Supporting learning
Virtual Work Experience is primarily for supporting work placements and can be used from S3 to S6.
It provides opportunities to learn about particular occupational areas, including:
- individual employees' jobs and career paths
- the skills, qualifications and other attributes needed for the job
- information on salaries
- information about the sector in general.
It exposes the pupils to the culture and ethics associated with the various work environments and helps them build up a picture of what it might be like to work in these sectors, what might be expected of them as an employee and what they, in turn, might expect from an employer.
These insights might spark an interest in a particular subject, as a result of a clearer understanding about its end value, or in a particular occupational area which they can pursue through a Skills for Work or other qualification. It will help them become more confident and encourage them to be ambitious for their futures.
Supporting Curriculum for Excellence
In using Virtual Work Experience, teachers will wish to consider how the virtual worlds can support development of the four capacities.
For example:
| Successful learners | Able to use technology to learn as a class, independently, or in groups, to learn in and about different environments. |
| Confident individuals | Able to understand different career opportunities, business practices and cultures, so enabling informed choices about future career pathways and related learning and training. |
| Responsible citizens | Able to understand how different occupations support local communities, the national and global economies, and the roles and responsibilities of employers and employees. |
| Effective contributors | Able to understand and gain knowledge about job opportunities, and identify related skills and learning, thereby connecting classroom learning with job requirements. Making informed choices about further learning, training and employment, thereby supporting career planning. |
Tailored support for young people with additional support needs
Young people with additional support needs of various kinds may find work placements daunting and some may require tailored support to enable them to undertake a work placement.
Despite being eligible to undertake a placement in S4, it may do a pupil more harm than good to do so if there are concerns around their ability to cope.
Virtual Work Experience can support a school’s wider package of support for this group of young people, ensuring equality and equity of opportunity and offering a first step towards preparation for a placement at a later stage.
Challenging gender stereotyping
Young people may have fairly fixed ideas about the types of jobs male and female employees do: the virtual worlds will highlight how this sort of perception is often inaccurate.
With a view to dispelling some of the myths around ‘male’ and ‘female’ jobs, pupils could research and discuss issues around gender stereotyping, including identifying other sectors/jobs which are gender-biased, eg construction, nursing, teaching, engineering, childcare, police, etc.
Raising awareness of jobs that are not widely understood
Sometimes we think we know what goes on in a particular occupational sector and what individual jobs involve. Often we’ve got it quite wrong. Virtual Work Experience can provide clarity around some of the jobs which are often perceived to be something they’re not.
Highlighting jobs which aren’t particularly visible
When we don’t fully understand what’s involved in a particular business or organisation, we may easily overlook the breadth of roles that may contribute to its success. It’s important, therefore, to recognise that there’s a range of jobs within any organisation.
For example, there are opportunities for accountants, human resources professionals and food technologists within the food and drink sector; the construction sector isn’t just involved in building houses: it involves architects, town planners and surveyors. Similarly, the NHS doesn’t just employ doctors and nurses, and a great many roles make up a police force.
Improving access to oportunities
Some pupils, particularly those in rural and remote communities, miss out on their preferred options simply because of the limited range of opportunities in the area.
Likewise, where a sector and/or specific job poses significant health and safety risks, this may prevent placements being undertaken.
Virtual Work Experience can fill these gaps by giving pupils an experience where a ‘real’ one isn’t logistically possible.
Supporting career education
Careers Scotland works with schools to provide pupils with information, advice and guidance to support career planning and career education, including around the S4 transition point. Virtual Work Experience can support this activity.
Promoting parental involvement
Parents and carers have a mass of knowledge and experience of the world of work. By engaging them in Virtual Work Experience teachers can add real value to both pupils’ and their own experience.