During Year 10 or 11 you'll be given the chance of going on work experience.
It'll give you the chance to see how:
- people work together
- things get done
- work differs from school.
It'll help you to look at your ideas of work:
- Is it what you imagined?
- Would you like to do that job all the time?
- How do you feel about the training that might be involved?
Getting your placement sorted
Your school will help you to get a placement. You could find your own placement; perhaps through your family, but for health and safety reasons your school must give their approval. You'll probably spend some time in school preparing for work experience, so that you know where you're going, who to ask for, what time to arrive each day. Hopefully you'll get a placement in a career area that interests you, but it's not always possible.
Getting the most out of your work experience
Your school should give you a diary to complete, and get you to find out about the company too. Even if you don't have to do this for school it's in your interests to:
- Ask questions - people will expect you to be finding things out
- Be interested - people will tell you more if you're keen, and might give you the chance to do more too
- Think about the work, the company and how you fitted in. What did you like, and why? Were there some things that you didn't like or found difficult?
Remember it's work experience so many of the tasks you'll be given will be routine. Don't expect to be able to do the full job without any training. You can learn a lot by just seeing what other people do, from being in the workplace and helping other people.
If you have problems - well, hopefully you won't, but talk to the supervisor and explain the problem. They’ll be keen for you to have a good work experience, and would rather you spoke up. However, if this doesn't resolve things, talk to your parents, and contact your school.
A Personal Experience - here's what one Year 10 did for work experience:
For my two weeks of work experience, I had worked at Careers Solutions. During my time there I had set job roles and functions to complete and the not most exciting jobs were, printing/photocopying, franking and laminating but still I’m pleased that I have learnt to use them, and I guess that not all jobs have to be fun.
However, there were some things I got to do while on work experience that was more exciting, like going to the Resources Exhibition, which was held at Bolton Reebok Stadium. I also had a chance to visit other Connexions centres across Manchester.
During my work experience, I had a chance to learn how to fill in Application forms for a job, how to have an interview, and even got to know different software.
The people who I worked with was very welcoming and helpful throughout my two weeks and am happy I got to work with the Information Team.
I think that work experience is a lot of help, like to build up confidence, experience what is work and how it is different from school and whatever kind of job I did, whether boring or exciting, I felt that I have achieved new skills and experience. I hope Careers Solutions continue in the future to offer other young people work experience placements so that they can experience the World of Work and also to enjoy it as I did.
A student from Burnage High School
Hopefully you'll enjoy your work experience, and find that it affects the decisions you make about your future, so make the most of it!
If you would like to tell other young people about what you did on your work experience then use this form to let us know.
You can use the library in your Connexions Centre too as it has information for you to read or take away. Visit Education Weblinx for more useful websites.