Written by Professor Margaret Low, Director of Outreach and Widening Participation at WMG; and Dr Phil Jemmett, Widening Participation Co-ordinator at WMG

Work experience is an important means by which school students can explore potential careers and get an insight into working life. An ideal work experience placement should link to personal interests and help to inform future decisions about their career. Career guidance in schools is measured by the Gatsby Benchmarks. Benchmark 6 states:[1]

"Every pupil should have first hand experiences of the workplace through work visits, work shadowing and/or work experience to help their exploration of career opportunities, and expand their networks.

“By the age of 16, every pupil should have had at least one experience of a workplace, additional to any part-time jobs they may have."

Good Career Guidance report, Gatsby Foundation (2013)

There is real value to young people experiencing the world of work. It can build confidence and inform future decisions. In year 10 there are still decisions to be made about subject choices, which is why work experience is so valuable. The challenge, for us, was how we could support a significant number, while ensuring a quality and positive experience for both our staff and the students.

It can be a challenge to find work experience as there are more students than work placements. Families are often asked to use their networks to obtain placements for their children. This places some students at a disadvantage compared with their peers who have access to familial networks in highly skilled industries. This will be a common issue across all sectors, not just engineering.

A new and inclusive approach to work experience

With the support of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult (HVMC) ‘Inspiring Young Engineers’ project, the WMG Outreach team developed a model for work experience with social mobility and inclusion at its core. We aim to inspire the next generation of young engineers by sharing both WMG and HVMC research. Through this, we aim to close the skills gap for STEM industries, breaking down barriers to progression for aspiring engineers. It is crucial that opportunities are available and accessible to young people from all backgrounds, and therefore this project was developed in collaboration with the University of Warwick’s Widening Participation team.

A week of placements ran in July 2023, and a further week scheduled for July 2024.

Work experience – the current state of play

Post Covid it has become even harder for workplaces to provide in person placements because of the move to hybrid working and different work patterns. Some industries are still working to overcome the challenges of Covid, and it requires a real investment of time to ensure a quality experience. Understanding the issues around safeguarding, and the need for staff training adds additional pressures.

There is an increase in companies who work with schools to find placements for their students, but it’s unclear whether this increases the number of placements, or just quickly fills existing slots.

Why is this an issue?

The STEM workforce does not reflect our society in terms of the demographics of employees and the nation. The traditional way that work experience placements are organised is through employees (who are already in industries) arranging placements for friends and families, which only serves to reinforce the gaps in representation.

This is an issue for two reasons: STEM industries require more workers and for innovation to contribute to a positive global future the workforce must understand the diversity of the world, and therefore be diverse itself.

“Achieving diversity within engineering is a present and crucial issue and is a clear theme … Improving the diversity of the engineering workforce is also recognised as one way of tackling the skills gaps…”

Engineers 2030, Royal Academy of Engineering (2024)

How can we redesign work experience?

Instead of taking students into individual placements – placing a large commitment on staff to supervise a student one-to-one for an entire week – our model brings the students together as a cohort of 30. The cohort is broken down into six groups of five with each working on a single project throughout the week - with support from engineers who act as mentors.

At the end of the week, all six groups showcase their projects to their families, teachers, and University staff.

The University’s Widening Participation team is ideally placed to recruit students to the project because they have built lasting relationships with key local schools. Through these relationships they are able to target students who meet predefined criteria. We hope that, through targeting, we are offering placements in highly skilled technical workplaces to students who might otherwise not have had the opportunity.

What were the impacts of working in this way?

Key to this model is that each group of staff involved is working in their own area of expertise. The Widening Participation team focus on student recruitment and wellbeing, the Outreach team concentrate on content design and creating a productive and positive environment, and the engineers support the students to create products that are linked to active WMG and HVMC research.

Bringing the students together - as a cohort - shares the workload between all staff and ensures we are able to support 30 placements at the same time. This simply would not have been possible if staff were required to provide one-to-one supervision for the entire week.

Our staff left the 2023 event feeling inspired:

"Seeing the improvements in confidence and understanding of engineering … was extremely motivating.

I’m sure that the skills, knowledge and experiences gained by these pupils will be carried forward with them in the future."

Umair Paracha, Graduate Trainee Engineer

Staff also felt that the event provided an authentic experience of what being an engineer is like:

“…the students were able to work on different projects and in different teams which gives them a taste of what an engineering career would actually be like, as I have to collaborate with different people and teams myself.”

Hunaynah Abdulgafar, Graduate Trainee Engineer

What’s next?

We hope that others are able to learn from, and replicate elements of our model so that, as an industry, we can support as many young people as possible.

Key elements that made this project successful were:

· Staff were encouraged and supported to take part by the department who saw the value in this model as providing an opportunity for staff to practice project management and team building.

· Staff acted as technical mentors throughout the week, supporting projects that are linked to active research, Students can see, directly, how this work relates to careers, and staff are invested in the projects too.

· Recruitment was targeted at students who might not have had the opportunity otherwise. While other organisations might not have their own widening participation team, they can always reach out to local schools in areas of deprivation or schools with a higher-than-average proportion of students receiving free school meals. This data is publicly available through the Government website.

· The final showcase event was well attended by staff from across the University, and the invitation was extended to families and parents. It made for a wonderful and positive end to the placement, with students able to show how much they had developed throughout the week.

If you would like to know more about the work experience model we’ve developed, do get in touch with us at wmgoutreach@warwick.ac.uk