Yr 10 - work experience

daisiegg

I disagree slightly with everyone else. I say take him to Glastonbury for two reasons: you have already bought the tickets, and, most importantly, he is already doing other types of work experience.

However, I really disagree with everyone who says work exp in y10 is pointless and rubbish and actually that makes me quite sad Some of you have obviously had bad experiences, but every year I see loads of Year Tens come back from work experience like different people having and a really valuable, enlightening, eye opening week. Of course that doesn't apply to every single student, but a good proportion of them have a really positive and useful experience. I think it is a shame to just dismiss all work experience as rubbish when this is absolutely not the case for lots and lots of young people (again, just to be clear, I am not saying it is good for everyone, before you all start telling me about your/your child's bad experience).

daisiegg

whitewing wrote: »

I would say take him to Glastonbury, but I don't actually think you should have bought him a ticket anyway if it was term-time.

I agree. He is in Year 10. He has plenty of time to go to Glastonbury when he is not in compulsory education. But that is all I will say on the subject as OP specifically said she did not want to hear that sort of thing!

VJsmum

daisiegg wrote: »

I agree. He is in Year 10. He has plenty of time to go to Glastonbury when he is not in compulsory education. But that is all I will say on the subject as OP specifically said she did not want to hear that sort of thing!

Thanks, the only reason I didn't need it discussing is because, of course, I know you are right. But I am running out of time for him to be coming with me. next year I won't take him as it is exam time, and After that he will want to go with mates. Selfish? Undoubtedly but that's the way it is. Plenty take their kids out of school for lesser reasons (cos it's their birthday or the new COD is out), but that doesn't make it more right.

I still don't know if I can do it though, or if the school will lay the law down..

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

VJsmum wrote: »

Thanks, the only reason I didn't need it discussing is because, of course, I know you are right. But I am running out of time for him to be coming with me. next year I won't take him as it is exam time, and After that he will want to go with mates. Selfish? Undoubtedly but that's the way it is. Plenty take their kids out of school for lesser reasons (cos it's their birthday or the new COD is out), but that doesn't make it more right.

I still don't know if I can do it though, or if the school will lay the law down..

The worst they can do is fine you if you tell them, and don't phone him in sick. It's not his GCSE year. It's not going to hurt his education - as he won't be getting one that week anyway.

With the price of tickets, there's no guarantee he'll be able to afford it in subsequent years. This might be his only chance to experience it - unless he gets a place as a volunteer worker - but they're highly competitive and, again, there's no guarantee those places will be available in subsequent years.


Education and experience takes place outside the classroom and office as well as inside.

LandyAndy

I can't believe a 14 year old lad wants to go to Glastonbury with his mum!!!

LEJC

my son did work experience in year 10 last year and really enjoyed and benefitted from the experience,in his case it was a worthwhile experience.


Our school was reasonably flexible over when it could be done too which really helped when contacting employers to find placements.
Ideally there was a set week where they encouraged the bulk of placements to take place but they were open to negotiation about experience happening at other points of the school year ie during holidays at easter or half term...this did allow a few to take part in work placements that were further field or specifically onlt available at certain points of the year...one classmate took a placement during half term in a theatre when a partricular production was showing that wouldnt have been available during the "set " week.


With that in mind would your school be open to the possiblilty of you arranging something outside the nominated week so that it didnt impact on noprmal teaching weeks at school....with the possibility of you still then being able to attend glasto?


Otherwise how about querying what "work experience" might be available on site at worthy farm...itsworth a shot!

Fuzzy_Duck

Definitely Glastonbury. My work experience was terrible, and to be honest, I don't know anyone else who enjoyed it either. I was originally really excited about it as I wanted to do work experience at a historical site which I was really interested in. I was already pretty knowledgeable about the place but did a load of research on it anyway and wrote them a lovely letter requesting work experience. I waited ages for a response and finally got one saying they weren't accepting work experience students that year. I was gutted to find out later the class bully had also applied there and got accepted, so that turned out to be a lie. At that point it was so late the only company that would have me was a nursery. I despised it. I'm rubbish with kids, the staff were awful people with no interest in their charges, the children were understandably miserable and I was worked so hard my feet were in agony at the end of the day.

I went from being a bright child with lots of ambition to an apathetic adult working a low skilled job. Okay, that's probably an extreme example, but I'm still sure your son will get a lot more out of Glastonbury than he will out of work experience. It's a total lottery in my opinion. Some students may get lucky with their placement, but the majority of students will just feel like an inconvenience for the week and leave feeling deflated.

Spendless

Having never done work experience - it existed and was then 3 weeks long (trident) but wasn't available at my school in the 80s, I can't comment on usefulness.

I was reading with alarm the comments about it because my yr9 son has recently got on an outreach scheme at a Uni but to go further work experience will be considered in applying for a place, so thankful for diasieggs comments.

I've never been but I *thought *Glastonbury took place late June? If so wouldn't year 11 when GCSE exams are likely to be over be the time to go. Ok I realise you don't know date of last exam versus dates if it is June but a possibility??

Prothet_of_Doom

My kids work experience's were worthwhile.

Son, worked in a Garden Centre, and they gave him a part time job which he kept for 4 years of Saturdays, and Saved every penny in an account. The Part time job, taught him how to work hard, follow orders, and how to look busy, and how to have fun whilst pretending to look busy (All key things for life)
Daughter did hers in an opticians, because she thought that's what she wanted to do for a job, and then got her own work experience in a pharmacy in year 12, because she knew she didn't want to be an optician after that week. (She should currently be in an interview for a MPHam Pharmacy Course at UNI right now)
I would have taken them to glasto...I'd love to go...

onlyroz

I'm going against the grain to say that work experience can be worthwhile if you put in the effort to get a decent placement. In year 10 I went to the local council offices and was in a different department every day. I was a painfully shy child and the work experience week forced me to open up a bit and interact with other people in an "adult" fashion. Things I remember are:

- Using the franking machine in the despatch office, which was great fun
- Organising refreshments for meetings
- Meeting some of the local councillors (and helping their secretaries with the IT system)

In the sixth form I spent my work experience week with a vet - I got to do a number of farm visits, and to sit in on consultations and operations. After the week was out I knew that I absolutely did not want to be a vet, but it was still an interesting experience that I wouldn't want to have missed out on.

As a counter to the above, one of my friends got work experience at the ice rink and she apparently spent the whole week scraping chewing-gum off the car-park.