'Exciting' new partnership will see Daventry students get hands-on learning experience at tourist attraction

An artist's impression of the attraction.

Chester House Estate has teamed up with Daventry Hill School - part of the Creating Tomorrow Multi Academy Trust - to create opportunities for pupils with disabilities to get life and work experience.

Staff said they were looking forward to 'exciting times ahead'.

The trust is to have a base in the Education Centre on the Chester House Estate between Rushden and Wellingborough

Students will get a hands-on experience.

Business manager at Chester House Estate, Jack Pishhorn, said: “This partnership is a step towards closing the disability employment gap. In December 2020, the number of disabled people in employment was 52.3 per cent, compared to 81.1 per cent of people who are not disabled.

“We’ll be able to give students at Creating Tomorrow a stepping stone onto the employment ladder, which will not only benefit them and us, but the wider community.”

Students from the Creating Tomorrow Trust will run the Chester House Estate farm shop, as well as get experience in catering, events and programming, weddings and conferencing, finance, marketing and PR, Key Stage One and Two education programmes, museum curation, gardening, bed and breakfast accommodation, community outreach, archiving, archaeology, site operations and business development.

Designed to help students to learn not only the skills they need for the workplace but also the life skills to go out into the community the pupils will be helping in the farm shop.

Jack added: “We are really excited to be partnering with the Creating Tomorrow Trust as part of our ongoing community outreach on this project. The farm shop is something we’ve been really excited to bring to the site, supporting local producers and teaming up with Made in Northamptonshire to make that happen.

“The fact that the shop will be run by students from the trust, giving them the skills to go on to work within the community is the icing on the cake.

“We will also give their students work experience and internship opportunities in other areas of the site, depending on what they want to do when they leave school.”

As part of the partnership, the Creating Tomorrow trust has invested in a minibus that will transport the students between campuses.