Just before the Easter holidays, we saw the success of our second ever Year 10 Work Experience Week.

The week aims to give students a first-hand encounter of the world of work, allowing them to demonstrate and develop their skills and learn more about the opportunities available to them in the future.

129 students went out on placements. For those of you who like a statistic - that’s an impressive 75% of the year group! We were supported by 98 wonderful employers and organisations, from primary schools to a dog rescue centre to a crematorium. We would like to extend our thanks to all involved, and also congratulate our students for representing Derby Cathedral School so well. We’ve had lots of great feedback from employers, students and parents alike.

The remaining 44 students stayed in school and completed a mixture of in-school work experience - such as helping the Site Staff, creating classroom display boards and helping in lessons - as well as careers-related tasks on Unifrog, such as CV writing. At the end of the week, students created a presentation all about ‘Me in the Future’, and delivered this to the rest of the group.

Overall, we are very impressed with the Aspiration and Tenacity our Year 10s demonstrated during Work Experience Week. We have no doubt that this experience has proved valuable and will prepare them for taking their next steps after year 11.

Well done!

 

Here’s what the students had to say….

“Work Experience helped me develop my communication skills with new people”

“I loved the Work Experience Journal to record what I had done and enjoyed every day, and filling in my self reflection at the end. I found it really helpful and reassuring to have comments from my supervisor too”

“I enjoyed the chance it gave us to be independent”

Here’s what the employers had to say…

“The students from Cathedral were an absolute credit to you. They were all so professional throughout their placement, worked excellently with the children and took the lead when reading 1:1 with them. All of my staff commented on how impressive they were; you could barely tell them apart from some of our Derby Uni students!” – Becket Primary School

“The students have shown great respect, demonstrated an incredibly mature attitude and been a pleasure to work with. They have fully immersed themselves in life at Alvaston Infant & Nursery School” – Alvaston Infant & Nursery School

“I can honestly say that it has been an absolute pleasure having the student with us this week. He has been punctual, polite, hardworking, willing and he has listened well to everything we have told him” – Engineering Consultancy Services Ltd

“The student was professional, always happy to help, would listen, take on board lots of information and worked well under her own initiative when asked to work on set tasks. A good, clear and polite communicator” – 10 Four Media