Year 10 Work Experience
What is work experience?
Work experience is when you have a practical encounter with an employer to learn about a particular role, organisation or career path.
How is it organised?
Year 10 students will organise their own work experience, either by liaising with someone they know to spend time at their place of work, or by making choices and requesting places via East Sussex’s Aspire Website here: Aspire Wex Placement Service (Please note that this works best through Internet Explorer)
All choices, whether the student’s own arranged placement or organised by Aspire, need to be recorded by the student on the website, so that the details can be recorded and checked.
Students will be given their username and password during their PSHE lessons and will be instructed how to access the database to either upload details of their own placement or to make choices from the database.
The instructions will also be posted on Google Classroom.
When is it?
Year 10 Work Experience takes place during the whole school Enrichment Week. The date can be found on the school calendar.
Why is it so important?
Work experience is part of KAR’s Careers Programme and supports Gatsby Benchmark 6: Gatsby Benchmark 6.
Every student should have first-hand experiences of the workplace through work visits, work shadowing and/or work experience to help their exploration of career opportunities, and expand their networks.
By the age of 16, every student should have had at least one experience of a workplace, in addition to any part-time jobs they may have.
Frequently Asked Questions:
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What kind of jobs can I do? Anything - people work on farms, in hairdressers at the University, in schools,
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Will I get paid? NO. The employer is doing you a favour.
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What kind of things will I be doing? You will be doing quite simple things - sweeping up, making tea. Mainly you will be watching how they do their job. You might get given a project to do.
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How will I get there? This is REALLY important. Don’t assume you will be given a lift by your parents - they have to get to work too. Choose a placement somewhere you can get to.
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Does it cost anything? Yes - it costs around £50. This is the cost of all the admin associated with using the database, finding your placements and Health and Safety risk assessments. You can apply for financial help as you would for a trip from the Finance Office.
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Are there any extra costs? Yes - if you want to work outside East Sussex it might cost more.
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Can I work with my own parents or carers? Yes! Sometimes these are the easiest options to organise.
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Can I work with friends? Yes! But both these groups will need to have insurance - this is one of the checks that needs to be done.
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Can I arrange my own placement? Yes! You can go into a shop, or theatre, or sports club, or whatever and see if they will consider it. If they say yes then get the details ready for your application in October.
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When is the deadline? It’s always the very end of October. This gives our Aspire coordinator time to follow up your choices and arrange the checks. If you leave it much later, you might not end up getting a placement you want.