On Thursday 16 June, Year 10 students, their families and employers attended the annual Work Experience Awards to celebrate the students’ excellent performance in a real work environment. Headteacher, Mrs Kilbey emphasised the importance of the two weeks Work Experience to our students and our continued commitment to it.  Not only does it help the students’ motivation and focus leading up to GCSEs but it helps with decisions about their future.  The two weeks enable them to build self-confidence and independence as well as gain important skills that will help them in their future careers.

This year 289 students took part, working with over 265 employers, mainly in Peterborough and the surrounding areas.  Employers came from a wide variety of occupational areas including Retail, Charity, Sports & Leisure, Business Administration, Health and Beauty, Childcare & Education, Animal Welfare and Engineering.

With over 150 of these students nominated by their employers for an award, it was an unenviable task to narrow down the shortlist to just 40.  All the nominated students received house points and the 40 shortlisted also received a pen and certificate from Headteacher, Mrs Kilbey at the event.  Please see the attached list of winners along with some of the comments made by the employers in their nominations.

Mrs Kilbey ended the presentations by saying “We are one of the few schools that have continued with Work Experience, and to maintain the two weeks, because we feel it is incredibly important for our students. It needs a huge amount of organisation and we would like to thank Mrs Lawrence, Mrs Hinds and Miss McCracken for all their hard work.  We would also like to thank local organisations for their continued support.”  She also thanked parents, carers and employers for attending saying “It is especially important to hear the wonderful things employers say and we are very proud of our students.”

On talking to some of the employers who attended the Awards, they had some lovely things to say about our students.

Lisa Foulkes-Arnold, Volunteer Co-ordinator at Peterborough Cathedral said “Arturs (Gubeiko) was brilliant and has continued to volunteer with us; working in Education, greeting our visitors from around the world and helping with the organisation of the Heritage Festival. He is a delightful young man, liked by all he worked with. We would never hesitate to have Jack Hunt students.”

Liz Penfold, Work Experience Co-ordinator and Jackie Hodges who works on the shopfloor and supports Liz at John Lewis, said “We have a very good working relationship with Mrs Hinds and both students were very good, engaged and motivated.  Francine (Kelly) showed such maturity and could talk to all our customers, her communication skills were excellent.  The applications showed such maturity and the language is quite sophisticated for young students.”

Mel Bennett, Training and Capability Manager at Tesco’s at Hampton said “We have worked with the school for a number of years, it is a very positive experience and we have had some great work experience students.  Charlie (Bamford) was particularly fantastic, a great asset and a real credit to the school.”

Heather Wiltshire and Jayne Giles from Yaxley Infant Schoo said of Chloe Peacock “It was like having a qualified TA on the team, she was lovely and brilliant with the children, very proactive, and nothing was a problem. We really missed her when she went – we would really like to employ her as there wasn’t anything she couldn’t do."

Visit the gallery to see a selection of photos from the evening