TrinityLearning - Work Experience

“Church as work experience”

Each year, thousands of teenagers undertake the daunting task of finding a work experience placement. The task has never been easy, least of all for those lacking confidence and contacts, but it has become almost impossible in the current climate of cut-backs. Yet for many, work experience is a formative experience – the first taste of success for a less academic child, or a real sense of self-worth for those lacking confidence.

This year, Trinity invited two work experience students from Larkmead School to spend two weeks with them. Neither was from active church-going families, so finding out what church was really like, what words like “sermon” and “notices” meant, and what was and wasn’t acceptable, was quite a steep learning curve! They used their IT skills to prepare the weekly notice sheets, put up displays, helped set the church out for special services and worked with user groups young and old. They spoke to Evergreens about work experience, helped to cater for end-of-year parties and joined in the annual clean-up of Mother & Toddler equipment. They also helped us in the longer-term, putting together a bank of church photos to use through the year and preparing some resources to use with visiting primary schools. In between all this, we had many long theological discussions. Their questions started with the meaning of “Trinity” – from there, we moved onto discovering the links between Christianity and Islam, and finally, over lunch one day I was asked the meaning of the cross!

This was not an evangelical exercise, but the boys did leave with a much clearer understanding of church life and what it is all about. Contrary to all the stereotypes of teenagers and generation gaps, they gladly admitted that the highlight of their stay was the welcome given them by our Evergreens group. The feeling was mutual - our (ageing) congregation enjoyed the breath of fresh air that their presence brought, while finding jobs for them to do and providing supervision showed Trinity’s congregation at their best.

Our schools are desperately short of work experience placements. This is a real service that our churches can offer the community, that can also help us and the young people we welcome into our community. We recommend it to you.