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work experience placements for year 10s
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My son came home from school today with a form for his year 10 work experience placement. When I was in school, we didn't do work experience, so I'm pretty clueless about how to help him. He wants to be a paramedic so is hoping to find a placement in some sort of caring environment (on the advice of a cousin who is a paramedic)
We've already phoned the local hospital as he'd heard that some years 10s last year worked up there, but they've changed the regulations and he's not quite old enough now.
How does he go about finding a suitable placement? Does he literally go through the phone book calling companies at random asking if they take students? According to him, school have a list but they're only allowed to see it if they can't find their own placement, and these places aren't popular with the children. What kind of businesses take children on WE placements?
I'd be grateful for any suggestions, as we're ending up just glaring at each other each time the subject comes up.
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It's a problem. We came up against same regulations.
School wants them to do placements and they put a lot of pressure on the workplace to provide all sorts of info
Workplaces are usually under pressure and don't need the hassle.
I suggest finding a friend of a friend.... private ambulance company or red cross or St johns ambulance or there are first aid training companies who'd give work experience?
I've no experience of this at all so can't be much help, but quite surprised the school doesn't offer more assistance - not in terms of handing them something on a plate, but advice on where and how to find likely companies to apply to. (eg. they must have lists of companies which have offered placements to past students and therefore may be happy to be contacted again).
Seems to me, if left to their own devises, they're very much reliant on having parents "with contacts".
What age is Year 10, by the way? (Shows how much I know about modern education!!)
Julie, year 10 is 15 year olds. Our contacts are pretty limited, hubby is a TA at a school for children with behavioural problems having done 22 years in submarines, and I work in a bakery which doesn't do WE due to H&S regulations.
To be honest, I'd have thought the same as you. School must have developed a list of companies which do WE places.
His latest announcement (when I suggested contacing the Help the Aged centre) is he doens't want to work with "old people"
Sigh
It may well be a case of cold calling businesses but it's easier if you have some sort of introduction ie know somebody who works there, are a client or suchlike as popular places will get loads of calls.
We get probably 60 or so calls each year for work experience but due to H&S regs and also pressure from the staff (WE people have to have practically one to one monitoring in our environment) I have a very hard and fast set of rules for accepting them. If I have a member of staff who can come to me and say 'I know X and they are interested in a career in our industry' then I will at least discuss X with their guidance teacher to ascertain that they (a) have have a good chance of getting quals to apply to vet school and (b) they have expressed an interest in this to the school. Otherwise, I usually just say no.
If you're looking at caring environment then care homes might be worth a try. Not exactly glamorous but unlikely to be popular. Or local GP practice.
Lots of companies take WE kids. We always have, but we are mainly office based with a few trips our to sites etc.
The problem is that one of the schools recently used a 'work experiance agency' to check out that all their venues we suitable for their kids, rather than checking it out them selves. The agency was totall OTT and wanted to see LOTS of certification and paperwork, all of which we have, but it takes time to collate it all. Their attitude wasn't great either stating quite stearnly "You have a duty of care".....yes we know we do, but we are also doing the school a favour here.... we don't make anything from this and it probably costs us money in lost man time.
On the subject of health I would have thought that you were unlikely to get a placement withing the NHS because of patient confidentiality, and the risk of emergencies if going with any kind of ambulance (let alone the chance that they may end up alone with some one in the ambulance.....)
Maybe a vets or a care home or something might be best?
I think they leave it to the children because they have to start making phone calls and trying to sort things out by that age...........they have to learn to make their own decisions.............as this work placement really isn't that important I would leave it up to him and remind him if he doesn't sort it himself then he will be left with whatever the school gets him. tell him that he can come to you for advise.
right .........got it sorted in my head incase my yr 10 son comes home with a similar thing....i do think we do too much for them sometimes so that they learn academically and don't have any life skills.......
worked in a reception at a horse riding centre....couldn't believe that the majority of the teenagers there ( who spend all day on their phone) were too scared to pick up the phone and talk to a customer........
I agree entirely with that, seren, definitely should be the child that sorts out their own placement, makes their own phone calls etc. But I tend to think that sending them home with a letter without at least giving them some guidance in the right direction, just means that it falls to the parents..... depending on the parent will depend how much of this the child does actually do for themselves.
I've gone through the phone book with him and picked some likely looking positions. We've role played him making a phone call (he hadn't thought about having a pen & paper handy).
That's my input finished now!
Bet he ends up litter picking at school
Cheers Matt, one of the numbers I've given him is the local ambulance training school.
Bus route from home, near the hospital
I was going to say the fire service also but fattmatt said it first - I know when my son did WE a couple of the lads in his class were allowed to go to the local fire station.
Kwilter, just gone through this with No 1 Child (currently yr 10). He was told to access "Wex online" (Wex = Work Experience, think this is government website ) www.wex.s-cool.co.uk . They have lists of jobs divided into categories (admin, marketing, accounting etc). He had to select ones that interested him, approach companies via on-line form and when successful, notify school.
