Work experience
All state school pupils from the age of 14 are to be compelled to do work experience from the beginning of the new term this autumn when a new national curriculum requirement comes into effect.
Almost all 14 to 16-year-old children will be placed with local firms for about two weeks. Others will learn through part-time jobs or simulate work experience in further education colleges.
It is part of a drive to dispel a growing myth that work experience is only for those pupils who are bored with the academic curriculum.
Stakeholder Response: Institute of Education
"Any restructuring of the school curriculum to facilitate earlier exposure to a range of workplace environments is highly welcome, and the proposal that work experience should be more effectively followed up is commendable.
"This has been lacking in the past, leading to a situation in which insufficient links are drawn between the skills required at work and those being enhanced at school.
"But as with many recent educational innovations, attitudes in some state schools will have to change.
"It would also be enormously beneficial if the independent sector were to take up the innovation if it is adopted.”
Stakeholder Response: National Association of Schoolmasters and Union of Women Teachers
Chris Keates, acting general secretary of NASUWT said: "NASUWT believes that in principle the new curriculum requirements are a positive step towards balancing vocational and academic learning.
"There are concerns, however, that work experience could be a means of encouraging some young people down a vocational path at the early age of 14 at a time when all pupils should be offered a broad curriculum.
"NASUWT supports proposals for the balance to be struck between vocational and academic subjects which have been put forward in Mike Tomlinson’s review of 14-19 education."
Stakeholder Response: Professional Association of Teachers
Stakeholder Response: ASDAN
Paul Novak, work related learning development coordinator for ASDAN, said:“Currently about 96per cent of young people undertake some form of work experience in their GCSE years. Under the new regulations this becomes mandatory for all students in KS4. It is part of a greater package that means that all young people will have the opportunity to benefit from a more structured approach for “learning through work, learning about work and learning for work” (to quote the QCA guidelines).
"The most important thing about any work placement is that it is properly structured to give young people a quality experience that includes more than making the tea, stacking boxes or doing some photocopying. It is vital that the young people can plan and record their experience to help identify the enormous amount of learning that will come from a quality placement. The experiences gained will also show a potential employer some of the personal development aspects that they need in order to select candidates from a field of applicants. Can they work as part of a team, can they learn new things quickly and can they deal with difficulties as they arise? At present the four per cent of young people who do not go a work placement (together with those that have poorly managed provision) are denied the opportunity to demonstrate their full range of employability skills.
"It may also be appropriate for some young people to achieve qualifications coming from their work placement showing that they have highly developed employability skills – this may even be useful to differentiate between the increasing number of candidates with four ‘A’ grade A Levels.”
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