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Using the Work Placement Toolkit with Year 10 students on a Leonardo da Vinci work experience placement
Context
Yewlands School Technology College is part of a ‘Family of Schools 0-19 years’ seeking to promote the very best, inspirational learning opportunities for learners of the 21st Century. The school has gained recognition for its ‘Family of Schools’ work by the local authority, the DCSF Innovation unit, the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust and the National College for School Leadership. Yewlands serves a diverse community in the north east of Sheffield and is currently developing a skills based curriculum across the ‘Family of Schools’. The schools’ vision is to develop personalised learning pathways within a flexible and adaptable ‘state of the art’ environment that will be accessed by the whole community.
Many of the pupils at Yewlands have limited life experiences, lack motivation, have low aspirations and drop out at Key Stage 4. Second and third generation unemployment is not uncommon in this area and a good deal of pupils lack a good role model in the family with regard to aspiring careers. Around 30% of pupils have special needs and only 8% go into Higher Education.
Learning languages is not perceived to be a useful skill to the majority of pupils. The majority who travel abroad tend to go to the tourist parts of Spain and so they experience very little of foreign culture.
Why work experience abroad was introduced and how the programme is organised
To overcome the lack of interest and to recognise the value of languages, Yewlands school decided to pilot the NVQ modern languages qualification in Year 9 and teachers have been very pleased with the impact it has had. Read more about the positive effects of introducing NVQs.
NVQs courses normally incorporate a high percentage of work-based training where evidence is collected for assessment purposes. Secondary pupils studying for an NVQ in languages in school cannot realistically collect much work-based evidence in the workplace and the majority will have limited if no exposure to practising their skills in an authentic situation. The classroom provides only a limited environment for simulating the workplace and even with the use of native speakers such as a foreign language assistant, it is very difficult for pupils to gain a full appreciation of the business scenarios which the assessments are based around.
The majority of our NVQ pupils visit a local company for a morning to see how languages are used in the workplace and despite this being a hugely motivating experience, it only provides them with a snapshot of the workplace and offers a very limited opportunity to ask a few questions in the target language.
Like many schools, the majority of our Year 10 pupils carry out a two week work experience placement in either March or April. However a work placement in a local company can sometimes be a passive experience where the tasks that pupils are asked to do are often menial and bear little if any relevance to the learning back at school.
We decided that the work experience slot would be an ideal opportunity for pupils to spend time in an overseas company and put their linguistic skills and business knowledge into practice. We knew that financing a trip abroad would be an issue and would prevent some of our pupils from taking part and so funding opportunities were explored. The Leonardo da Vinci programme is part of the European Commission’s Lifelong Learning Programme which aims to build a skilled workforce across Europe. It offers funding for work placements abroad but traditionally has only been used for students aged 16 and over. The main reason for this is that pupils need to be studying for a vocational course to be eligible for the funding. As the NVQ matched this criteria, Yewlands became the first school in the country to use Leonardo funding for Year 10s.
The value of using the Work Placement Toolkit
The Work Placement Toolkit (WPT) was launched by CILT a couple of months after the work experience programme had been planned. As a trip of this exact nature has not been carried out in the UK before, we were starting from scratch and the Toolkit was a welcome guide as it provided us with a comprehensive framework for the trip. It served to reassure us that we had covered all the issues necessary with regard to the planning and management of the trip. Not only did it help us to structure the format of the work experience and brief our business mentors but it also helped us to plan the preparation of our students prior to departure.
The Toolkit also contains plenty of hard facts and evidence to advocate the usefulness of languages within the workplace and the value of spending time in an overseas company. This information was presented to students and parents at an information evening and in subsequent lessons.
In line with the WPT’s recommendations, our pupils were prepared culturally as well as linguistically and we ensured they found out as much information as possible about their work placement, using the web or other information sources such as company or product literature.
German companies, like most other European companies, are not used to the idea of work placements for young pupils. It was therefore important not only to convince them in the initial stages that this pilot project could be successful but also to give them a clear brief of the pupils in question, their ability and their linguistic competence. The WPT served as a useful framework for our Coordinator in Germany. Having come from an educational background and knowing little about business, it gave her the confidence and insight to approach the companies in the first instance, brief them on our requirements, select appropriate mentors and draft up the contracts.
In addition to building in a number of NVQ assessments during the trip, the Language Learning Framework section helped us to plan the first week of activities designed to build confidence, settle the pupils and also pad out the time spent in the work placement so the pupils had enough to keep them busy. The framework was also useful in the design of the work booklets for each pupil as well as each individual work placement and this served as a guide for both the pupils and the business mentors. We also built in useful phrases and relevant vocabulary and questions for each company.
Results/effects
The work experience trip to Germany was a great success for our pupils. There were moments of homesickness and anxiety but the pupils and parents were all prepared for this, and knew it was the ‘character building’ part of the experience.
All the pupils were extremely enthusiastic at the end of the trip, their confidence levels and self-esteem had soared, their linguistic competence and cultural and business awareness had risen dramatically and they were all keen to repeat the experience.
The pupils passed a number of NVQ assessments linked in with the trip and also gained a Europass accreditation which provides evidence of the time spent abroad in a placement. It also records the nature of activities undertaken. In line with the WPT recommendations, the pupils had to fill in a self evaluation form which helped with Leonardo funding as it helped them to reflect on the trip and acknowledge their achievements.
Issues/tips
For schools wishing to plan a work experience trip abroad, the WPT is an ideal guide as it will help teachers to plan effectively, avoid potential pitfalls and ensure the pupils get the maximum out of the experience. There are separate sections aimed at students, language teachers, work placement coordinators and company mentors. This is really useful for mapping out clear aims and objectives and planning the role and responsibility of everyone involved in the trip.
It is also important to establish the right links abroad and ensure pupils are well supported and looked after, especially for those who are under 16.
Future developments
Yewlands has received funding for a further work experience trip to Germany in 2009 and also for a new trip to Spain. The WPT will serve once again as a framework for setting up the programme with our new Spanish Coordinator and for organising the work placements. Next year, we will follow its suggestion to use the adult version of the European Languages Portfolio as an extra record of evidence and plan even fuller itineraries for the trips based on its suggestions.
Author: Juliet Park, Yewlands School Technology College
SignpostingRead Yewlands' other case study: NVQ Business German at Yewlands – an alternative pathway for Year 9 If any schools are interested in running an NVQ MFL course and/or organising a work experience trip with funding and would like further information, please contact Juliet Park at: Juliet.park@ntlworld.com |
