All Sixth Form students are required to complete at least one week of Work Experience while they are in Year 12. The Department for Education states that the placements should be "Purposeful, substantial, offer challenge and be relevant to the young person's study programme and career aspirations."
In order to minimise the impact on students' learning we strongly encourage students to arrange this work experience during one of the school holiday periods – this can include the summer holiday between the end of Year 12 and the start of Year 13.
However, we recognise that it is not always possible to arrange relevant work experience during school holidays and therefore there is an opportunity during Enrichment between January and Easter to choose Work Experience. If you do arrange your Work Experience during the school holidays and the paperwork is received prior to starting then you can take one of the Enrichment Blocks 1 or 2 as home study in lieu of your holiday. Alternatively, we will allow students to miss one week of school in order to complete the Work Experience placement on the condition that they catch up with all missed work (there may be some times in the academic year when we are unable to approve absence to complete Work Experience – for example when internal or external exams are taking place).
In order to complete the work experience placement, students must follow the following procedure:
If this procedure is not followed their absence will not be authorised.
1. Approach employers who may be able to offer relevant work experience to you. From previous experience, we have found that students have most success in securing a placement when they approach family or friends who can offer relevant work experience so we suggest that students take this approach first. Once students have been successful in gaining agreement with an organisation for a work placement, they will need to collect the following information from the employer:
- Contact name; email address; telephone number
- Name of organisation; address including postcode
- Type of work experience being offered
- Dates agreed for placement
- Confirmation of employer liability insurance
- Working hours and arrangements for break times including lunch
Once a relevant employer has been identified, the online Work Experience Agreement Form must be completed by a parent and submitted at least 2 weeks prior to the start of the placement.
We can't stress how important this documentation is.
If the placement is during term time, students must also complete a Notification of Absence Form at least 2 school days before their placement starts to ensure that teaching staff are aware of the time they will be missing from lessons – this should be returned to the sixth form office/via S1 post box.
2. On receipt of the information on the online Work Experience Agreement Form, sixth form staff will then email the employer to confirm the placement and ask them to confirm appropriate liability insurance, risk assessment and policies are in place. Students will not be able to attend placements if this information is not received by school. Once the employer has confirmed these details the placement arrangements will be confirmed with student, parent / carer & employer.
3. Whilst on placement, students must complete the 'Work Experience Booklet' as evidence of their placement, these are available from outside S1 or speak to Mrs Goodman. This must include a brief reference from the employer commenting on the students' performance. This booklet must be handed in to Ms Jivraj/Mrs Goodman so that we can keep an accurate record of your placement before returning it to the student for future reference.
Students are also encouraged to add their experience to their Unifrog account.
The placement will also be contacted by sixth form staff to confirm their attendance.
Although we appreciate that arranging this work experience placement is an additional burden in what is already a very busy year for students, we do believe that it will be of significant benefit to students as they prepare for their potential careers and plan their next steps. If you have any enquiries about Sixth Form Work Experience, please email sixthform@littleover.derby.sch.uk.
Yours sincerely,
Mr R Archer (Head of 6th Form)