It has been another busy week for our staff and students and, once again, our amazing Digit4ll pathway have done us proud, representing our trust in the Young Enterprise awards for Oldham. On Tuesday, I was thrilled to be invited to the ‘dress rehearsal’ of their presentation and I was really impressed by the professionalism and confidence of their presentation. On Thursday night, it was the ‘real thing’ and they presented to a panel of professionals and a huge audience and went on to win the prize for best customer service! A huge congratulations to our students and thank you to Mr Handrick, Mr Slater and Mr Bright for supporting our team..
On Thursday many of our students visited The Queen Elizabeth Hall to attend the annual Changing Horizons event, where students spent the full day accessing a range of workshops led by companies from across the North West. I popped in to see our students and they were having a fantastic time taking part in activities including Virtual Reality tours of a workplace and carrying out a search with police dogs! Such a fantastic experience for everyone! Our job coach Nicola has more details, along with an update on our Pre Interns..
Over the past few weeks our Pre-Interns have been very busy, continuing their work placements and working just as hard in their lessons.
We have merged their Living Skills and Employability lessons as the students have been making and practising presentations. The students have to give two presentations, a shared presentation for their Employability Unit and a single formal presentation for their Speaking and Listening English Functional Skills..
The students have been amazing, working together and individually to create presentations that have to be a least 10 minutes long. As much as our Pre-Interns love to chat, it is quite challenging to speak about one subject for 10 minutes!
The students planned and drafted what information they needed to include in each presentation. They also had to plan for a question and answer session then received constructive feedback from their peers so they could review and make any changes.
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Last week our Pre-Interns had a brilliant morning at the Careers Carousel at First Choice Homes, when they went to a workshop to learn about the different departments that make up the company.
The students learnt how the Neighbourhood Department help tenants who may need support paying their rent and maintaining their homes.
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They learnt about some of the processes that the Planning and Development department goes through to build new homes, for example buying land, submitting plans and working with contractors. The students enjoyed designing a street, adding a variety of different sized new homes and trees..
The students spoke to Michelle from the Directions Team and she told the students how they support tenants who are looking to improve or gain employment skills by offering a training programme, work experience placements, support writing CVs and interview coaching. The students talked about their own work experience placements and what they liked about the Pre-Internship Pathway.
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Next on the list was having a go at tiling with the guys from Emanuel Whittaker. The students learnt how the company removes old kitchens and then fit the new kitchens, using different teams of traders like plasterers and electricians. All the students loved this activity especially Dylan and Zanub, who both want to learn how to tile so they can decorate their kitchens and bathrooms when they get homes of their own.
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Thanks to Julia and Maria for setting up the carousel and making it fun and interesting.
On Thursday the Pre-Interns went to the Changing Horizons event at The Queen Elizabeth Hall. It was a massive event full of different employers, with lots of immersive and practical tasks that the students participated in.
For the first activity the pre-interns had a go planning a budget for a Rounders Team with the Department For Work and Pensions.
For the next activity the students had to each design their own animal then they worked in teams discussing and deciding on the function and purpose of their animals and how to merge their individual ideas to make one animal..
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After that our next table was learning about travelling independently and staying safe with Pure Innovations. Kieran was really pleased to see Victoria Shaw, his former travel trainer and she was pleased to hear that so many of our pre-interns are independent travellers..
Next the students had a go constructing bridges that had to be at least 30cm long and hold the weight of a tape measure..
Another activity was working with Oldham Theatre Workshop, where the students had to to present themselves, speaking clearly, with confidence, in a mock interview….but before the serious stuff they got to warm up and relax as a group..
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It was a very busy day but all the students worked hard. Well done to all the students who took part, you were all amazing!
Now over to Patrick in Activ8 for his ‘A Day In The Life’..
A day in the life of Patrick
Activ8 Sports PathwayI am Patrick from Activ8, my day usually starts with the group meeting in registration with me as captain speaking to the other students and seeing if they have any problems. Being the team captain of Activ8 is a key role – it is a big responsibility as I have to act as a role model and ensure that I have the correct equipment for the activities we undertake within the day.
Our typical Wednesday within the group consists of a classroom based theory session learning about the body, which this week consisted of recapping muscle groups in the body and linking the said muscles to antagonistic pairs of muscles and their associated movements..
After the theory session we head to the gym to put into practice the theory we have learnt in class..
The gym session consists of working on our upper body muscle groups. Our programme plan has been tailored towards our individual goals – mine is to increase my muscle definition and reduce my body fat levels.
After the gym it is lunch that I have brought in from home, some of the other lads have lunches made by the Atrium cafe. During lunch I have the option to head out in to Oldham town centre, as the Medtia site is well located.
In the afternoon we head down to school to play sport with Key Stage 4 Activ8. This term we have started to play rounders and today’s session was focused towards throwing and catching skills before playing a game.
Now Mr Slater has an update for us on our Digit4ll pathway..
It’s been an especially exciting week here at Medtia with lots going on, such as making sure that plenty of Sea Clear bags have been both pressed and printed in time for the Young Enterprise Oldham Finals which took place on Thursday 14th March. And just in case anybody didn’t hear about the results – Sea Clear came away with another award! This time for Customer Service!
Danielle has been showing Peter how to get to grips with the bag press in order to have plenty ready for our stand at the Oldham Finals..
In case anybody is interested, we will also be having our own stall featuring our bags and the Sea Clear project in Spindles Shopping Centre in Oldham on Wednesday 20th March next week – please come along and see us if you are in Oldham!
We’ve also been busy filming and editing this week with work filmed for the up and coming school show The Greatest Showman! Hasnain, Joshua, Matthew and Peter have all been putting their editing skills to good use..
And finally our four presenters Jordan, Abigail, Joshua and Kevin doing their stuff at the Oldham Finals – well done to the whole team!
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Another fantastic week! Have a restful weekend,
Daniel
Head of Key Stage 5 Pathways
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