This next blog has been written by Mrs Newell and HSS students.
Our Year 12 students recently completed a week’s work experience. For most, this was a week in one workplace, although some students used the week creatively to experience more than one context and others completed virtual work experience.
Unifrog, our careers platform, partnered with a range of national companies to offer online, project-based experiences of work. Students who opted for this selected the programmes that most interested them, totalling five days of virtual encounters.
Approximately 20% of the year group opted for virtual experience (and of course online working from home is a genuine experience of many fields post-Covid), with 80% undertaking in-person work experience.
In-person placements spanned architecture firms, film companies, health care support, political campaign teams, education settings and a range of departments at Sheffield City Council.
As part of the process, employers provide feedback to school, evaluating students’ engagement during their work experience. We are delighted that all students received ‘excellent’ or ‘good’ reviews and we have enjoyed reading the many positive comments from employers.
In this blog, two students reflect on their work experience.
Cam – in-person work experience at SP Fields Contractors
I completed a week of work experience at SP Fields Contactors Ltd from the 3rd to the 7th of February 2025. I took part in and completed a range of different activities and learnt a countless amount of valuable workplace skills throughout my time on work experience. These included: Visiting various factories and construction sites where I learnt about the processes that took place at that site and why they happened, completed spread sheets and learnt other valuable computer and office skills I will take with me into the world of work, experienced different roles within the company and became familiar with what I am good at and not so good at, and interacted with a team where I learnt how to successfully work as a group member whilst also taking initiative independently and successfully.
Construction, despite enjoying my work experience, is not a field of work I necessarily aspire to have a career in when I leave school, However, the skills I learnt whilst at work are so valuable and you don’t just learn about that field of work, you learn a lot about yourself and it definitely has given me more direction into things that I do want to pursue in higher education and as a career. It is due to this that I would definitely recommend a week of work experience to anyone and I want to thank school for allowing me to take this opportunity.
Tilly – virtual work experience
I decided to undertake the virtual work experience hosted by Unifrog during the work experience week allocated to us in early February. I am uncertain about my future career path and discovered that the range of courses on Unifrog matched some of my thoughts. Throughout the week, I took part in the virtual work experience offered by the BBC, Tesco, Get into Teaching, and The London School of Architecture. Every day I was able to discover a new career through varied tasks and identified my strengths in each.
In summary, I have concluded that my favourite element was the planning phase of different activities: during the Tesco work experience, we needed to organize a meal deal/ potential advertisement/ presentation for our meal; at The London School of Architecture work experience, we had to design a building for our selected animal species; and in the Get into Teaching program, we were assigned to prepare teaching resources/ an assembly/ a school outing.
I discovered the variety of available choices useful and have defined what I wish to pursue in the future, related to planning. If I hadn’t gained a variety of work experience, I worry I might have chosen a job that wouldn’t have fully engaged my interest, forcing me to endure it all week.