The Pre-Apprenticeship Programme

As a result of the publication of the national report Developing Scotland's Young Workforce Govan High school responded by developing it's own and bespoke and unique programme called the Pre-Apprenticeship Programme. 

Mr Masterson DHT is responsible for the overall management of the programme. Although he works very closely with a retired and highly successful businessman who is also a former pupil of the school. His commitment to the school and our young people is incredible as he works on a voluntary basis and is almost full time.

An enormous amount of time went into planning the programme and after 18 months of discussion and researching we started the programme in January 2015 with our first group of 8 young people. We are delighted to be able to state that we had a 100% success rate with all of our young people going on to positive destinations. In June 2015 our next group of 14 pupils started the programme and within a few months 2 of them went into apprenticeships. Our target is 100% positive destinations again this session.

Partnership Working

The programme for our young people is in place largely due to the partnerships that we have developed with the business world:

Morris & Spottiswood: Were our initial partners and we are indebted to them for their support which through their generosity we have converted to redundant rooms. One room has had the shell of a house built inside it 6 rooms where our young people are able to learn the skill associated with painting and decorating. The second room has been converted to facilitate the teaching of skills related to plumbing. The full costs of the conversions were met by the company. In addition they have provided the school with the services of their HR department to give our young people practice in interview skills and have given us access to work experience placements.

AMEY: This is the company who have a 30 year contract with Glasgow City Council to provide a high quality learning environment for Glasgow's secondary age young people. With their kind permission we have been given special permission to convert 2 classrooms and other areas of the school for bricklaying and roof tiling activities. In addition we have granted permission for our young people to decorate areas of the school but only to the high standards agreed with AMEY management and so far that has been highly successful.

Luddon Construction: Through our partnership here we have been given free training on their training site which will give our young people industry standard Health and Safety training qualifications. This has been at considerable cost to the company.

Johnstone's Paints: Have been kind enough to supply us with all paint required for our painting and decorating units free of charge.

Govan Housing Association: We are currently developing a major partnership with the GHA that will allow our young people to put their learned skills to use in their own community.

Course content

S4 - Fourth year pupils will complete the SQA National 4 Construction course. Full course details can be found by clicking here. This course is made up of the following units:

Employability Skills

Half Brick Walling

Site Carpentry and Bench Joinery

Carpentry and Joinery Techniques

Decorative Painting

Decorative Finishes using Water-borne paints

Roof Tiling

S5/6 - Senior pupils will complete the SQA National Progression Award in Construction G8H4 45 course. Full course details can be found by clicking here. This course is made up of the following units:

Construction Occupation Practices - An introduction

Efficient Construction Practices -An introduction

Preparing and Painting Surfaces

Paperhanging: Foundation and Plain Paper

Construction: Decorative Painting

Construction: Decorative Treatment

Construction Safety Practices - An introduction

Projects completed by our young people

Office of Mrs Kerr DHT

Office of Mr Crawford Construction Project Manager

Conference room in GHS

Pupil relaxation area 

Construction Corridor