Published 31-05-2012
Honda conducted a two day work shop at Corpus Christi. Joined by our parts advisor, Dan Illingworth, the students learnt all about how powerful dreams can be.
As well as Corpus Christi students, pupils from St Maria Goretti’s, St Clare’s and St Gregory’s primary schools also attended.
The two days focused on developing the PLTS (personal learning and thinking skills) and also promoted teamwork, leadership and presentation skills. Students then had to work together to plan a project of how to improve their community – the best idea receiving a £500 grant from Preston Honda to assist the students in realizing their dream. This in turn will build student’s confidence and problem solving skills as they work towards academic success.
Over the 2 days the Honda representatives talked to the students about dreams and the difference between a sleeping dream and a dream that we have for the future. John Biggs from Honda UK trained the students to juggle, and the students were put into groups and set tasks. The first task was to make a dream catcher like the ones of Native Americans. Honda UK talked about how important dreams and ambitions are, and that the students should do everything in their power to make them come true.
The students enjoyed the programme and the Honda team was very happy with the students. "We had a really great couple of days and the students were enthusiastic and fully engaged in the programme" John Biggs commented.
Emma Hetherington from Honda UK continued “We were very impressed with the way the pupils and educators engaged with the programme. We had a great time and look forward to visiting them again soon to explore ways for taking the project forward.”
Thomas Wilson from Corpus Christi thanked Cox Motor Group, "I would like you to pass on our sincere thanks and gratitude to Mr Cox for sponsoring the 2 School of Dreams days this week, as I mentioned during our phone conversation our students absolutely loved the two days and I have received separate phone calls from each of the primary schools involved to say that the students 'came back buzzing'. It was great to see the excitement that it generated around our school too.
Both days ran really smoothly, Emma and John were fantastic and it was really good to have Daniel from the Blackpool Honda dealership over too. We are hoping to use the skills we have learned as staff to redeliver the day in the future with the kind gift that Cox Motor Group donated, which is very much appreciated. It was brilliant to see how quiet the students were at the start of the first day and then how confident they had become speaking to larger groups of people by the end of the second day. Not only that the students had become confident enough to express their ideas and work as a team to come up with logical and planned solutions to the problems they were addressing.
It is great that big inspirational company such as Honda are taking time to support young peoples education, as working with big name companies can sometimes seem to be an unrealistic aspiration for students. Hopefully there may be more opportunities for us to work together in the future."
Our Managing Director, David Cox, is a great believer of supporting local causes and businesses. If you would like us to sponsor an event, please don't hesitate to get in touch and we'll see what we can do.
Pictured: Dan Illingworth in the CR-V, Tom Wilson from Corpus Christi and some of the students.