David Kay, Specialist Industry Engagement Consultant
Rebecca Pytches, Company Director
Narrator: Work experience placements form one part of Sheffield Consortium's approach to industry engagement. Learners, working in pairs, spend a series of half days with employers. These half days are based around a set of pre-planned tasks, developed by the learner and the employer.
David Kay: One the most important components in our work experience programme, is the direct work placements which each student will undertake. We focused, after some experience, on a programme of 6 half days over 6 consecutive weeks, where the students go out in pairs, to a specialist employer.
Undertaking placements on the same day of the week for 6 consecutive weeks, fits very well with the timetabling approach we take in Sheffield. We have a dedicated day, the same day, every week for the principle learning in a Diploma and therefore when it comes to undertake the placements, the learners are not missing other classes, but they’re able to undertake those placement activities on the day of the week allocated to the principle learning. Which makes it much easier for the school to participate, wholeheartedly, in the exercise.
We feel that at Level 2, and certainly for the learners coming in, in Year 10, in a school, it’s quite a daunting experience, going out into the world of work, and quite a gap between their experience of the world, and that of people in the workplace.
Narrator: One of the employers involved in the work experience placements is a multimedia company specialising in online games.
Rebecca Pytches: The main benefits are that, it gives us quite a lot of time in between the sessions with the students, to review their work, and plan the next session. I really like the students coming in pairs. Because previously we’ve always had issues with students can be quite shy. So it means that they have a buddy, or a pal to go off and have coffees with.
And also, I think, often they hesitate to ask questions, whereas they can just chat things over amongst themselves. It’s just much better for them, and pulls on our time a lot less.
The learner may want to get an employer profile, so they may want to interview the employer, or a number of employers on how they got to do the job that they’re currently doing.
Another example of a task a learner might undertake while they’re with us, is say if they want to get experience, or develop skills with a particular piece of software. Or they might even want to do some designs or illustrations on a piece of live work.
The great thing about this approach is that the students are pro-active, in that they know what they want to get out of the placement. They’ve got a list of tasks. And that’s been one of the main benefits of this approach.
David Kay: This has two benefits to the learners, first of all, they are engaged in a greater understanding of how people go about their job. But secondly, even to conduct a questionnaire or an interview at all with an adult employee, is a terrific opportunity to develop some of the communication skills that will be part of what they’re looking at under personal learning and thinking skills in the Diploma.
The provision of a set of tasks is beneficial to employers, simply because they know what is expected of them, in the work placement situation. But it also benefits the learners, because they’re able to go about something specific, and then when they get back into school, they’re able to discuss things with people who have been in other work places and pursued the same lines of enquiry.
Running a placement programme over 6 consecutive weeks, half a day for each week, has real benefits for employers. It gives them a chance to plan a programme ahead for the learners, but also after each week, to consider what might best suit the needs of the learner when they return thereafter.
That process of review and reflection seems to be welcomed by employers, and it especially fits with smaller employers, who may not be able to make dedicated individuals available for long periods of time in such as 2 week placements.
An important principle of the task list is that the first task involves actually planning the activities for the work placement. This is good for the employer, getting the feel of what the learner is trying to achieve, but secondly it's an excellent introduction to the idea that you might actually plan a project at the start, and then have a plan to work against, throughout the experience. Which can be quite an important experience in understanding how the world of work really works.
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