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Many young people find themselves at a disadvantage when it comes to looking for a job because there are limited career options available in their local area. And while the pandemic generally reduced the opportunities for many young people living in remote, rural areas or deprived urban areas, teenager Anna was one of the lucky ones for whom everything fell into place, securing herself an apprenticeship in Scotland.
Anna attended a High School in the Highlands in the far north of Scotland. Like most of her peers, she spent the lead up to her National and Higher exams in and out of lockdown with no option to participate in traditional in-person work experience or meet with local employers.
Fortunately for Anna, Dounreay – Scotland’s largest decommissioning project and the single largest employer in her area – continued recruiting throughout the pandemic. And, by partnering with Speakers for Schools in the spring of 2021, they were able to offer 25 students from the Highlands the opportunity to take part in a four-day online placement to learn more about careers at Dounreay.
Thanks to a bit of luck and Anna’s own hard work and initiative, she was successful in securing not only a work experience placement but also an apprenticeship with Dounreay.
Speaking about her experiences, she said:
“I was lucky enough to find out that I had been successful in getting the apprenticeship just as the virtual sessions began. I feel that applying for the work experience showed the panel that I was keen to learn more about Dounreay and contributed to my success in getting an apprenticeship.”
Over the course of her online placement, Anna took part in a series of live, interactive sessions that developed her confidence and helped prepare her for life as an apprentice.
Through her work experience, she was able to find out more about the history of Dounreay, to meet professionals working in a variety of different roles, and improve her skills in communication, ICT and teamworking – skills that Anna is quick to point out have all helped her greatly while working remotely in her current role as a Business and Administration Apprentice.
Now five months into her apprenticeship at Dounreay, Anna has volunteered to be part of the team that will deliver this year’s virtual work experience placement to inspire other teenagers to follow her example.
It goes without saying that she is a great advocate for apprenticeships and her success story is a fantastic example of how, despite the challenges of the pandemic, employers like Dounreay are embracing virtual work experience to ensure that young people can benefit from opportunities either in their local area or anywhere in the UK.
My name is Naval and I work as an Account Director in Media and Advertising. If you had asked me ten years ago how my life would turn out, I would never have imagined that I would be where I am now. Today I want to share my story with you in the hope that it might inspire young people to open up about their mental health.
I had what many would consider a very troubled childhood. I was placed in care soon after I arrived in England at the age of nine. I hardly spoke a word of English at that time, so as you can imagine I struggled to adapt to a new language and a new culture as well as living in a completely unfamiliar setting away from everything and everyone I had ever known. I was taken into foster care as a victim of domestic abuse and during the eight years that I spent in care, I lived in 13 different foster homes, got excluded from my first school and spent 99% of my school life in detentions, isolation, and the odd temporary exclusion.
Foster care can be a really tough place, I experienced racism, segregation, and developed a lot of anger and frustration in my life. Over 10 years on and I still experience challenges with my mental health as an adult, but I have a much stronger grasp on it now than I did when I was younger and here are some things that helped me change my mindset and help my mental health improve.
It is healthy to open up to people you trust and have a good relationship with. I do believe the first person you have to learn to rely on is yourself, and if you can combine the help you get from others with the ability to also help yourself, you will be in a good place to go far in life.
Naval is the Account Director at SFS Media. SFS Media delivers innovative, digital communications that inspire and influence our verified youth audience with education, career and lifestyle opportunities.
If you would like support around some of the issues covered, we recommend visiting the Children’s Mental Health Week website.
Scaling up the number of work experience placements delivered virtually can meet the government’s objective of spreading opportunity more fairly, argues Speakers for Schools. The social mobility charity is calling on the government to include work experience in its “Levelling Up Agenda” and asks employers to step forward and commit to delivering more opportunities. Mandatory work experience for all students would support the first of twelve missions to increase productivity and employment levels while levelling the playing field in education. Hosting placements virtually would allow young people in all parts of the UK to access it.
The Covid-19 pandemic saw in-person work experience significantly reduce, necessitating a rapid migration to virtual opportunities. The move to online placements caused numbers to skyrocket. The charity offered 56,000 virtual placements alone in the academic year of 2020/21, much higher than ever possible when delivered in-person before the pandemic.
Meanwhile, a report published by the Careers Enterprise Company in December last year showed the total percentage of schools accessing any type of work experience fell from 57% to 39% during 2020/21.
Speakers for Schools is now calling on businesses and government to increase the roll-out of virtual work placements across the UK as a way of reaching a broader pool of young people with diverse social-economic backgrounds (SEBs). The charity has resources in place to engage with one million young people annually by 2023 but is calling for 1,500 businesses to step forward and get involved.
Traditionally, young people often rely on the networks of parents or family members to access work placement opportunities, and they are often concentrated in major cities. However, virtual placements remove geographical barriers, meaning young people in rural or disadvantaged parts of the UK can engage with leading employers based anywhere.
The top three regions of the UK which have seen the biggest uptick in work experience placements between 2019/20 and 2020/21 are the West of England, followed by the North West and East of England. However, Speakers for Schools wants to see young people from all regions in England have increased access to employers like Spotify, the Bank of England, British Airways and the NHS.
Jason Elsom, Chief Executive Officer at Speakers for Schools, says the ability to host work experience online has had a major impact on the futures of thousands of young people across the UK, widening access and diversifying early talent pools for employers. The charity argues that mandatory work experience should be part of the government’s Levelling-Up plans.
Jason comments: “The government’s commitment to improving literacy and numeracy, along with providing new youth volunteering opportunities, will play a vital part in the Levelling-Up agenda. We at Speakers for Schools fully endorse and commend this, reflecting our investment into delivering the National Teen Book Club programme and vInspired youth volunteering programmes and vAwards.
“Regional inequalities exist outside of education which prevents young people from securing top jobs. We know offering work experience has a game-changing impact on disadvantaged young people who should be at the forefront of the Levelling-Up agenda.”
“Virtual work experience has removed some of the barriers facing young people in rural or disadvantaged parts of the UK, scrapping unaffordable travel or accommodation costs, which often prevented many young people from experiencing a world beyond their immediate locality. Suddenly, you don’t need to live in London or the South East to engage with big employers, which has a significant impact on social mobility. On the flip side, it allows employers to ensure they’re engaging with young people from diverse socio-economic backgrounds, again hugely important if we are to truly Level-Up the country.”
Josh Evans, 18, from Darlington, recently undertook virtual work experience with British Airways alongside 100 other young people from across the UK. Studying tourism at Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College, he is keen to pursue a career in tourism, but his hopes were dampened by Covid-19 and its impact on the travel industry.
Josh commented: “Doing work experience online with British Airways was reassuring and eased my constant worry about the pandemic’s impact on my education and career prospects. It has definitely confirmed my aspirations to one day start a career in the tourism industry and I am now more hopeful about this one day becoming a reality.”
Andrew Law, Chair of Speakers for Schools, comments: “Speakers for Schools has invested heavily through the pandemic to help deliver work experience and inspiration for young people. They have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic, and we know it has widened the gap between the most and least privileged in society. Providing the broadest range of career experiences for young people is critical to levelling up the UK.”
Melissa Kose, Emerging Talent Manager at British Airways, comments: “Embracing virtual work experience has been a hugely valuable tool for reaching a new market of students and helped us to keep engaging with young people during the height of the pandemic, when various workplace restrictions were in place. As we emerge from the pandemic and some of our business functions adapt to a hybrid way of working, in addition to offering in-person work experience, virtual work experience will continue to play a part in our future careers programmes.”