ENTERPRISE
This year’s
Teaching
Awards finals in
Wales produced
many outstanding winners.
Among them was Maxine
Pittaway, who took the
Award for Enterprise. In
the run up to the UK finals
in October, when Maxine
will be going for the
national title, Greg Lewis
paid her a visit
Excellence in
OU DON’T have to be a parent
Y
or teacher to be a regular at St
Christopher’s School in Wrexham.
Maybe you wandered in for a
cup of coffee in the café, nipped in
to the school’s salon for a hair cut,
enterprise
or came to get your car cleaned by
the pupil’s valeting service.
Or perhaps you are one of the 16,000 visitors the
school welcomes every year to its amazing Millennium
Eco Centre. range of different difficulties and disabilities, from the right sort of instruction they were quite capable of It has helped her and the school win a number of
St Christopher’s is not just Wales’s largest special profound and multiple learning difficulties, specific doing a lot more than people gave them credit for.” awards, most recently the Award for Enterprise at the
school, it is a thriving local enterprise. And “enterprise” learning difficulties, and moderate learning difficulties, The school’s pathfinder business has developed a Teaching Awards 2009.
is the key word. to emotional and social behavioural difficulties. The lot since then. Maxine dedicates her awards to her husband and
The school’s aim of bridging the gap between its school also has an autistic unit with many very able “At the beginning I just appointed a hairdresser former deputy head Chris Pittaway, a special needs
pupils and the community and preparing its young youngsters who have found it difficult to function in to come in and work with children, to teach them education expert, who died in December 2007. “He was
people for work is achieved with a heavy stress on mainstream schools. hairdressing skills and reception skills. But later I my perfect partner and was instrumental in developing
entrepreneurship and with a business plan of which any The school moved to its present site on the outskirts changed the whole philosophy behind it. Now it’s not the eco centre. When I had one of my quirky ideas he
company CEO would be proud. of Wrexham in 2000 when its old site was sold to a just about learning in the salon, it’s about learning in the would back me 100 per cent.”
“You’ve got to have an open mind, be prepared supermarket. classroom to prepare the pupils to count, to work out a Maxine asks a lot from her staff: “We have about
to change people’s ideas about what a school is,” Maxine has been head at St Christopher’s for about bill, etc, so that became part of the maths programme. 140 staff. I’ve got a body of about 32 teachers and the
explained Maxine Pittaway, the school’s forward- 14 years and oversaw the move to the new building. “It was a whole experience. It wasn’t necessarily other staff are people who have got real-life experiences
thinking headteacher. “A lot of children are very She had previously been the school’s deputy head, only about making hairdressers, although that’s what we do and want to work with children. When I look at
disaffected with school, are unable to achieve, and St breaking many years of continual service with a short now. It was about giving them experiences that they applicants for support work I also look at what extras
Christopher’s is about giving them opportunities. period working in Canada. could use in any employment in the future.” they have got from different areas of their life.
“Many years ago I went to a lecture that really Her trip across the Atlantic back in the 1980s opened When the school moved to its new site, a purpose- “I think people enjoy this sort of work. I feel we
inspired me about how businesses and schools should her eyes to new ways of taking learning out of the built salon and beauty room was created. The students have built a school which is unlike any other and I’m
work together, because that is where our children go in classroom. She began her entrepreneurial revolution. there can do NVQ Level 1 and 2, and St Christopher’s proud of that. Other schools come here, see our projects
the future: to businesses to work. It made me think very “I’d seen lots of opportunities in Canada where salon takes in 40 children from mainstream schools. and go away and do something similar, and that gives
differently about education.” students learned in different ways and I wanted to bring “The salon has taken off not just for the pupils but me a lot of satisfaction.”
St Christopher’s has 242 pupils and is a totally it here. The head backed me and that was the start of a for the staff. Where I originally employed hairdressers, Several times during our conversation, there is a
integrated special school for children with a wide journey.” I now employ a teacher with hairdressing qualifications. knock at Maxine’s door as staff come in with queries
The development that kicked it all off was a I also have an ex-pupil who had gained Level 2 and I about parts of the school “empire” – even though the
hairdressing salon. employed him as he is a good role model for the new school bell went some time ago.
