As part of their course, EKC Broadstairs College students take part in work placements, that serve as a valuable stepping stone towards their future career.
No matter the industry, opportunity or future goal, placements are a great way for learners to put their knowledge into practice, and for businesses to teach the skills they need.
Kent School of English, based in Broadstairs, have taken on several work placement students in previous years, and are an example of a local business that has thrived from this opportunity.
We caught up with their HR Manager, Helen Rodd, to hear more about how work placements have benefitted their business.
Firstly, how did you get involved with the College in offering work placements?
“Someone from the College got in touch and asked if we’d be willing to have a work experience student, to which we were happy to support.
“The T Level Business student we have this year, Salman, is not actually the first student who’s worked for us, and we took him on as a result of that first learner coming in and having a really positive experience.
“Salman’s actually been with us for slightly longer and is in his second academic year.”
How have you found it hosting work placement students?
“It’s nice to have someone else come in and join the team. So far, Salman has fitted in really well.
“He is very professional, and he gets on with everybody. We enjoy having him around.”
Why as a business is it good to offer work placements to students?
“One thing that offering a work placement does is that it allows the rest of the team to be more productive with their own tasks. Now that Salman’s trained up, he comes in and he does all the routine tasks that ordinarily we would do.
“As he takes those off our hands, that frees us up to do other things, which is great.”
Have work placements benefited the company?
“It’s been a really positive experience. By training students, we found ourselves looking again at some of the procedures that we have, with new perspectives.
“When we explain ideas to someone else, we always think that maybe there’s a better way of doing this, so we’ve reflected on this and how we can develop our onboarding procedures.”
How has it been watching Salman develop?
“It’s really nice to see him grow and that he now understands a lot more what we do and how we work.
“I would say that Salman’s grown a lot in his confidence, in the time he’s been here. When he started, he didn’t really understand what we did. But after several weeks, he put it all together and realised what we were doing here, and then he was able to contribute much more.
“One of the important things he has learnt is how to ask questions if he’s not sure about anything, instead of assuming.
“He’ll now ask questions about what he’s doing and check that he’s doing the right thing.”
How does it feel to kind of be part of his journey slash growth?
“I think it’s very important for students to do work experience and again it’s been great to watch Salman grow.
“Everything that you do in class can be quite theoretical, and I know from my experience that when you actually get into the workplace, it’s a bit different.
“I think it is nice for students to have that experience, to come and see what it’s really like in a real workplace, for better or worse, so I think it’s an important thing to do.”
Why would you recommend other businesses giving work placements to T Level students?
“I think business is one of those things that when you study it in a classroom, it’s not quite the same as when you’re out in the real world.
“T Levels understand this, and there is so much focus on the work placement to grow real skills which is great.
“To actually put into practice the things that you’ve been learning is really important to see how you can apply your knowledge to real situations. For us particularly as a business, it’s made us think about procedures and what skills we’d like for future employees, and it’s been so beneficial for these reasons.”
Thank you to Helen for speaking with us.
It’s great to hear how much local businesses benefit from offering our students work placements, and we can’t wait to see this work continue in the future.
If you run a business or company and are looking to see how our students can impact your growth, get in touch with us today.
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