Work experience at risk so how can we encourage our young people to make the right choices?

[Glasshalffull96]

I am horrified to discover that the Coalition Govt is looking to give schools the option of not providing work experience for young people until after their GCSEs. How are they going to have any idea of the sort of career they want let alone the skills and qualifications they might need? Beggars belief! In Bucks this means that a much valued service that brokers placements between schools and employers (and carries out risk assessments) will disappear so schools that choose to still offer this invaluable opportunity will have to organise it themselves or possibly pay a commerical organisation to do so! If you live in Bucks, sign the petition: www.petitionbuzz.com/petitions/bebp . If you don't live in Bucks, find out what your local Education Business Partnership is doing: here today, gone tomorrow!

They don't do work experience until after the have chosen their gcse's anyway, so your op doesn't make any sense.

Yes but they are encouraged to think about what sort of work experience they might like to have in Year 10: take that away and there is no conversation. I am also thinking more about their post-GCSE studies as the government has decided to effectively raise the 'school leaving age' to 18!

beds/bucks border here

dd did hers in year 10 and has now decided she doesnt want to do teaching

I honestly can not see the point in year 10s doing 2 weeks work experience.

the options of where to go are so limited. all businesses and employers and employees are so overstretched i am not surprised they don't want the extra hassle of trying to amuse a 15 year old for 2 weeks. There are so many things they cant do they end up sitting around bored, making coffee or filing.

and what 15 year old knows what they want to do anyway?

i wonder if the traditional work experience for year 10s is an excuse to get them out of school while the GCSEs for year 1 re concentrated on.

DD1 is year 10 and we have been trying without any success to arrange a 2 week placement for July. it is impossible. the list given by school was snapped up by the first 10 applicants. every other pupil has to then find their own. impossible and hours of extra work for parents.

and pointless.

There are lots of types of work experience that yo can't do until you are 16 anyway.

My work have had to stop accepting placements, we are a construction firm and under 16's are not allowed on site.

After GCSE's students are generally more mature and work experience canbe more real rather than the pointless excerciseit has turned into.

They chose there gcses in year 9! To be honest my friends dd is doing her work experience at the moment in yr 10 and it has clashed with two exams, so out of a weeks work experience she will miss a whole day.
I know also that often dcs can't do the work experience they want to because they are not 16 yet and nowadays some companies won't take under 16s

DS will only do one week work experience, he will do his in July at a photographers round the corner, which we sorted out ourselves.

From the number of parents of older teens who have come begging to DH for work experience in the last 5 years or so, I thought it was the norm for most teens to arrange their own.

don't really see the point of work experience myself. ds worked in an office and to be honest he would have been better off with a week in school.

of course, if you have contacts and can wangle exclusive fantastic work experiences for your children this doesn't apply - but doubt this is the majority

if you have contacts and can wangle fantastic experiences your children won't need work experience. they'll be able to get a job through those very same contacts

i guess it's always been the way though.

I have a year 11 daughter and work in a field where we get loads of teenagers wanting to do work experience (I'm a vet). I have to agree that in many cases the year 10 WE students are wasting their time and ours, because too few of them really know if they are interested in the career or if they have the academic ability to aim for it, and many of them are too shy or bored or awkward to ask any questions or get the most out of the experience. The post GCSE students are far more motivated and mature, by and large (of course there are exceptions both ways round) - and I think it's great for them to have something different to do to take their minds off how the GCSEs went, too. I really don't see a good reason for year 10 to do it so early through school - there's nothing to stop a year 10 who really wants to find out about something or other to try to organise something for themselves during the summer holidays, after all, is there?

My boys did their work experience after their GCSEs. It worked well as it didn't take away from teaching time.

They got their suits for sixth form then too, so very smartly dressed.

glasshalffull96: are the proposed changes part of the huge review of the National Curriculum that's going on at the moment? If so, could you link the relevant parts / interim view? (I did look, but failed to find).

I have to say, I cannot see the point of many of the work experience positions. The young people are simply too young.

They have to be looked after while they are there and many employers just don't have the resources at this time.

Work experience after GCSEs? You are kidding! You won't see DS for dust after GCSEs - he will be too busy having FUN.

Our school has WE in Y10 and Y12, right at the end of the year when everyone else is wasting time watching DVDs. It is an integral part of the 'experience' that they have to organise it themselves; it is not laid on by the school. No need for 'a much valued service that brokers placements between schools and employers' here.

agree year 10 too young for work experience
although dd bagged working with a dr friend which was invaluable as she decided she def did NOT want to be a dr

Actually now you say that Senua...I realise I didn't even know this was a service offered.

DH receives stacks of requests for WE, but all directly from the students not their schools.

yes school has a bank of regular businesses used and students arrange it all themselves here.
there are a group of school admin peeps that do the H&S checks

The main dilemma of school age work experience is deciding which type of office you'd like to photocopy and make tea in.

Total waste of time.

DS 1 had an aoofice placement sorted out, fell through. Finally offered a place in a local hotel which he didn't want to do. Did the work and ended up doing part time waitering there for 2 years and still goes back to help pay for uni. So as a way of getting temporary work it helps - as far as helping career choice it must be very limited.

At my school, it was well known that whilst WE was technically "unpaid" there were a few employers who did used to give you £50 at the end of the week, so everyone applied for those, even though they were pretty crappy jobs. You had potential Oxbridge applicants trying to persuade the careers teacher that it really was their dream to shovel gravel at the aggregate plant just so they could bag £50.

At the time I wanted to be a journalist, but there weren't any journalism placements, so I just used to go and work for my dad, and get paid for it.

I wanted to be a journalist at 15 and so the school decided to send me to the local college library fir two weeks of stacking books. We didn't have a risk assesment we used our brains instead perhaps that could be suggested as an alternative but tbh it was a complete waste of time.

Are there really many places where it would be appropriate to have young students?

I'm assuming anything involving confidentiality would be off limits...doctors/lawyers/social services etc