futures
futures FEBRUARY 2009
6 SCHOOLS
Real-life business
experience in store
Elections
head up a
busy month
S
O it's another month passed for
your Student Council Sabbatical
Officer, and as usual he's been busy.
What an eventful month, with elections
taking place in and out of school! One
of my priorities in this role is to
encourage young people to get
involved in elections and the democratic
process.
I have been at Southfield Technology
College, where each house and year
have been voting for their favourite
candidates for the school council.
I arranged to borrow genuine ballot
boxes from Allerdale Borough Council,
giving the elections an authentic feel,
which hopefully gave the students a
worthwhile experience.
I was pleased to be invited to attend
the opening of the postal votes for the
St John's ward by election, where I met
the electoral officer Sheila Brown and
had the opportunity to meet some of
the candidates and interview the
Conservative representative Simon
Collins.
I recently attended a course organised
by Connexions, where I went away for
the weekend at Brathay Hall along with
15 other young people. We trained to
be Cumbria Youth Support Service Youth
leaders.
This means that not only do we
represent young people all over
Cumbria but we get an OCN (Open
College Network) qualification as well.
This will help me as I consult with
young people across the area to find out
their views on education, training and
opportunities, and represent them on
the West Cumbria 14-19 Partnership
Board.
I have been helping three sixth-form
councils to shape up a formal
constitution. This will bring lots of
benefits, as students get to know more
about university life, and as the
councils become more effective and
better at representing the voice of all
students.
I am looking forward to working with
Cockermouth School's student council
who are planning a joint school council
for the area's schools on the subject of
`Eco-schools.'
I hope we will be able to have an
ongoing joint schools council in West
Cumbria, as this has been very successful
in Carlisle and there is a lot of
enthusiasm for it here.
I'll shortly be talking with the mayor
of Copeland and another councillor who
is the `portfolio-holder for young
people.'
DAMON
NEWTON
Student Sabbatical Officer,
14-19 Partnership.
S
TUDENTS at a Workington school
will get first-hand experience of
life on the shop floor thanks to a
new partnership with Marks and
Spencer. St Joseph's School has
embarked on a new venture with the
Workington store which will allow
business students to see how a successful
business is operated.
From February students will go into the
store to learn about marketing, sales,
advertising and human resources.
Marks and Spencer staff will also go
into school to give talks on business
models and company practices in an
attempt to bring GCSE work to life.
Tom Ryan, head at the Harrington Road
school, said: "To my knowledge we're the
first and only school in the area to have a
business partner.
"It's going to really benefit the students
to learn from industry professionals and
will make their study seem real, as
opposed to theoretical. This can only help
them to gain a deeper understanding of
the subject. The Government openly
encourages schools to have business
partners and as we're a business and
enterprise college it was obvious this
would benefit us."
The whole process, from concept to
completion, took over six months. "We
began to think more specifically about the
nature of the work we could do together at
our meetings," Tom said.
"I brought along our GCSE business
studies syllabus and we were able to
match specific aspects of the syllabus to
the work which staff in the store had
responsibility for.
"Personnel management, marketing
and sales are all part of the store's core
business and they were all elements of the
syllabus the students had to follow as part
of their exam course.
"The store manager was willing to help
our students in various ways which
included making presentations to the
whole class, either in school or in the
store; acting as a mentor to pupils or the
teacher; allowing small groups of students
to visit the store and see first-hand its
management practices.
"I am delighted that the store is able to
find time to share its expertise and
knowledge with us in this way.
"Marks and Spencer knows how to run
a business successfully; it's a good model
for our students to work from and it's
local."
Celia Atkinson, store manager at Marks
and Spencer, said they will be building a
strong relationship with the school.
"We're going to bring the business
students' programme to life," she said.
"They'll be experiencing a real life
store environment here and we'll be
showing them how Marks and Spencer is
put together and sold as a brand.
"Some of our employees are ex-pupils of
St Joseph's and have carved out good
careers for themselves here at Marks and
Spencer.
"It's a chance for us to put something
back into the community and the
education of our local students."
Tom added: "Schools are very often at
the heart of their communities but the
same is true for local businesses and
perhaps the bigger the business, the
greater the responsibility for them to
contribute.
"This is something I know many
businesses already do. Our work with
Marks and Spencer brings a new
dimension to this.
"Traditionally schools have provided
potential employees and they certainly
provide customers, so it is particularly
pleasing to work with a company and
meet a store manager who is very willing
to put back something directly into a local
school."
WORKING TOGETHER: Celia Atkinson, manager of Marks & Spencer in Workington, shows Tom Ryan, headteacher of St Joseph's School in
Workington, how to run the store as the two join forces to provide more opportunities to the students


To my knowledge
we're the first and
only school in the
area to have a
business partner
HEADTEACHER TOM RYAN
CELIA ATKINSON AND TOM RYAN

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