In our year ten group we have a hundred and seventy six pupils, and we decided last year to do it with a pilot group of just twenty. We have seven classes in Year 10 and the tutors decided which pupils they should put forward out of each class. Generally these were pupils who it was felt would benefit most from the programme and perhaps who would put the most into it. And generally speaking, we got very cooperative and friendly pupils who did seem to benefit greatly from it.

The question has been asked if we could actually put this to all 176 of them. At this moment, logistically, we don’t think it would be possible. It’s a three-day programme out of class and the other members of staff at the moment wouldn’t be too happy with that happening. We scheduled it last year for the end of June, because that literally was the only time when it suited the pupils – they have exams in May, they have exams in June. And we feel that possibly if Education for Employability were to become part of the curriculum and was time-tabled then we could look at the program and perhaps change it slightly, refine it so it would fit into a time-tabled programme of say a certain number of periods a week. It would be done very differently at that time, but it would be perhaps just as beneficial in fact, because all of the form, all 176 pupils would have experience of it as such, whereas only 20 pupils out of 176 is a very small group.

To make this part of the full, scheduled curriculum essentially it would need a much greater commitment from staff. Perhaps in a school like this, where we would have a large number of Year 10 pupils, we would need ten to fifteen staff at least. You would need the appropriate accommodation, classrooms and facilities. You would need a huge number of businesses that you could draw upon. So, logistically, at this moment it’s going to be difficult, but in the future, this is all down the line. It remains to be seen what is going to happen there, but it is going to become a reality.