He was also encouraged to find own placement which basically involved cold calls to relevant companies within our local area.
He ended up getting his own placement with local company. He emailed a load of people, most of whom couldn't even be bothered to reply. We basically checked telephone directory / local websites for details of local companies in the area that interested him. He's got a placement with a tiny company in the adjacent village - ideal for him. As they're not on the "approved list", I've had to pay £30 for H + S checks etc to be carried out (the obsession with H+S is ridiculous).
He makes all arrangements with the company himself re hours / dress code / lunchtimes etc.
If you want any more info, I can pm you copies of documents that were sent to us, if they'd be any use / help.
Frankly, it was a nightmare trying to get things sorted out...
Local education authority will have a list of companies that are registered, insured, have passed their inspection and are "fit for purpose".
We are a restaurant and on our forms it says "not to use the coffee machine or knives" bloody ridiculous. I allways tell them if they want to come they have t o have a letter from their Mum that they "must" be allowed to use the coffee machine and knives.
A lot of the y 10's end up in offices or retail enviroments and just do really boring jobs or ghosting a member of staff.
Get the list from the LEA and ring the companies that either involve the least travel or are the least boring.
Puffy junior did his in a local primary school last year, could your son go with his dad? He wasn't looking forward to it, but he loved it, got right into football with some of the more difficult kids, and was sorry to leave.
My daughter did hers a couple of years ago at the local primary school too, only cos she couldn' t think of anywhere else. It went well in the end, plenty to do, helping out, listening to reading, etc, she enjoyed it and time passed quickly. Several of her friends were bored stiff in commercial companies, due to 'elf and safety, could hardly do anything.
I went to a bank when I did mine, got bored listening the some banker droning on about his job so started fiddling with my hands and found a funny shape under the desk. T'was only the panic alarm, so the Police popped round rather quickly
You wouldn't say that if he'd got hurt because no-one had made sure it was a safe place to send an inexperienced teenager.
No, I'm perfectly happy with H+S checks, what I meant was the obsession with the H + S checks. I attended a presentation last year re the placements, the whole presentation was about the H + S aspect, along the lines of Pizza Man's comments.
We were given no practical information at all with the result that a subsequent presentation had to be made.
Working parents were asking about the possibility of using their own workplace for their off-spring, or others and many were put off by the H + S situation. When No 1 Child contacted some local companies, two told him that the H + S obsession meant that they couldn't help him out.
I wouldn't want him working anywhere where he isn't safe (and he's SEN) so I'm probably more aware of potential problems than any prospective employer but this was excessive.
When I was 15 years old, I did my 2 weeks work experience at the local Co-op. I was just used as cheap labour and was left to lift heavy boxes up on to shelves whilst climbing up a step ladder to reach the top shelf. Was left completely unsupervised whilst doing this (must have been completely against health and safety regulations.) Was also left to cut the dead leaves off cabbages with a sharp knife and was given no safety equipment to prevent cuts.
Learned nothing constructive in that two weeks.
We never even had work experience when I was a school (it was a very long time ago).
My cousin's 18-y-o son worked in Tescos, on the deli counter (as a job, not a WP). He cut himself with a knive, and my cousin made such a fuss, threatening to sue Tescos for not teaching him to use a knife.
I did think that maybe SHE ought to have taught him how to use a knife, whilst she taught him how to cook for himself!
But then she managed to chop her own big toe off with a lawn mower, so maybe she wouldn't have been the best person!
Thanks for the responses. Some good points raised by all. Firstly, my hubby's school is no way going to take B on WE...it's for all the kids who have been thrown out of every other school in the area for disruptive behaviour!
We've found a few likely companies which B is going to phone in his own time after we went through the phone book with him last night. We role played him making a call (yeah very wishy washy liberal mummy!) and I mentioned that he would need to take travelling to the placement into account when looking for places.
When I worked in retail, the WE kids who came in were made to peel promotion stickers off the old CDs, thereby putting them off retail for life I would think!
Had to smile at the suggestions of sending kids to local primary school for WE. I work in a junior school and we get inundated with kids wanting to do WE. A few are really good (usually those kids who have a genuine interest in teaching/sports or working with children), but for the majority it's seen as a cushy number (particularly if they are kids who used to come to our school). It really annoys me that they haven't tried to find a "real" work experience placement.
FTR, my eldest daughter did two weeks with ASDA, working mainly in the offices with different departmental managers, trading standards, security etc. She really enjoyed it and the staff at ASDA were fab. Youngest daughter did two weeks at National Sea Life Centre and has never stopped talking about it. She worked in the Entertainments' Dept, showing school parties round, cleaning, etc etc. and would go back tomorrow if she could (she doesn't like school!).
Good luck with placement hunting!
Good news! He has to cycle past the LBS on his way to his martial arts class, so off his own back, he asked them if they take WE kids...they do and they have space in the week he's doing WE. He's mad keen on cycling, and they know him quite well already from him winning his age group at a local adventure race in summer.
Result!