Work Experience Placements at KLB School

• Information on International Work Experience Placements

• Work Experience support documents (pupils can access these by logging onto the KLB School VLE careers web pages)

Year 10 Work Experience Placements

At KLB School, we see work experience as a challenging, exciting, worthwhile and slightly scary part of the Careers Education & Guidance that the school offers.

All year 10 pupils are entitled to one week of work experience, usually around the last week in July. This involves a considerable amount of preparation, by the pupil, the school and the employer.  We therefore recommend that pupils start to think about their work experience placement as early as possible in Year 10.

Although placements can be organised by the school it is best if pupils do it for themselves, with parents' help, of course.

What are the benefits of work experience for pupils?

• An exposure to the world of work can help pupils develop a more mature attitude and and increased motivation to study.
• There is the chance to practice knowledge and skills learnt in the classroom in a work setting.
• Pupils have a chance to gain an understanding of a career path or opportunity from first-hand experience.
• Pupils gain a better understanding of how organisations work and what the work environment is like.
• Pupils have an opportunity to see the relevance of their school subjects to the work environment.
• Pupils increase their awareness of the range of opportunities within an different organisations.

Why is work experience valued by employers?

• Employers value work experience because it helps young people to develop interpersonal skills with adults and become more aware of how typical businesses work.
• By putting pupils into real work situations, they start to have an awareness of many aspects of working life which can be extremely difficult to convey in school.
• Many pupils are inspired by their work experience and having a career goal motivates them to achieve more in school. Some pupils are motivated to achieve more because they see how mundane the working lives of some unskilled staff can be without qualifications.
• Many of the skills that employers want from an employee can be developed and refined during a work experience placement. These skills are common to nearly all sectors of the work environment and include:
  • Being good at communicating;
  • Being able to work with others;
  • Being good at planning and organising;
  • Being able to use their own judgement in different situations;
  • Showing initiative and being self-motivated;
  • Having the ability to solve problems;
  • Being able to complete a task on time and to a budget;
  • Being ICT literate.
  • Being competent at working with numbers, data and information

Feedback from past Work Experience Placements

All pupils are encouraged to feedback their experiences in the weeks following their placements. This is usually done by pupils creating web pages in their ICT lessons.  This information can then be accessed by pupils in subsequent years, allowing them to make more informed choices with their placements.