The St John's College / RML Automation Link
The teacher's perspective – Steve Andrew
Steve was initially apprehensive about approaching industries himself and was glad of the WECA help. "My initial WECA contact person was amazingly supportive – she understood what was going on in schools and what I was hoping to do. Between the two us we soon fixed up initial contact between individual students and industries.”
Steve got the students to do up a CV and folio, and then went with each to their first meeting with the industry link contact where the students presented their folios and explained what they had been doing in their technology programme. Because of the small size of the class, these meetings could be comfortably fitted in over a three-week period.
Steve planned things so that, from then on, students took individual responsibility for managing their own link, organising the times of the visits around school and industry commitments. This left Steve free to monitor the effectiveness of the contact.
Although Steve knew what he wanted the get out of the contact he did not realise just how much value would come from the links during the process. "I wanted the boys to have somebody other than me to sit down and talk to about their project – somebody from outside the school that would understand what they were doing and who would listen and offer additional advice and guidance. It turned out that, by doing this, they weren't just learning the technical stuff, but also all the inter-personal and self-management skills that go with such interaction. I hadn't really considered that when I set things up.”
Steve, himself, has also benefited from the links. "When you come into teaching from industry as I did, for four or five years you still have those links that you can use. But they slowly drop away as you focus more on the teaching environment. It's important to keep them going. Through these links, I've got a broader knowledge of the local industrial climate and a willing pool of local resource people to tap into when we need help. It has also shown me that what we are doing in school is pretty close to what's going on in industry. We're not teaching kids specifically to be fitters and turners or plastics engineers – we're teaching them in such a way that they can be any of those if they want to be.”
Steve sees the arrangement as being of genuine benefit to industry as well. Having contact with these industries gives the students a greater awareness of the working environment and a better realisation of what they can do when they leave school and where they can go.
"A number of school-leavers do a polytechnic course or to university simply because they're not aware of other options. Now I can say to them, 'do you realise that these industries will take you on and train you – you can actually start earning from the time you sign on, and they will train you and put you through the qualifications'.”
Steve is now approached by the industries to identify likely students when opportunities open up for employment and he is happy to assist, confident that the students will be getting a high level of technical training, advice and guidance in the industrial setting.
"These companies are the industry leaders in this region, and they are prepared to spend time with the students because they can see the importance of it.”
He also sees it as an opportunity for the industries to keep in contact with what's going on in schools and in particular to "give them an understanding of the technology curriculum and what it can do for them.”
Through taking the time to set up the links properly, Steve is confident that they are both manageable and sustainable. "If things are set up professionally and properly in the first place, then keeping them going isn't a problem. Then you've got a real two way situation, and whenever there is a need for contact it can be easily made.”
"A lot of good things start with a hiss and a roar and then they just fizzle out. We need to make sure that doesn't happen here. They won't fizzle out from the industry side – it'll be from the school side. It'll just seem too difficult and time-consuming when sometimes all that it really needs is making time to have a bit of a chat. Even if I'm not working with a particular industry at the moment, I've learnt to make time to phone every now and then to let them know how things are going here at school.”
"One of the things I'm conscious of is not losing contact. If you want the link to be sustainable you have to be prepared to put the time into working to keep the channels of communication open. A five-minute phone call or a quick email solves a lot of problems."
At the end of the first year Steve invited the industry mentors and WECA contacts for an afternoon tea at the school, where the students could talk to the group about their project and the importance of their link with the industry. At that meeting Steve expressed concern that the link may have been taking too much time from the industry side and was surprised and delighted to find that this wasn't seen by them to be an issue.
"This was a really valuable feedback session and for me it provided closure for that year – the opportunity to show how much we had got out of it and to say 'thank you very much'. That tidied things up very well.”
A much larger Year 13 class in 2007 forced a change in the format of the links, with the mentors now coming into school to talk with groups of students on specific issues.
"I knew the range of skills covered by our mentors and now ask a specific person to come and talk about a particular thing. All the mentors have been more than willing to work that way. And when I've had a student with a problem, I know who I can phone and ask to talk it through and help out. And when I do, they just say 'bring him down'.”
Now the links are well established they are easily manageable, he says. There is a high level of trust, with both sides working to ensure the maximum benefit to the students.
