Business students at Nelson and Colne College Sixth Form recently learned about health and safety in the workplace at world renowned Silentnight in Barnoldswick.

Silentnight is a nationally respected company and known as one of the leading bed manufacturers in the country. It was established over sixty years ago, originally under the name of Clarke’s Mattresses Limited. The business surpassed even its own expectations, becoming Silentnight in 1951. With rigorous health and safety measures enforced at the company, the College was pleased to be able to take a group of its students to the site so they could observe real-life working practises of health and safety procedures.

The College’s Level 3 Business students visited the Silentnight Headquarters in Barnoldswick for a talk and site tour, where they were able to debate a number of issues surrounding health and safety in the workplace. This forms one of the core units that the students are studying as part of their qualifications. The opportunity to visit a company and gain a ‘real-life’ understanding of the subjects greatly enhances their understanding of the topic. Silentnight maintains an impressively high safety record and Health and Safety Representative Steve Croke was available to talk about how the company achieves it.

The students returned to the College with new knowledge and understanding, and will use the evidence gathered from the talk and site tour to analyse the impact of Health and Safety regulations on a manufacturer.

Harry Howe, a Level 3 Business student who attended the visit, said that, “The experience we received from the Silentnight visit was extremely useful for us.  It helped us achieve our first task for our Health and Safety unit.  Not only did we see the health and safety side but we also learnt about the production of divans and mattresses. The visit was brilliant!”

For more information about Silentnight visit www.silentnight.co.uk