Post-16 Quality Mark, AP Cymru

AP Cymru is a government funded, private military preparation college in Cardiff. The college is funded by the Welsh Assembly Government and works in partnership with the Army to provide high quality training for the 16-18 years old who attend. At present there are 34 members of staff and 212 students on roll, 92% of which have basic skills needs.

Up and running for four years, the college is expanding quickly and focusing much of its energies on basic skills development for its students. In July this year it was awarded its first Post-16 Quality Mark by Stephen Marshall, the Head of DELLS who signed the visitors book saying,

'A wonderful introduction to the programme. Congratulations on making the difference to young people.'

Huw Lewis MBE, Managing Director of the College, was determined to have a focused, specific basic skills department. 'I think there’s a misconception that because of the military style of discipline we have at the college and because the students are here out of choice, they'll just get down to work. In fact they’re ordinary teenagers, many of them very disadvantaged and many of them with severe phobias of school and negative experiences of learning.'

It is the job of Lisa Gardner, Head of Basic Skills at APCymru to combat these fears and to encourage reluctant learners. Lisa concentrates a lot on motivation, doing this through competition. 'Competition is a great motivator – whilst the students might join with a very school-like mentality of not wanting to be seen to try or work hard, once they realise they're working in teams and will be letting the side down all that changes. They’re good at disciplining amongst themselves,' says Lisa. Basic skills lessons are broken up with spelling and number team games which also involve a healthy dose of physical activity to use up spare energy that might otherwise distract in the classroom.

The students spend three days a week working on general, essential skills, one day per week with the Army and a three hour session in the basic skills department, which is a long time for someone who struggles in this department. Again Lisa utilises lots of methods to keep them engaged, breaking up the sessions into lots of mini slots and rewarding with treats and games. The basic skills classroom has a wall of computers on which the students play a wide range of basic skills related computer games, which often seem to get them more enthused about a topic than anything else.

Lisa and the two other basic skills tutors have also spent months of hard work refining and refining the work sheets (all mapped to the core curriculum) to ensure they spark the interest of the students. Most of the questions are around military themes to help the learners better 'see the point' of the literacy or numeracy skill they are practising. For example, they might have to select different pieces of kit for different terrains from a catalogue and calculate the price depending on their budget and how many troops they’re buying for. Illustrations and comprehensions are all military related. They’ll be asked to practice their writing by filling out a 'bluey', the Army issue airmail letters for writing home. 'This way, they feel like they’re practicing Army skills, which they are, but they're also practicing their basic skills.' Says Lisa.

Whilst the students initially run riot when they arrive for the first week of their 22 two course, in actual fact they seem to thrive on structure, discipline and consistency. Lisa believes it may be because their backgrounds or home lives are chaotic but for whatever reason, the learners feel most secure when they understand exactly what is expected of them. 'They'll even tell us we need to be stricter with them!' says Lisa.

'Interestingly' says Lisa, 'many of our students come to us saying they’re dyslexic. They’ve never been tested for this, and very often they aren’t dyslexic but they find it a convenient label for the areas they struggle in.' One of the displays in the basic skills classroom aims to quash the notion that dyslexia might be an excuse or reason for failure. It's a huge collage of photographs of famous and successful dyslexic people from Huw Lewis to Einstein to Will Smith.

60% of the students at AP Cymru will go on to join the military. The remaining 40% get a job or return to school to do A'levels or another form of study. Lisa explains, 'I think many of our students come to us as a last chance to make something of themselves. Sad as this may be at 16 or 17, they already consider themselves a failure, as stupid or at the end of the road in terms of options. We show them they can do anything. They achieve things they never did or could at school, they get their qualifications and their self esteem improves. They go away and do some of the things they didn't realise they had it in them to achieve.' Despite being a military man himself, for Huw and the other tutors at the college, success doesn’t necessarily mean getting a student into the army or navy. They use the vehicle of military interest to get them to learn but once they are learning the world is their oyster. Accordingly the AP Cymru mission statement reads: 'To deliver the best possible quality training that will empower students to reach their full potential in the Armed Forces or other career routes.'