...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.

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

I think most STEM workplaces offer work experience, we're very keen on STEM outreach and there's STEM ambassador programmes when we send folk into schools etc. At my work we have days for primary age kids to visit as well as older kids wanting to do work experience. All get to do some experiments and have great fun.

The need to have a safeguarding policy is a further administrative issue, as well as the need to extend insurance.

A sports club I know was looking to change its joining age from 18 to 16. The increase in insurance was eye watering.

A week of work experience when you’re 14 or so is not going to be career defining. Anything that shows you can turn up on time, act appropriately in a work environment, be polite and speak clearly will still be a useful building block

You can't have a 14 year old shadowing vets, nurses and doctors. They're far too specialised to have a child in the way when life threatening things might be happening.

I did my work experience at a Vets 15 years ago and honestly I spent a lot of it sitting around bored stiff for 2 weeks. I couldn't really help with cleaning as it was always spotless and the most exciting task was arranging tins of dog food one of the days. I was able to watch a couple of procedures which was interesting but I wasn't really allowed to help look after the poorly animals or anything. I guess what I'm trying to say is that even if insurance wasn't a hurdle there is always going to be a limit to what a 14 year old can actually do at a Vets. It wasn't a particularly valuable experience from me, my friends that did theirs at Tesco seemed to enjoy theirs much more to be honest.

A stables could possibly be an option? Or even a local pet shop could be good.

Perhaps when she's 16 she might be able to volunteer at a local animal shelter or similar.

It's incredibly difficult to get any work experience at all for the year 10, 15 year old, time when most schools do it.

Compared to decades ago, the insurance rules and other requirements mean that very few companies will do it.

At some point the school work experience week will have to stop because no one will be able to do it

I completely agree it's pointless. DC school does this at the start of year 11. The kids will be 15. Most people go to their parents work. There's nothing meaningful to gain out of this.

DD also volunteers at a Barnados charity shop, they take people from 14 as normal staff you just have sign consent forms and she's not allowed to use the till unsupervised. They could go something like that instead.

Work experience is for work skills, applying, interviewing, rocking up on time and in appropriate clothing. It has very little to do with helping them get an insight into their future job. They have to explore that separately.

Most people go to their parents work. There's nothing meaningful to gain out of this.

That's not true. Experience of the work place ( any workplace) can offer opportunities to gain general employability skills and an insight into the world of work.

The workplaces are actually wrong but many of them don't realise or just use it as an excuse.

Employee liability insurance covers under 18's as standard as long as they are on an official work experience placement organised by the school. They are however of course free to set their own blanket rule but they are incorrect about the insurance aspect.

we don't take work experience students because the building sites we work on don't allow under 16's due to the dangers but it's nothing to do with insurance.

At that age she probably needs to aim a bit lower, dog groomers, pet shop or stables maybe. It's tricky at this age.

There is also no requirement to have a DBS to supervise work experience students but many workers don't want the responsibility/risk of being alone with a young person.

I agree that it's too experience the world of work but if you want to be something like a vet or doctor then you need to be studying that as a degree subject which affects what you pick at A-level and possibly even GSCE e.g. separate sciences rather than combined. They're also very competitive courses to get into so you need to be really certain that's what you want to do, and experience on your uni application will always count in your favour. It's not really the same as picking subjects you enjoy / are good at, choosing a degree subject along the same lines and working out what you want to do when you graduate at the age of 20-21 as many people will do!

Competitive courses like vet and medicine requiring relevant work experience is a real problem for kids who don't have parents/contacts working in these areas. What happens where I work (healthcare) is that the only kids who come on work experience are those with parents who can pull strings for them. I've done it too in all honesty, but it's not very fair.

I'd focus on what you can do

List all animal based businesses in your area.

So shelters, groomers, pet hotels, farms/ city farms, parks with animals, petting zoos. Stables.

Worst case scenario pets at home and other pet shops (not ideal I know)

Also worth contacting local vets to see if she could do an admin type role.

One thing with vets is they have to do a lot of horrid work, putting animals down etc so at a young age finding adjacent experience rather than a vet placement might not be the worst thing.

