Work experience can be an extremely exciting opportunity for Year 10 students. It is likely to be the first time that learners will enter a working environment, as well as potentially being the first time that students have been able to choose what their next steps might be in relation to both careers and education.
Our ‘What if? Work Experience’ outreach workshop can help students to prepare for their placements, make the most of their time on work experience and learn what to do afterwards. Our main pieces of advice are: (1) Make sure you are flexible with your work experience placement, (2) create a skills log or diary entries for each day of work experience and (3) say yes to everything and gain new skills!
Members of the FutureMe team have recently been invited into two local schools – Wolsingham School and Hurworth School – to deliver this session.
FutureMe outreach workshops are composed of a range of activities which help students to develop their transferable skills. ‘What if? Work Experience’ focuses largely on discussion-based tasks to support students to improve communication and teamwork skills – both of which make great additions to CVs.
Students are asked to think about their ideal career and three different forms of work experience that could help them reach their goals. Whilst some students might be able to complete placements in the industry they are interested in, others struggle to identify possible work experience opportunities as placements are not offered in their specific areas of interest for students under the age of 18 or those who are not specially trained. This task aims to get learners thinking about related careers and different transferable skills which they will need to develop in order to pursue their ‘ideal career’.
To end the session, students are presented with example CVs. This is often the first time that learners have considered what should be included in a CV and how work experience fits into this and can help improve future job or HE applications!
Our staff were amazed by all of the great ideas and contributions made by students. We really hope that those who attended are now feeling ready to succeed in their work experience placements!
