Simon Community Work 2007

Tim takes 'busman's holiday' to help with school trip: Milefield School Class 5 Trip To Ewden WTW

Cougar Cat Tim tells of his 'busman's holiday' helping with a school trip to Ewden Water Treatment Works.

The day starts unsurprisingly at Milefield Primary School in Grimethorpe, Barnsley where my wife Rachel works. Of course at school Rachel is Miss Salter, no matter how many years we are married she always seams to be Miss to 10 year olds. Once the kids have arrived, register has been taken and we have checked that everyone has everything it’s off to the coach. The kids are pretty excited seeing as we going to a water treatment works and not Alton Towers. As for me there could not have been a much more ‘busmans’ holiday, but I always enjoy putting faces and personalities to the names I hear about every night. Once they are all belted into their seats on the coach we set off on the short (and very quiet) 45 minute ride to Ewden WTW.

On arrival at the works we are admitted after a short struggle with the intercom and drive up to the door to meet our guide for the day John. Now John is a retired Yorkshire Water employee who worked for them for many years so he knows a bit about water treatment. He now volunteers at the education centre helping to teach kids how the water gets to their taps and why they should be more careful how they use it.

The tour begins in the main room of the education centre with a talk from John about the water cycle. Miss Salter’s class had already covered the topic in science and John gives them plenty of chances to show off what they know. Once everyone is up to speed on the subject John hands us over to Phil his fellow volunteer who talks the kids through the water treatment process. The talk shows the things that need to be removed from the water as ‘The Baddies’ and for each stage of the treatment process Phil shows the class which baddies are removed and how. Now brimming with information everyone is given a short break to let off some steam and take on board some energy for the journey ahead.

After a quick recharge of the batteries John hands out some maps and we all head out for a walk up to the reservoir. The walk up to Ewden water takes us up a small private road through some woodland with John pointing out places of note on the maps on the way up. At the reservoir John and Phil explain the point of storing the water here and let the class have a look around before we turn around for the trip back down. By the time we get to the bottom a few of the class have extorted all my musical and TV preferences from me and some of the class are tiring even though we have gone less than 2 miles. Thankfully it’s time for lunch!

When the tanks are full again the education continues. John takes the class through how the water gets to their taps and Phil explains a bit about how to save water. We are then split into two groups and one group is given a tour of the works while the other is given a chance to play some educational games on computers. The works tour was great and allowed the kids to get a sense of what was explained to them earlier in the day. Also for most of them it will have been their first experience of an industrial environment so the scale and noise were impressive. The computer games ranged in difficulty, from the very easy to a Blockbusters style Goldrun game including the following question.

After a short summing up and a big thank you for John and Phil it’s on to the coach for the ride back to school.

I had a great day with Rachel’s class and am looking forward to next years trip when she will be teaching year 6 and they will be going to Thorpe park with any luck!!

Cougar Automation believes in putting something back into the local community. To support this, all Cougar Cats have the opportunity to take paid time off to carry out voluntary work in their local community.