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Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

Original poster

I don't want ds to do work experience.

318 replies

Alouisee · 03/12/2011 09:13

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.

OP posts:
BrianAndHisBalls · 03/12/2011 21:35

Strictly you ho! Grin I've just worked out who you are Grin Same industry my arse, we're number 1 you're number ermmmm 68 or something Grin

StrictlySazz · 03/12/2011 21:38

Well, actually they made me redundant last year, so you can have the number one spot Grin

BrianAndHisBalls · 03/12/2011 21:41

Yay! (to being number one not to redundancy obv.) We're 4 of 4 anyway so was just trying to blag some kudos. You set up on your own didn't you? Is it going well?

StrictlySazz · 03/12/2011 21:44

Yes has been very good, quiet now but picking up in the New Year which is fine by me Grin

BrianAndHisBalls · 03/12/2011 21:44

Glad to hear it Smile

blueemerald · 03/12/2011 23:10

Don't delude yourselves. Anyone interviewing for a job or a university placement of any merit knows exactly what a week or two work experience entails and in 90% of cases that is bugger all. They also know that the candiate will have been made to do it by school/parents- that doesn't look good if they have nothing else on the CV. If you find a placement that you enjoy or are thinking about as a career prospect then great but please don't do it "for the CV".

Alouisee Your son is better off volunteering in any kind of role or job linked to the field he wants to go in to during the holidays/weekends. In fact he is better off volunteering to do anything during his free time. That is what impresses people- not two weeks photocopying and making tea working in an office.

Interesting article from TES

AmberLeaf · 03/12/2011 23:44

I think the comment at the bottom of the article was more interesting TBH.

QuintessentialyFestive · 03/12/2011 23:46

...and not to mention that if he ever needs to find a private landlord during his studies, a cv with work experience will look a much more impressive and reliable than one without.....

I know this from a landlords perspective, renting out two houses to students.... (ALL with work experience)

blueemerald · 04/12/2011 00:43

AmberLeaf Leaving your snippiness adside, I understand perfectly well what the intention of work experience is; the point is that the reality rarely, if ever, matches up with those intentions. Due to H&S and CRB checks needed for members of staff students experience very little of what work is actually like.I imagine that's why the questionnaire was slanted that way. Parents and students are sold the idea of work experience as something for the CV regardless of original intention.

I worked in a secondary school for 2 years and the majority of students did their work experience in the retail sector. They could not get a place anywhere else (a few got places in local nurseries). A lot of them were treated very badly and hated every minute. Many came back to school having had their ridiculous idea that life on benefits is better than working confirmed.

The work experience system in England (I cannot speak for elsewhere) is rubbish and needs to be overhauled (towards a volunteering system or so that meaningful work is done IMO) or scrapped.

I am not for one minute saying a teenager should do nothing but that work experience is nothing to shout about and with the majority of teenagers doing it it does not differentiate you much from the herd. I would be concerned if my son or daughter still needed to include it on a CV or UCAS form at 18/19 because they had so little else.

AmberLeaf · 04/12/2011 00:53

I wasnt being 'snippy'!!

Did you read the comment at the bottom? I thought it was very interesting and relevant to the discussion.

unitarian · 04/12/2011 01:25

I taught in secondary schools for many years and supervised students each year during their work experience.
I lost count of the number who returned to school all fired up to do better in their exams. Sometimes it was because their placement had been so enjoyable that it opened their ideas to a career that needed qualifications they were in danger of not achieving. Sometimes they realised that the particular line of work was not for them but they would end up in it if they didn't work harder at school.
Employers were unfailingly kind, tolerant, helpful and supportive. They didn't regard it as unpaid labour and they spent time and effort offering guidance. It is quite an upheaval for an employer to take a student into the place of work and not something they do lightly.
In many cases students gained part time work on Saturdays from it and all gained something in maturity. Many changed their life-paths on the strength of it.

