Welcome to another busy week at the College.

This week we have been meeting with all our staffing team to carry out Job Chats and appraisal meetings. These have all been done through TEAMS and it has given myself and Ms Wilson an understanding from the team’s perspective of what is been working well for our learners. The main theme to come from the chats was that all our students have settled back so well – staff were not expecting this, especially with the students being out of college for so long and having a new building to settle into.

I must say the college environment is very calm and settled and our students are enjoying being back. This week we managed to secure work placement opportunities for some of our employability students which you will hear about from the Pre Internship Pathway in this blog.

Also this week, myself and Ms Wilson met with the senior executive team to revisit the college Risk Assessment which is continually being reviewed and added to, to ensure safety for all. This is being published for you all to read here.

This week Activ8, the Pre Internship pathway and our Bridging the Gap students will be sharing what they have been up to starting with Mr Thornton’s report from Activ8..

Let me bring you up to date, with the ‘whats, whos and whens’ in Activ8 this week. The team have worked incredibly hard this week, especially during their PE theory sessions. Activ8 have worked on: functions of the skeleton, the human body and identifying bones.

The staff team are absolutely delighted with the work on show. The group have displayed a fantastic work ethic and willingness to learn. No one more so than Sophie J., with her brilliant explanation of movement and protection of the body.

Sophie has also been selected, along with Charlie, to represent Activ8 on the Smart Student Council. Discussions were held, opinions were shared and decisions were made and the team agreed to raise money for Cancer Research UK. I’m sure you’ll agree with the extremely deserving cause our students have chosen.

Due to current circumstances, Activ8 had to improvise when we embarked on our first trip to Mahdlo this year. The staff team had to overcome a number of challenges, in order to keep everyone safe, due to COVID-19 restrictions. The team enjoyed a fantastic workout session though, and built up a sweat! Activ8 really came together, geeing each other on, to get the best out of one another.

Despite the poor weather, ‘ Duke of Edinburgh’s’ was back on the agenda this week. With the gang in tow, Mr Lawrence, Mr Newton and Miss Shirley set off for a trek! The resilience and commitment of our students absolutely shone, as they hit the targets set.

Back at our college base, where the rain couldn’t get us, we have held different discussions around disabilities and impairments during life skills. This has helped our students gain more knowledge and understanding of different disabilities. With plenty of compassion, respect and maturity, our students took in plenty of information and asked some sincere and genuine questions, mainly wanting to know more about the barriers and hardships that people with different disabilities may have to overcome, in their everyday lives.

Finally, ‘The Activ8 Fantasy Football League’ has had plenty of twists and turns. Up one week and down the next, it has been impossible to predict!
With a friendly but competitive edge on show, our students can’t wait to get in on Tuesday morning to see if they have gained the bragging rights.
However, those “ bragging rights” belong to Jay. He pipped Morgan to top spot to gain our first prize of the season.

We’ve had a jam-packed week, all tired out, and ready for a well earned rest. We hope you all have a great weekend. Take care.

Now for news from our two Pre Internship groups, starting with our job coach Nicola..

It’s been a busy few weeks for our Pre-Intern students. They have had to deal with a range of new challenges, from being in a new building, social distancing, staying in their allocated bubbles and accessing fewer work placements, but the group have all been amazing and so supportive towards each other. A true team effort all round. So what have they been up to?……

As part of the recovery curriculum the students have been focusing on themselves and their emotions, finding ways to recognise and develop resilience. We have discussed at length COVID 19 and lockdown. We looked at how some songs lyrics can be relevant to the feelings and experiences of ourselves and others, with the main feeling being loneliness. The two songs the students reviewed were Nowhere Man and Eleanor Rigby. They created a piece of writing bringing the story and characters of Eleanor Rigby into 2020.

They have started to create a piece of art titled “All About Me” and we can’t wait to show you all the finished pieces.

In our Employability sessions the students have started to work on their personal profiles for their CVs, started the planning process for the Presentation Skills Unit and are making good progress with the Interpersonal Skills Unit. They have also been able to complete some practical skills that link into different job roles. For example Saaim was our pre-intern Porter, helping to move and set up furniture..

..Summer was our Admin Assistant, organising and filing worksheets..

..and Kevin was our Teaching Assistant, sorting out resources and displaying information within the classroom..

Well done to all our pre-interns. It really has been a great few weeks in college .

