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 have had work experience students in schools. In the end, several schools I was in stopped accepting them. The work experience children often reverted to the level of the young children, and made the whole week really hard work. They usually could not work with groups, as they didn't have the initiative to do this, even on a simple task. They made the children over-excited. Even simple admin tasks they found difficult. It would not be appropriate for them to be in the staff room, as children were discussed, and the work experience children would not understand fully the implications of confidentiality. Most of the time they went off-site for lunch, or a space would be provided for them for lunch. I am puzzled by the cupboard - a lot of the time small spaces (and yes, frankly, ex-store rooms or stock rooms) are allocated small-group teaching spaces - was this the place that was provided?

How awful, I feel really sorry for you both but as a teacher, this kind of behaviours from the school doesn't suprise me.

Schools can be horrible places to work, teachers are clicky, heads are jumped up and very quick to critisizes or take a dislike to people.

I'm sure he did nothing wrong other than being a normal 14 year old. I would take this a useful excersize to see what teaching is really like and encourage him to rethink his career goals.

I think in some cases teachers are a peculiar breed depending on the environment, and by that I mean that if the school has weird rules the teachers get weird too. My sister when on placement at college (so 17/18) at one school wasn’t allowed in the staff room, and she wasn’t given a fob to get into the building so she couldn’t really go out at lunch because she needed to ring a bell to get let back in and they just ignored didn’t hear her.

Poor communicator and bad attitude, doesn’t sound like he’ll be a good teacher, Mayb time for a rethink and he has a lot to learn!

I'm quite happy to have work experience Y10s- the only issues I've had is the one year we had some defiant kids which is not what you want when you're dealing with your own class; one girl who was very sweet but she nearly gave out her mobile number as my Y6s kept asking her for it as they liked her; and one girl who obviously had a lot of SEND issues but the school sending her didn't tell us. Luckily we have one adult loo which is a single room on its own, otherwise this would bother me- they can't go to the children's loos and they can't go to the main staff loos either as these are cubicles.

Unfortunately, this is the reality of training and working in many primary schools. There's a reason why vey few teachers stay in teaching. I completed teacher training in 2015 and met my husband, also a primary school teacher the same year. Of the people I've kept in touch with from my course, only one is still teaching- abroad. Croatia I think. The others, including me, have all left, and my husband has too. The amount of criticism piled on you for anything and everything would be laughed at in any other profession.

Used the wrong pen, forgot to underline the date when writing on the board, a broken link in your slideshow, a child spotted looking out of the window, or a single unmarked book can immediately lead to you being suspected of being a Bad Teacher and In Need of Support and the relentless monitoring and being treated like a criminal until you buckle and leave will begin. I was once put on a support plan after a surprise "classroom inspection" just after PE because a child had left a plimsoll on the carpet.

If you get a bad class who have had behaviour issues since reception and they continue to behave badly for you, it's your fault.
If you get a high proportion of SEN and the children continue not to make much academic progress, it's your fault.
If you're working 70 hours a week but still can't keep up with an insane marking policy, it's your fault.
If the children behave beautifully and make great progress but you didn't follow The Rules and your lessons/classroom don't look the same as the one next door, you're still a Bad Teacher.

Your son would doubtless make a wonderful Primary School Teacher, fun loving, caring and compassionate, and dedicated to the children. That doesn't seem to be of interest to most schools. They have a very specific mould that they are looking to fit you into and if you don't fit then you never will. I'd tell him to seriously consider if this is something he wants to deal with day in and day out, coming home crushed at 6pm, bearing the weight of relentless criticism and knowing that you still have 3 hours of work to do before you can think about collapsing into bed, all for low pay and very few perks, all whilst missing out on your own children growing up.

I remember my sister getting a bad work experience report. She’d always been an A grade student. Both my mum and the head of careers questioned the report. The response was ridiculous. Weirdly she did go into the same line of work as an adult and is hugely successful. Just ignore it op. Tell your son it doesn’t matter.

