As you will know, I have been away this week with our Future Finders students on our annual residential to Salou. I am sure that you will have seen via our facebook and twitter pages that we truly had a wonderful time. I’m sure this is a trip that many of our pathway students will be looking forward to attending in the future! Roll on next year!

Needless to say, in my absence Medtia has been as busy as ever and we have a few updates for you from our pathway groups, starting with our Bridging the Gap students down at Manchester Metropolitan University with our job coach, Genna..

Reece has completed his placement in the library this week and the staff are sad to see him go! They held a presentation with all the staff to thank Reece and this is what his manager had to say,

It has been an absolute pleasure having you with us Reece, we can see how much you have grown in confidence and you are a fine young man. All the staff have taken you under their wing and we haven’t let anyone stay with us for two terms before, so that is down to you and what an impression you have made.

They then presented Reece with a card from all the staff and £35 worth of Amazon vouchers. Reece thanked all the staff and they have all been invited to our graduation day where Reece has prepared a speech to thank everyone who has helped him on his journey on Bridging the Gap. Well done Reece!

Luka has settled in well at the university and after training with his job coach Hayley prior to his start date, Luka is comfortable enough and more than happy to travel independently into Manchester. Luka is working in the facilities department and, as you can see, it is no office job!

And last but not least, Lewis, who is nearing the end of his IT placement. Lewis has been completing lots of new tasks including; sensor audit work and updating all the comms rooms (no I don’t understand it either!) But Lewis is learning so much and is still on course to get his dream job in IT.

Our job coach Hayley has been supporting Poppy on her work experience placement at the RSPCA..

This term Poppy has started her work experience placement at the RSPCA. She has settled in brilliantly and is a massive asset to the team. Poppy is brilliant with the cats and spending nurture time with them. Poppy understands what the cats need and want and goes along with whatever that is. Poppy has pets at home, so already has a good knowledge of how to treat the animals and play with them..

Here’s what Poppy has to say about her work experience placement so far:

I’ve being doing work experience on a Thursday morning at the RSPCA for a few weeks now and I really enjoy spending time with different cats because I love animals more than I love humans.

Poppy also does some fantastic work filling out the behaviour reports for the cats about the time she has spent with them in the pens. Poppy uses some brilliant descriptive words which are really helpful for the staff to understand what the cat is like when spending time with them. The behaviour reports are also in place to show what kind of homes each cat will be better situated with. Top job Pops, well done.

Now over to our Pre Interns and job coach Tisha..

A day in the life of Zanub
David Lloyd Clubs, Manchester North

I am feeling really settled in my new placement this term at David Lloyd Clubs. I am working in their restaurant DLicious learning lots of new skills such as:

• Serving customers in a restaurant environment, enhancing my customer service and social skills
• Learning to abide by Health and Safety rules and regulations, including wearing the correct uniform, P.P.E. and transportation of equipment
• Learning valuable customer service and waiting on skills in a professional manner

I start at 10:15am and finish at 2:15pm with a half hour for lunch. Here I am filling the water dispensers at the front of the restaurant; I fill them up with fresh water and ice for customers who may be thirsty after their workouts.

I was asked to sweep the floors by Julie, a member of staff and my job coach; I did not want to do it because I am allergic to dust but I still did it!! We all have to do some jobs we do not really want to do. This is an important part of my work placement and experience and I am learning from it.

Here I am with Judy Murray! Judy Murray is tennis champion Sir Andy Murray’s Mum (who has just received a knighthood) I asked if I could have my picture taken with her when she held a tennis coaching day at David Lloyd Club. She was very nice and said it is good for me to get my work experience!

I served her lunch and asked if she enjoyed it… she said it was very nice and I told Kath the chef – she was pleased.

Part of my job whilst I am waiting to serve meals back of house is to polish and wrap knives and forks ready for customers. There can be so many of them!

I also take clean cups and saucers to the front of house ready for the customers ordering hot beverages.

Another part of my job is to replenish the cups and saucers ready for customers who order Beverage’s front of house at the till. They have to be in order ready for the staff to use the coffee/barista machine.

Here Georgina, the DLicious Restaurant Supervisor, is showing Rezaul and me how to stack them on the shelves correctly..

Then I went on to clean the bottom of the freezer that stores cold glasses for beers and special in house smoothies..

Here my job coach took a cheeky picture of me whilst I was on way to helping Clem the cleaner transport some cleaning equipment to the sports hall. Still having fun and enjoying my placement.

I can be feisty and cheeky but I am getting to know the David Lloyd Clubs restaurant staff and gym staff team, they keep me busy and everyone is teaching me new working and social life skills. My Job Coach is proud of me because I have improved and Georgina (Restaurant Supervisor) has also said I have improved. I know I can be cheeky, but I am becoming more professional and confident in my role over time. The customers and staff are getting to know my character and that means a lot, it makes me want to achieve more for my future.

A big thank you to everyone who has supported me, on placements and at college. Thank you.

Congratulations to our newest ‘Worker of the Week’ Dominic..

You will have received a letter this week to confirm our change in dress code for our college. We have consulted with our students and we have supported them in their campaign to wear their own clothes where appropriate. This is completely fair for students their age and we have agreed that, at set times, uniform is still appropriate and we have detailed this in the letter that we sent out.

We would also like to thank our students and families for supporting us in enforcing our new rules relating to fizzy drinks in the building. Fizzy drinks have been banned in a quest to promote healthier lifestyles and to try and control the surge of very unhealthy energy drinks that were regularly being consumed by our students.

As you will know, next week is half term. I hope you all have a fantastic week and I look forward to welcoming you back a week on Monday for our final half term of the year,

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