Luckily a lot of universities are recognising this and are now only requiring that applicants have some experience in dealing with people. This can be from paid work whils in 6th form/college or volunteering.

My vet friend says they're short staffed and absolutely swamped. Every single person I know who works in healthcare is the same. I wonder if this is the issue, that there's not the spare staff to supervise a child.

I also think some people have unrealistic expectations of what work experience is, some kids and their parents genuinely do expect the kids to be doing the actual career, when it's actually more about learning what the workplace is like, taking orders from others. The structure of the day etc.

I used to work in education and depending on staffing levels, yes we took work experience kids but only if there was plenty of staff to supervise the kid because, to be blunt, work experience kids often were often stressful to manage, they'd expect to be teaching lessons and get arsey when given tasks like washing paint pots. Not all kids were like that but a lot were.

I think that's what's behind places like vets and hospitals saying no. Of course people get experience, but they tend to be older and on placements alongside being educated on how to that job too. All the popular types of careers will have all the local kids wanting to do work experience.

Vets don't just work in a vet practice, your daughter could get experience of working with animals and their health via things like offering to volunteer in a dog shelter, or a farm and she may stand a better chance if she offers this when every other 14 year old isn't looking for work experience placements.

OP is absolutely correct. This problem is not industry-specific. Business insurance does not typically cover individuals under 18. This is why it is also difficult for YP to get Saturday jobs from 16.

Employee insurance wouldn't cover them anyway as they nit an employee. I woukd have thought public liability would have been more apt as they are a visitor on the vet's premises.

It is hard to get a meaningful experience. Many places say they have concerns about insurance or safeguarding. Increasingly office type work is done from home and the average home worker doesn't want a 15 year old in thier house either.

There is also the situation that all the secondaries seem to pick the same week. So willing employers, who might have taken 3 students across a year, only take 1.

Yes good idea. My son’s friend has worked for a few years at a boarding kennels - he was probably 14/15 when he started I think.

Employee liability insurance does cover work experience students.

The Association of British insurers says

"The insurance industry has agreed that students on work experience placements should be treated as employees for the purposes of insurance. Such placements must conform to the requirements of the Education Act 1996 and any other regulations in force at the time. Most Employers’ Liability policies will have a definition of “employee” that covers students on work experience placements
You may have a Public Liability insurance policy. This will not cover students when they are at work. Most Public Liability policies will cover any accidental injury or damage to third party property arising from the actions of the student on work experience."

The Education Act 1996 says

" The enactments relating to the prohibition or regulation of the employment of children shall not apply to the employment of a child in his last two years of compulsory schooling if the employment is in pursuance of arrangements made
(a) by a [local authority], or
(b) by the governing body of a school on behalf of such an authority,
with a view to providing him with work experience as a part of his education."

I think for health care patient confidentiality would be a massive issue and can understand why they limit that. (It'd be very difficult to be completely confident that a 14 year old there for a week understood they cannot mention anything or who they saw at that setting. And it'd be hard to make sure patients were comfortable)

I also get the insurance and h&s aspect, we have difficulties with that at my work as under 16s can't be in labs - realistically there's nothing interesting we can get them to do!

OP as others have suggested I'd go for anything vaguely animal related, for work experience or longer term volunteering or work. If not, I'd go for anything where she's interacting with people as vets also need good human communication.

It already had with some schools. One year (about 10 years ago) my manager’s DD came into our office for a week, maybe two, can’t remember. When her sister was in the same school year, one year later, asked manager if she’d be coming in but he said their school had stopped doing it as the majority of kids couldn’t find anywhere willing to take them.

I think at this age it’s not so much about the field but about the work experience in general. They need to experience turning up for work on time, taking a lunch break and making sure you go back on time, having a bit of responsibility, talking to adult colleagues who you might have little in common with etc etc. I worked in a garden centre for mine - I have no interest in plants or gardening but I do think it was still valuable.

The time for actual vet experience will be later, before she applies for university. You need a certain number of hours before you can apply, and most vets will accept them at 16 for this.