Citizenship: Work Experience

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Citizenship Course work:

Work Experience at Solicitor’s office

Chapter 1: Planning

For my work experience I was given my work experience placement in a Solicitor’s office, the solicitor’s offices name being ‘Hackman & Co Solicitors’. This took place from the 15th of May 2006 to 26th of May 2006. I was not given a specific position there but my work evolved me helping doing filing, photocopying, making documents on the computer and overall doing odd jobs around the offices of ‘Hackman & Co Solicitors’. Before I had gone on to work experience I had to arrange an interview with the company. This required me to arrange an interview with the employer. My interview took place a week before the week we started the work experience. As this was the first time I had ever started work experience it gave me responsibility as I was becoming a good citizen, to become a good citizen there are 4 necessities which citizenship involves:

  1. Awareness of the structures that influence your life – like politics, society and the economy.
  2. Social and moral responsibility – knowing your civic rights and duties and having a respect for diversity in society.
  3. Political literacy – having a respect for democracy and understanding the importance of being active in the democratic process.
  4. Community involvement – active participation in your school, neighbourhood and beyond.    

I am trying to base my aims on the above points and declare myself as acting as a citizen within a community.

My other aims which I would also like to base my coursework on are:

  • To find out what interests me in the working world and also to gain experience for future reference.

  • What a life of Solicitor is and assess their behavior of my employer.

  • Learn and gain experience of the Health and safety policies and rights and responsibilities within the workplace.

  • Gaining the necessities of being a good citizen and taking on responsibilities which are needed in the future.

These aims are all officially part of being a good citizen by helping the youth and people who have not had work experience to understand what the working life is.

Overall I am trying to combine my personal experience in the workplace to contribute the way the curriculum develops this helps advance in my coursework which gives the coursework more material to use and it becoming an official citizenship coursework. So I would like to show my accounts and activities of my work experience by personally introducing it to a wider range of students who have not experienced work.  

Going to work and going to school are two completely different things however at times can be similar. By going on to work experience I gained an insight of the working world and also gained independence for the first time also introducing self confidence. I also wanted to see what interests me and what my likes and dislikes are.  This would help me choose the right career in the future and also help me have an insight of what I am capable of.

This is a vital point of work experience as build independence, self-esteem and confidence as they are all parts of becoming a citizen in your own right, which I believe important for anyone new to the working world.

 At school you are under constant supervision (teachers) and sometimes at school you may not have the will or enthusiasm you do then you have at work experience according to my experience. However there are similarities to work experience and school firstly attending on time to the work place is similar to attending to school on time or suffer the consequences, discipline and determination is also needed in the work place similar to school and lastly enjoying work and enjoying school are similar as if you enjoy work and learning you can achieve greatly.

So ideally it is more similar to being school and inevitably you may have head-start.

The health and safety policy is and should be considered and always told by all employers. This would ensure the safety of all workers and keep them out of danger. Being safe without worrying is something which everyone should be able to do, a part of the Health and safety policy all workers should safe and it is also the employee’s legal rights. (Health and Safety Act of Work 1974). At my workplace there were

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Many Health and safety Precautions in place the most relevant out of the list has to be about taking regular breaks for the computer as computer’s are today’s technology and are used a lot around workplaces. There was a computer in each office so regular

Breaks form workers were constant. There were many other health and safety policies

Which were similar to the health and safety policies at school.

The health and safety policy was politically made to ensure the ‘health and safety’ of workers in the workplace this is ideally linking to the above aims of how ...

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