“I remember fondly going to the headteacher and students coming up.” There are new ideas coming all the time. The shop
asking him if I could turn a classroom into a salon to The hairdressing was just a start. Maxine went on gets offered furniture to sell, items the technology
actually do teaching in a different way,” she said. to prove she was a cut above by expanding the school department do up and pass on to people in need. But
“Quite honestly, the reason I did it at the start, which businesses even further. now they are getting so much they are opening a
has changed a lot, was because I was sending children on “The café came next,” she explained. “Obviously, dedicated furniture unit at the shop.
work experience and, because they were coming from a with the salon we were getting the experience of having Then there is the market garden, which the school
special school, it was assumed that the best they could do the general public coming into school and we decided groundsman runs, linking in with an environmental
was to brush the floor or wash endless coffee cups. that a café would not only serve our large number of taskforce of pupils. They work with a tree surgeon
“I wanted to prove to the local community that, staff but also customers from the local community. and sell logs, and grow plants which they sell on a
while our students have got learning difficulties, given “We have senior citizens coming in, taxi drivers, market stall.
local builders, all sorts of people. And the charity shop is looking to find a life on the
Life training: The St Christopher’s School “We want to diversify into any area where we see worldwide web. Soon St Christopher’s will be selling
Millennium Eco Centre (above) and its stu- the sort of jobs our children might be able to do in on eBay, breaking down the mystery of the internet for
dent car valeting service (below) are just the future and to teach them real skills, whether it be the students.
some of the activities that have helped fast food production or food for weddings and events. Each enterprise provides a range of hands-on
win the institution and its head Maxine Again we went along the accreditation route. We opportunities for children, teaching them specific skills
Pittaway an Award for Enterprise (left) felt if we were doing these sorts of courses then they for the workplace. The classroom timetable for the
needed basic food hygiene and OCN (Open College teenagers is created around whichever project they opt
Network) units for the less able and again we linked it to become involved in, according to the individualised
in with college so they could get provision for college learning of the Welsh Assembly government’s Learning
placements for NVQs.” Pathways scheme.
Alongside the café came a Fair Trade shop and “Our message is that young people with learning
then a car valeting business, which has won a contract difficulties and disabilities should not be hidden away.
cleaning patrol cars from the local police station. All Customers come in and see them serving in the shop
have separate entrances to the site which mean the and the café, it breaks down barriers as well as giving
security of the school is not compromised. the children incredible confidence for the future.”
However, despite the incredible range of businesses One Teaching Award judge commented: “As a
being run by staff and pupils on the site, perhaps the result of Maxine’s vision and drive St Christopher’s
most remarkable aspect of St Christopher’s is a short is like no other special needs school I have ever
drive away. visited nor indeed heard about. I returned from the
Over at Tarmac’s Borras Quarry, the school leases a visit feeling inspired but also rather inadequate in not
46-acre site. Here, back in 1998, it began the creation having been able to provide similar opportunities for
of its Millennium Eco Centre. It is an astonishing my pupils.” Maxine adds: “Our motto is ‘Building a
resource where pupils learn about recycling and waste Future’ and that’s what we try to do.” SecEd
management and where they are laying out woodland
pathways and planting saplings to create a country • Greg Lewis is a freelance education journalist.
park and environmental study centre with wetland,
woodland and grassland areas.
Further information
The potential of the scheme is huge. It welcomes The UK finals of the Teaching Awards take place
16,000 visitors a year including around 40 schools on October 25. The ceremony is to be broadcast on
and runs courses in traditional skills such as willow BBC2. The 2010 Teaching Awards are now open for
weaving and dry stone walling. Adult learners with nominations. For details, visit www.teachingawards.com
disabilities also benefit from the site. “It’s an incredible and for more on St Christopher’s, see http://stchristophers.
facility,” Maxine said. wrexham14to19.net/
14 SecEd • September 3 2009
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