Each year Amphibian and Reptile Conservation accommodates a small number of school work placements.

The positions are usually well sought after and students may be required to undertake an interview in person or over the phone to establish their enthusiasm and suitability for the placement. During their time with the Trust students get to work with various members of staff both inside and outside of the office and get to experience a wide range of activities, including site maintenance, reptile survey, office admin and computer based tasks.

We have a lot of applicants each year but unfortunately we aren’t able to accommodate everyone. If you are interested in a future placement please fill in the form below. We start getting requests as early as December for summer placements so the earlier you contact us the more likely you are to secure a place. The vast majority contact us through their schools so where possible please let your school know that you are interested as early as you can.

**Please note our Dorset Field Team are now fully booked for the year 2023**

School Placement Form

If you would like to speak to a member of staff about applying please contact Rick, Owain or Shane on 01202 391319 or use the enquiry contact form

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Below is a short video created by two of our student work experience placements. This placement was supervised by our Dorset Field Officer, James, and our Snakes in the Heather Education Officer, Owain, in 2022. Snakes in the Heather is funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. 

Student testimonials

Josh Parr – Wales

"This March, I needed to find a work experience placement, for most people this would have been a straightforward task. However, I was interested in herpetology. Being from Wales it was initially a laborious and lugubrious task to find such a placement, but soon I found ARC. When I contacted them they were friendly, supportive and we were soon able to come to an agreement for a placement.

I stayed with ARC for one week from the 9th to the 14th of July . During this time we completed a number of tasks ranging from, protecting natterjack toad tadpoles from swarms of shelducks to surveying heathland for the six native species of reptile. As well as allowing me to participate in these surveys ARC allowed me to handle the animals, taught me about them and the habitat they came from. The habitat was a very important part of the experience as I was shown how it was managed to provide optimum conditions for the reptiles and amphibians without compromising any other species ideal conditions. This is good conservation. This work experience has shown me the two sides of conservation, the hands on surveying and monitoring as well as the more formal office management of the operation. This gave you a true insight into conservation and its workings. By the end of the week I had learnt about and seen most of the reptiles and amphibians in Britain, this includes the non-indigenous species such as green lizards and wall lizards that they were monitoring.

It was a truly remarkable work experience and I would recommend it to anybody. My only problem was that I could not have stayed longer. Thank you ARC!"

Dom Wright – Dorset

"During my two week placement I had a variety of experiences and learnt a range of skills on quite different tasks. During the first week I saw grass-snakes and sand lizards while out with the field team. When with the field team we did things such as pond maintenance, putting up posts, and also we did tree surgery/felling. I felt very relaxed and comfortable at ARC and doing these things made me realise how important but fun it can be to get involved in conservation work. Everybody here at ARC has been very friendly and helpful and it has definitely made me feel like I made a good choice for my work experience placement.

During the second week I helped with things such as surveying for reptiles, putting up bridleway signs to ensure that horses don’t disturb the sand lizard’s eggs, and learning about the different habitats that the animals prefer and how to find them in the wild (or at least try to!). In the future I hope to do more work for ARC and help with conservation."