What should school understand about work experience?

Review what the placement teaches

Ask the placement contact how instructions, feedback and help will be organised. A suitable placement involves more than finding somewhere willing to host a pupil.

Afterwards, discuss examples of tasks completed, skills used and adjustments that helped. Record the young person's own view and a practical next step for careers learning. Preparing placement routines addresses the arrangements that can otherwise prevent the young person showing what they can do.

Understanding work experience helps staff distinguish the pupil’s access needs from assumptions about motivation or ability. The starting point is to understand what happens for this particular pupil across lessons, unstructured times and transitions, rather than applying a standard package because a label or circumstance is present.

Start with the pupil's experience

Talk with the pupil in a way they can access and ask what makes school easier, harder or more tiring. Gather the family’s knowledge and compare this with classroom observation, work samples, attendance or participation patterns and the pupil’s response to previous support. For work experience, the same outward behaviour can have very different causes, so a description of the difficulty is more useful than an assumption about motive.

Keep expectations ambitious and realistic

Work with families and other professionals

Review the response to should school understand about work experience using a short before-and-after comparison. Look across more than one occasion and include the pupil’s view where possible. A strategy is worth keeping when it produces a meaningful improvement in the intended outcome, not merely because adults feel busy or the pupil appears compliant.

Questions for the SENCo