Bike Maintenance and Welding Workshop

The bike/welding project is offered to each class to take part in some way and is run as a rolling project with new groups starting each term. The pupils are given the opportunity to let their imagination run wild to produce a number of projects such as a building a recumbent bike made out of old recycled scrap bikes or honing their mechanic skills by fully rebuilding a number of mountain bikes, one of which gets raffled off at the end of the term. We encourage self direction and some students choose to bring in their own bikes to work on, this helps them gain the specific skills to maintain their bike and it also allows to ensure their bikes are safe for when used outside of school. The students also passionately maintain the schools fleet of BMXs, which get heavily used within other school classes as a reward. The project is unique and original and gives each young person the chance to pick up some basic welding and bicycle mechanical skills. The students get to ride the bikes they have made as well as an end of term 10-mile off-road bike ride through Worsley woods to Boothstown Basin and back. It’s extremely rewarding to see student progress their skill sets and develop self-confidence.