Year 10 work experience - is it still common?

[chayngeling]

One of our local secondaries does year 10 work experience, but not the others. I'm wondering how common it is generally? I know my school did it back in the eighties. These days companies are a lot more conscious of regulations and (I've heard) unwilling to have under-16's in the workplace, so it must be quite difficult to arrange, especially post-covid when everyone is hybrid working. (I know some companies do virtual work experience weeks, but it's not going to work for a wide range of job types).

I think it is less common for the reasons you say. They just can't do the 'safeguarding' that is now needed and employers can't get the insurance. e.g. You just can't send a 15yo lad out with a plumber in his van for a week any more.

Some (A level) 6th form colleges round here seem to encourage it for a week at the end of y12 instead.

All the schools round here are still doing it. I think it's really sad that we are in a situation that it isn't encouraged anymore. I'm worried our school will pull the plug this year.

Many of our students go on to make contacts and get jobs with their placements. Sometimes it's big like an apprenticeship. Sometimes just a 'saturday' job. I also think Ofsted with their focus on careers would like students to be doing work experience.

Ours do it after GCSEs finish, they can’t attend prom if they haven’t attended the full two weeks work experience.

All of our local schools still do it. In fact, my organisation are having 5 students for a week in March. We make them apply via cv and we interview them, all good life experiences for the future.

Yup. My DD is going in March. 4 days only though. We went for 2 weeks.

They do it here but it has to be arranged by parents. Only people with lots of contacts managed to do it in DS's year. DS couldn't do it where I work and no one else replied to his emails.

Same here, fuck all support from the school even if the kid has SEN just an expectation that you know someone with an interesting job that can host them for a week.

Yes my daughters school did it in year 10 last year but just “arrange through family and friends”. No option to not to do, barely any help given with placements. I was really cross as this just perpetrates the “who you know” society.

All the local schools do it. DD did it last year. It has to be arranged by the student, lasts 2 weeks and they give a great emphasis to it. All students do it, with good SEN support. DD got a huge amount out of it.

Our local school has stopped doing it .. I used to take students on work experience and hope I was able to give them valuable experience. By the time my own DS got to that age the school has stopped it .. too difficult to find places. (We were one of the families who were able to arrange it 'privately' in holiday time, purely due to personal contacts).

all our local ones do it, and employers here are generally very supportive. It’s so good for the students: it really focuses then to start thinking about what they might want to do.

The school my DD went to used to do it at the end of Year 10 but have now decided they can't afford to miss two weeks of teaching time so have pulled the scheme.

Admittedly, for some it was a waste of time, but for DD (now 20) it landed her with a part time job in her workplace - a cafe - where she has worked weekends, holidays ever since, and has contributed enormously to her confidence and self-development, and made her many friends.

Her four closest schoolfriends took a different approach and used it to try out a career: all four are now studying towards related professions.

Very shortsighted of the school to stop it, in my opinion. A triumph of academic learning over life-skills.

Ours has a "world of Work" week at the end of year 10. The year group split into broad areas- health, leisure/ hospitality, public services etc. Based in an outside venue for the week, they do team building exercises, self- knowledge exercises, entrepreneurship projects, have guest speakers, tours of workplaces etc

It's just another them and us thing. Those with contacts can do it (and for parents with additional needs, no job, no contacts it's shit) and others end up scrabbling round to cobble something together. We are awash with kids looking for internships, full time jobs, part time jobs where I live.

Schools need to organise it, if they want it to happen.Lots of big organisations no longer allow staff to do this for friends or family. Work experience in those places has to be via a centrally organised scheme, which is often aimed at under represented groups. So many DC wouldn’t qualify to apply, let alone get a place, unless their school arranges it.

My son is in year 10 and they do it for 1 week in Term 6 - it is compulsory

DS school do it at the end of Y12, but for only 1 week. he has to have it organised by February half term. Thankfully he's managed to arrange a placement at a company opposite my work in a sector that he is hoping to study for a degree in. However, it has been really hard trying to find a company that take work experience students now. He even found some that do it all virtually! I'm really not sure how spending a week sat in your bedroom, listening to seminars and joining online workshops provides much of a work experience!

My dd’s school do it in y12. They struggle to get placements as so much of the local population are now based wfh.

I already know where my dd will go as I’ll arrange it myself. One less for school to worry about!

Our local schools do it, but they all pick the same week. It means the places that are willing to take on someone are very competitive. The under 16 thing is a big issue too.

It is compulsory,

DS attends a small independent and did work experience in year 10. They do it in years 10, 11, 12 & 13.

Year 10, was a day in a marketing department
Year 11, will be a day working with a slater
Year 12 will be two days working with the land manager on a rural estate
Year 13 - don't know yet.

DS did his at the end of year 12. That worked out well for him because he knew what degree he was going to apply for and got something relevant. Also the company he went to wouldn't have taken an under 16.

It only worked out that way because of COVID but I think end of year 12 work experience is a better idea both for students and employers.

As a school, we support the few children seriously disadvantaged into work experience places, if their parents can't, but the disadvantage here is not in terms of socioeconomics, but in terms of parenting, and the richest of children could be in this category.

Normal parents take their children to parks, museums, free children's activities, etc, and then they do get to know local organisations. My children did work experience with a local park they had been visiting all their lives.

Its normally only parents who do nothing with their children who end up not knowing anyone to ask about work experience - and so yes it is "who you know" but you seem to think this is something inherent rather than something which you build up for yourself by your parenting and your behaviour over many years.

Ds did his last year and it was awful.

Dh and I would have known potential contacts pre-Covid, but now anyone we know is wfh.

School gave a long list of contacts but it was clearly out of date and hardly anyone responded and those that did said they no longer do work experience due to Covid/ wfh.

The only option Ds had was an offer in a gym. They knew he was coming because they did the insurance paperwork, but didn’t have any work for him. I would drop him off and by the time I got home, he would message to say he’d cleaned the locker rooms and the machines and they said he could go. 1-2 hours of work a day and just cleaning, no admin, nothing else. It was a really rubbish experience for Ds.

I thought it was compulsory but Ds said loads of kids didn’t manage to secure a spot anywhere.

Doesn't happen at my DC's school. I'm not sure if it used to and doesn't any more or it never did.