Work Experience – what is it and why do I have to do it?
Work experience at TRS takes many forms. You will complete a week working in the on-site Bulunga Café, which is open to the public, and during Years 7 to 9 you will be taken out on a work place visit every term.
On top of this every week during terms 1, 2, 3 and 4 you will have an after lunch lesson replaced by a Beyond the Classroom session. During this you will spend time with a local employer who will teach you about their business and show you how to make and market a product. These days doing your own thing as a business is as much as an option as working for someone else or running it alongside other work or studying.
In Year 10 you will take part in one full week of work experience in the last week before Easter if you are with us at that time. Also, at the end of the summer term in Year 10 you will do two Fridays working at Communigrow Community Farm in West Malling, helping them get ready for their annual open day. This is very popular and the everyone enjoys being outside planting and tidying the gardens so they look good.
So why does TRS do work experience? Schools have a legal requirement to have in place a work experience programme but that actually isn’t the main reason. Work experience helps build so many skills that are vital for when you leave school be it to go on to college, sixth form, university, apprenticeships, or the workplace. Doing work experience helps you build belief in yourself and gives you the confidence that you can do something out of your comfort zone. More importantly, it develops:
- Improved self esteem
- Ability to communicate with adults
- Improved timekeeping
- Additional practical work skills
- Team Working
- Problem Solving Skills
- Time management and organisation
- Clarifies job roles within industry
- Broadens horizons in relation to career routes and job roles available
The biggest worry with work experience is where will you do it? For some pupils they might have somewhere in mind, such as with a family member or back at their old primary school and that’s good but, for others it’s not that easy. The Unifrog system has guidance on how to find a placement and you can find that by clicking For students: a guide to work placements : Unifrog Blog
TRS does have some community links so may be able to help you find a placement so make sure you speak to Nikki Wilson in the Careers Office if you are struggling to find somewhere.
Once you have found and agreed a placement you will need to enter it onto Unifrog so that the school can check it is suitable and approve your attendance. This is done online through Unifrog and starts with you clicking on the mauve ‘Placements’ tab on the home page.
This will take you to a Placement Form where it will ask you for the placement and your parents contact details, and this then starts the process for the school to obtain the information it needs to approve your attendance.