I don't want ds to do work experience.

[Alouisee]

He's in year ten and has been told that for two weeks in July he must find a placement. He has contacted two bike shops but they havn't even replied.

I'm not keen on pushing him to contact lots of potential placements just so he can become an unpaid slave for a fortnight.

I feel that the school like to clear the decks in the summer with the residentials taking place and work experience happening. I'm quite happy to arrange some tutoring for him for those two weeks but I'm feeling a bit of a chicken about telling the school that work experience is for their benefit and not for the benefit of my son.

Anyone a teacher and got an opinion or a parent and been in this situation.

in some areas tuition for GCSE is standard, I had extra tuition to "get me through" GCSEs but by that we meant to get me the grades I was capable of, I got very good grades, good A levels, and a good degree. A lot of the tuition I had at GCSE was about learning how to learn/study/revise/perform in exam situations which prepared me for A levels and university. Tuition isn't just for remedial cases

My work experience in an air traffic control centre stood me in good stead when I had my interview to get into the University air squadron, it showed I had a prior interest in aviation and it helped me answer some of the questions I was asked. I got 22 hours of flying lessons out of that and a solo flight, it was extremely competitive to get in to.

ALouise, you are really not coming across very well on this thread, I really hope you don't pass your attitude problem onto your DS as it will not do him any favours in the work place.

I would be much more diplomatic in RL if asked than I would answer on here. You get the truth on MN and generally very good and impartial advice and if you choose to ignore the advice given, you are a fool.

But presumably Grumple if your folks had asked at school, your gcse teachers would have said you had the ability to do well, Alouisee may well have the same with her son. However her messages read as quite stressed so I'm thinking underneath she might be a bit concerned that her son's academic progress is falling short of her hopes for him. A chat with his teachers could help at this stage.

trixymalixy was that a school organised 2 week placement? I also did fantastic work experience in a hospital which I used to get into uni, but hospital/police etc based placements were not allowed on our school organised two week WE (I think because the local station/hospital got sick of 30 letters every year from kids who weren't really serious about WE but HAD to do it).

I did the hospital WE off my own bad the following year, I don't think that kind of WE is what the OP is complaining about??

I agree that work experience probably doesn't do much for the kids who are too lazy and unmotivated to want to make the most of it. BUT in this case it sounds like Alouisee's DS does want to see what work is like, and it's his mother who seems determined to deny him this experience, whether paid or unpaid.

As for 'life changing' - well I suppose mine was in a way as I got a job out of it straightaway, which would have been less likely if I were just one more 14 year old dropping off my cv. And this helped me to get other jobs etc etc - 'CV building' as someone else said. OP I think you are having a real problem understanding this. One thing that my working life has taught me is that you NEVER know which seemingly unimportant part of your CV will be the part that gets you a really good job.

I think it's extremely dangerous that you are pinning all your son's hopes on this friend or relative's business. For whatever reason you seem very sure that he will never need to compete for a job. But even with the best will in the world things can go wrong. What if the friend goes out of business for example?

Yes it was school organised.

Depends on the teacher R+T, my history teacher said I wasn't even capable of passing, as it happens I found HER dull and got a B in the exam. Some other teachers would have said I was capable of high grades, but I did have a few very poor teachers who could have made me hate subjects I otherwise liked. I got high grades across the boards BECAUSE of some good teachers and IN SPITE OF some bad teachers who didn't think that half of us were capable of much

wow that was very good! lucky you! nothing like that from our school! it was all shops and galeries etc apart from one girl got an artificial insemination centre for cows - she wasn't at all interested in agriculutre or animals so..

imo the most transferable skill is the one involved in finding a worthwhile job to do

noone forces a kid to go out and find a boring and uninspiring WE placement, but it can be a useful eye-opener to find how much initiative you need to land a job that is not boring and uninspiring

My school was right beside the airport, but it was me that asked to do work experience in the air traffic control centre.

Thanks for your concern RosemaryandThyme. He has been predicted to get 10 GCSE's A -C. My feeling is that the difference between C's and A's could be vital to his future.

The only thing that's stressing me out is the waste of two weeks of a 14 year olds life and the assumption that I'm "protecting him" from the big bad world.

Yes, he'd like a paper round, he'd like to earn more money than he receives from me. But if it involves me driving him and his bike to the nearest paper shop at 5.30 am it's not happening.

He can babysit, he can do anything else locally and in the summer holidays when he's 16 he can get on a train and go to work to get some real, non curriculum, work experience.

I think that compulsory work experience, pre-GCSE is just like lots of other bits of education: it will mean more and be more enjoyable for some students than for others - and you will tend to get more out of it if you put more effort into it in the first place.

I hated standing in defence on the hockey pitch watching my legs turning purple in the cold - I was no good at it and I didn't want to do it. It was memorable though and lots of people did enjoy it. The fact that I didn't want to be a sportswoman and had no aptitude, didn't mean that it was pointless part of the curriculum.

Work experience WILL be useful for lots of the students - as has been demonstrated by so many of the comments on this thread. Your son might not benefit much - on the other hand he might. You and he can do all you can to make this part of his education as valuable as it can be.

