Transition Year students in Farrenferris Secondary School for Boys, Cork, have just completed an intensive, one-week foundation course in basic restaurant skills, run by Patsy Ryan's Hotel Training Ireland.

Students learned to set tables and serve wine as well as the basics of hygiene, customer care and communication skills. Patsy Ryan says the week was "fantastically successful" with, at its end, "no one getting marks that were less than 90 per cent. They've all now got enough skills to get work experience, or even start work proper, in the hospitality industry." The school's guidance counsellor, Deirdre O'Shea, said the course gave its students "a real insight into the hospitality industry" in which there were "excellent job opportunities". The boys were presented with special certificates by Fergal Somers, general manager of Jurys Hotel, Cork.