Our second Pre Intern group have been working just as hard, as our job coach Colin explains..

This week with the Pre Interns has been as busy as ever. Students have adapted fantastically and have understood not all students have had the opportunity to attend placements on a full time basis due to Covid. Classroom based activities have been taking place working on Employability portfolios, Maths, English and art therapy around themselves and resilience building.

During Employability students have been working towards the mandatory unit of ‘Developing Interpersonal Skills and Personal Action Planning’ which this week has consisted of understanding their own strengths and weaknesses and understanding time management.

Alongside completing the Employability Portfolios, students have had a greater look into CVs and started to plan their personal statements by producing a 1-minute presentation about themselves identifying and highlighting their own strengths and skills. Once this was created it was delivered to students within the class. All students were amazing and offered fantastic positive support and positive criticism around areas students could improve which sparked great class discussions.

Students did some creative art making canvas with images and words that best represent them, it was amazing to see how they represented their identities.

The students wanted to add their own thoughts and opinions of this week..

• “This week has been very good for me especially I experienced half a day at David Lloyd’s it was extremely good, I started off cleaning some pots then started cleaning some tables then just supporting the staff. During the week we did a piece of art work designing our own portraits putting our favourite things onto them. We worked on our booklets on employability it was enjoyable’’
• “This week we have done a lot of work including Presentations all about me and we looked at CVs and we did art about ourselves we put quotes, pictures and we painted it as well. We worked on our booklets for Employability and we looked at jobs that match our skills and qualities – I got a RAF officer and teacher’’
• “This week so far has been good even though I can’t do placement at the minute but the lessons I’ve been doing were good. It has been tough staying in one room for all day. We did some Maths, English, Living Skills and Employability that I liked the most at the moment. It’s been a good week and I hope the next is not bad as well”

Have a great weekend!

Our job coach Tisha has been supporting some of our students on placement at David Lloyd this week..

Pre-interns have returned back to David Lloyd this week. Here we have Peter, Lewis and Hasnain with their visors on ready to start their new placement..

Upon entering the building, the students have to sanitise their hands, put a face mask on and then sign into the building..

Here they are following Sam the restaurant supervisor who did an induction..

..before they were introduced to Laura, front of house staff..

The boys in their full protective equipment to keep themselves and others safe..

Hasnain wrapping knives and forks..

Lewis at the greeting area where customers have to wait..

Lewis got busy cleaning the tables ready for new customers..

Following the table cleaning system making sure the tables are wiped clean after customer use keeping in line with cleaning guidelines..

Peter being asked to serve customers beverages front of house..

Saaim liked his new placement, building his confidence and customer service skills!

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All the students have done very well to start placement this week and settled in well especially during strange times. Well done!!

Finally, our Bridging the Gap students have been equally busy with our job coach, Genna..

Welcome to Bridging the Gap’s new business venture BTG500!!

The students have been very busy starting up a new company and working hard to get the company off the ground! We are a car valeting business, and we will be valeting staff cars at the college (for a fee of course!) This has involved a lot of risk assessments, payment forms, booking forms, logo designing, feedback forms and equipment (a lot of it has been donated kindly by Alan and family, so thank you very much!)

We couldn’t be prouder of our BTG500 team, and the amount of work that they have put in, both physical and mental has been outstanding! There will be many more updates to come from our BTG500 secretary Miss Sedgwick, with some positive feedback from our first customers! Have a lovely weekend from the whole BTG500 team and Genna and Beth.

Mrs Nelson now has more news for us..

This term Mrs Nelson has set up the New Bridge College site’s Smart Student Council. All our groups selected a representative by a nomination and vote process. In each group we have a team leader and note taker, a question is selected each week and a selection of answers are voted for by each student. This is then fed back to a communication team where it is recorded and acted upon and taken to the Student Council.

The best performing teams this term so far are from the Lumenus group and Activ8. A big well done to you for all your hard work.

Next Friday 9th October, New Bridge College students and staff can wear something yellow for #HelloYellow Day and a £1 donation to support the charity Young Minds #HelloYellow awareness day.

Before I finish I wanted to celebrate with you all the fantastic achievement by Ms Wilson who has cycled a whopping 300 miles during the month of September! Helen has done this to raise money for Cancer Research. If any of you would like to donate, please follow Helen’s Cancer Research link here.

Finally, thank you again for your continued support

Jaina and the 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