Well, it has been another busy week for us here at Medtia Square and I have been particularly impressed with our Future Finders students who are based down at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) with their job coach, Charlotte. Mubaarak, Faisal and Daniel are working extremely hard and have settled in well at the university. On Tuesday, I paid them a visit to see for myself how they are getting on.

My morning started with Faisal in the shop where he is working hard in re-stocking shelves, keeping the coffee area clean and generally assisting the shop staff. I then managed to catch Daniel mid-round. Daniel is working in the post room and is in charge of the collection and delivery of post to all MMU campuses up and down Oxford Road. Mubaarak was extremely busy in print services where he works with a lady called Jennifer and assists with print jobs from across the university. These range from photocopying to large print jobs for lecture notes, flyers and much more. He has already mastered the systems that the university use and is a valued member of the team.

The overwhelming theme from my morning was just how supportive, kind and patient the staff at MMU were. The students are all allocated a 1:1 member of staff to mentor them and to teach them their roles. The MMU staff are extremely supportive of the project and really do invest the time needed into our students to ensure that they are pushed to their potential. A huge thank you to the team down at MMU and a big well done to our students who really are doing us proud.

This leads me to the ‘A Day in the Life of……’ section of my blog which this week follows Faisal, based at MMU, who is not only learning a new job but is also going through his travel training with Positive Steps. Over to Faisal…

A day in the life of Faisal

All Saints Grab and Go Shop, MMU

I arrive at MMU at 9am after my travel training and grab a brew! At 9.15am I start to get myself ready for my placement, making sure my tie is straight, putting on my name badge and my pass..

At 9.30am I walk over to my placement at the Grab and Go shop and say good morning to Gail before washing my hands and asking what I need to do first..

I stock up the drinks fridge first, making sure that the labels are turned to the front and the fridges look full. This is a task that I have to come back to throughout the day as the students are always thirsty..

At 10.20am I stock up the crisps, checking the dates and making sure the packets with the shortest dates are put to the front on the stand..

It quietens down a little bit around 10.50am as the students are in their lectures, so I spend some time talking to Gail getting to know her before I move on to stock up the coffee station – have they got enough cups? Enough lids and sugar? Are the sides clean? Do I need to empty the teabag bin?

Elaine arrives to start her shift so I say good morning and carry on cleaning up the coffee station. My placement finishes for the morning at 12pm and I meet Charlotte to talk through my targets. She asks me how my morning has been and what jobs I have done today. 12.30-1.00pm is lunch time!!

At 1pm I go back to placement. I need to clean the tables this afternoon, so I spray the cleaning solution onto the cloth before wiping the tables..

Then it’s time to stock up the fridges, crisps and chocolate again..

My placement finishes for the day at 2.30pm and I return to class and put my pass back, then meet my travel trainer to go home..

All in a day’s work!

Now to this week’s ‘Worker of the Week’, Keiffer! Keiffer is currently working at Oldham Leisure Centre on our pre-internship programme. Keiffer works in the cleaning services and has had a brilliant week. His work ethic is superb and he has had a fantastic attitude to both his work placement and his class work this week! Well done Keiffer!

Next we have an update from Digit4ll, over to Mr Handrick and Mr Bright..

In Graphic Design this week, the students have been looking at logos. After taking part in ‘Do you know your Logo?’ we looked more in depth at logos of famous brands and their meanings. The class enjoyed finding out and telling others about brands that they already know. The group were then set the task of creating a logo for a new company (that they will be the BOSS of!) and as you can see, the students really enjoyed creating logos of the next big brands to hit the streets..

So keep your eye out next time you’re in the Trafford Centre, Knightsbridge or the high street in Ramsbottom!

Digit4ll at Medtia have also been working hard preparing to launch their new enterprise for this year. As part of Young Enterprise, students have to decide on a new product to sell. After intense discussions the group decided they were going to start researching how to print on mobile phone cases. The goal is to create personalised mobile cases with words of inspiration and positive messages on them. As Jordan so eloquently stated, ‘We can print positive messages to bring a bit of unity to the world.’ Keeping with the theme of unity, a new name for our enterprise was born…’UnITe’ and our slogan, ‘Uniting people with IT’.

This week the students have been deciding on the corporate image for the enterprise. This involved choosing colour schemes for all our marketing..

..designing logos which will be voted for by the students..

..and researching a range of fonts to decide on a typography for our products..

We also had a special visitor in to discuss possible filming projects for the gang. Kash from Oldham Enterprise Trust explained to the students how impressed he was with all their successes from last year and how we can build on it further this year..

We are very close to launching our new products, watch this space!!!

This week, Ofsted and the CQC have carried out Oldham’s Local Area SEND Review. On Wednesday, myself and a number of colleagues from the senior leadership team had the opportunity to speak with one of the inspectors to share some of the good work that we do here at New Bridge. It is no surprise that when talking about our Employability Matrix and the successes of our work placements, pre internship and internship programmes the inspection team were extremely impressed with our work. Our outcomes speak for themselves with so many of our young people now leaving us to move into paid employment or independent volunteering. It was just another reminder that what we do here works really well and is unique. We look forward to celebrating many more success stories with you in the coming months.

That is all from me this week. Next week I look forward to sharing details with you of this year’s overseas residential for our Future Finders students. It is VERY exciting! Have a wonderful weekend,

Daniel
Director of Employment & Co Head of Site at Medtia Square

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