A higher proportion of colleges offer work-related activities - such as work experience placements and visits to workplaces - to students with special educational needs or disabilities (SEND) than schools, a new study into work experience reveals.
According to the government-commissioned report, Work Experience and Related Activities in Schools and Colleges, four-fifths (82 per cent) of work experience coordinators in colleges reported that their college offered work-related activities to students with SEND, compared with 58 per cent of schools with sixth forms, and 66 per cent of schools without sixth forms.
Meanwhile, 56 per cent of colleges offered students with SEND “supported internships” - programmes designed to help young SEND learners gain the skills they need to enter employment - compared with just 21 per cent of schools with and without a sixth form.
In spite of schools’ shortcomings in these areas, the report, published by NatCen Social Research and SQW, states that “satisfaction with work-related activities and work-experience placements was high among schools, colleges, employers and students”.
Schools report better links with external organisations
The study also reveals that schools more commonly use external organisations that can provide work experience than colleges.
More than four-fifths (81 per cent) of schools without a sixth form and 80 per cent of schools with a sixth form worked with an external organisation to provide work-experience opportunities, compared with just 46 per cent of colleges.
The report shows that significantly more schools (45 per cent of those without a sixth form, and 51 per cent with a sixth form) worked with education business partnerships (EPB) - organisations which build links between education institutions and employers - than colleges, of which only a quarter (26 per cent) worked with an EPB.
Meanwhile, just over two-fifths of colleges (42 per cent) reported that effective relationships with external organisations helped build links with employers, compared with 53 per cent of schools without sixth forms and 63 per cent of schools with sixth forms.
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