Now as a parent I have seen my DD come home enthusing about her work experience, chatting excitedly about what she did and the people she met.

sashh · 04/12/2011 05:58

When he leaves full time education, be it after GCSEs or PhD he will be one amongst many and the one thing that will make him stand out from the rest is any work experience.

It is not for the benefit of schools, it's much easier to have the kids in.

He has written to two bike shops and got no reply - well is that a suprise? Employers frequently don't reply to aplicants for advertised jobs.

exoticfruits · 04/12/2011 07:41

Even the fact that you don't get replies is a useful experience. When my DS tried to find an employer for an apprenticeship he wrote over 100 letters and I think he got about 5 replies-that is life.

Original poster
Alouisee · 04/12/2011 08:21

Spoke to some rl people last night. They weren't quite as effusive as nearly everyone on this thread.

The general consensus was that work experience is good experience but it's not impressive to anyone to have the school force feed it into the curriculum. The children that benefit from it do it off their own back and find good placements.

Getting schools to turf out 1000 pupils for two weeks means that employers are saturated and lots of kids end up with not very worthwhile placements.

A couple of people had pulled out children from their placements due to employers requesting longer hours, late evenings or both weekend days. The companies have been been blacklisted by the organisers.

Some had a great time - especially those doing sport placements.

OP posts:
SoupDragon · 04/12/2011 08:33

I guess you're going to go with what the small number of "RL" people said rather than the large number of people on here then.

Original poster
Alouisee · 04/12/2011 08:42

I can't "go with" anything if it's a legal statutory requirement, he'll have to do it. My preference would be to wait til he's taken his GCSE's and is 16.

OP posts:
Bonsoir · 04/12/2011 08:47

Your reluctance is clearly at odds with consensus on this thread, OP, and I wonder whether the fact that you live in such a rural area has something to do with it? Do you think perhaps that you are not really in touch with how children in cities are brought up these days?

exoticfruits · 04/12/2011 08:48

In RL I am very diplomatic so I dare say I would fit in with your view with just a mild alternative-on here I am free to be truthful!

Antidote · 04/12/2011 08:56

Very interesting thread.

I have to say that where I work, having WE students is hell. They never arrive on time, the girls come in tarted up to the nines, the boys look so scruffy. They all say that they are interested in medicine but none of them can articulate a genuine reason why.

They invariably end up gossiping with each other & disturbing us.

The classic comment this year was 'when's lunch? I need to find some mobile reception to go on Facebook'

I am afraid I lost patience suggested a change of career.

So glad some of your dc find this useful

cricketballs · 04/12/2011 09:02

"The companies have been been blacklisted by the organisers" must prove to you that the children's welfare is taken seriously and any doubts you have can be erased.

I'm still not clear why you prefer to wait until he is 16, or is that linked to the area of work he wants to go into?

Bonsoir · 04/12/2011 09:06

Antidote - both times DSS1 has done WE we have had feedback from the founders of the company he did it at. Our understanding is that he behaved impeccably at all times and was genuinely interested in the company - though he did find the financial services company he worked at last summer a lot harder to understand than the luxury watch maker's he worked in two years' ago.

I do think WE needs to be accessible for children. Some companies/products/services are just going to be beyond the experience of teenagers to get a grasp on.

Antidote · 04/12/2011 09:17

I agree it can be useful, I must just be unlucky in the people I have had.

I've never been asked to give feedback, probably a good thing!

Original poster
Alouisee · 04/12/2011 09:17

I would prefer to wait until he's 16 because his GCSE's will be out of the way and the company he wants to work in won't take under 16's.

We are rural but not complete carrot crunchers thanks, dh works on the city - we just happen to live rurally.

I will take advice from friends who've been through this rather than strangers on a thread because they know our school, my son and our family.

OP posts:
Luminescence · 04/12/2011 09:28

I was placed in a accounts office of the local hospital. Most boring week of my life but it made me sure that I never wanted to be an accountant and I learned to use Excel a bit.

Northernlurker · 04/12/2011 09:50

With you glaring at me in person I would say what you want to hear too! Doesn't make you any less wrong.

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