Work Experience

As you are probably aware, the last week of the Summer Term at The King’s (The Cathedral) School is used to extend the curriculum beyond the classroom. Our intention is that your child will have the opportunity of a work experience placement as part of Activities Week in July.

We appreciate that this year is like no other and it may be difficult to obtain a good quality, professional work placement. However, in anticipation that there may be some easing of restrictions in the summer, we would like to offer students the opportunity to arrange a placement, if they are able. For those unable to, we will support them to arrange a virtual experience based in school. We have attached a guide for you about how a virtual experience may run. When contacting employers, your child may wish to discuss virtual opportunities and present some of the ideas listed in the guide as a suggestion.

One of the purposes of work experience is that it allows students to gain an insight into a career that they are interested in or wish to learn more about. The right work experience enables students to examine a career area in which they would like more experience and knowledge, before making a career choice. It enables them to become more aware of the structure and function of the industry, thereby, helping them to widen their career options. It can also further develop their skills of communication, observation and analysis and their interpersonal skills.

The most successful way of finding work experience is for students to find their own placement using family networks and the local area. This is likely to be less straightforward this year and we are expecting placements to occur in a variety of creative ways. Some companies are not yet taking formal applications from students for physical work experience in 2021 but are offering ‘virtual’ experiences. Where you have contacts through friends and family it is likely to be considerably easier to arrange a relevant experience this summer. It may also be possible for students to support each other with contacts to help them gain experience in their preferred sector.

The process for the students finding their own placements is as follows.

• Student identifies potential placement and contacts employer for confirmation (parents can also contact the employer for students). This may be a confirmed opportunity, but not yet decided if this will be physical or virtual in its nature. Guidance to support students on how to approach employers is attached to this letter.

• If accepted, the student will then need to complete the Work Experience Form and return this to smith.h@kings.peterborough.sch.uk.

• The work experience placement form has three parts; Student Details, Company/Placement Details and Parental Approval. In order to give us time to co-ordinate the placement, please return all forms by 1^st May 2021

• If students are unable to secure a placement on their own, then we will work with the student to help them investigate their virtual work experience options further.

As a number of local schools also run their work experience week in the last week of term it is important to get a placement organised as early as possible as it does become harder to find a placement the closer you get. In addition, many large companies have to have any work experience placement they offer approved by their head office which again can take some time.

Students will also receive information this week about their role in work experience and how they can make the most of this opportunity. We have produced a video with more information about work experience and the process of finding and booking a placement and the link to this will be shared in an email to Year 12 students.

Begin by thinking about then discussing with your parents or tutor what you want to do on work experience. You don't necessarily have to choose something that you want to do as a job when you leave school. The aim is for you to experience life in an adult workplace. It might even be an advantage to do something different.

If your parents know someone in that line of work that could be a useful way of getting a placement. If not, why not search for your own placement?

How to get contact details for the company:

Having decided what sort of company you are looking for, you can find contact details in a number of places:

• Use a search engine like Google to do a search on the internet using search phrases that include the location or postcode e.g. "Solicitors, Peterborough"

• Think about local companies that you know that you could contact and look them up on the internet.

How to contact the company

There are four ways to contact a company

• In person (Lots of businesses will now be working from home or be closed due to the pandemic so they may not be available. Therefore, this will probably not be an effective way to apply this year.)

• by phone (as some businesses may be working from home currently, you may find it difficult to get through via phone this year)

• by letter

• by email

In a large company you are best to contact the Human Resources department. In a smaller company you will usually need to write to the Manager.

Email seems to be the most effective way to contact a company at the moment as it is very convenient for the company to reply to you. You will probably need to look at the company's website to get an email address. However, many companies get a lot of email requests so you may need to follow it up with a second email if you don’t hear anything.

It is best to contact several companies as often you may not receive a reply or they make take weeks to say "no". Don't get disheartened by this, it is nothing personal, they are usually just very busy! However, because of this it is important to approach several companies so that you have a number of options open to you.

The next section will give you a guide of how to write an email or letter.

Suggested outline for a letter or email to ask an employer for a placement:

It is good practice to send emails directly to the person responsible for work experience, this ensures that your request is going to the correct person. However, if you are sending an email and don’t have an individual’s name or email address at the company mark your email at the beginning or in the subject line “FAO Human Resources” or “FAO The Manager”

If you are sending a letter it can be hand written or typed on the computer. Ideally it should be no longer than one side of A4 paper.

Remember – this is the first contact you will have with an employer and you therefore want to create a good impression so check that the following are correct:

• Presentation and layout

• Spelling

• Company name and address

• That you have the right dates for your work experience