Training course sends pupils to Barbados

Maths, English, science, French . . . orienteering, rock climbing, first aid and canoeing. Reporter Karen Doherty visited a school where disaffected pupils are raising their aspirations thanks to a pioneering shake-up in the timetable.

SOME school trips may stretch to a language exchange in France. Or, at the very most, a skiing holiday to Austria.

But lucky pupils at Our Lady’s RC High School, Royton, are looking forward to much more . . . the trip-of-a-lifetime to Barbados.

They will undertake a fortnight of adventure training as part of the new BTEC public services course introduced this year.

Our Lady’s is the first North-West school to run the course and is believed to be one of only three in country.

Introduced this year, for part of the week pupils swap their traditional school uniform for a smart, black polo top with a specially designed public services department badge which enables them to take part in activities such as orienteering, community work, public speaking, citizenship, revision techniques, fitness and rock climbing.

The level 2 course (equivalent to four GCSEs) and the the level 3 course (three and a half-A-levels) aim to develop skills in preparation for a career in any branch of the uniformed services — everything from police officers, firefighters and paramedics to traffic wardens and security guards.

Former English teacher Glyn Potts, head of both Year 11 and public services, is the driving force behind the course.

He explained: “When I was an English teacher, I realised there was a large swathe of, particularly young boys, who seemed to have a lack of identity. I saw there was a gap and we looked at if we could engage them in a positive way.”

He is already seeing the benefits among pupils, many of whom were underachieving, had poor punctuality or wouldn’t attend school.

Glyn is the Army Cadet Force (ACF) training major for Greater Manchester, looking after 42 detachments, and joined the Army Officer Training Corps while studying human communications at university. He spent six months with the full-time reserve service in Germany before becoming a learning mentor at Our Lady’s and then completing the graduate teacher training scheme. Despite his Army background, Glyn is eager to point out that the course is not a recruiting tool for the forces.

“If a child comes to me and says ‘I want to join the Army’, we will provide every access to information to help them make an informed decision. If a child child comes to us and says they want to be a traffic warden it is the same process. It is about them having an identity and aspirations.”

Glyn has been surprised by the success of the course, initially thinking that about 30 students would be interested. But 139 signed up, including 49 girls. “It’s been a real shock,” he admitted.

Pupils also leave with a senior first aid certificate, a Duke of Edinburgh silver award, a Basic Expedition Leaders Award and a Volunteer 2000 certificate for undertaking more than 200 hours community work — from fund-raising for the Poppy Appeal to cleaning up Royton Park.

It’s the level 3 pupils who are off to Barbados in July, next year, but it is not just Our Lady’s students who are benefiting and the year 10 group also includes youngsters from Kaskenmoor and North Chadderton.

Plans are also under way to introduce a public services diploma from 2010, with other schools and Oldham college coming on board. This would be part of the Government’s new diploma programme which started this year.

Glynn said: “We are really keen to say this is not an Our Lady’s thing.

“We do not want children from other schools thinking they are being assimilated into Our Lady’s. This is a new course, a new challenge for Oldham.”