Well, we have a bumper blog this week for you all with updates from Digit4ll, Lumenus, our Pre-Interns and our English Department! It is fantastic to see what amazing work is already going on this term and it’s also lovely to see what our students are up to when they are out in the community and on work placement! So over to our fabulous staff and students, starting with our Pre-Interns..

A day in the life of Sarah 
Atrium Cafe at First Choice Homes

I start my working day by travelling independently on the bus to Medtia. I meet my friends at Medtia and have a chat, then we go into our classroom to do the register and talk through our day ahead on placements.

At 9:15 it’s time to go to my work placement. I sign myself out at reception and help carry the bread trays over to the café. When I get there I say good morning to Becki and Sammy, put my coat and phone away, put on a clean apron then wash my hands.

My first job is loading the trolley with the tea, coffee, milk, sweeteners and sugar, I get the clipboard and write the date on a new tick list then push the trolley around the kitchens on the different floors of the offices and work with the other students to check what is needed before replenishing the items.

I like checking the dates on the milk and filling up the sugar. I know if the milk is in date or is past its use by date and I like using the check list to tick off the items that have been replenished.

After this job it’s time to set up for the trolley run. I have to wipe and dry the trolley then load it with two of each item. This is not my favourite job but I like working out the change to give to the customers when we take the trolley to sell snacks to the staff.

When I have finished the trolley run, I put the unsold items away then put the money back in the till and input the sold items into the iPad. This is my favourite job and I have learnt how to use the iPad quickly.

After my break I wrap the cutlery, wipe the tables and replenish the stock. I have learnt that it’s very important to place the new stock behind the old stock, which means I have to take all the old drinks out of the fridge before I can put the new ones in.

Then I either work in the kitchen doing some food prep. or I work on my money skills with my job coach. I prefer working in the kitchen because I get to make sandwiches and plate up the meals for Medtia, when I do my Maths I choose items from the café, add them together to find the totals then do my take away sums to work out the change. Working in the kitchen is much more fun!

Next it’s time to serve the staff. I work behind the counter using the iPad to input customers’ orders and take payments, then I serve the customers their meals. I have to say their names before I give them their meals. This is so I know I’m giving the right lunch to the correct person.

Then I have my dinner and I really enjoy eating my meals in the café because I get to see how they are made.

After my dinner I collect the dirty plates and go on the pot-wash. This can be a very busy job. I have to scrape the plates, rinse them, load the dishwasher, wait for the cycle to run then let the plates air dry for a little bit, then unload the pot-wash, put the dishes away then do it all again but I can do this job really well.

For the last hour of my placement I clean the tables and wrap more cutlery. After this I check if anything needs replenishing. The last job I do is take the rubbish and cardboard out and put them in the correct bins.

I finish my placement at 14:15, I put my dirty apron in the wash bag, collect my belongings and say goodbye to the staff.

Back at Medtia I have some free time before we all get together as a group and talk through our day. I like being in the pre-internship. We work hard but still have time to have a laugh.

Let’s find out what our students have been doing in their English lessons..

A fantastic start to a new academic year this year here at Medtia in the English department. We have new faces, both staff and students, and it is lovely to welcome all.
There have been a myriad of topics covered this first half term in all the different English groups. This half term is based on reading and reading we have been doing! We have KS5FS4 and KS5FS3 reading Varjak Paw, a fantastic novel about a super cat with excellent martial arts abilities. They are all really engaged with the story and have all been making amazing progress with their comprehension skills.

In KS5FS2 we have delved deep into the jungle on a desert island with some lost boys whilst reading Lord of the Flies. We have embarked on a figurative journey; a fantastic comprehension project improving our inference skills. We have been interpreting the means, motives and feelings of the boys in Golding’s fantastic prose and have been perfecting our literary language analysis.

KS5FS1 have embarked on their own journey working towards their GCSE English Language, this half term we are focusing on Language Paper 2: Writers’ Viewpoints and Perspectives. We have begun improving our language analysis skills to apply them to the GCSE questions by becoming Victorian detectives, analysing Jack the Ripper’s letters to try and solve the century old case by analysing tone, penmanship and language used to try and gain an insight into the authenticity of the letters and to pinpoint who The Ripper might have been.

There are lots of exciting new paths we are embarking on this year in English and already we have made a fantastic start. All of us here look forward to another successful year with our students developing their skills in English and progressing further.

New projects are also underway on our performing arts pathway, Lumenus..

A day in the life of Millie
Lumenus Key Stage 5 Pathway

I’m Millie and I have moved up to Medtia to join Lumenus KS5. I am settling into Medtia really well after I had a successful transition period last year by joining the KS5 group every Wednesday.

I get to Medtia on the bus and I’m always excited to start a new day. On Thursdays we have now started girls group with Mrs Nelson. I have been looking forward to girls group as i get to catch up with girls during the week. This week me and the girls have been decorating cakes all in aid of Macmillan Coffee Morning! They were very delicious!!

After break we went to Oldham Theatre Workshop to use the theatre space and we started off with some mindfulness and meditation led by Mrs Preston. I really enjoy starting the day off like this as it really calms me and gets Me prepared for the day.

This term we have been studying Physical Theatre. I have been working with Jacqueline on this piece and this week we chose a poem to incorporate with our movement piece. Here are some pictures of our work..

I have had fun creating this piece and I am looking forward to showing you all the end product!

We returned back to Medtia at the end of the day in time for the bus home.

Now Mrs Joubert has an update for us on Digit4ll..

It has been a great pleasure to be reunited with Digit4ll 2 who seem to have settled into the college life at Medtia. It has been lovely to see the lads venture off independently into town and socialise with new people. All the students are now in possession of an iPad and are starting to learn various skills and techniques, sharing these amongst one another. The group are engaged in various ICT projects such as Digital Skills – learning skills and techniques in printing, design, video software and photography. Alongside these skills they are in the process of setting up their own Business Enterprise and are currently designing their company name and logo (exciting times ahead!). Watch this space for shares in this which they will be selling soon.

On Thursdays at Medtia Mrs Nelson holds a girls group for the Pre-Interns and pathway girls. Since it was coffee morning this week, the girls all got stuck in and decorated some delicious cakes! The girls all pitched in and even had to do some problem solving and put these cake tiers together..

It was brilliant to see all the girls come together to help support Macmillan Coffee Morning!

On Friday morning we had our coffee morning to raise funds for Macmillan. It was lovely to see so many families dropping in to see us and it is safe to say that my diet went well and truly out of the window! Mrs Nelson and our new girls group did a fantastic job of decorating cakes on Thursday and they went down a storm – there was very little left by the end of the morning!

Our Bridging the Gap students at the Royal Oldham Hospital didn’t miss out either..

On Monday we have our first student council meeting of the term. Our student council is made up of the following students:

Saaim – Activ8
Sarah – Pre-Internship
Zanub – Future Finders
Dom – Pre-Internship
Danielle – Digit4ll1
Joseph – Digit4ll2
Millie – Lumenus

We also have two LGBTQ+ student ambassadors on our student council who are Michael from Digit4ll and Grace from Lumenus.

I am looking forward to meeting our students on Monday along with our governors Cathy and Ken to get their views on college life! I will report back in next week’s blog.

Have a wonderful (and probably very wet) weekend!

Daniel
Head of Key Stage 5 Pathways

You can view our previous blog entries here

News from the Learning Centre and New Bridge School can be found here

Click here for this week’s news from Graham