External Work Experience
No limits... Just possibilities
Work Experience at St. Joseph’s is an important part of the college curriculum, as it offers our students a variety of benefits and learning opportunities. Work Experience placements are found according to the ability of the student and appropriate staff support is given. Students are placed both internally within St. Joseph’s and externally within the local community.
Internal placements can be offered working alongside our Domestic and Catering Teams, all of which devise a range of job tasks and build up students work skills profile. Students also run the internal post service each day. Through Vocational Profiles, students are asked where they would like to work and we accommodate as much as we can. We find many younger students aspire to the roles they see their older peers undertaking within our community and select that role for themselves.
Work Experience and Enterprise is offered to all students, in all pathways.
Teachers provide opportunities for students to job search and in so doing broaden their knowledge of the world of work.
The majority of students have the opportunity to complete a Work Experience whether internal or external. During internal and external placements students or their support worker will complete a record and annotate photographic evidence.
This is then compiled for OCR evidence. Students are encouraged to share their experience with their peers at the Friday student meeting. At the end of a work placement, an assessment is completed, which many of our students use as part of their CV or to present to further colleges as evidence of their achievement.
We offer a range of external work placements. To earn an external placement, students must have had successful internal placements that have built up both their confidence but also their skills for the workplace. Students apply for Work Experience placements and have interviews to gain a post. This is done hand in hand with our Speech Therapists who guide students in good interview techniques. We have placements on a farm, local cafes, local supermarkets a pre-school Nursery and the Grounds Team at a local college.
St. Joseph’s arrange regular volunteering events for our students and we aim to do this alongside mainstream schools so there is a lot of social interaction too. Wherever possible we organise meaningful encounters with the world of work in line with The Gatsby Benchmark 5. Examples of previous visitors include: an external baker talking about their job, the local fire brigade demonstrating their fire engine, card makers providing workshops and interviews with our current staff regarding their career routes.