Riihimäen Amattioppilaitos is a public Vocational School for young people aged from 16 to 19 years old. Nowadays, the centre is holding around 670 students who want to learn about different jobs such as carpentry, construction, mechanic, cooking, electricity, Information technologies, etc.   This centre has big infrastructures concerning spaces and also equipments. Although the methodology used by the centre is traditional, the way the different departments work is similar to the enterprises, as long as they generate profits from the products done in each of them. 

As part of the centre, we find “Ammattikymppi” alternative programme where an educative system based on the Productive Learning criteria is established. This programme is financed by the European Social Foundation and the Finnish government, and allow  young people aged 16 and 17  increase and  strength the level of knowledge that they could achieve during the nine courses of comprehensive school, with the objective of being able to access upper levels of theory formation (Upper Secondary School) or professional (Vocational Training). In fact, what these students need is to get the necessary qualification to access the career they want.

The Finnish educative system offers the possibility of coursing an optional 10^th course in order to improve the results achieved during the 9 courses of comprehensive school. Ammattikymppi is part of the OMA-URA net, in charge of grouping the different projects that have in common  the use of the Productive Learning methodology. 

Ammattikymppi programme holds 20 students with educative disadvantages and risk of social exclusion. Part of these students belong to families with social problems and need psychological advice.  The training itinerary is individual and is established by the student himself and the teachers. The 10^th course offers all the subjects included in the official curriculum of the comprehensive school, and are the students themselves who choose the subjects to work, depending on their needs and future aspirations. These subjects will be part of their individual itinerary training.  According to the methodology used, these subjects are studied in a practical way, and are the students themselves who organise the different activities during the week and the way of working with the different resources: books, exercises proposed by the teachers, multimedia material, Internet, etc.

 

A part from improving the academic qualifications,  the programme wants the students to do a first incursion in the working world to judge the different alternatives that this proposes. For this reason, the individual itineraries include practical activities in the different specialised workshops that the centre is offering in the scenarim of the Vocational School.  Each student must practice about 40 hours in each one of these different specialities. Moreover, and with the aim of improving their motivation, the students have the possibility of practicing in enterprises outside the centre, during short periods of time or they can also attend some theory lessons in the Upper Secondary School.

People in charge of the project are two educators, both of them are career counsellors, but one is a teacher of comprehensive school specialised in arts, and the other, is a teacher for students with special needs. They also have the collaboration of different teachers in charge of each of the workshops. These two educators are in charge of working the different academic subjects and of counselling the students: it’s specially important their role as counsellors about the students professional or educative future. To facilitate the interaction with the working world, they are in contact with the employment office, sometimes this allows them to contact with possible training companies and other times to facilitate participants labour placement.   Students are encouraged to have an active role on their educational process and on the research of resources: it has a better value if students themselves get in contact with the enterprise they would like to do their training.

Due to Internet and mobile phones, educators become counsellors available almost 24 hours per the day.

The organization of the different days in the school varies depending on the needs of each student.

Normally, the centre is offering activities from 9 am to 14:30 pm. During this time, students are working both the different workshops and the academic subjects.

These are learnt through some magisterial lessons but specially  through the different activities proposed by the teachers, the use of multimedia tools and the research in books or through internet. This methodology allows that in the same space, the students can work different subjects according to their organisation and the teachers can solve in an individual way the doubts that the students find.

When in the workshops, students are making small products for themselves (they can cook their lunch or they can prepare a present for the family, depending on each workshop). Although teachers try to make evident the application of the different academic subjects in the practical activities, this relation is not always used when studying the theory. 

Practical experience outside the centre can vary on time, from some weeks to about two months. Due to this flexibility, students either spend some time in both the centre and in the work placement enterprise or, they can spend longer periods in the enterprise without attending lessons and having contact with teachers just in a virtual way.  In these situations, teachers propose homework to work the different subjects.The activities made in the work placement or in the workshops are documented with the report sheet that participants fulfil, where including information about the job is expected, such as the academic certification necessary to work there, the salaries in the specific field…   

The evaluation of each student is made between the teachers and the student himself. The evaluation tools are basically two: the exams of the different subjects that the students are doing during the year and their portfolios, the whole  work done during the course. The assessment of these tools and of the personal attitude and development of the student, in the different educative fields, will be decisive to evaluate the increase of the qualifications obtained at the end of the 9 years of comprehensive school. People in charge of the project have the choice to increase up to 2 points (of 10) the qualifications, and if they find it necessary, they can negotiate with the person in charge in the comprehensive school the option of assigning a higher mark. These qualifications are official, and are presented as an annex of the comprehensive school certificate.