A levels and Saturday Job

alb1

When I was at college, I didn't know anyone who DIDN'T have a part time job. We'd finish college just before 5, be home for 6ish, have dinner then do homework. We all worked on Saturdays as a minimum. I worked Saturday mornings and all day Sunday. It made no difference to my grades at all.

I had my first job when I started year 10 as an assistant at a small independent pharmacy for an hour or two each evening. I still had plenty of time to do homework after dinner.

securityguy

"for others valuable bonus points for admission to oversubscribed university courses'

There is no university in the country where working in an unrelated job is of the slightest relevance. Most courses aren't oversubscribed, but even for those that are, with very specific exceptions in which relevant work experience is required (medicine and related, both human and animal) no-one cares about work in unrelated fields at all.

University admission depends on three things: your A Level grade in your first subject, your A Level grade in your second subject, and your A Level grade in your third subject.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

duchy wrote: »

I don't see anything there that says they can't have a termtime job just that they can't have a job in school hours - which I take to mean that even if a student didn't have lessons on say a Friday afternoon they couldn't work then -and also once study leave starts they can't take on more hours if those hours fall in usual school hours.

I wouldn't expect a school to permit time off for a driving test ...plenty of school holiday weeks to take it in - as for driving lessons when they should be at school - that's another no brainer

Quite how the school would know if the student was discreet is another matter however !

Our students aren't allowed to have jobs - they were banned when we found there were a good number of kids working late & night shifts to keep their families going.

We've covered for 6th formers who have got a short notice driving test - and three particularly able students were given alibis for attending a big gig (which we'd let them use the department computers to keep attempting to get tickets for - it was hilarious watching them frantically refreshing the screens to be followed by simultaneous whoops of joy when their purchases were confirmed). They had completed their courses but hadn't yet started study leave and were just rattling around the department all day revising or helping in other classes with younger students - it was pointless forcing them to come in at 8.30am when they didn't have any classes for the entire day, as there's only so much revision you can do before nothing else sinks in.

Before that point, they regularly spent free periods in the department helping out (one in particular made a point of learning as much as possible about my job, which meant gaining a lot of experience in dealing with telephone calls, visitors and visiting staff). If we'd had the budget to pay them, they would have been, as they worked hard all the time.

They all got good results; from helping out, having to explain things to younger students meant they understood concepts better (and how to communicate that they knew them - good for the exams themselves) and they all had additional experience to put on future applications, along with the ability to get another reference specifically from the Department.


They all sailed through interviews for jobs when they left; all but one for part time jobs at University, one was offered a place with a great training scheme because of the extra experience he'd gained.

Had it appeared that they were finding it too hard to study and work (because that's what they were doing), it would have been stopped immediately - it certainly caused some discussion with one senior member of staff who felt it was an entirely inappropriate usage of students. Until she needed their help in class. She stopped mentioning it after that.