You know your son best - is he likely to come across as shy or sullen would you say? Not a criticism by the way - just trying to establish where the 'bad attitude' description came from? It doesn't sound as though he would be 'unwilling' from your description of him, rather that he wasn't given opportunities. The adults in the room could have used their professional experience to draw him into conversation.

What could the school have done differently, my thoughts - let him shadow the TA, work with a small group in any of the lessons, listen to the children read, mark a few books (they'll be checked afterwards), plenty of things other than sticking worksheets in for 3 solid days. He didn't really get experience of work, did he?

Not sure whether I would address the primary school or his school....I'd maybe do both?

If this description is totally out of character for your boy, then let them know exactly how hurtful that you and he found the comments and how disappointing that all that they could do for him was to sit him in a corridor on his own, or in a cupboard. Hardly work 'experience' and I think it's absolutely fair to call them out on it.

It's ok to dish out criticism if it's fair, but they don't sound like they've been fair and should be told so.

I thoroughly agree. What a horrible, demoralising experience. They are supposed to be helping him. Do they even know how to teach??

They what????

Please tell me you are trying to find him some other experience and you told him that he did well.

If he was left to do absolutely nothing in the hallway…well…then he can entertain whatever way he wants if he doesn’t disturb.

Gosh. Just plain horrible people.

He’s 14. Behaving professionally?

I would absolutely say something to the school!! Not only that but they are teaching your daughter and if that’s how they are treating a 14 year old (still a child!!!!!) I would be bringing them up on that.

Also for they communicate this to your son at all? Because in a work place you would expect feedback prior to a warning (I know it’s different but still stands!)

I personally would speak to the secondary school about this. And get them to question the primary school about what he had been doing during his placement, and some examples of this behaviour they didnt like.
As for the rock paper scissors, well my friends son when in Y6 and my son who started in YR tried to give him a high 5, got told hes not allowed to high 5 the younger children as it can scare them! So no more high 5's!

Never understood the point of forcing work experience placements where the workplace in question aren't set up for it. Sounds like one of those. I'd tell him to forget all about it x

We got an email from our 16 yos school last week, which listed, "no poking, slapping, tapping, play-fighting, hugging, fist pumping, hand shaking or any kind of touching," because "school is a professional environment." I don't know when schools decided they were corporate entities and started harping on about "professionalism", instead of places of education and fun for CHILDREN.

They must have been worried the imaginary ball would hit someone.

seriously OP, what’s he normally like? If this is totally out of character I would be discussing with the school.

I think it's worth calling his supposed mentor out on this. Kids would have loved for him to be in class with them. Rock, paper, scissrs is harmless fun, imo, as is pretend bowling down tne corridor. What a horrible experience for your son.
I wonder if is his mentor was one of those primary school teachers who doesn't like boys, usualky female,

My friend's teenage son spent most of his WE sweeping up in a workshop where the gentlemen there referred to him as 'ya wee b*stard' instead of using his name.

ETA Would have been more than 30 yrs ago.

Y10s are better than 14 year olds, I agree! But as you pointed out, there can be issues even then. We used to get sent work experience children who couldn't find any other placement. And they did often have SEND themselves.

I’m awkward, so would probably go back and query why the ban on hand-shaking, if it’s a professional environment?

Quite so!

Yes I agree with all of that, however I think they would get much more out of it if they were even just a year older.

Year 10 is 14-15 year olds. I had to Google it as I thought 14 seems young for work experience! Then I realised it's year 10!

I'd suggest he might not be cut out to be a teacher. Talk to his school and also find out if he did the things the primary school said. Don't approach the primary school - could ask DS's own school to find out why such bad feedback (if he didn't mess around).

He’s 14. Rock paper scissors with a 6year old is good for their reflex s. It was a pretend cricket ball so not sure how bad that was. Sounds like the school weren’t very nice.