Jayne Dowle: Lesson in the importance of world of work

I KNOW the Government has a lot on its mind, but I call on Education Secretary Justine Greening to urgently re-think the policy on work experience.
Education Secretary Justine Greening is being urged to reform work experience.Education Secretary Justine Greening is being urged to reform work experience.
Education Secretary Justine Greening is being urged to reform work experience.

I was shocked to find that time spent in an actual workplace hasn’t been a compulsory part of the curriculum for under-16s for some time.

It was “deprioritised” by the coalition Government back in 2012, probably to make way for extra exam revision or some other form of systematic torture, sorry, study.

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I don’t doubt the need to raise educational standards. However, when you think about the emphasis successive Ministers have placed on young people developing marketable skills and generally making themselves ready for the workplace, you might imagine that time spent “working” would be of crucial importance.

The British Chambers of Commerce certainly do. A survey of more than 3,000 businesses found that 79 per cent of employers think work experience is the most important activity to equip young people for adulthood. If business leaders think this, why doesn’t the Government?

That’s why I’m glad my son’s school takes the matter seriously. There’s a week-long period of work experience firmly in the timetable for Year 10. Consequently, Jack has just returned from his five-day stint. If Ms Greening wants evidence of why it’s so important, she should come and talk to him.

Jack went to work at a children’s nursery. I’m proud of him for doing that in the first place. For a towering 6ft-plus lad, it takes some strength of character to go and work with a class of three and four-year-olds.

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Jack is taking childcare GCSE. He’s not entirely sure yet what he would like to do when he leaves school, but he thinks it’s likely to involve working with children.

It’s one thing however, to sit in a classroom and learn about potty training and developmental milestones. Quite another to be coaxing a real live reluctant toddler to try a carrot stick. I admit that I wondered how Jack’s patience would hold out, but he seemed to discover reserves of the stuff he didn’t even know he possessed.

He says his favourite part of the week was taking the children to a local open farm and seeing how excited they were to meet the animals. My favourite part of the week was seeing how much he seemed to mature and gain confidence. The women – and it was all women – at the nursery welcomed him and made him feel comfortable. I think they took him seriously and saw the value he could bring, even kicking a football with the little ones.

However, Jack made an excellent point. Why does it just have to be a week? It’s clear that in the final year of secondary school much time has to be spent preparing for GCSE exams. However, as Jack pointed out, it would be helpful if the links made in Year 10 could be built on.

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Even if he was allowed an afternoon or a morning out of school once a week to work at the nursery, it would allow his “experience” to grow.

And thinking about it, why not? The basic model of school work experience hasn’t changed since I went off to shadow news reporters on the Sheffield Star in the early 1980s. Find a place that will have you, turn up, learn where the kettle is… and then after a week or two, well what? Surely it would be beneficial all-round if these connections could be built upon by both student and employer?

If work experience policy is reformed efficiently and with imagination, it could be transformed from the obligation it is often regarded as to a seamless link between school and employment.

A kind of day-release or block release programme during the school holidays would be a great cornerstone in this.

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There is more than a gap between school and work. It’s a yawning chasm, getting wider every year. And it’s not helped by the fact that Saturday and part-time jobs for under-16s are hard to find these days. I hesitate to don the rose-tinted glasses, but when I was girl, most of us had some kind of job outside the home by the time we were 14. In fact, it was a matter of pride to secure a coveted position in a shop or hairdresser’s salon, earning our own money.

There’s a long list of reasons why “work” has become such a tricky concept for teenagers. Not least of these is the drive to encourage record numbers into higher education. However, the first quality any good student needs is independence. And there is no better way to achieve this than leaving the classroom and pitting yourself against older people, taking responsibility for your actions and generally learning resilience.