Vale of White Horse District Council
Abbey House, Abbey Close,
Abingdon, OX14 3JE
Email: comments@whitehorsedc.gov.uk
Telephone: 01235 520202

Vale of White Horse District Council

My account of work experience at the Council by Matthew Hutchinson

My name is Matthew Hutchinson; I am a year 10 student at St Birinus Language and Technology College who participated in a two week work experience placement within the Vale of the White Horse District Council.

Ewan Sutherland (left) and Matthew Hutchinson (right) with Chief Executive Terry Stock

I would recommend this placement to any other student in my position. Being in the Council gives you a very revealing insight into what the Council does in your local community. You discover that they do a lot more than just collect the bins.

Throughout my two week placement I have been in many a meeting, and met most members in most sections of the council. I’ve been through a variation of things from College Board meetings to supervising litter picking during an enviro-day at Fitzharrys  School.  The great part about this placement is, you never do the same thing twice and the program is varied every day. For instance a few days ago I even visited the houses of parliament with the youth forum, which I thoroughly enjoyed. During the trip we enjoyed the tour, lunch in the café and we also got to watch a debate in the House of Commons.

You will also be endlessly meeting people, all of whom are very welcoming and accommodating to your presence and will answer any questions you may have about their jobs or just the Council in general.

One of the other things you may participate in is meetings. I myself observed meetings of the portfolio holders of the council and a college board. These meetings may seem to go on forever but are actually very informative and interesting if you care to listen. One issue however is that you may have to leave the meetings when the wander onto more sensitive topics that should not be in any way revealed to the public. However I wouldn’t say this creates a need to worry as the sensitive topics take barely any time at all and by the time they are done you will have probably moved on to something else anyway.

Other activities include sports coaching, where you will go and aid the sports development team in their quest to educate younger children in the the area of sport and also typing up reports such as this one when your week is nearly up.

I myself would recommend this experience and give it 10/10 for a work experience placement. However if you don’t believe me, I urge you to find out for yourself.