How many weary adults can say that going out to work produces a rush of excitement? But for many pupils preparing for GCSEs, the thought of going to work proves to be a great motivator.
"Many pupils don't know what they want to do once they've left school," says Sue Carter, life-skills coordinator at Bishop's Hatfield Girls' school in Hertfordshire. "Work experience is a huge motivator. Most say that it has made them think again about career routes and this means that they place more value on the need to gain qualifications."
Often a two-week stint in a beauty salon or high-street fashion store turns out not to offer the prospect of a glamorous occupation after all. "Work experience has helped me to get a taste of what the working world is like, and helped me to understand that it's not as easy to do what you want," says Charlotte Cook, a pupil at Bishop's Hatfield.
"We learned what being interviewed by someone would be like and how to work with others to cooperate in the workplace," says Zoe Elliott, another pupil at Bishop's Hatfield. "It also helped me to gain confidence and to use my skills to the best of my ability."
Work experience for year 10 pupils has been a common fixture on school timetables for many years. But it's this kind of exposure to the world of work that the government is building on in its implementation of the "personal development curriculum". After the establishment of citizenship, the final block in the strategy is work-related learning, which became a statutory requirement at key stage 4 this September. Schools must provide opportunities for students to learn about work and enterprise, and develop skills for employability through work-related contexts.
According to the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, schools should provide students with direct experience of the world of work through a variety of activities. This could include spending time studying at a partner further education college as well as gaining experience in the workplace.
"This is an opportunity to improve the motivation and discipline of students who do not normally enjoy academic study. Developing stronger relationships between schools and local businesses will give pupils a greater experience and understanding of both working and adult life," says a spokesperson for the QCA.
Skills such as working in teams, decision-making and evaluation, which the personal development curriculum encourages, are likely to be those given heavy emphasis by Mike Tomlinson's working group on 14-19 reform, when it reports to the government next week.
"Too many young people leave learning or fail to progress, too many are left unchallenged and constrained by the curriculum they are offered, and young people and their teachers are burdened by inflexible assessment," Tomlinson has said.
For most schools, the requirement to give every pupil the opportunity for work-related learning means merely building on the kind of work they have been doing for years. But this work has to be audited according to QCA guidelines. What's important to teachers such as Sue Carter is how work-related learning is managed, so that it forms a coherent experience for all pupils before, during and beyond key stage 4.
"Our specialist life-skills programme is about guaranteeing entitlement to learning about work to all students. If it was left to individual teachers to deliver, then the experience of the pupil would depend on the type of subjects being taken," says Carter.
There is a view that work-related learning is more suitable for less able pupils, but, says Margaret Jakes, head of careers at Bottisham village college near Cambridge, the personal development curriculum has changed this attitude.
"Pupils now need to see the relevance of school to work," she says. "At the end of the day, the only reason we send our children to school is that we want them to turn out to be good citizens and to get a job."
Work-related learning is not taught as a separate programme at Bottisham. Instead, subject teachers are encouraged to see how what they already teach relates to employment. According to Jakes, this is possible in all subjects, and may even be a solution to the problem of a decline in university admissions in some subjects.
"The only way to produce more scientists is to show through GCSE lessons the kind of job opportunities for scientists," says Jakes.
For Helen Elliott, deputy headteacher at Heathfield community school in Taunton, involving the school's business partners in work-related learning is the key. "The trick is to make our partners feel valued," she says. "The school has to adopt a business-like approach, for example having breakfast meetings with local business representatives, and on some occasions involving pupils as well."
Elliott admits that, in the past, vocational education was for the disaffected, but now in her arts specialist school, all pupils come face-to-face with the world of work as part of their lifelong skills portfolio.
"Children are only at school from five to 16, but for a large proportion of their life they will be employees," says Elliott. "We need to give more than just cognitive learning - we need to give them life skills so that they can articulate ideas and be confident."
This view is echoed by David Eaton, the headteacher of Wensleydale school in North Yorkshire: "Giving pupils choice is what is important. It's hard to predict the employment needs of the future, so we need to provide them with as many skills as possible so that they can be flexible to face career changes."
Eaton sees the value of trying to achieve a balance between the academic and vocational routes. All students at key stage 4 in his school have the choice to opt for two work-related experiences. It's the availability of this choice - even at the expense of take-up in foreign languages - that he feels acts as an important motivator for both pupils and staff.
"It's symptomatic of education in this country that people get divided into academic and vocational learners, with the latter being undervalued. Teaching staff have traditionally come from academic backgrounds, so the more we attract staff from industry and the more business partnerships we develop, the better."
