The courses cover basic skills and also wider theory

Offered by the Edexcel exam board, it has just been approved by the qualifications watchdog, the QCA.

The GCSE can be taken as a single award covering the basic skills and a double award which entails broader study.

Edexcel chief executive, John Kerr, said: "I believe it may go some way to encouraging young people to consider vocational courses from an early age."

Employer-focused

The qualifications are definitely more than "GCSEs in bricklaying".

Skills covered do include bricklaying - and carpentry and joinery - but also those required for technical or professional occupations.

"It's a really exciting opportunity for our kids," said Stephen Manley, head of design technology at Ridgewood School, Doncaster - an engineering specialist which is going to be running the new courses from next September.

"I have spoken to a lot of employers in the area and found out what they require."

He is going to focus on the double award, and likes the flexibility it provides to look at the technical and professional sides of the industry as well as craft skills.

Perception

Businesses said they needed people at all levels - with craft skills, but also the technical and professional abilities to be site engineers, architects or quantity surveyors - his own background.

You wouldn't believe how turned on the girls were by construction Teacher Stephen Manley

Mr Manley will be teaching most of the theory himself, and working in partnership with a local further education college for such things as brickwork.

He is passionate about getting across a message to youngsters and their parents that vocational qualifications are not for those who cannot do anything academic.

"We are fighting against that perception," he said.

Ridgewood's existing engineering GCSE is over-subscribed, something children "aspire to": they have to be recommended by their maths, technology and science teachers to be considered for a place.

"If a school thinks of it as a 'sink' subject and somewhere to send pupils that can't cope with the more academic subjects that's the wrong approach," Mr Manley said.

Nor is construction just for the boys. Engineering has a 50:50 gender mix at the school and he expects the new course to be the same.

He mentioned the enthusiasm girls had shown following a site visit organised by the CITB "sector skills council".

"You wouldn't believe how turned on the girls were by construction," he said.

"Afterwards they absolutely pestered me to get them on construction work placements."

They realised it was not all "muddy boots and dirty hands" - with planning, costing, design and many other talents involved.

The exam board also makes the point that people might just want to broaden their curriculum and have a good foundation for DIY work.

There have been General National Vocational Qualifications (GNVQs) with the same name, though the full awards were passed by only about 2,000 students a year around the UK - almost all boys.

GNVQs are being phased out.