Year 10 Work Experience 2025: Parents’ Guide

All students in Year 10 will undertake work experience from Monday 14th July to Thursday 17th July 2025. During this period, your child will spend each day at the workplace of their employer. They will return to school on Friday 18th July to reflect on their experience and update their CV.

Work experience gives students:

• the chance to see what a real working environment is like;
• an opportunity to develop key skills that they will need in their working lives;
• a chance to sample a possible future career direction.

We encourage students to find their own placement and the deadline is Monday 24th February 2025. If a student finds a placement after this deadline we may not be able to make the necessary checks in terms of health and safety, risk assessments and insurance. You have an important role to play in helping your child to find a placement and to get the most out of the experience.

For those who do not find a placement, we will aim to allocate a school-found placement, but students should understand that this may not match their interests and aspirations. We will provide additional support for certain students (e.g. with an EHCP) and we will speak to those students individually.

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Work Related Learning Presentation for Parents

Please find below a video providing further guidance around supporting your child with Work Experience.

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Finding a Placement

There is information on Sharepoint about how to find work experience and students can get advice from the Careers department. All students have access to our online careers platform – Unifrog - which has useful parent guides about work experience:  www.unifrog.org/placement/parent-guides.

Some points to consider when arranging a placement:

• Students should find a placement that involves attending the workplace for the full four days; we will not approve a virtual placement;
• Students can use their family and friends' networks in order to find a placement but, wherever possible, we would discourage students from working closely with a family member or close family friend;
• For safeguarding reasons, we will not approve a placement with a sole/lone trader, or with an employer working from home. There should be two or more adults present at all times while the student is at the placement;
• The employer must have Employers Liability Insurance.

Step 1 and 2: when looking to find a placement, students are encouraged to telephone the employer direct to ask if they offer work experience and, if they do, obtain the name and contact details of the work experience lead. They should follow this up with an email to provide as much information as possible, outlining the work experience dates and their interest in the company. We have provided a suggested email to use. If students do not receive a response within 2 weeks we recommend they contact the employer.

Step 3: when a student has secured a placement, they will need to inform us of the details and obtain our initial approval for it. They do this by completing an online form that is available on Sharepoint. They will need to provide the following information:

• Name of business / organisation
• Employer placement lead name and email address: please check spelling
• Placement address
• How they will travel to and from the placement
• Confirm that the placement is ‘in person’ and not virtual
• Confirm that the employer has Employer Liability Insurance - we don’t need details at this stage just confirmation that the employer has insurance
• Confirm that the student will be working with 2 or more adults
• Confirm that the placement will not take place in the employer’s home

• an email will automatically be sent to the employer to obtain all the necessary placement details, including hours of work, duties, dress code, health & safety policy, risk assessment, insurance details etc.
• the Unifrog tool will collect information from both students and parents about any special needs, illnesses or injuries that may affect the placement. This information will be shared with the employer.
• Parents/carers will be asked to give their permission for the placement to go ahead.

Step 7: the school will approve the placement if we are satisfied with all the information received from the student, employer and parent. Once approved, all parties will receive an email confirming the placement will go ahead.

We hope that your child is successful in arranging a placement and that they have an enjoyable and positive experience of the world of work. If you have any questions, or need additional support, please contact us at careers@whitmore.harrow.sch.uk.

Ms Sullivan/Mr Newton Careers Co-ordinator

Q. When do students take part in the work experience programme?

A. The programme runs from Monday 14th July to Thursday 17th July 2025. All students are required to be back in school on Friday 18th July 2025.

Q. Is it compulsory for all students to take part in the work experience programme?
A. Yes, the programme runs in term time and all students will take part in the programme.

Q. Do students need permission to take part in the programme?
A. Yes, parents / carers will need to agree to the placement once their placement employer has agreed and completed the Unifrog form.

Q. Does the school find placements for students?
A. If a student does not find their own placement we will aim to allocate a school-found placement. However, this may not match their interests or be with a company/sector they are keen to explore.

Q. How does the school support students during the time they are trying to find a placement?
A. There will be an assembly on the work experience programme and other briefings given. Students are also encouraged to contact the Careers department if they need any help and guidance.

Q. How can parents / carers support the process?
A. There are a number of deadlines that students should be aware of and any support you can give to help them meet these deadlines is much appreciated. They may also need some guidance when finding a placement.

