Year 10 careers advice & work experience

[anyname147]

I was wondering whether it is normal for schools (especially private ones), to not offer any careers profiling/guidance, nor any work experience or guidance for year 10s?
My ds has no idea what A levels or careers he wants to do (or the things he wants to do are so varied from each other which will make it hard to decide what A levels to do). I think some guidance/work taster sessions would be very beneficial.
Do schools normally offer some help along these lines in year 10?
Many thanks

both my dc's schools offered career advice. maybe inquire at the school? if that's not an option, i would get him to give the career helpline a call. They are very helpful and anyone aged 13+ can get career advice from them. you can arrange weekly phone sessions with them if you feel that would be beneficial x

Our comp gives careers advice, but stopped doing work experience as the insurance/safeguarding got too much for a bunch of 14/15yos.
Gone are the days an aspiring plumber could just go out for the day in the van of a local company.

I work in a local authority and we have work experience year 10 with us this week. Lovely girl but her aim is to work in nutrition and health. She ended up in housing advice as her Mam works in the next department along.
Seems our local schools work off contacts they have rather than matching up identified wants.

Sorry, just realised I hadn’t read the op properly. I thought you were asking how work experience placements were agreed, not for general careers advice and guidance on whether work experience would help.

Our local college has had some radio adverts this week about advice & enrolment and popping in to see what courses are available etc. Would it be worth him going to an open day like that to see what courses he would need to get on the degree he wants?

My DC's school had an external company come in to interview the students and offer careers advice. After that they mostly had to organise their own work experience. I think the local health authority did offer some placements via the school.

My ds's private school offered career profiling for both in year 10 or early year 11. Some sort of on line thing which gave potential career options and suggested Uni courses/ A level choices. They were also offered work experience , but this seemed to be predominantly via the Old Boys/girls network or schools or organisations with whom they had links- so opportunity for solicitors, teaching, medicine, accountants, etc.
DS2 decided that he did not want to be a solicitor as a result!

DS got very little support at his school; mixed but more opportunities to get advice at DD's school (both state schools, near each other).

Comprehensive offered work experience (that parents had to sort out) but no careers advice.
Independent had career speed dating, , university convention, profiling, career networking events after they leave, service opportunities in sixth form, speakers etc.

Work experience with the armed forces was why our son chose a direct entry military career rather than university. It gave him a focus and ambition. I’m not sure two weeks in a garden centre would have done the same.

Careers support in up independent school helped our youngest understand what she didn’t want to do rather than what she did.

Ours have all had significant relevant and interesting work experience but we’ve arranged that ourselves outside of school.

DD has just moved schools for Y10. It's mid term 2 here (Aus) and I am very impressed that she has already had a careers profiling exercise, has spoken to the careers counsellor who sh3 can access at any time until she finishes Y12 and there is an annual major careers evening with a lot of exhibitors at their school. Her previous school (also private) offered very little. Her two brothers completed their schooling there and the only thing on offer was a private company (run by someone with links to the school) who came in and offered a crap profiling exercise and one hour interview where they basically parroted back what the kids said they would like to do and charged $250. There was also a compulsory work experience week with no help given to find places, if was all down to contacts. DS1 ended up being my Au pair for the week as everywhere he applied to turned him down due to lack of insurance (he wanted fire brigade etc) and when the school suggested he stacked shelves at the local supermarket for free I told them if anyone was getting a weeks free work from him it would be me 😁

Your DS at least needs some guidance with choosing A level subjects. Is there a form tutor or head of house you can contact?

We have work experience at our school - it was brilliant for dd - she wanted to go into beauty therapy but a week in a salon killed that dream! It wasn't as glamorous as it seemed.
Generally though I would say the careers advice they have received in school has been along the lines of what suits the school - her meeting with the teacher who assumed the cloak of careers advisor was close to useless and I had to speak to him afterwards to clarify why dd had made certain choses - he had failed to listen to dd and just bulldozed his way through the process - it wasn't about helping her to realise her goals - it was a tick box exercise by someone who didn't listen, wasn't qualified and had limited knowledge to give her advice - not his fault really, it wasn't his job - but all careers counselling is not equal and some is a total waste of time and energy but at least the school can pretend they are doing something.

Ours starts in year 8, outstanding state school. They have the options talks, an options evening with staff promoting their subjects and then an interview with SLT member to talk though your choices.

By the time we roll into year 9 they have a careers evening with the local colleges promoting practical skills ie engineering so you can do your GCSEs at a technical college from year 10, plus the school itself offers BTECs in a range of subjects.

There is a sixth form/apprenticeship evening open to year 10s and 11s to showcase all the options available to them.

I genuinely thought that all schools did this. Our school promotes be your best self, understand where you want to be and how you are going to get there. The better the grades the more doors open to you sort of thing, whether GCSEs or BTECs.

They don't do work experience though, which I am fine with.

Selective Indie school here. Work experience is done in year 11 here as many go into medicine etc and they find it hard to find placements if the pupils are under 16.

they do Morrisby testing to help choose A levels and it flags up possible careers etc

My kids didn't find the Morrisby testing much use - they didn't know what they wanted to do and afterwards still didn't - we all paid for it so not many bonus points for the school in terms of the school providing good careers advice.

DS1's school did a test, then he was told he is suitable for lots of jobs, that's not that helpful at all. The school has stopped the working experience, they did sort of dragon's den instead.

I think OP can start to guide your DS to find out what he likes. Like which subject he find interesting. There is a EDT Headstart programme, DS1 did it , it is helpful. You get to go to a college, a big company and local University, it is a 4 days programme. You can book it on their website. Also, if there is a local university, then you can look their website, they normally offer summer course for some of their subjects to secondary students.

This is a good resource - Australian but still helpful.

myfuture.edu.au/bullseyes

DS is in year 10 and soon to do his work experience ( at a vets). I'm not sure about careers advice, the school hold a careers fair once a year - local colleges have stands etc, but I'm not 100% sure that they do one to one careers advice?

DS has a rough idea of what A Levels he's planning on taking and what sort of thing he'd like as a future career

Your local fe college will most likely offer free and independent careers advice. Where I work does. They don’t just advise people to do courses with us