Pupils take the biscuit at college taster day

Art & Design tutor John Mikulin and Falinge Park pupil Younus Ali get stuck into the biscuits in the ceramics session

It was access all areas for over forty Falinge Park High School pupils when staff at Hopwood Hall College welcomed them to the Rochdale campus. The year 10 pupils were able to get a flavour of the different courses on offer when they leave school by taking part in hands-on taster sessions.

Sweet-toothed learners had a great time in the art and design department where they created their own giant versions of various biscuits out of clay – at over 400 times the original size! Mouths were watering as they sculpted enormous jammie dodgers and shortbreads under the supervision of tutors Andy Pope-Moore and John Mikulin.

15-year-old Younus Ali, who made a gigantic bourbon biscuit said: “I thought it was a cool project – we are going to glaze our creations so they look more realistic by what is called ‘biscuit firing’ them. I thought that was quite an appropriate name! The tutors even let us raid the biscuit barrel after we had finished.”

Youngsters visited departments across the college; rolling up their sleeves in the motor vehicle department, laying down tracks in the music studios, cooking cakes to rival Mr Kipling’s in the bakery, trying their hands at web design, acting up in drama, creating the perfect ‘up’ do in the salon and wiring plug sockets. Some pupils also attended sessions at the Middleton campus and an enjoyable day was had by all involved.

The school’s Deputy Head Teacher Graham Boff said: “It was great to see the year 10s getting involved, learning new skills and discovering the first taste of what could potentially be their future careers. This is an excellent annual event offered to us by the college; the pupils always leave with smiles on their faces and lots of ideas about the types of courses they can enrol on when they leave school.”