Teaching ideas
The following suggestions for using and building on virtual work experience may be useful, but are not exhaustive.
Helping pupils to select a work placement
Young people should be able to make informed choices about a work placement. This will involve finding out about local opportunities and the various jobs involved, and thinking about personal interests and career aspirations. By exploring the virtual worlds, young people can find out about a range of opportunities.
Teachers might want to invite young people (individually or in groups) to explore a particular world and then select one of the jobs highlighted and gather information along the lines of:
- identify the skills, knowledge and behaviours required to do the job
- describe what they think the good and bad points about the job are
- explain what would demonstrate whether the job was being done well
- identify particular qualifications required to do the job
- indicate if there was anything about the job holder’s time at school that led them to follow their chosen career
- indicate if the job holder has had any other jobs
- find out other jobs that are relevant to the particular sector.
In groups, young people could be asked to discuss skills and behaviours that are common to some of the jobs and career paths, or they could role-play good and bad quality service delivery.
Extending pupils' knowledge of other sectors and jobs
Reflecting on what was learned about the virtual worlds, pupils could explore other opportunities through some of the following activitives:
- Talks from local employers
- Interviewing a family member or friend to gather information about their job
- Identifing the range of jobs within a chosen sector
- Identifying local opportunities and choosing one to investigate further
- Identifying the key skills required for specific jobs and thinking about how they might develop them
- Identifying the sort of knowledge required for specific jobs and thinking about how the different subjects they’re studying can help them acquire this.
Preparing for a work placement
Pupils need to have realistic expectations about what they will achieve from a work placement and they should feel able to discuss with an employer, teacher or other adult what they hope to get out of it.
Some of the following activities might help shape their placement:
- Find out similar information about the sector or specific job linked to their chosen work placement.
- Identify the key areas of the business they want to learn about while on placement.
- Identify particular roles they would like to find out about while on placement.
- Identify five key tasks they would like to do while on placement.
- Identify the behaviours they will be expected to demonstrate while on placement.
- Identify the key skills they will be expected to use while on placement.
Find out which qualifications they would require if they were to apply for a vacancy in their chosen work placement job.
Circumstances in which Virtual Work Experience offers a solution
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 about their ability to cope. Virtual work experience offers a first step towards preparation for a placement at a later stage.
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. Virtual work experience can fill a gap by giving pupils a virtual experience where a ‘real’ one isn’t logistically possible.
Where a sector and/or specific job poses significant health and safety risks which prevent placements being undertaken, a virtual work experience opens up opportunities that might not be possible otherwise.