BHA Work Experience BHA Work Experience Toolkit | Page 3

WORK EXPERIENCE: THE MYTHS
There are some common myths about work experience. See if you recognise any of these!
Myth: Having kids on work experience
makes my insurance premium go up.
Myth-buster: learners on 2 week
blocks of work experience are covered
under employer’s liability insurance
and public liability insurance like other
employees provided your insurer is a
member of the Association of British
Insurers. It is advisable that insurers
are informed when a learner will
be on the premises and the dates.
Check with your insurer in respect of
placements of longer than two weeks.
Myth: There is too much admin and
red tape
Most of the admin and ‘red tape’ is the
same as you would normally have for
any young person in your workforce. In
the case of a 2 week work experience
placement, before the learner starts
you will normally be asked to sign a
consent form. This form is usually
brought to the employer by the student
and is provided by the school and
signed by the parent. The school will
also appoint an organisation to come
and have a look at the workplace to
assess for suitability. They can help
with any health and safety and other
concerns you may have.
Myth: We don’t have enough man time
to look after someone who doesn’t
know what they are doing.
It is hard to find time when everyone
is busy with their day jobs, but
work experience is an investment
in the future. It will be easier to
accommodate students if you organise
and prepare using this toolkit and
the time spent in that investment will
save time later on. The pre-prepared
activities in the work book will give
them something to do at times that
the rest of the staff are busy with their
own work.
Myth: I’m concerned about health
and safety and young people not
understanding the environment that
they are coming into.
It is quite right that we need to be
responsible about health and safety
issues. Common sense and risk
assessment should always be your
guide and simplified health and
safety guidance makes it clear that
if organisations already employ
young people, risk assessments
won’t need to be repeated for work
experience students. Where it is a
2 week 14-16 year old placement, a
school organisation will check that the
working environment is suitable.
Myth: I’ll have to do DBS/CRB checks
on all my staff.
Employers do not need to carry out
an enhanced Disclosure and Barring
Services (formerly CRB) check on
members of staff supervising young
people aged 16-17. If an education
provider requests such a check for
this group, employers would be entitled
to refuse.
I don’t have any suitable
accommodation for young people
and I can’t be responsible for them
when they are not at work – not a
myth at all!
Work experience is also important because, put simply, it works.
careersinracing wants to enable studs and stables to offer work experience confidently to racing’s staff of tomorrow, so
we have put together this tool kit to help you develop a horseracing-based work experience placement for students. It is
made up of two parts:
• employers information
• students information.
The toolkits include information about the placement, some suggestions as to activities that might be offered and a work
book that you may wish to use with the students to save doing one yourself.
Many stables and studs already provide excellent work experience programs and careersinracing hope that this toolkit
will encourage others to get involved.
HORSERACING WORK EXPERIENCE TOOLKIT FOR EMPLOYERS
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