School hires etiquette coach to teach pupils manners

A state school is to draft in an etiquette expert to teach its teenagers manners and deportment, in a bid to make them more employable. Parents at Bishop Heber School, in Malpas, Cheshire, will be asked to pay towards the cost of teaching their 16 to 18-year-old children table manners, how to enter a room and how to greet people correctly. The school’s headteacher organised the course, scheduled to take place next month, after a talk on the importance of social skills from an outside speaker.

Also covered in the day-long course is posture, how to “dress for success”, with advice on what might be more appropriate to a job interview than to seeing friends, how to speak clearly and pronounce words properly and using the right cutlery. It even covers how to deal with the perennially tricky issues of how to eat asparagus, shell-on prawns and spaghetti properly.



Diana Mather, managing director of Public Image, the firm which will give the course, said the training helps put state and privately educated pupils on a “level playing field”. “Privately educated students and school boarders are given much more of this sort of training,” Ms Mather said.

“It’s broader than just filling in an application now,” headteacher David Curry said. “On paper everyone is the same - the only discerning difference is what an interviewer sees in person. That ability to carry yourself is hugely important. The children don’t find it patronising, they are genuinely eager to take these skills on.”