In Year 10 (and in Year 12 for Intermediate Business students) pupils, get out of school and into the world of work with a one-week work experience placement. This provides invaluable experience and brings many other benefits. Pupils gain confidence and an understanding of the working environment, they see working relationships and structures in action and realise how health and safety issues are dealt with in the work place. Importantly, they become equipped to think about their future role in work and the experience adds context to the work they do at school.

In 1996 the DfEE defined work experience as “a placement on an employer’s premises in which a pupil carries out a particular task or duty, more or less as would an employee, but with an emphasis on the learning aspects of the experience.”

To ensure the encounter is a good one, the Experience of Work Co-ordinators work closely with the Windsor Slough Education Business Partnership who administer local experience of work placements. They establish placements, check that companies are adequately insured, look at health and safety provision and ensure that the placement will offer a genuine work experience (not just be hoping to get a tea maker for two weeks!). Pupils usually return from experience of work placements a little older and wiser, inspired and motivated!