DARWEN Vale High School pupils have taken their first steps in the working world by finding out more about having a full-time job.

The final-year GCSE business students are in a mentoring scheme organised by Capita's training and recruitment department at its India Mill contact centre.

It involves them 'shadowing' customer service staff during the next six months.

The scheme was organised following a successful pilot project last year when six business students from the school visited Capita and were given guidance from mentors.

They all improved on their predicted exam grades with several students achieving their best grade in business studies.

The youngsters are making weekly visits to Capita, where their twelve mentors working in the TV Licensing section are explaining their roles, answering questions about their work and helping the students to use the internet to find information for their studies.

Capita administers a contract for TV Licensing from India Mill and provides services for Blackburn with Darwen Council.