Work Experience disaster 14 yr old

[Sula1978]

I have a well behaved 14 year old son. Slightly shy, academic, sporty and keen to be a teacher. My son decided to apply for his work experience at the local primary. It's near our house and his sister goes there. He has just done three days there and has been crucified on the feedback.

We explained to him on the first day to politely introduce himself to the head, go to his mentor with any issues, be helpful and most importantly enjoy it. Got there day 1 and no introduction, no induction, no mentor and left in a cupboard on his own for lunch. The teacher clearly did not want him there. She gave him no chair and left him outside the class sticking worksheets in books for 3 days. He went back to his own school today to a letter from the Primary school saying he was caught playing rock, paper, scissors with the 6 year olds and was seen to pretend bowl a cricket ball along the corridor. He had a bad attitude and was a poor communicator. He's so upset as thought he had done well but was called out of class today to explain.

Should I speak to the Primary to ask why he was crucified or leave it?

I don't get why work experience kids can't use the staff loos?
Surely if their work experience was in a shop or any other workplace they'd use the staff loos.

And likewise the staff room, at lunchtime, i mean where do they expect the young person to go?

I worked in a school and have worked with many work experience pupils , yes some teachers have them work to stick in books that’s school life but also involve them in helping children in their work , encouraging them and building confidence , playing with pupils at break time , sitting and chatting at lunch time . All valuable experiences for both pupil and work experience child . Work experience is partly about turning up on time , adapting to a new environment and hopefully communicating with staff and pupils . Work experience is about learning and enjoying the experience they are only 15 years old and it’s purely a taster of working life . The school sound unreasonable in there expectations ! They are not student teachers!

I think the school (or individual teacher) didn’t want to do it but didn’t feel they could say no. The feedback and treatment is so unreasonable it ensures this high school don’t send anyone next year.

You are right...I am confused. I thought it was post GCSE. 14 is very close to the age of primary age children, and they find the balance between behaving like a primary age child and behaving like an adult (which is what we are actually expecting them to do) is very hard.

and they find the balance between behaving like a primary age child and behaving like an adult is very hard.
Honestly, no way, not in my experience.

Sounds like it was a crap placement OP. In my experience (secondary teacher) work experience can really vary and some kids have a fab time and others the opposite. It’s up to you if you call and discuss with the primary but make sure you are prepared to listen to their side of events.

For what it’s worth I walked out of my WE after the first day - it was a very snooty PR agency who castigated me for using the wrong bin for a teabag. Instead I took on shifts at my supermarket job for the rest of the half term so got a nice pay packet and the end of the week. My mum backed me when school complained and we moved on. She did make me ring the agency the next morning to explain I wasn’t returning. That was character building I can tell you. 😬

I received negative feedback after my work experience at a nursery. I threw myself in to it and thought I did really well however my cousin went to the nursery and was in the baby room. I witnessed her being pulled roughly so told my aunt who obviously fed it back. The nursery manger was all smiles until it was over and she gave me the most awful feedback and said I was lazy, too quiet etc which was quite the opposite! She basically took offence to what I had seen and used it against me. The school were great and said they wouldn’t allow work experience there again however it really knocked my confidence for a long time. I really don’t think it’s any reflection on your son and If I was you I would feed back to the school. He’s still a child and it’s their responsibility to help him settle in and given direction!

You’ve made a lot of assumptions here about the teacher not liking him.
there’s not an awful lot to do with 14 year olds except admin work. They’re children, so can’t be DBS checked and so there’s not much they can safely do with actual children.
we had one once complain about doing admin - she was lazy, spent most of her time on her phone (despite us explaining in simple language, how much of a safeguarding issue it it) shrugged when asked questions and undid a lot of good behaviour in young children by encouraging silly behaviour.

Now I’m not saying your son definitely did those things, but you’re hearing his side only. A primary school teacher is used to dressing up poor behaviour into positive language for a report, so I hardly believe that he’s been amazing if they’ve said those things!

There must be some bad eggs out there, but the majority of teachers really like children and what their best.

I would email the school FAO the mentor and ask for more detailed feedback on your son’s behaviour so you can support him. Very neutral - don’t admit fault. Don’t blame the school. Hopefully you’ll get some clear feedback and you can advise your son accordingly

Agreed. I feel really sorry for your son. Poor chap. Unfortunately some primary school teachers/heads are awful and not very accommodating towards teenagers. Although not as bad, I had a similar negative teacher/training experience at a primary school during my youth. Some of them really just don’t want you to be there and make it very clear!

This. I know there are some in the ‘there’s no smoke without fire’ and ‘you’re only hearing his side of things’ camp, but if you get on the wrong side of one person or they don’t want you there, it doesn’t matter how great you are, you aren’t getting good feedback.

My sense is there was poor leadership/management of his experience there, your son clearly didn’t know what to do or what was expected of him and felt awkward. It was probably downhill from there.

Even if he didn’t behave optimally, again, echoing what everyone else has said… he’s 14, hasn’t worked a job before, and it’s for the leader to set expectations for him. Also it would’ve been nice if they’d arranged more time for him to interact with the children, as it sounds like that’s what he’d hoped to do, but the teacher just wanted him out of the way from the sound of it? To me it sounds like someone without much confidence/ experience in teaching and that this has bled over into your son’s experience unfortunately.

Whatever you do - focus on being supportive towards your son. I’m not sure I’d bother going back to the primary school tbh but perhaps feedback to the secondary school that it’s not a suitable place for work placements for the reasons you’ve said.

