...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.

Thank you all for your replies. It is reassuring that it is not just me. We had the same problem for her DofE volunteering with ELI but I was hoping that the school work experience placement was more recognised with employers and that there was insurance to cover it.

We have a couple more options for her placement to exhaust but they are on a scale of relevance. We are including riding stables, farms, kennels, cattery and other animal related industries!

My daughter is planning her work experience at the mo, and it seems very much like a waste of time to me.

She already has a part time job, working Saturday afternoons in a local cafe. I accept many other teenagers don't, but most of the opportunities here available seem to be focused on hospitality or teaching. I did my work experience back in the 90s in a marketing dept when I was in Y11, and then at sixth form with the local police (I had wide ranging career aspirations... 🤣🤣) don't think any of those types of options seem to be available now.

I wonder really how helpful it all is at GCSE age.

It doesn’t need to be so directly related to your career though, OP. It’s work experience, not work shadowing.

So honestly at this age helping out serving meals in an old folks home would be just as helpful - customer-facing, caring, understanding roles in a service industry.

Then dc can get work experience with animals later on.

I would also echo what pp said - many schools abandoned work experience at this age not just due to insurance but also child protection issues. Too many employers were fearful of accusations and couldn’t meet the dbs clearance requirements.

At her age, work experience is about being out of the school environment and surrounded by adults. It’s an immersive experience but important not to get too hung up on specific careers at this age.

This. There must be loads of jobs which can't offer work experience. Prison officer. Pilot. Cruise ship singer to name but a few. Your dd should focus on transferable skills and think outside of the box. For example Pets at Home. Smaller animal charity. Head office of an animal charity. She will still learn a bit about animals but also about communication, reliability, the general public, admin type stuff. All useful in the work place

For medicine, it's easier to do stuff that is job adjacent.

You can't do work experience following a doctor but you can do St John ambulance cadets and get first aid qualifications and go out on duty and use them.

You can volunteer in a care home.

Also my work experience put me off a job I would actually have been awesome at. I was stuck in a side office stamping books all week with no shadowing at all. I would have loved to do this job but how I was treated put me off for way too long and now it's too late for me sadly

Work experience is almost entirely done via the parents network so it’s actually pretty unfair. No one really wants a teen hanging about for a week. One of ours wants to do what we do which was easy. The second we had to use family members / call in favours. If your parents aren’t connected you’re stuffed.

At her age the most important factors are a) excellent academics and b)building up a CV showing lots of experience handling different types of animals.

At 14 she could volunteer for Riding for the Disabled and learn to handle horses (min age 12). https://rda.org.uk/rda-groups/, work with a dog groomer and handle dogs, work at a chattery ditto cats, help at a riding stables - horses again. Ask to help out at a local farm (handle cows, pigs). So lots of possibilities.

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.

Yes, two different (Primary) schools I worked at ended up stopping taking youngsters for the 'work experience' weeks, because they ended up needing a lot of staff time to supervise them and to sort out issues caused by them. School just didn't have the spare staffing to continue doing this.

I work in the office of a school.
We offer the usual work experience in the classroom but we also offer and I'm very grateful for the ones who want office experience.
In return for lots of photocopying, filing etc I usually try to find them a mini project they can do that they could talk about in an interview.
Even vets have paperwork to file....
We're covered DBS wise cos everyone has one and the work experience is a child.
So just a suggestion for people racking their brain.

Definitely hard to arrange as school say no remote working which is hard as many office jobs are now remote or at least hybrid. No work experience alongside a sole trader (obviously safe guarding) which I understand but often rules out trade type jobs. Many of my son's peers went to their old primary schools and none of them took it seriously or want to work in schools. My son was lucky DH's office took him on - they are in the office 4 days a week.

My DS is 14 too and has been told he needs to sort out his work experience placement by April - school no longer allocate these like they did when I was that age. But almost all people I know either work from home or are in a profession that doesn’t have insurance for a 14 year old. I have no idea what he’ll do.

The barrier isn't confidentiality, but age.
We have work experience students from 16, we have a Teams with then first so we can get an idea whether they have the maturity/common sense/commuinication skills/empathy to do a placement with us, we also need a reference from their school stating the are reliable, polite etc. Then they have to sign a confidentiality agreement, as does their parent.
Mental health may be a particularly hard area to get work experience in, due to the potential risks that a 14 year old may just not be ready to deal with yet. I remember doing a MH placement at 20 years old and at times felt quite unsafe and unprepared.

My fil had a printing business and was always happy to take work experience kids. He used to give them useful work, and insisted on paying them because he said part of the experience of work was being paid. He was eventually told he wasn't allowed to-so he stopped offering work experience.

One week? At my dd's school they do 2 hours which has to be done in their own time outside of school hours and be accompanied by a parent or guardian for the whole time 🙄. It's literally just a box ticking exercise for them.

My DD did hers at the local hospital last year. Most kids just went to work with their parents.

@McGingery I think any customer related work experience is fine for a 14 year old. Just take what she can get.

However you should now look at all the veterinary schools, Bristol, Nottingham, RVC, Liverpool, Glasgow, Surrey and the others to check what work experience they like candidates ro have. Then assume it’s the minimum as dc of vets and farmers and animal shelter workers will have more. Look at variety of volunteering/paid work and even caring for her own animals or those belonging to others. Lots of work will be 16 plus. Then make absolutely sure she does the required A levels and gets the grades: it’s very competitive and getting great GCSE grades is the goal she needs right now, especially the sciences. I just would not worry about one week of work experience at 14 - much bigger fish to fry over the next 3-4 years!

The point about work experience is to find out what it is like to have to turn up every day on time and do whatever you are asked to do. It is disappointing she can’t do what she wants but she will benefit from any placement.
That said, have you tried dog groomers and local dog walkers?

They can take the students.
They're just using this as an excuse to say 'no'.

To be fair my friend did pathology too (her dad) - somewhat different to a GP though! Would obviously just have to sit in the office due to confidentiality or something so no point anyway.

I had to do 3 hours in the evenings at a bleak local holiday park because none of the fun places I applied to (Aardman, theatres etc) would take me!

Not a vets admittedly but our local council went above and beyond with my daughter's work experience placement. Building control, environmental health, homelessness, green homes grants. Also my son is going to a local farm for his. They had to provide relevant insurances etc but that might be an idea along the animal route. A number of farms in our area often have apprentices so are set up for the paperwork involved. Or what about a rare breeds or children's play farm where she could assist in looking after unusual animals. I do agree with the the person that said a week isn't all that valuable but these might be options and also possible future weekend jobs etc

1-2 weeks of work experience at 14 is going to have zero impact on their future careers. It's really not a big deal.
On the other hand, having an irresponsible 14 year old in a workplace where there is high risks and/or a need for confidentially (thinking more the health care) could have a pretty big impact on people.
Not saying your DD is irresponsible but many are and the businesses don't know the students they are taking on.

Agree with what @JLou08 has said ^

Try a local stable yard