ABSEILING and caving, laying on a children's party and improving a local beauty spot have all been on the timetable for a group of pupils at Burnholme Community College in York.

The 14 students have signed up for a new course running alongside their Year 10 GCSE studies which aims to give them training for life.

The course is similar to the Duke of Edinburgh Awards scheme and is based on a scheme called Trident Gold, which is usually run as a voluntary activity.

Teacher John Fletcher said: "The difference at Burnholme is it is part of the pupils' weekly timetable and takes up five hours a week for four terms."

He said the course covered three main areas - personal challenge, community involvement and work experience.

Over the first term before Christmas, students planned and carried out the building of two outdoor classrooms at nearby St Nicholas' Fields. These will be used for educational visits by children.

Three of those involved, Anthony Carey, Michael Godliman and Louise Fowler, all 14, said they had developed the St Nicholas' Fields project using two ideas, one based on a woodland theme, using old logs as seats, and one inspired by the former brickworks on the site.

A group has been finishing off the work over the first few weeks of this year.

They also organised a Christmas party for the nursery based at Burnholme, sending out invitations, preparing food and running the event.

Now they are all starting work experience placements with organisations as diverse as the York Dungeon and Derwent Coachworks.

But the highlight for students so far has been the first personal challenge element - a two-day visit to the Cranedale Centre in Malton.

They said they packed in abseiling, caving and night orienteering into their two-day stay and hoped to raise money to go back there.

Teacher John Fletcher, who is running the course with Jean Banwell, said it was aimed at developing particular students' self-confidence and developing their "life skills". They had been offered the course as an alternative to one of their GCSE options.

He said they had all received certificates from York Trident's director, Mike Jones, for their work at St Nicholas' Fields and had made a presentation to him about their tasks so far.