Preparing for a Career in a Practical Manner at Conisbrough.

February 1964

South Yorkshire Times, February 22.

Preparing for a Career in a Practical Manner at Conisbrough.

Eight taking part in a youth and age project.

Youngsters at Rowena Infants School, Conisbrough are called in for lessons by Susan Nicholson and Marie Fletcher, two of  the four girls referred to in the accompanying ‘Careers’ story.

Youth and old alike will benefit from a Conisbrough Northcliffe County High School project aimed at helping others to help themselves.

The young “beneficiaries” are children of the nearby Rowena Infants School, where fourth form girls from the High School are learning the art of handling young children.

Mary Fletcher, Susan Nicholson, Valerie Jones and Diane Farrar – all members of form Faraday four – visit the Primary School in Gardens Lane, Conisbrough, three times a day to help with minor but very important sections of the school routine, such as removing wet clothing and shoes, tying shoelaces, buttoning shirts, washing grubby hands, setting out apparatuses for certain classes, and even, in one case, clothing a school doll.

“They really are quite helpful with the little ones,” said Rowena headmistress, Miss B.E.Say.

They Don’t Mind.

The project means that the girls have to give up some of their spare time to be at the Primary School before school hours to meet children as they arrive at school, and also during dinner hours and at the end of the afternoon, but they don’t mind this.

“There are definitely enjoying the work,” Northcliffe Senior Mistress E. Westlake, told the “South Yorkshire Times” on Monday.

She added, “they are girls all hoping to working Dr Barnardo’s Homes after they leave school, and this struck me as the type of training they would need if they are to deal with young children. It is the only way they can find out what it will be like.

“The very things they do may seem very small, but any parent would point out how important they are,” she said.

Needs of the Old.

But while these four girls are helping with the young, for others are concerned with them needs of the old.

Gwyneth Appleton, Cheryl Harrison, Jacqueline McCoy and Barbara Burgoyne are visiting the homes of some Conisbrough pensioners to help out with household chores – everyday jobs, like mending fires, shopping, fetching prescriptions.

One local Health Visitor is helping to compile a list of all people can be aided in this way. At present only four names are being put forward, but the list may grow and there are other High School girls who are willing to take part.

Gwyneth Appleton, Cheryl Harrison, Barbara Burgoyne  and Jacqueline McCoy

Seen here with Kerry Allen is Valerie Jones, 6 Wortley Avenue, Conisbrough, a student at Conisbrough High School, who helps at Rowena Infants’ school, Conisbrough, in preparation for a possible career at Dr Barnardo’s Homes