Work experience

[rgye]

I've been asked by a friend to take on his Year 10 son for a week of 'work experience' (which often ends up as rather dull shadowing at this age, but he's mad keen on our sort of work and wants to be as hands-on as possible). His school requires sight of our insurance; of course, we have the usual employee and public liability insurance, but nothing that mentions underage work experience.

 

I can't recall this ever having been an issue in the past, but I'm not sure I've ever hosted a student quite this young. I'd be interested to hear other members' views/experience in this field

[Unfathomable]

I did work experience (from the other side!) about 5 years ago. IIRC the insurance at that point was the schools responsibility, and as long as I was on organised work exp, they covered it.

[kerry davies]

http://www.city.ac.uk/safety/dps/H%20%26%20S%20Information/work%20experience%20a%20guide%20for%20emploers.pdf

 

AFIK the above still applies and the LEA or school governors are the ones responsible for arranging work experience, not parents or the employers.

 

As long as the student is in the last two years of compulsory schooling then age is not that relevant but the guidance above outlines insurance, H&S and other necessary stipulations.

[Chappie]

You may need to make sure the person having day-to-day responsibility for the student has been CRB checked.

 

Hmm, can't make link work. Try here: www.dcsf.gov.uk/14-19/documents/CRB_checks_fact_sheet.doc

[Chris SS]

Hi

 

At our company we don't have children under the age of 17 really, working with us in the offices or the warehouse this was a company decision couple of years ago. We do how ever have a child protection policy for our company if you like I could email this to you although most of the policy is geared towards our work in schools.

 

Things change so much, I know we have to have CRB and our ID with the CRB reference number on the cards which all our staff carry on them as proof, some councils enforced this without telling school suppliers!

 

You can have a CRB done for you and all your staff at APCS who deal with these.

 

I don't see that there should be any issues with you having someone this young providing you plan with the school and create a risk assessment which the school does anyway, well should do.

 

Ensure you and your staff is not put into any compromising situations where you are left with the child on your own is another factor and this came up when we did a Child protection training day at one of the councils.

 

What a wonderful opportunity for this young lad I very much hope this works out for you all.

 

Let me know if you want that policy very useful read when it comes to working with and around children.

 

Kind Regards

 

 

Chris

[rgye]

Thank you for these helpful comments.

 

We have had quite a few students on work experience over the years, but usually a little older. Although most schools and colleges will find a placement, they often find it difficult and welcome parental initiatives. One lad who came to us reported that all his classmates had been placed in dead-end jobs and he was the envy of them all, having a ball doing things that really interested him. As a former teacher (a million years ago) I do make an effort to give them a balanced programme as well as just helping out on rigs, and generally also devise a project for them to work on during idle moments. As a school governor and someone who does voluntary work with children I'm fully up to speed on CRB checks.

 

Thank you Kerry for the DfES bumph - inevitably there's a lot of patronising red tape, but some useful guidelines too.

 

In my view the insurance situation which triggered this discussion is still a grey area, and I will clearly have to discuss it with my insurers. The boy's father has offered a letter of indemnity, but I fear that wouldn't be worth the paper it's written on if the boy, for example, was the cause of a serious accident.

 

On a different but not-unconnected note, I also do some freelance journalism, and my editor has asked for a piece on Shadowing. If anyone has any true anecdotes, from either the shadower or shadowee's point of view, positive or negative, serious or (better still) funny, I'd be really grateful to hear from you.