Round the Clock

Programme Outline

Everyone wants to earn money – but at what cost to themselves?

In this 25-minute programme we meet a range of young people who try to balance school life with the demands of a job. They each have very different jobs, with contrasting levels of pay, job satisfaction and effects on their lifestyles.

• 15 year-old Carl who gets up at 4.00 am every day to do a milk round.
• 17 year-old Majid who is a care assistant at a nursing home at weekends.
• 16 year-old Ellen who works as a waitress at the weekends.
• 16 year-old Alison who works in a small supermarket for 16 hours a week.
• 16 year-old Rachel who is an editor at the press agency Children’s Express.

The programme follows them through their working hours as they tell us about their jobs, their pay, the hours they work and how the jobs fits in with school life.

The main issue the programme raises is the pressure that working part-time puts upon young people who are still at school and studying for important exams. Other issues that are worth exploring are:

• the benefits that part-time work brings to people still at school, apart from the pay;
• the level of pay for young part-time workers;
• the legal framework for part-time working between ages 13 and 16 (dealt with in detail in programme 2);
• exploitation in the workplace e.g. of young part-time workers compared with full-time adult workers;
• the opportunity for the viewer to compare and contrast their own lifestyle with those of the young people in the programme.