Sounds like he’d make a fabulous teacher . If he’s able to tap into cricket and games that children would relate to . Most teachers are quite shy introverted people outside their theatre( classroom) . I’d employ him. From a retired teacher .

As far as your son is concerned, there is nothing positive in terms of getting experience to salvage from this negative placement.

The most important thing is to explain that mean people there doesn’t mean he can’t be a great teacher somewhere else.

There is a painful realisation of reality here. Not all teachers are wonderful, and there are a few downright nasty ones.

Unfortunately as a young person doing work experience anywhere (not just in a school) you are at the mercy of your mentor. Although this was a particularly bad example, it is not uncommon to find a mentor who makes little effort with a mentee because they are not considered an important person who matters to them. It is not uncommon to find a mentor who makes little effort to support, inspire and educate but instead exploits help for menial tasks. Sadly, this extends to the different ways teaching assistants are deployed, so one lesson might be if you don’t want to risk being plonked with someone like that, train as a teacher not a TA.

Conversely, there are many many teachers who would give a completely different, positive experience of working with little ones. I would strongly encourage your son to be resilient and look for opportunities at other schools to volunteer as a helper, and to keep trying until he has had at least one positive experience.

There are many reasons which could legitimately put you off from teaching which can easily be googled, but the existence of selfish teachers like this is a minor one as they will be in a different room with a different class all day so you will only see them for 20 mins in the staff room.

On a different note, not that this will help your son at all, but I would write a polite letter setting out your son’s experience to his own head teacher and to the chair of governors at the awful school. Many head teachers would consider themselves far too busy to concern themselves with experiences such as your son’s, and I suspect this school has a head like that or he would not have had such an experience in the first place. Most governing bodies, on the other hand, have a measure of autonomy. They tend to be community minded volunteers who take interest in things like this and although it may be squashed and hushed up it may embarass the head into either providing a worthwhile experience, or at least removing their school from the arena to prevent harming more children like your son.

It's not about what he might hear, but that it's an adult only space. Lunch breaks are not directed time (though the time is trapped between school sessions), so teachers aren't paid and cannot be expected to work, including to mentor work experience pupils and be responsible for them. He easily could have gone out, or even home, for lunch if he didn't want to spend time in the classroom.

Back in the day when I did it it was Y10 and Y12 that work experience was done.

So ding it at 14 not a new thing IME - but I expect it's increasingly hard to find places that young especially for an entire year group.

They don't do it here but welsh bac has some volunteering requirments - left DD1 at 14 - summer born - trying to find a volunteering placement and many won't take under 16. It was a lot eaier Y12 for older two when they hit another volunteering requirement post 16 for A-level welsh bacc.

Same at my daughters' school, they do it in yrs 10 and 12, but they do it in the last week of term, so my summer born DD turned 15 on the day of her placement! It was really tricky for her to find WEX as she wants to study medicine and a lot of hospitals etc have a minimum age of 16. Now she is in yr 12 and will have many more options but is actually taking her WEX week to study for her UCAT instead! But she will have done other WEX prior to that.

No one's lunches are paid for, but I'm sure plenty work experience placements happily chat to their work experience kids during breaks

Came here to say this…
what’s wrong with anything he did?? Pretend bowling? And?!?! What’s the issue… it’s not like he taught them swear words, vaped in the cupboard or started a food fight is it?!…
that school sounds dreadful and it’s a shame his work exp was so awful…. However when he’s a teacher and gets a student on work exp he’ll remember this and he’ll be an amazing mentor!!! ❤️

@Sula1978 just be aware that mumsnet is using your post in its clickbait type advertising on FB - you may want to ask for it to be removed .

Have to disagree. The staff room is a child free zone, particularly when the WE students have links to the school.

If thats the attitude schools take for kids doing work experience. The whole work experience thing for kids should be scrapped

Can you imagine if every potential employer took the same logic. Kids aren't allowed in the staff toilets, they aren't allowed in the staff room. Nobody wants to be responsible for them.

Exactly! And the pretend bowling. Not like he was sniffing glue and teaching them swear words. That "placement" sounds totally unsuitable.

There is a clear distinction in schools between children and adults for safeguarding reasons. 14 year olds don't share facilities with the teachers for obvious reasons. Where there is a different level of authority and power imbalance, they're treated as kids past the age of 16. Other potential employers might have real paid employees of the same age, who have the same terms and conditions as other workers, even if on a part time basis, and this would not happen in schools.

School is essentially not providing work experience during breaks and out of hours, so unless he wanted the 20 min legal minimum away from the kids and then to shadow support staff on playground duty, he should have planned to do anything other than access the staffroom.

I'm a man. We don't have urinals at my school for staff as it's a 98% female staff- but if there we did have, it wouldn't be appropriate a child to be stood next to me using one. In secondary school the teachers and children don't share loos- this would be seen as a safeguarding red flag- and it's the same when Y10 children come and do their work experience in a primary school. Luckily we have some enclosed single room cubicles they can use.
As for the staff room, where I work they can eat in there, but we do have to be careful, especially given many of the Y10s either went to the school, have siblings there etc. Some of our conversations can be quite adult in nature!

@OneFunBrickNewt
Ok it really does make me think schools shouldn't be sending 14 year olds out for work experience at all.

Other employers, particuraly small employers probably aren't as trained up on safe guarding staff, and work experience kids as they should be.

If its not approprate for 14 yo work experience kids to use staff loos in a school, its not approprate for them to do it anywhere.

I think we ended up with the students who couldn't find a placement anywhere else. Often they had special needs themselves.