City of Plymouth

Justine Mason, Deputy Principal, Hele's School
Jared Baldwin, Society, Health and Development Co-ordinator
Learner 1
Bob Hunter, Diploma Champion, City College
Learner 2

Justine Mason, Deputy Principal, Hele's School: I'm Justine Mason, Deputy Principal at Hele's School in Plymouth. What we did initially in the planning phase was to look at resources that we desperately needed to be able to deliver the Diploma across the whole city. Plymouth is split by the river in a sense. We've got the east and the west there and we just needed to make sure that we had a major facility in both sides of the city. Now what that means is that students, training providers, deliverers, can actually move between those facilities as and when it's appropriate. Some of the accessibility features that we had to install included access to the actual room itself. We ensured that it was ground level access. It led directly from the corridor straight into the room with no step, no obstruction. We've modified some of the furniture within and we've got some lowered computer benches to enable access for wheelchair users and that's the same with the furniture that students can work at.

Jared Baldwin, Society, Health and Development Co-ordinator: The SHD suite at Hele's is designed to offer two things - one as a flexible learning area and is designed so we can do simulation learning in here, but it's also a base. It's something that gives the learners a sense of ownership. It's something that is theirs. And it's been deliberately set up in such a way that it feels much more like a workplace than a classroom. We teach in here, but it's also designed to give them the ICT facilities and they can basically work in the way that's most effective for the Diploma.

Learner 1: The best thing about SHD suite is it's more informal. It's more discussion and it just makes you feel like you're being treated as adults.

Bob Hunter, Diploma Champion, City College: The facility we're standing in at the moment was a bid of £250,000 which was basically for installation of a high tech automotive laboratory with all the state-of-the-art facilities. It's used for problem solving skills and creative practices, as well,  within the creative and media, so it's a facility that can be used by all Diploma lines within the city.

Jared Badlwin: The best thing about the facility is it gives the students who learn here a sense of ownership. It gives them a base that they are able to treat as their own and know they can go into, that they are taught the majority of their lessons in. And particularly if you've got students coming in from other centres, it gives them that sense of belonging. Whereas, otherwise, they're here, there and everywhere.

Learner 2: We've got everything we need - printers, scanners and computers that are new and we can access all our files around the school, so we can update them anytime we're in school.

Justine Mason: It would have been an opportunity to have an executive group of some sort set up for all those people who wish to deliver that element of the Diploma or that particular line of learning and then have a planning meeting together I think to sort of get a more cohesive approach to putting the capital build in.

Jared Baldwin: I guess the biggest problem we've had, the challenge we've had with the build is the fact that because it was actually ready before we were teaching the Diplomas,  there was almost a sense that it was facility that was being used by the centre. So there have been some occasions where we've had to make sure that it's seen as the Diploma suite, rather than just an additional suite for the school because it is a city-wide facility.

Justine Mason: We've just got a completely flexible resource, which can be used in all sorts of different contexts.