up doing work experience online. Our local hospital has a work experience contact in the admin side to try to offer places more fairly than to children of existing staff.

She's not missing much. I did my work experience at the vet, and there was little I could actually do. I could observe operations and I had a day out with one of the vets, visiting farms (I was a farm girl anyway, so not really a new experience.) I couldn't even do much cleaning, because the drugs shelves etc were restricted. And that was nearly 40 years ago, when insurance and so on were less of a consideration than they are now.

It is a bit annoying but it’s not really the schools fault.

Sounds like your vet just doesn't want to help out - my vet had a work experience in there just a couple of weeks ago. Get her/him to volunteer at a boarding kennels or wildlife rescue centre instead as these organisations generally need volunteers anyway.

YANBU to think that expecting dc (or, in truth, their parents) to find someone to take a 14 yr old for we is ridiculous.

I also think the same at 16

YWBU (if that is what you are asking) to think that most companies / employers have the capacity to give U18s any useful and interesting we

the whole premise that all workforces can let U18s have access to their workplace for a week needs revisiting.

The NHS speaks out of both sides of its mouth at the same time with stuff like this. Constantly moaning they can't recruit, yet bending over backwards to avoid offering work experience. It's utter nonsense.

Yep, having the same at the moment for my son 15, who wants to be an engineer.

I did my work experience at Mothercare. It didn't in any way affect my life beyond making me realise working in retail is boring.

Work experience in Healthcare or veterinary fields is notoriously difficult to get while at school. Lots of kids are in the same position, even once they are slightly older.

My daughter who is now at uni on a healthcare related course ended up doing her work experience at a primary school. Waste of time really but it was a good experience and useful as life experience.

However, she did volunteer at the local dementia charity and at a care home in her own time which was very rewarding and informative. Looked great on her UCAS form too and she wrote her EPQ on dementia in 6th form, getting an A*.

There are ways of getting good, related experience other than at a surgery and other than in the week school allocate to it. You just have to think outside the box a bit and be willing to put the legwork in.

Get her to apply to all the local animal charities, wildlife centres, shelters etc as a volunteer. Even a saturday job as a kennel maid or stable hand would be fantastic experience and will give her something really tangible to discuss at future interviews. It would show commitment over a period of time too.

Could you volunteer as a family for the cinnamon trust or guide dogs, maybe?

Vets can take them. It’s just most don’t want to. We have enough people wanting to visit. Including student vets, older children ready to go to university but needing placement to get on to a vet degree. European qualified vets needing hours to get their rcvs registration to name a few.
Unfortunately work experience children are usually fairly useless. They can’t really do anything. Most barely speak and seem highly disinterested which puts people off. My practice does take them. But I can see why most don’t

Surely it's not just about experience of a particular job, but experience of being in a workplace? It would be ideal if the work experience could be in the same field the student wants to enter, but it doesn't mean there's no value in it if it isn't.

Bear in mind also that your ideal career when you're mid-teens might not be the same thing you want to do when you're old enough to start work; or it might not work out for you if there are no jobs available or you miss the relevant qualifications.

I shadowed a pathologist and his team for a week for my first work experience (back in the day). It was amazing (I didn't do anything just observed) although one think I learnt is that I didn't want to do lab work or pathology.

It must be tricky if your kid wants to be a submariner or a gameshow host or somesuch.

But she can get work experience there when she's older. Medical or veterinary services are never going to allow 14 year old work experiences but she might be able to go to a Kennels or Cattery. They may well be happy with her volunteering outside the structured WE programme on a Saturday but she'll be cleaning rather than assisting.

She can do work experience in all sorts of places, Aviva do a great programme she could do it with an animal insurer and see it from that PoV. Or a wildlife trust and conservation placements.

DD is doing her work experience at a Nuclear Powerplant, she just emailed in and I filled in the consent forms.

I used to work for a company that took work experience students for a week, probably about 25 - 30 years ago. We were happy to do it.

Then the rules tightened up and because these were "children" anyone directly supervising them had to have a CRB or a DBS as it is now.

I didn't have a CRB at that point and neither did most of my colleagues. Most weren't very keen to get one done. There were other bits of red tape too, and just became too much of a faff.

I don't know what requirements there are for the placement provider, but if it's a faff, most companies won't want to get involved, or force people to have a DBS, if that is still the requirement.