School Work Experience back, from now!
The current Government’s work experience ambition for secondary-age pupils, reintroduces a similar approach made non-statutory (i.e. not mandatory) in around 2012. As before, it will facilitate experiences for pupils, connecting education with industry and business. Giving an introduction to skills and opportunities of the young future workforce.
From this month, all schools should be launching work experience programmes, providing a minimum of two weeks of work experience comprising one week of work experience activities in Years 7–9 and a week of placements in Years 10–11.
Placement means in a workplace and not in the classroom, as in the early years. Bit like theory and practice.
This ambition will ensure access for all young people, enable flexibility for schools, pupils and employers to design experiences involving local placement opportunities and suiting individual needs. Design means to think and plan how a week can be beneficial to all involved in it. Win-win-win.
However, schools do not necessarily have the bandwidth (they did not before!) to arrange placements for all pupils. There needs to be external support to schools, not least to from employers. And there are responsibilities that come with a mentoring role that include safeguarding.
How are schools handling this renewed challenge?
One school wrote,
“We are proud to offer an annual work experience scheme for our Year 10 students.
The aim of work experience is to help prepare students for the transition from education to employment by giving them the opportunity to get involved in the world of work and gain first-hand knowledge of what a particular job entails.
It really is an exciting step for students as they transition from their final stage of school education and prepare for the real working world!
Students are expected to arrange their own placements but will receive in depth guidance from the Careers Department on how to do this.”
There is therefore the need for schools, parents, pupils, relatives, friends and, of course, employers to be proactive together in collectively finding work placements.
Where does Norton Men’s Shed fit into this? How might it help? Why even worry about it?
There are several reasons why there is connection.
- The Shed itself is a bit like work experience for old kids, teaching each other new skills, improving other skills, and playground pranks that entertain but do not do harm!
- Shedders will often have grandchildren (assuming they are of typical Shed age) and they try to help their offspring. The Shed has a few connections with Shedders’ grandchildren and we occasionally see them.
- One of the purposes of Sheds is to “bless” their communities ,as well as each other and themselves. This is done in many ways and not only by making things.
- Finally, many Shedders remember the help they had when they were young (and without electronic gadgetry!). “It takes a village to raise a child”, is the familiar and true statement. People, not just systems, are the building blocks that youngsters themselves hopefully become, generation to generation.
- The Shed movement is a great example of the Voluntary, Community, Faith and Social Enterprise sector (VCFSE in government speak) does to help people of all ages, genders, health circumstances etc. at very little cost to the public purse. Family carers are in a similar category, of course.
OK, how then can a Shed help? What typically does Norton Shed do that fits at all the ambition that the Government scheme sets out and secondary schools must facilitate?
Many Shedders agree that we benefitted in our childhood and youth from supervised youth clubs where we made our own fun and learnt how to behave (and occasionally mis-behave!). Leaders who cared about us and endeavoured to be good examples outside our own homes. Where we built a junior community.
Sadly, the provision of such knock-about clubs has largely, not entirely, vanished with the disposal of public premises under financial constraints. That is long term and has faced all governments for years.
So, in the older generation there is a gratitude for what the “community around us” did in our upbringing. We moved on to steady work in due course, but steady hardly seems to be the word these days for many. Shedders do have a concern for the young and our experience is that virtually no Shedders say forget about the young.
NO, WE ARE NOT suggesting youth Sheds, though that might be something others think about. A handful of Norton Shedders (that’s the way ideas get legs!) can see the possibility to use their experience and to welcome others doing the same – from education, industry and indeed family members) – to apply experience to Work Experience programmes. Not meaning the Shed becomes a participating employer for a week (though that is surely not an impossibility), but we help initiate a programme for “simulated” work experience.
That is to devise a week long programme to cover a making or doing challenge involving 6 – 8 young people. A challenge not of their choice, because challenges take time to design, organise and resource, but where they work together following workplace rules – including timekeeping!
It was an idea developed for Whitby in 2014 to offer work place simulated experience in a place with little industry or business other than tourism related. However, on taking the concept to one of the ten two senior schools, it was learnt that work experience programmes were no longer being run since 2012! However, this year they are back on the agenda.
In brief (much briefer than the above) simulated work experience would be managed 3 times a year at half terms for groups of 6-8 pupils led by a volunteer team with relevant experience of both education and workplaces. Of, course, if two simulated work experiences were organised each time, there would be potentially 40 – 50 pupils helped.
The topics/challenges might be related to a small construction project, preparations for a guest dinner for 40 OAPs or young ones, or designing and making a large art piece for display. Health and safety thinking in all these!
The volunteers would be the continuity with industry professionals (or retired folk) stepping in to demonstrate steps in the process and then to leave the youngsters with a daily assignment. It is the formula of many TV shows.
WHAT ABOUT YOU? If you are someone who sees the point of this and can contribute to it in some way, please do make contact nortonmensshed@gmail.com . Open to anyone to help shape this including a school, a pupil, an employer, a parent or indeed a Shedder from Norton or elsewhere.
Now that we have premises for a Shed in Port Clarence, that may become the Work Experience HUB! Using other places equipped for a particular challenge.
The goal would work towards a first trial in May 2027. Then October and February 2028.
What about the post-school age group, say 17 to 24? This is often categorised as the NEETS!
In this age group the plan (based on work in Frome for more than a decade) might be called “Young Entrepreneurs”. Might not be! However it conveys the idea of being innovative, inventive, creative, focused on delivery etc.
Alongside is a typical prototyping design cycle for a product, a process or a service. It follows a development path that is not really a straight line but falls into phases. It often cyclers back to the beginning in search of a new solution.
There are different versions of this chart that depict it in different ways that are akk essentially similar and are what we tend to do in our lives when confronted with a problem.
Probably 6 – 8 participants again but now over up to 5 months in duration, one day a week.
They will not be given an idea (normally) but they find an idea that has a need, a use, a purpose behind it.
They will be lightly mentored by two volunteers with business/industry backgrounds and as the challenge unfolds through its stages, relevant industry (or academic) participants will inform, critique, hint etc. No instructions, just encouraging guides. An example might be Marketing. What is it, what is involved, why is it important, where does it fit?
We are conscious that many who leave 6th Form College or university may ha a difficult time in finding a job that suits. The jobs market is constantly changing. It is very different to 30, 40 or 50 years ago. But there are tech ways to collaborate and work together apart digitally (as the construction industry does!).
Again, if the cap of being part of shaping this or participating fits, please make contact. nortonmensshed@gmail.com Again we hope the Port Clarence Shed premise will be used as a hub for this opportunity.
Get your head around this diagram and work out for yourself what some of it means.
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