NPTC Skills for working Life Students

Last September I enrolled 3 full time students on to the NPTC Skills for working life course. Today Pam Jones the Internal Verifier from Yale College paid a visit to the yard to assess the students carrying out tasks and to collect their portfolios. All were quite nervous. Gareth suffers mild Aspergers syndrome and Dayle was who had no prior experience was panicking that he would get things wrong. They had to be seen skipping out, grooming, Identifying tack, knowledge of points of the horse and colours, and have some knowledge of safety and Fire precautions both did extremely well and passed their Level 2. Taz had to tack up, put on a rug, catch a pony, clean a bridle, show some knowledge of signs of good health, safety, and hazards. Taz also passed her Level 3 in fact Pam commented that they were all above the standard and they have all enrolled onto the next course. Carol passed a couple of her units from the NVQ 1 and Jess did a couple of units from NVQ 2 with Marina. Three more part time students have enrolled onto the BHS Stage 1 course and one more on the NPTC 3 I have also taken on Paris as a working pupil to replace Leigh studying BHS Stage 1 and NVQ 2. Which brings our total to 48 students 8 of which are full time. The College courses provide us with a small income and invaluable help on the yard but there is an immense amount of paperwork to be completed and it is quite soul destroying when people sign up and then give up before completing the course but I am pleased to say we have had a good record of achievements the last couple of years. I think the courses work well because numbers are small in each lesson giving us more time for individual needs and the work is very hands on so the students become much more efficient and confident around the horses.

Posted on Friday, January 16th, 2009 at 2:57 am You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.