Gatsby Benchmark 6: Experiences of workplaces
Every pupil should have first-hand experiences of the workplace through work visits, work shadowing and/or work experience to help their exploration of career opportunities, and expand their networks.
The Careers Hub's Open Doors and Work Experience programmes give a real taste of the workplace.
Open Doors
Open Doors is a project run by the Careers Hub each academic year that provides young people with meaningful experiences of local workplaces. Local employers offer visits to their site for small groups of young people.
Teachers and Careers Leaders can find out more about the Open Doors project and the visits on offer this academic year here.
Work Experience
The Work Experience team organise work experience placements in East Sussex. They organise placements alongside schools and employers. They focus on Year 10 students (14-15 year olds) and most placements last a week. Find out more about the Work Experience team here. For more information, please contact workexperience@eastsussex.gov.uk
Schools can encourage parents/carers to provide work experience placements using these resources.
Compass+ lists extra providers of work experience. Access other ideas from the Careers and Enterprise Company’s resource directory.
Virtual Work Experience
If your school subscribes to the Work Experience service, you will automatically get access to the East Sussex Virtual Work Experience resources. This is a comprehensive package of 20 lesson plans, videos and employer-set tasks.
The teacher-led content covers up to five full days of lessons. It raises awareness of local industry sectors and improves students’ employability skills. It can be used for students who are unable to go on physical work experience placements.
For more information, please contact the Work Experience team at workexperience@eastsussex.gov.uk
Virtual Experiences of the Workplace
The Careers and Enterprise Company says that, for a virtual work experience to meet Gatsby Benchmark 6, it must have all of the following:
• Defined learning outcomes, based on the age and needs of the students.
• Student meets a range of people from the workplace.
• Extensive, two-way interaction between the student and employees.
• Student must perform a task or produce a piece of work relating to that workplace. They must also receive feedback from the employer.
An example of a virtual work experience that meets this criteria is an online Q&A with a panel of employees. Students have the opportunity to ask the panel questions and then complete an employer-set task which the employees give feedback on.
Other Virtual Work Experience Programmes
Many companies provide in-house virtual work experience programmes. This Careers and Enterprise Company guide lists some of the main ones.
Youth Employment UK has a suite of short videos giving virtual work experience-themed insights. It also provides workbooks for virtual work experience for Key Stage 4 and 5. These take around one hour to complete.
Help with Gatsby Benchmark 6
Ask your Careers Hub Coordinator and Enterprise Adviser for further advice. You can also consult the Careers and Enterprise Company’s resource directory.