Self defence, budgeting and first aid. These are skills which most would argue are essential for students to learn ahead of their independent lives.

Sixth form students at St Ninian’s High School were lucky to have a whole day last week full of lifeskills workshops to prepare them for university and the working world.

We visited the Douglas school to ask students what they thought of the sessions.

Dandi Dancox, 18, from Onchan and Georgia Foxton, 18, from Douglas, were enthusiastic about the day.

’We’ve had a workshop about how to handle finances and manage our money for when we finish school.

’We’ve had a self defence workshop and now we’re doing first aid to help someone before the ambulance arrives to potentially save a life,’ said Dandi, who hopes to go to drama school off-island.

Georgia, who is looking to go to university, added: ’It’s these sort of things we take for granted as you don’t expect it to happen to you. These life skill workshops need to be encouraged more. Some people don’t attend school because they don’t think it’s useful anymore.’

Peter Kirby, 17, from Laxey, said: ’We watched a police presentation about safe driving.

’It’s good, a bit graphic, but informative. I think the life skill workshops are really helpful. Everything is so academic now we lose the rest of life and so we don’t really prepare for that.’

Peter added that he really enjoyed the travel safe workshop, run by Roisin Quinn from Smaller Earth UK - which provides travel programmes from around the globe.

In each of these workshops, one student would win a £100 prize towards a travel programme and one overall winner would get a free programme where they could choose to work abroad at a camp in America or China.

This workshop proved popular for Mark Gorman, 17, from Douglas, and Joseph Leong, 17, from Onchan.

’It’s the kind of thing you want to do because it looks so amazing and gives you great experience.

’I think they’ve sold it to a few people,’ Mark said.

Joseph added: ’Including me.’

Mark continued: ’Self defence was the most fun, but the most interesting one was first aid.

’We learnt how to deal with babies not just adults. Something like that could crop up at any time and you might be in a room with a hundred people and be the only person to do something about it.’

Walking into the room where the pair were learning how to make cheap and healthy meals we could see - and smell - handmade pizzas, soup and pasta dishes.

’It’s been dead interesting,’ Mark said. ’I think these workshops should be a regular thing.’

Saffron Montgomery, 17, and Libby Duggan, 17, from Onchan, were learning self defence.

’I’d say it’s really good, especially if you’re going to university. It’s really safe here so it’s good to be better prepared.

’We’ve also had Lloyds Bank come in to talk about savings. Finance is what most affects students,’ said Saffron.

Libby said: ’I feel a bit more confident about going to university now. I know what to talk about in a bank and I know a bit of self defence.’

Saffron added: ’Schools should do life skill workshops like this. Obviously schools are preparing you for exams, but these workshops are teaching you life skills which everybody needs.’