I remember my last school fondly; new buildings, dedicated blocks for science and CDT,  even a swimming pool, and very innovative staff.  All in all  the new school had a new feel… streets ahead of my previous school that I left during the education reforms of the seventies.  But although the environment was much improved at that school there was still something missing for me!  It wasn’t until I joined the army at 16 that someone connected science with real work activities and in ‘trade science’ which combined physics and chemistry we learned about combustion engines… and then built one.  In ‘military calculations’ I got the hang of why I needed to understand materials (because when you get the calculations wrong they break!).  I understand that you can’t do those things in school, but later when I attended military sponsored courses at universities they combined the academic curriculum with visits to factories, meeting managers, talking to operators, and we saw the practical application of what we were learning about.  For me that was it… the reason why!

I met Marcel Ciantar this week; Marcel has ‘got it’, and Budmouth College is applying it, and I was jealous of those pupils who get to see the reason why when they are in the classroom… before they have to make the decisions about their future careers.

Phil Thomas, c4mbd

Here is a piece by Catherine Bolado from the Dorset Echo (Wed 13 Jul 11):

IT’S EXCELLENT (says the Echo reporter)

“UNLOCKING students talent and developing students’ personal culture are the ideas underpinning a new groundbreaking centre of excellence at a Weymouth college.“