Finding a work experience placement for under 16s nightmare

[Getabloominmoveon]

Where can you find work experience placements for a 15-year old girl who's interested in political or NGO organisations or technology. She has cast the net wide, we have reached out to all our contacts, and every company seems now to have a '16+ only' policy, or their emphasis is more on internships and they have no resources to support school pupils.
Do schools not know this? If yes, why do they continue with this Yr 11 work experience policy?
How have others found an interesting placement? All ideas gratefully accepted!

i'm not sure if this will help, but blakemorgan has a scheme for 15 year olds (scroll right to the bottom) x

It will depend on the nature of the organisation and what she expects to be doing. We always get our ks4 students placements who want one, even if they are more loosely linked to their chosen career.

Local STEM companies round here take for ks4 work experience weeks, but don't accept random 14-16 year olds who ask for a placement. When they take people from schools, there's a set programme for the week and an introduction to the company etc.

Some are even more difficuly to get. Lots of jobs linked to psychology and counselling don't even give work experience out below year 3 of undergrad in some areas, but we can get them a week at a local mental health charity.

If a company or organisation is going down the intern route (which I have moral issues with there as I think they should be paid work) then they're more interested in giving longer experience to someone older who can get on with individual tasks rather than a y10/11 student who will need babysitting.

My gut instinct is that NGOs and more specialist tech companies are probably not the sort of areas where having a 15 year old around for the week is an easy thing to manage. I think she's perhaps expecting too much.

Sometimes a related area is more beneficial, e.g. if she is interested in NGOs then that's massive, what area of NGOs interest her? Could she look for a charity or group in that area? ( if she is interest in NGOs, infrastructure and housing then she might seek a placement with a local housing association / if she is interested in education NGOs then could she seek work experience in a local trust seeking to improve education/ if she is interested in NGOs linked to climate change and environmental things then could she try for a work experience placement in a local water company or forestry commission?)

Our school has stopped trying to do work experience for that very reason.

Same at one of my last schools teen.
Because my current school is more leafy and middle class we find we can draw on a large network of parent contacts to find placements for people who are struggling (though most find their own). Plus, because the vast vast majority of our students are a credit to the school, staff will also put the feelers out with people they know on behalf of students because we know the students won't let us down if we give them a hand.

We couldn't do that in a previous school and so the gap between schools like mine and schools like a previous school widens.