In their fourth year, pupils are given the opportunity to obtain an SQA Unit on Work Experience which has, at its heart, a one week work placement. Most pupils undertake this placement in October/November. Almost every pupil takes up this invaluable opportunity in S4 and many in S5 and S6 undertake career placement or job shadowing whether on a once a week basis or for another week’s placement.
This session the S4 pupil placements are spread over 2 different weeks because of the number of pupils involved. The pupils in Avondale and Blantyre Houses will be out on work experience during the week beginning 29th October. Pupils in Cathkin and Drumclog Houses will be out during week beginning 12th November.
We are constantly seeking to expand this programme and ever searching for new contacts with whom we can develop a partnership. If you know of any firms that would be willing to become involved in hosting a work experience pupil please contact Mrs A Reid, PT Pupil Support.
Each year South Lanarkshire Council organise many (approx 120) jobs for our pupils. Pupils can access these jobs using their given username and password along with the program Workit (www.workit.info). However there are not enough jobs for all of our pupils and many pupils organise their own placement and this is know as a self-placement.
There is a lot of organisation involved before our pupils go to any work placement. Although our pupils attend their placement in October / November we start preparing in April, when our pupils are still in third year. An assembly is presented to the third year pupils and they are issued with a letter to their parents. Copies of these can be seen in the downloadable files. (S3 Assembly, S3 Parent letter). All pupils are also issued with a self-placement form (downloadable files) so that they can start to organise their own placement. These have to be returned to the school as soon as possible. These forms are then sent to South Lanarkshire Council who check that all the firms who offer a self-placement, have the necessary Health & Safety procedures carried out. Pupils will also be shown a list of firms whose jobs are being offered on the Web site. Please note that this is to ensure that pupils DO NOT APPROACH these companies to ask for a self-placement as they have already agreed to accept pupils via the web-site.
Pupils are given the opportunity to attend the police or army. Downloadable forms (“Police Application 2007” and “Internal ARMY application form”) for this are on the pupils page. These must be returned to the school by the correct cut-off date (see S3 Assembly for current dates). South Lanarkshire schools are offered 15 places in total for the police and there is a great demand for these places. In 2007 one of our pupils was fortunate enough to gain a place and in 2006 Duncanrig had two pupils attending the police course. The school is allocated eight places for the Army each year and pupils attend a 5-day (& 4 night) stay in Edinburgh to complete this course. Please note that the Army will not take pupils who have any form of Asthma.
Pupils are given the opportunity to achieve an Intermediate I pass in Work Experience. They have to have evidence of preparation, working and reviewing their work experience. Details of the criteria to gain this award can be seen in the downloadable files (“Intermediate I statement of standards”). In Duncanrig pupils have to complete the “Preparation work and answer book”. This is downloadable from the pupils page as well as the “Pupils Check Grid”, which each pupil must fill in to ensure that they have met all of the criteria.
Prior to each pupil going out on work Experience a letter is sent from the school to the employer along with “S4 pupil information from to employer” (downloadable). This ensures that employers have necessary details about each child. An “assessment form for employer” (downloadable) is also sent so that employers can give the school feedback on each child’s work. Teachers also phone each pupils work placement and fill in a “record of teacher phone call” (downloadable).
A survey was given to all of our Fourth year pupils and both the Survey and the results can be seen on the downloadable forms. They are “S4 Questionnaire after Work Experience for S4 pupils” and “S4 Work Experience Survey Results”.
This information is all correct at February 2008. If more details are required please contact the school.
Downloadable forms
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