CHILDREN at Pewsey Vale School are opening up about their aspirations thanks to a former SAS major’s inspiring school project.

Floyd Woodrow spent 28 years in the SAS and has created Compass for Life to bring the skills from the SAS into the classroom. He joined the Parachute Regiment aged 18, became one of the youngest members of the SAS aged 22 and now shares his leadership skills by working with groups ranging from children as young as six to adults in the sports and business worlds

Pewsey Vale School pupils have even begun running their own compass projects in which each child discusses their aspirations, and picks their future North Star goal which they map on a career plan. Mr Woodrow has even reduced teachers to tears after they saw their pupils interact and describe their own life goals and begin to understand how to achieve it.

Mr Woodrow said: “Children are a lot freer than adults. If you put a chair on stage and ask a room of adults to go up no one will want to, with a room full of children you will get 40 hands.

“We are giving them the vocabulary they need to talk about their future. I spoke to one girl who said she wanted to be a hairdresser. My first response was great, I love it, so I asked do she want her own business? No child has ever said no to that question. Then I told her she was now a businesswomen and we talked about her dream in depth.

“One child even started crying afterwards and questioned why he never thought about his future. He couldn’t believe that he had never had this conversation.”

Chantal Dean, deputy head at Pewsey Vale School said: "For rural communities such as Pewsey it is really important for children to have a conversation about their future and get them to engage with the opportunities in the wider world. It is all about changing the culture. It has blown me away how our pupils want to help each other."

A peer mentor for younger pupils added: "I like to help them realise what they want to be and when they started talking about themselves they get really passionate."

Mr Woodrow has also developed resources for teachers to minimise their work load and raw data from the project shows that pupils experienced a shift in both academic and behavioural achievements after taking part in Compass for Life.

The project team are now in talks with the Department for Education about rolling the scheme out nationally.