The Nine To Five With Stacey Dooley

Stacey takes five teenagers to London Zoo for their first job on her ultimate work-experience challenge. If Sharif, Allina, Louis, Kieran and Louisa do well they will earn the national apprenticeship wage at the end of every day. However, if they fail to shine, they may go home empty-handed. All they have to do is spend two days working hard as a zoo keeper and impress their boss - what could possibly go wrong? The teens start off by doing two of the keepers’ regular daily tasks - feeding and cleaning out the animals - and it all has to be done thoroughly and quickly before the zoo opens to the public. They have already been set some personal goals by recruitment consultant Ricky Martin - does their behaviour on their first job come anywhere near those high standards?

Stacey takes five teenagers to one of the UK’s big construction companies for work experience. How will Sharif, Allina, Louis, Kieran and Louisa handle two days of manual labour with one of the strictest bosses in the business? Time for them find out if bricklaying is something they can turn their hands to alongside the professionals. Are there any budding house builders in the group? As they get going on site early in the morning, it’s soon obvious that some of the team are struggling to keep up. However, one of the teens discovers that they are in their element and the building site feels like home from home! For the rest, the range and skills they need to master house building continues to be a huge challenge, and the boss steps in with some serious on-the-job advice.

Stacey takes five teenagers to do work experience in a vast salad farm in north London. The five find themselves among the cucumbers in 35 acres of greenhouses during one of the hottest weeks of the year. Can they pick the perfect cucumber and get hundreds of them wrapped and packed ready to meet a succession of supermarket orders? It sounds simple enough! However, for some of the group, picking cucumbers, peppers and tomatoes is not their idea of fruitful employment and boss Vince is unimpressed with the work ethic on show. Stacey has to step in when a couple of the team discover the joys of trolley racing and cause damage to some of the tender plants.

Stacey takes five teens for work experience at one of the country’s largest plumbing companies. How will they handle cleaning drains and getting to grips with the basics of pipework? The news that you can earn over £100k as a plumber definitely focuses the minds of the whole team. All five teens need to show boss Ashley they have the skills, commitment and the work ethic to succeed, and the competition between them heats up to win the chance to work alongside him for real customers. On the following day it’s time for their GCSE results, but who will get some much-needed good news from home?

The five teens finish their work experience running their own stall at an East End market ahead of Ricky Martin. Stacey wants to see how they will work together as a team to set up their own stall and try to shift their stock before the day is out. However, when they see the professionals bagging all the customers around them, will they have what it takes to quickly master the key market trader skills of pricing, selling and displaying? They don’t get off to a good start, taking two hours to decide on a price strategy, but with a little bit of help they start to turn things around, and Stacey is standing by ready to pay them if they make a profit by the end of the day.