Gr 10 Students Reflect on Work Experience During Debrief Session

The Work Experience Debrief Session has got to be one of my favourite days of the year.  Having not really seen much of the grade 10s since they began exam leave in April and with predominantly email exchanges in the run up to their two week work experience placement,  it’s a real pleasure to have them all back together in a relaxed environment to share their work experience stories.  This year, we were hugely fortunate in being able to use the facilities of Lancaster University Leipzig, right in the heart of the city next to the Nikolaikirche.

The 90 minute session started off with a ‘Find Someone Who…’ to give everyone a chance to talk to each other about their experiences.  The winner of the ‘Find someone who had to start work really early’ definitely went to Chloe, who was leaving home at 4:30 every morning to get to her placement.  However, the final two questions (Find someone who has decided this really is/isn’t the job for them) are the ones I find most interesting: while a few students have indeed had such positive experiences on their placements that they do wish to pursue careers in these fields, more students have identified what they don’t want to do.  And, in my opinion, that makes the experience equally, if not more, valuable. 

One student working in a pharmacy found out that she prefers the behind-the-scenes research work to customer facing roles; another working in a small branch of a bank identified that, while he finds the sector interesting, he would probably prefer the type of work carried out in a regional or national headquarters rather than at local level. Both have learned that career choice is a complicated interaction between sector, environment, role and personal preferences, even within what seems like a single job.  In essence: what seems like one ‘job’ can have multiple different manifestations depending on the context.  

The final outcome of the Work Experience Debrief is the virtual jobs fair: the Grade 10s have all recorded 2 minute interviews about their placements which will be collated and made available to all our grade 9s (and all other year groups) as a source of inspiration and advice as they begin their own work experience journey.  A huge thanks to the Grade 10s for the maturity and seriousness with which they have fulfilled this task.

Finally, I have listed below the companies where our students have been working this June, partly as a source of inspiration for upcoming students and partly as a thank you to these organisations for hosting our students. While some placements came as a result of direct applications, many more are the result of the leveraging of contacts from among the LIS community.  Many thanks to all who have supported our grade 10s in this journey, the wealth of opportunities you’ve enabled is hugely appreciated.

Here you can find all the companies where our other 10th grade students do their work experience: