education is compulsory

Payment

There is no minimum payment for young people. The employer will set the rate of pay and it is for the young person and his/her family to determine whether this is fair.

What about breaks and holidays?

A child may not be employed for more than four hours without at least one hour’s break. DCSF interprets this to mean that once a child has been working for more than four hours the child must have the hour’s break. It makes no difference if the child has already had shorter breaks within that four-hour period. A child under the school leaving age must have a two-week break from any employment in each year. ‘Year’ here is a calendar year, not a school year. This break must be taken during the school holidays.

Babysitting

Although this is not normally considered to be employment as it is usually conducted without any form of employment contract and is often unpaid, and the 2009 Guidance on the Employment of Children" recommends that parents should consider a range of factors before allowing their child to babysit:

1. A babysitter could be at risk of harm from the parents for whom they are babysitting.
2. There is no legal minimum age for babysitting, but if a parent chooses to leave their child with a babysitter who is under 16 the parent remains legally responsible for ensuring that their child comes to no harm – they cannot delegate their parental responsibility. If a child is harmed whilst with a babysitter, the police can prosecute the child’s parent for negligence. Parents can be prosecuted for ‘wilful neglect’ if they leave their child unsupervised "in a manner likely to cause unnecessary suffering or injury to health" (Section 1 of the Children and Young Person’s Act 1933).

Work Experience

The 2009 Guidance on the Employment of Children" says that some of the rules set out in the guidance do not apply where the child’s employment is work experience. The work experience must however be "arranged by the local authority or by the governing body of a school acting on behalf of the local authority" if these rules are to be relaxed. This relaxation of rules is contained in section 560 of the Education Act 1996. The work experience must be in the last two school years during which the child is of compulsory school age.

None of the restrictions relating to hours apply, but there are other rules, which normally apply to 16 and 17 year-olds rather than children under the school leaving age. Children on work experience should normally only work for no more than eight hours each day and 40 hours each week. In some cases this will be a legal requirement under the Working Time Regulations 1998. In other cases, although it may not be a legal requirement, DCSF would recommend that children on work experience should not work longer than these hours.
Children in Entertainment