A teacher’s report
Large parts of the school half empty during official school time … mentors in exceptionally good humour … what’s going on? Quite simple: it’s February and Salem is in the throes of the longest and most extensive project undertaken by Middle School pupils: the work experience programme. For three weeks, the pupils of Year 10, including pre-IB pupils, are scattered to the four winds to gain experience of the world of work and get to grips with real situations with all the attendant highs and lows and new challenges.
This programme has been running for 15 years now. To begin with, it was a real 'Salem speciality’, but now nearly every type of school in the region has its own work experience programme, though few are as long as three weeks. We were keen not to make it any shorter, however, as there is otherwise a risk that our pupils will be no more than passive observers. The idea is for them to actually make themselves useful after a suitable induction period, providing the company where possible with an additional asset as a ‘temporary worker’.
Our vision is often confirmed: on my visits I see our pupils working proactively in teams, performing tasks independently and even standing in for sick colleagues on occasion.
The 85 pupils generally find interesting placements which they then describe and analyse in an extensive final essay: kindergartens, automotive engineering firms, veterinary practices, architects’ offices, research laboratories, university computing centres, the British House of Commons, a brewery, hotels, media companies, the Chamber of Industry and Commerce, a sailing school on Majorca, the Berlin Zoological Gardens, the St John’s Ambulance brigade, the model railway manufacturer Märklin, an import/export firm in South Africa ... Without counting, I can safely assume a satisfaction rate of 90 %. On their return, we notice a change in many of the pupils, both inside and outside the classroom: they are more grown-up, maturer, more understanding. Some are also very glad to have got this stressful period behind them and return to the Salem routine, however much they may have enjoyed it. As Nicholas Rausch writes in his report: “Before the placement, I thought life at boarding school was demanding, but I soon found the world of work even more so.”
Peter Heider,
Work experience coordinator
... and from a pupil’s perspective
After deliberating for ages over where to do my work experience, I decided on the Veterinary Clinic for Small Animals in Ravensburg. Although I was really looking forward to it, I did have some doubts in my mind:
Would it perhaps be less exciting than I was expecting? Would I really learn anything from my work there? Would I actually be able to do anything myself?
But all my doubts soon disappeared during the first days of my placement: once I’d got to know the place and the team of vets and assistants, they soon showed me some jobs I could do myself, and explained how to carry out particular tasks properly. I was allowed to sit in on operations – that was the most interesting part of the placement for me, being in the laboratory and seeing all the work that goes on there.
Over time, I got to do more complex tasks: I helped with operations, attended surgery consultations and bandaged or injected the patients, gradually becoming more part of the team than just a trainee.
My time at the clinic went all too quickly, and it wasn’t long before I had to take leave of my new “colleagues”, which was really quite sad.
But I learnt a lot from my work experience. Not just how to tend a sick animal or the exact procedure of operations: I also learnt a lot of things that will be useful to me in later life, even if I don’t decide to become a vet.
I learnt how important it is to have confidence in yourself at work and to think your way through things instead of immediately doubting yourself. Like the time I didn’t know what to feed an iguana for example, or managed to mislay the clinic’s entire stock of vaccines. But however tricky the situation, I always managed to find a way out of it somehow.
I will definitely miss my work at the clinic a lot, as I really had a good time, but I think I’m also lucky to have a couple more years of school ahead of me first, because however much I enjoyed the work, it was often very stressful with little leisure time.
Elisabeth Pohle (Class 10c) on her placement at the Ravensburg Veterinary Clinic for Domestic and Small Animals.
