During this tricky time I felt it would be nice that we continued our weekly blogs. I have asked in the coming weeks for each Pathway area to share with you all some of the home learning that has been taking place while we haven’t been at college.

I have daily contact with the staff from Medtia and it is great to hear what students have been up to. Next week as many of you know would have been show week. Mrs Preston and Miss Wilson have set up a Showbie group and the videos that you have created are fantastic – I know that when they are put together the finished piece will be absolutely amazing, watch this space!

I also wanted to share with you all some wonderful news from our Digit4ll teams who as you know set up and run their own enterprise business. Each year the group/or groups (as we have two this year) take part in the regional Young Enterprise competition. Here is what they wanted to share with you all:

Hello all

As people across the MAT are aware, our Digit4ll KS5 classes take part in the Young Enterprise scheme each year. The pupils run their own business of a wide range of media & print production such as Filming, Canvas prints, personalised mugs and the infamous Sea Clear tote bag from last year. Each year in September one of the first tasks that we do is to come up with a new product that will be our main focus for the scheme as well as maintaining to produce the other media & printing services as stated above.

This year we have grown our Digit4ll KS5 and become two class groups. The students in both groups came up with ideas around mental health and well-being.

Cozy Cuddler: is a scented heat pad that you can pop in the microwave for a short time and placed around your neck to blast out the everyday stress of work and play.

Key Minds: created keyrings with a message around the awareness of mental health.

Both teams worked hard all year up to the current restrictions in place. Young Enterprise still keen on keeping this scheme alive decided to do the Oldham awards and teams could send in reports & presentations via a video link to be judged.

We are delighted that Key Minds won ‘Best Presentation’ & Cozy Cuddlers won ‘Best Customer Service’ and RUNNERS UP in the whole Oldham Schools competition for this year.

Cozy Cuddlers will now be entered into the Greater Manchester area final which will be held next week.

We are over the moon with the hard work that all the students have done this year and especially the hard work trying to pull this all together virtually the last few weeks and over the Easter period. Students have been writing reports, making videos and audio clips as well as making this all come together to be entered in time to see how they went up against a wider range of High Schools across the town.

I am sure you will all celebrate with us and wish us all the luck for the next stage of the comp.

Here are the links that we submitted:

Cozy Cuddlers

Key Minds

Thanks

Digit4ll KS5 students & staff

A fantastic well done to all the students in the two businesses – what an amazing achievement!

For those of you who have been receiving the Free School Meal vouchers, here is some further information that will help you:

• Vouchers will be sent out by Wednesday next week for another 4 week period to the value of £60.
• The Government are advising that the busiest times to register your code and claim your voucher online are between 8am and 4pm Mon- Thurs but we are finding that the website can be very busy between 8am and 9pm each day. We recommend registering codes in the evening or over the weekend.
• Once you have registered your code and have applied for your voucher, it can take up to 7 days for your voucher to be emailed.
• If vouchers are lost, we are unable to issue a new code.
• Aldi has now been added to the scheme and can be chosen as the supermarket to spend your voucher in.
• School have no control over the online portal. There is huge demand for the service with over £11million worth of vouchers being claimed over the past two weeks. Please be patient and if you do have any problems, we will of course help you as much as we can – just give us a ring or email.

And just to finish this week’s blog, I have some friendly faces who wanted to say hello:

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Take care and stay safe,

Jaina and the Pathways Team

Click here for this week’s news from Graham

You can view our previous blog entries here

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