6th Form Work Experience? Is it that important ?

[OperationMalena]

My DS has been told he has to get some work experience. He is struggling to find any in his chosen Science field for many reasons.

Is it essential for a Uni application? What is the importance of it?

My DS already has 2 jobs. He is teaching at a private institution and he has set up his own company which is doing well. Unless it is very important to have experience in what he may do at Uni, as far as I am concerned he has enough on his plate, and he already has 2 jobs.

Schools are required to provide students with experiences of the work place as part of the Gatsby benchmarks. However it’s a bit out of pace with the actual world of work, where a lot of places won’t/can’t offer work experience because of health and safety/insurance/remote working.

Work experience is important, but it sounds like your son already has a reasonable set of experience. Explain to school and they can be flexible.

If he’s interested in science have a look at Nuffield - not necessarily work experience but some good stuff.

Very little use IME. DD (upper sixth) also has two jobs, and volunteer role.,DD ended up working more in her volunteer role for work experience for lack of anything else.

As a person who gets requests to host a work experience student - however hard we try they don’t do work unless it is the repetitive easy to pick up kind. They often end up shadowing people. One week is just not enough to get them capable of doing very much that is helpful to the employer. It might be interesting to the trainee. It might help them decide what aspect of the role they like but it is a far cry from ‘work’.