what is a good thing to do for work experience

[katiestar]

DS has to do work experience.He has no clue about what A levels he wants to do let alone beyond that.
Where did your Dc go ?

Thanks for your advice everyone.Your experience was very interesting DITDOT

Whatever he does, it's a good idea to arrange it a long way in advance as the most interesting places get booked up months in advance.

DD arranged hers by just emailing companies in her chosen area (sailing). Hated every minute of it and has changed her mind about working in that field - no trips to the Med, just lots of cleaning

Having visited loads of kids on work exp, the best experiences are definitely those where the company has a specfic programme designed for placements. Highlights have included a local architect firm where the students was given an imaginary project to work on, and (when I was in London), Burberry, where the girl in question was given her own desk, her own computer ID and, again, an imaginary project, complete with presentation to some fairly senior people - in both cases it really gave them an idea about what is expected in the real workplace. Worst places seem to be the place where the student already has a Saturday job, or places where they are not allowed to have any level of responsiblity (for H&S reasons, for example). If it's possible to check out provisions for work experience students beforehand, I would urge you to do so. I did mine at an open-air museum which I adored, even though I ended up doing nothing of the sort when I finally left education.

Just following on from KembleTwins' post - we also make sure we give our w-e students a desk, a computer ID, a person who they can ask for help at any time, and a small project to work on, ideally something real. When there's time, we like them to do a presentation of their work at the end, someone makes a little speech to thank them for their work, and they're given a present. We now seem to have a tradition where the students make fairy cakes for their last day, which we're all enjoying very much!

When students do w-e, we try to give them something interesting and skill-developing, whereas our students who are doing paid work do real work, which is often very dull!

If you're contacting companies directly, it helps a lot in finding useful projects if you have a clear idea of what the young person can and would like to do, together with some examples - e.g. if you can say 'Having studied Art GCSE, I am a keen graphic designer and can use a number of web packages. I have designed leaflets, posters and web sites.' or even something like 'I am good at research, and can quickly find out accurate information from the web and from libraries.'

It's probably also worth trying to guess what people will assume students can deal with without any training - in an software company, for example, people will probably assume that students can use a computer (both PC and Mac) and a number of common software packages without any training or instructions.

DSS1 is going to do work experience for a week before Christmas.

Last year DP was on the panel (composed of teachers and parents with appropriate professional backgrounds) who judged the reports and presentations that pupils in the DSSs' school made after their work experience.

DP had the following observations:

• don't work in too esoteric an industry as teh pupil in question probably won't understand it, the teachers won't understand it either (!) and so your chances of both learning something and getting a good mark will be severely jeopardised

• B to C is much easier to get a fast grip on than B to B

• professional offices (lawyers, bankers...) are generally bad places to go for work experience as the jobs are all highly qualified and it is really hard to get a grasp of the industry

• best place is probably a retail environment, making you spend time both on the shop floor, the back of the shop and head office

katiestar
I am a careers advisor, and spend all day talking to year 11 students who have already done their work experience in Y10.

I think work experience is such a valuable experience - sometimes if you leave it to the school system the kids end up in a placement which doesn't suit them. No disrespect whatsoever, its just that things fill up - I've seen some students who ended up (unhappily) on a placement that someone else would have killed for!

I have seem many many students who were "absolutely sure" they wanted to be a vet/childcare worker/whatever, and they have their work experience, and they change their mind. I always think this is a great thing as it saves them any wasted time in college/uni.

You usually can break up the time into 2 different placements. I think this is a great idea if there are a few areas that he is interested in. You may have to sort this yourself, and it can be time consuming (risk assessments etc).

I have heard a spectrum of experiences. One student got to see operations at a vets. Another had to scrub shelves for a week .

Anyways, good luck

bonsoir -I have had poor feedback generally with retail. It seems to depend on the staff there.

I think it probably depends who you know and what circles you move in. It is much better to get a placement via head office (even if you end up mostly in a branch) than by going into a branch. Branch staff don't have much power.

BonsoirAnna - I know I'm being dim but what does this;

"- B to C is much easier to get a fast grip on than B to B"

mean? Words of one syllable for a tired brain please .

Business to Consumer / Business to Business

I used to work for a theatre company and we were a very popular choice for work experience students! It was organised so that the students usually spent a day in box office and a few days in marketing. Then the rest of the time was divided out between admin, technical or stage door. There was quite a lot of franking, copying and label-attaching involved, expecially in marketing but we really did try to show the students the range of jobs involved in theatre and also bring home to them that it was not all glamour (as many of them thought) and that it involved exactly the same mundane jobs to be found in many other office jobs.

Ahhh, all is clear now, thanks.

When I was at school I did WE in a hospital as I had always wanted to be a Dr.

I really hated it - so it saved me years of training and A Levels in maths etc, so it was a week well spent.

I then did 2 weeks in the local Council's legal dept, and loved it. Am now a lawyer (not in the council though).

I think it's a good opportunity to rule things out, but equally if he has no idea, then probably fun to just spend a week doing something interesting.

My friend did hers at a hotel near Gatwick. I think she had hoped to be on reception or meeting and greeting. She was stuck cleaning outdooor furniture with a toothbrush.....

My friend's DS had the placement he really wanted fall through at the last minute so he ended up with the placement noone else wanted - with a funeral director!

In the end he quite enjoyed it but it certainly did not inspire him to become an undertaker.