Getting Started
Work Experience is about giving every young person during their final two years of compulsory schooling (Years 10 and 11), a chance to spend a period of time on a local employer’s premises. They are expected to carry out tasks or duties more or less as do employees – within the requirements of health and safety legislation. All secondary schools offer young people aged between 14 and 16 a period of Work Experience. This can be for a week or a fortnight or it could be one or more days a week over a period of time. Work Experience has proved to be a great success over many years and thousands of young people have benefited from it by using it to help them make informed decisions about their first career steps. Click on the ‘Quick Contacts’ link on the bottom right for your nearest Connexions Centre.
If you are thinking about becoming a work experience placement provider you should contact us so that we can start the simple process of registration. One of our Placement Officers will visit you and discuss a number of things in order to approve the placement.
This includes:
- agreeing details of the proposed placement
- explaining the legal requirements
- checking insurance details
- advising on risk assessments
- negotiating placement dates
There may be occasions when you are contacted directly by a parent or young person themselves, requesting a placement from you. In these circumstances, and before agreeing to a placement, it is important to make sure the work experience co-ordinator at the young person’s school is informed so that, again, one of our Placement Officers is able to visit in order to carry out the necessary checks.
This procedure has been introduced in response to national guidelines for work experience laid down by the Department for Education & Skills, the Health & Safety Executive and Local Authority Guidelines for Work Experience. Once complete, your organisation will be registered as a Work Experience Placement Provider and every effort will be made to allocate young people to your placement(s) on the dates agreed.