Schools/colleges

Students at Feltham Skills Centre helped build their own workshop by laying a concrete base.

The 16 and 17-year-olds helped lecturers and contractors lay the 60sq m floor for a new brickwork workshop last week to get experience of working on site.

The students at the college in Boundaries Road stopped only once to enjoy a hot drink and pasty made freshly by the centre's catering class.

More than 200 children met Santa Claus at Edward Pauling school church fair on Friday December 4.

Mayor of Hounslow Councillor Paul Lynch handed out gifts to youngsters at the school in Redford Close, Feltham while the bulk of the bric-a-brac, cake and toy stalls sold out quickly.

About 500 people attended in total and more than £1,000 was raised.

Motor mechanics students at Feltham Skills Centre are working with new tools worth £18,000.

The West Thames College-run centre in Boundaries road received the industry-standard tools at a fraction of the original cost thanks to a partnership with Snap-on Tools.

Programme manager Lloyd Davis said: "The educational link with Snap-On Tools is fantastic for our motor vehicle students as they are being trained on the same industry leading tools and equipment as they'd find in a professional garage."

MP Alan Keen visited Tesco in Feltham to celebrate the supermarket's contribution to local schools.

Representatives from five Hounslow schools were also at the High Street store to thank staff for the equipment they received as part of the Tesco for Schools & Clubs campaign.

Three Feltham teenagers have teamed up with a charity in a bid to tackle racism and violence in the town.

Fourteen-year-olds Kajil Devi, Ayesha Razzaq and Kajal Shah, who attend Feltham Community College, all have experience of violence or racism so decided to to make a stand as part of a school project.

West Thames College has applied to keep its Skills Centre at the current site in Boundaries Road, Feltham until 2012 - the latest blow to plans to relocate to Feltham High Street.

The college obtained planning permission to build on the site of the former People's Centre in the High Street in May but the Government withdrew funding for the project, leaving the future of skills training in the town in the balance.

Early predictions are suggesting that Feltham Community College's GCSE results might have earned it the title of Britain's most improved school.

Jubilation filled the school hall as 42% of pupils achieved five A*-C grades including maths and English compared with just 24% last year.

The struggling school has experienced a remarkable turnaround since head teacher Victoria Eadie took over last September and teachers who have taught at the Browell's Lane school for years were amazed at the results.

Forty-one percent of 11-year-olds in Feltham and Bedfont are overweight and in some schools more than a quarter of children are clinically obese, a study has revealed.

The figures presented to Hounslow councillors last week were described by one
expert as 'frightening'. He warned childhood obesity in the borough was a 'time bomb waiting to explode'.

A measurement programme of Year 6 pupils found that 41% of Feltham and Bedfont schoolchildren are overweight or obese - compared with 33% nationally - while 30% of local Reception age pupils were overweight - against the 23% national average.

Feltham Rotary Club has delivered over 600 illustrated dictionaries to Year 5 children in schools throughout Feltham, Bedfont and Hanworth.

Over the last two weeks, local Rotarians visited 10 schools in the area and gave each child a dictionary to keep as part of a Rotary international literacy scheme.

Security at Feltham Community College is to be beefed up with the installation of a 2m high fence and high-tech electronic entry points.

The college in Browells Lane has applied for planning permission to build the new fencing as the current combination of walls, railings and hedges is not considered safe enough.