It's not so much for his CV, it's more that it provides extra and different experience from the experiences he currently gets at school and thus it's a useful part of education in its broadest sense. You may find that what he gets out of it has very little do with the narrow definition of the work he is assigned to do.

Both my children were keen to find work experience that they might actually enjoy (since they had to do it) so they worked really hard to find opportunities that would have some interest and relevance for them. The fact that you are intelligent and articulate and have high hopes for your son means that you and he could make the MOST of this opportunity for an educational experience that is not about his academic work. Children have more than enough time to have to concentrate on lessons and revision - this is a chance to blow away the cobwebs and learn a little about the world outside the school walls.

It may be a waste of time, it may not, but why deny him the opportunity to find out?

if you're in a small rural town, 15 years old, there's 30 of you looking, and the hospital, police, childcare settings are banned, no amount of initiative is going to find you an inspiring WE placement. I did well to "land" an art gallery instead of a pound shop. I used my initiative to get a decent WE placement in my old time when I was old enough to do hospital WE, and to get my paid summer/weekend jobs, but you're not much use to anyone if you're only there for 2 weeks unless it's REALLY menial and IMO interesting potential hosts would prefer to take kids who are applying to do it in their own time rather than those who have to because it's their 2 week WE slot in school

I'm not denying him anything but I don't think whacking it in the curriculum is a great idea nor do I think doing an unrewarding job for two weeks is better than some tutoring (at our expense, not the schools).

In fact I'm beginning to think that if he can't find anything then a trip to Galapagos would be fantastic for his Geography and his life experiences.

We lived in a rural area when my ds and dd were looking for work experience. Both my children found interesting work placements in cities staying with a relative (in one case) and a family friend (in another). They needed permission from the school, but the school could see how they would benefit and therefore agreed. This might be a possibility for the OP's son?

I am 21 so did this only a few years ago (well thats how it feels )
I applied to do W/E at the local Records and Archives office - my placement was not like unpaid work OP. They gave me a crash course in all the key skills involved in their job so as to fully benefit me. I actually got a job purely on the basis that I'd learnt a certain skill through W/E. AND, it benefitted my GCSEs - we had to do a speaking and listening assignment based on our W/E in the form of a 3 minute presentation and this was a % of our overall grade for English Language. It also gave me experience in the kind of work that I wouldnt have been able to do as a part time job - the skills involved were specialised. the company used the placement as means of advertising themselves and their field. i wasn't left doing photocopying and making tea for 2 weeks. Would STRONGLY recommend that you encourage your DC to search for a placement.

I had a similar situation, grumplestiltkin, also growing up in a small rural town. But to me, that was part of the learning experience, realising exactly how little there was there for me; it made planning my future (=escape) more real than any talks from my parents could have done.

I'm fairly certain that employers would prefer to see kids that have sorted out their own jobs rather than looking at a box ticked in a given slot at school.

Their school is small and rural, the nearest large town has 3 other secondary schools competing for the same two weeks to find work experience. That was one of our discussions (rl) last night. 4 schools all looking to one major town and a village for over 4000 kids. It's a logistical nightmare.

OP MigratingChestnuts is right. Those are the dog days of the school year, he'll have done his mocks, he'll gain nothing by staying at school with the rest of his year group gone.

There are a lot of interesting places to go if you put your mind to it and think creatively. It will help him to think outside the box if you give a lead and should mean a good result for you both.

What direction does he seem to be taking, if any? Find a starting point and go from there. A first interesting placement often leads to an even more interesting subsequent one.

If you can afford a trip to the Galapagos, that sounds like a very interesting educational experience. It needs money though, which other work experience places presumably don't need. Why can't he join his friends at school and share the work experience "experience" ? It is difficult for me to get my head round your opposition to it.

Cross-posted. Ship him off to a kind relative then, it doesn't have to be done from home.

Alouisee, none of dd's friends are ticking a given slot: they have all been told by the school that sorting out work experience is their responsibility and that this is an essential part of the learning experience.

OP, doesn't this demonstrate quite clearly one of the reasons finding a work experience placement is a good thing? They are all competing for the best placements - just as young people are competing for jobs in the real world. It's good practice!

Most companies that my peers had placements with used the W/E students in a non-menial way.

For example: In the space of a week I had covered IT, customer enquiries, genealogy, how to search gaol databases, microfiche and microfilm databases of censuses, record retrievals, catalouging, document preservation and had been shown how to clean and repair old and damaged documents. each staff member took time out of their usual work schedule to introduce me to their specialised role and to teach me the skills they used day to day. They could have just left me to make phone calls and do photocopying but that wouldnt have benefitted anyone - they wanted me to see exactly what the field of archiving entails - it was valuable in making career decisions. Equally a friend who went into an insurance company didnt just make phone calls but spent a day in each different department doing tasks specially designed to teach her about each department but allowing her to show her own potential. 6 students from my year were told that after graduating they would be welcome to come back as interns - it really IS beneficial.