Work Experience in Oxfordshire

Work experience involves spending time with a real employer, working alongside employees. It is a great way to experience the roles and responsibilities of real jobs.

Crucial: All students should have work experience no matter where they are studying. 

Work Experience in Year 10

Your school should help you arrange your work experience, though you are usually offered the opportunity to find a placement yourself. You should talk to your Work Experience Co-Ordinator or form tutor about work experience. 

Experience: I was grateful to be given the chance to find out about the service and be able to develop my IT skills. I also got to learn how to work in the office environment and to be more independent when tasks were set. - Bonnie, 15

Work Experience 16+

Your 16+ study programme may include work experience. Work experience is arranged by your place of study, many young people also choose to get work experience through doing a part-time job, alongside study. 

Crucial: If you are not in education, employment, or training (NEET), work experience is often part of your getting ready to work programme.

Work experience while job-seeking

Work experience isn’t just for when you’re at school. Doing work experience, volunteering, or an internship lets you get more experience for your CV. You can gain work readiness skills such as:

• Managing your time
• Reliability
• Writing, IT or technical skills

You can get work experience through volunteering, Traineeships, ready-for work programmes (ask your JobCentre+ advisor or a worker at a NEET drop-in or Job Club), and through local Training Providers.

Crucial: Safety is very important while doing work experience. Before you start you should fill in an application form and have a health and safety discussion to make sure you know how to work safely.

Work Experience age 18+

Work experience doesn't stop when you are 18. There are lots of different opportunities, including volunteering, internships, and more. 

What you decide to do doesn't need to be related to your chosen career.

Experience: Most people have some breaks in employment when they are moving from learning to work, applying for jobs, between short contracts or waiting for agency , but don't worry, you can turn this to your advantage. You always gain something from your work experience. - Hattie

Work experience with oxme.info

Every year, young people from Oxfordshire schools work on oxme.info as part of our work experience scheme. Young people have worked on development, design, user testing, creating content, and more. 

Here's a piece one of our work experience students wrote:

After receiving my placement from my school, I wrote a letter to the team confirming and thanking them for my placement. I received an e-mail within the next three days containing all the information about my placement, including what I would be doing. I was really excited as it was an opportunity to try and learn completely new things. 

I was quite nervous before I started but upon meeting the team I was warmly welcomed. I was first given a quick tour of the building and was pleasantly surprised by it as you can’t really see in from the outside so I didn’t know what to expect. Before starting work, I had to complete some training courses which took about two hours in total. Although this sounds like a long time, the courses were quite interesting as they were full of information I didn’t know before. 

I would recommend applying for work experience no matter what your interests are. - Liam, age 15