Phil Porter and Ron Robinson of my-work-experience.com and Emma Beal from Sheffield City Council meet with staff from Sheffield schools

The provision of work experience for fourteen to sixteen year olds has formed part of the school Key Stage 4 curriculum since the school leaving age was raised in the early 1970’s.

Despite the lack of funding and the government’s proposed withdrawal of the statutory requirement for schools to provide work experience for this age group, a recent national survey conducted by my-work-experience.com has found overwhelming support by teachers for work experience at Key Stage 4. Summed up by one teacher, ‘Work experience is a life changing and life enhancing experience – less academic students come back to school motivated with self esteem raised and high fliers are enthused and inspired – the experience is a precursor to GCSE and the post 16 decision making process’.

Based on the belief that work experience is an essential element of the education provision for 14 to 16 year olds my-work experience.com will work with Sheffield schools and local employers to continue their valuable support for this important stage in the development of our future work force.

The Directors of my-work-experience.com have been involved in the delivery of work experience for 14 to 16 year olds since it began in the early 70’s, took part in its growth throughout the 80’s and 90’s until by the early 00’s most schools in the UK were sending their young people on work experience. Then in 2004 the Government of the day decided it should be statutory for all and provided some funding support through the now defunct LSC.

History seems to be repeating itself now because a programme introduced 1971 as a way of stimulating and engaging young people who were being asked to stay on at school for an extra year is, we believe, being usurped to fund the new priority of preparing for the new compulsory leaving age of 18.

Whilst we definitely believe that there will be a vital place for work experience in the new post-16 curriculum we also fervently believe that this should not be done at the expense of a very valuable but different experience pre-16.

Work experience at 15 is a life changing experience for most young people, raising their aspirations, deepening their understanding of ‘the world of work’ and giving them practical experiences on which to shape thoughts about their futures. It doesn’t have to be related to a particular course of study or a particular career to be effective. At 17 work experience will have a different purpose and for many will be pre-cursor to further studies or the start of a career.

Don’t we need our young people to have these two different experiences as they progress from full-time education into work?

The following appeared on the DfE website on Thursday 6 October 2011

We need to ensure that all young people are able to gain real experience and knowledge of the workplace. Genuine work experience is an important part of a student’s programme of study while remaining in education and Government is committed to supporting schools and colleges in achieving this aim.
In line with the changes that are being made around work experience for students post -16, Government will seek to remove the statutory duty to provide every young person at Key Stage 4 (14-16 year olds) with work-related learning. However, schools will still be free to determine whether and how work experience for young people at Key Stage 4 is provided. (our highlighting)

The consultation is open to all members of the public, including schools, governing bodies, local authorities, teacher unions and other representative organisations for those in the education sector, voluntary groups, parents and young people.

Closing Date for submissions: Wednesday 4 January 2012

The Directors of my-work-experience.com will be submitting their case to the Government for supporting schools in the delivery of work experience at Key Stage 4. To help with this submission we would very much like to hear your views.

Please send your comment / views to keystage4work@my-work-experience.com

This colourful brochure, produced by DE4L partner my-work-experience.com, tells the story of the achievements of the DE4L project over the past three years. The DE4L partners firmly believe that these achievements have established the foundations for the continuing development of enterprise activity and learning in Doncaster schools in the years to come.

 To support schools in this continuing development enterprise activity and  learning my-work-experience.com is currently working on a ‘Legacy Toolkit’ containing an enterprise framework, self-assessment tools and information about resources and services that will be available from DE4L partner organisations.

Download a copy of the The DE4L so far

The students, accompanied by three of their teachers and Ron and Phil from my-work-experience.com, will have free access to most of the enormous UN complex and will be able to attend meetings and debates on current world issues.

This will be the twentieth group of students that Bob has accompanied to the UN for such visits. For many students these visits have proven to be a life changing experience.

Follow the Doncaster students’ progress on Twitter – www.twitter.com/mywex

Phil and Ron hold a marketing meeting

my-work-experience.com was founded four years ago by Directors Ron and Phil. Their aim was not just to support young people’s learning through work experience and enterprise activities, but to have ‘fun’ doing so. Ron says ‘Over the past four years Phil and I have had a great deal of pleasure using all our years of experience in education and training developing resources and working with young people and schools’.

In a bid to share some of their day to day working experiences Ron and Phil have set up a Twitter page as part of their fun approach to business. Their very first tweet was made together during a marketing meeting. Follow their tweets at www.twitter.com/mywex.

Director, Phil Porter, believes the company now have the widest range of high quality resources available to support school and college work experience. “It’s a must have for all work experience organisers” said Phil.

Have a look for yourself:    download my-work-experience.com pamphlet.

my work experience Plus!  is a new integrated resource that provides students with everything they need to be successful in obtaining NCFE’s new Level 2 Award in Developing Skills for the Workplace.

We are very pleased to announce that after a lot of hard work we have had our new my work experience Plus! resource approved by NCFE for delivering this brand new qualification. We believe this is the best current award at Level 2 for practical work experience with employers. It carries a credit value of 6 points and has three mandatory units:

Unit 01   Prepare for work experience

Unit 02   Understand your work experience company

Unit 03   Undertake and evaluate work experience

Ron Robinson, Chairman and Director of my-work-experience.com commented 

‘This has been a very good experience for us too! We have enjoyed working with NCFE and have found them to very supportive, helpful and responsive. This qualification is one that enhances and adds value to the benefits of work experience which I believe are about the experience itself and the lasting effect it can have on young people’ 

’Our grateful thanks for their help and support go to Jayne Tighe, Jo Spotswood of NCFE and Principal Moderator Michele Morley’.

 Check out this new resource on the, www.my-work-experience.com  website. 

Diplomas at Work is supplied as a three part integrated package of My Work Experience Record booklet, My Diplomas Activities in a Flash USB memory stick and My Diploma Activities Portfolio folder with Student, Tutor and Employer evaluation sheets. The cost of the package is just £14.50 +VAT. More detailed information can be found at the my-work-experience.com website.

Anyone can use my-bizidea, but it is primarily designed to support enterprise education in schools and colleges through business studies and mini enterprise activities, and help in the development of enterprise skills, such as understanding business and financial capability.

The purpose of the my-bizidea website is to promote and develop skills and a spirit of enterprise through a series of exciting and fun steps, involving business planning, market research, marketing techniques and financial planning, leading to a display of a fully developed business idea on a webpage.

To set up a single user account simply go to the website and register a username and password and you can begin straight away to develop your business idea.

Teachers/lecturers who want to be able to supervise and monitor their students’ progress may do so for a small annual administrative charge by registering with our sister website www.my-bizidea.co.uk

Work experience is a compulsory part of the Diploma and all learners must undertake at least 10 days of work experience. The new resource will have three integrated individual resources designed to support the work related learning and the development of both employability skills and sector related skills.

A work experience recording booklet will provide a diary of and record the work based learning and research during the placement. An activities portfolio will offer the opportunity to store valuable work related , placement documents and references etc and a USB memory stick with links to key websites and information will provide unique storage and support for sector based work related learning.