Q. How should the student go about trying to find a placement?
A. Personal contact is always a very good way to secure a placement. Students should undertake independent research on organisations in the sector they are interested in working in. Students are encouraged to contact potential companies to ask who their application should be directed to. Once they have a contact or department they should email the person, using their name where possible, attaching a CV (if they have one) or by speaking to them on the phone. We have provided a suggested email/letter they can use.

Q. My child is interested in Medicine/Dentistry, will they be able to find relevant work experience?
A. Students interested in a hospital/medical placement should note that placements for under 16s will be in non-clinical areas or departments. Students considering a career in this area are often advised to consider working in a Residential or Care home setting for their work experience.

Q. What if I cannot find work experience in an area I am keen to explore?
A. Work experience enables students to build key employability skills. If students can’t find work experience in a career area that interests them, they should look at the skills they need in their ideal job and find a placement in another area that may be easier to find work experience, and will allow them to build the same key skills.

Q. Can work experience be virtual?
A. No, the school will not approve a virtual placement.

Q. Can students go to an employee’s house if they are working from home?
A. Students are not able to go to private houses to carry out their work experience.

Q. What happens if I find a work placement during the school holidays?
A. Finding an extra placement during the school holidays is a really worthwhile thing to do and that additional experience will help you to make some more informed decisions about your future career. However, because your placement is not during term-time, all arrangements need to be made privately between the student, their parent/carer and the employer. This means that their parent/carer will need to be responsible for checking the health and safety standards and insurance arrangements. The student will still need to look for a placement during the school work experience week in addition to anything else they have done/will be doing.

Q. What if the student does not have a CV?
A. Students can complete a CV using Unifrog and the careers team can support them in this. Later in the school year, all students will have the opportunity to write or update their CV in readiness for a mock employer interview that will take place in May.

Q. What should the student do when they find a placement?
A. They should complete our online form – by 24th February - which can be found on Sharepoint. If we are happy with the information provided we will ask the student to add the placement to Unifrog and this will start the formal approval process for the placement.

Q. Does the school visit the placements to carry out a health and safety check?
A. The Department for Education and the Health and Safety Executive guidelines advise that we do not visit employers to carry out a risk assessment. Instead, we assess placements following desk top assessment procedures via the Unifrog platform.

Q. How do you assess a company for work experience?
A. Before we approve the placement employers have to confirm on the Unifrog platform that they have employer liability insurance in place, a written health and safety policy and that they have assessed the risk to workers under the age of 18. We also ask employers to provide details of the type of work the student will be doing whilst with them.

Q. What if the student agrees a placement with an employer who does not have employer liability insurance?
A. Some smaller companies or those employing only relatives may not have employer liability insurance. In this instance the company would not meet the necessary standards that we set for work experience and we would not be able to authorise the placement.

Q. Can the student still do work experience with an employer that does not meet the school’s standards for work experience?
A. As part of our duty of care we would advise both you, the student and the employer by email if a placement did not meet the necessary standards. Students would not be given permission to attend a placement that did not meet the necessary standards.

Q. What happens when a placement has been checked by the school and meets all of the requirements?
A. Once the placement is authorised by the school, Unifrog will notify the parents/carers and the employer.

Q. How will the school help prepare students for their work experience placement?
A. Before the start of the placement students are briefed on how to get the most out of their work experience and also how to ensure they keep themselves safe whilst on placement.

Q. Does the school inform the students work experience employer if they have a medical condition?
A. Parents and students are asked to inform the employer of any medical conditions via the Unifrog platform.

Q. What information is the student given before they start their placement?
A. All the details of their placement are held on Unifrog. In the summer term, the student will be given a briefing on health and safety and safeguarding, along with a work experience journal with further practical information.

Q. Is there a work experience debrief?
A. Each employer is sent a debrief form via Unifrog and they will often carry out a student debrief at the end of the placement. On their return to school on Friday 18th July, students will login to Unifrog to record the activities and employability skills they have gained and update their CV.

Q. I don’t seem to have received any emails from Unifrog?
A. If anyone involved does not seem to be getting the automated emails that the system generates, they should check their junk folders and add noreply@unifrog.org to their safe sender / whitelist.

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Suggested Email/Letter to Employers