Work Experience

The schools work experience policy is as follows:

• Students are advised to arrange placements to take place during their school holidays. The South Wolds Academy will not have a dedicated ‘work experience week’ during year 10.
• Placements can last a couple of days, a week or single days over several weeks – we have no set minimum time period.
• The work experience placements must be unpaid.
• Mrs Hayden must be informed of any placements arranged: fhayden@southwolds.notts.sch.uk

There are 3 ways to find a placement:

1) Find a placement on the Safety Measures website with an employer with a valid Health and Safety check (green tick in bottom right corner)

2) Find a placement on the Safety Measures website with an employer without a valid Health and Safety check and contact Mrs Hayden. We can arrange a Health and Safety check through the Safety Measures company. However this could come with a £25 charge to cover the costs to the school.

3) Find a placement of your own that is not on the database. (Please be aware: This however will require various documents being provided by the employer to the school)

If you find your own placement the school policy is as follows:

• The school requires a copy of the Employers Insurance certificate
• The school requires a copy of the risk assessment that the employer has for its employees.

If it is a low risk environment (such as offices or shops )the existing employee risk assessment that the employer will have is sufficient.

However if it is an environment with risks less familiar to the student (eg in light assembly or packing facilities) a young person’s risk assessment will be required, which the employer will have for employees under the age of 18. This should include an induction, supervision, site familiarisation, and any protective equipment needed.

• Finally, the school we will require confirmation from the parent/carer that they judge the employer to be competent to host a work experience student.

The South Wolds Academy will not sanction any placements if we don’t receive all of the above.

The government has said that employers need to treat work experience students as they would a normal employee.

This changes if the workplace has dangers, eg knives in a kitchen, machinery etc. A high level risk assessment would be needed.

The Health and Safety Executive has published this document to support employers prepare for work experience placements. This could be printed/emailed out and given to employers.

Work experience diary

Here is a work experience log/diary that we advise you to download and complete as part of your placement. This would help you to record your experiences in preparation for writing a CV and/or applications in the future. If you want a paper copy, Mrs Hayden has some sent to her from Barclays, but not enough for the whole year group.