Real-life scenarios provide children reasons to read, write and think

For the Manchester project, the Diamond Demolition Company have had to find out all about a cotton mill, what if anything should be preserved for posterity, and how to demolish it safely in a heavily built up area of the city.

E-mails and letters were received, read and answered, reports written and maths exercises tackled, from working out the optimum shape of a wrecking ball to calculating how many ladders they need to scale the chimney.

Julia Walters, an Advanced Skills Teacher for the Mantle of the Expert who has recently started working with four schools in the Ipswich area, acknowledged that the approach was initially quite daunting for teachers.

'You think: 'How will the children respond?' But the more you do it the more it becomes ingrained,' she said. 'I now find it harder not teaching this way. It is more effort to get children doing things out of context than in.'

The demolition company operated for the whole of last term. 'I chose a demolition company because I knew it would appeal to the class. I saw it as the best way of teaching the skills and concepts they have got to learn,' Ms Walters said.

She was convinced that the mantle was also a good way to tackle the basics of maths and literacy skills. 'The reading and writing come out of the work. They receive a letter from the client they have to read, and they might write a letter back.' Children were far more motivated to put pencil to paper by the immediacy of the real-life scenario. Matthew, seven, bore this out. 'There has got to be a reason to do writing,' he said.