Well, the ‘Beast from the East’ has gone and we have had another busy week here at Medtia Square. As I mentioned in my blog last week, we are now preparing for the final stage of our application to become an independent college from September, which will be the new home to our Future Finders course. We have now been contacted by the Department for Education and our full day assessment visit will be on the last day of term, Wednesday 28th March. On this day a representative from the DfE will visit Medtia Square and is likely to chat to our staff and young people, giving them the opportunity to look at the excellent work that we do here at New Bridge. I am very much looking forward to showing our young people off! I know they will do us proud.

This week we have started to plan for next term and next year! We have been arranging parent meetings for our Future Finders students, where we start to look at possible outcomes for the young people. This year we have already had a number of young people move into paid employment but there is still work to be done. My team of job coaches will now work with parents and ensure that we give the right support to move all of our students on to an appropriate destination when they leave us in the Summer. Jack, one of our Future Finders students, is currently on a work trial at The Whitegate Inn, a big supporter of our programme. He is making a big impression and we wish him every success in gaining paid employment in the not too distant future!

Today I have met with Mrs Righini and Ms Dunne to look at our numbers for next year – across our pathways we will have over 50 young people moving up to Medtia next year! A constant victim of our own success, we are very excited about what opportunities our town centre building will give to those young people.

Now over to our ‘A Day in the Life of’ section of the blog. This week we get an insight into an average day for Tom, who recently joined our pre-internship pathway from Hollinwood Academy. Over to you, Tom…

A day in the life of Thomas
Atrium Café

I put on a clean apron, wash my hands and then I find out what jobs I need to do. If I’m not working in the Atrium kitchen I normally help to take the milk, tea, coffee and sugar to the staff kitchens for the office workers. I like this job as I can see what needs filling up without support..

Next, I set up the trolley.. 

..then visit the different floors to sell goods to the office staff..

When I have finished the trolley run, I have to use the iPad to input the takings from the trolley run and empty the money from the cash box back into the till..

After this, I wash my hands, put on my hat and start working in the kitchen. This is my favourite part of the job as I get to make and prepare different foods. I really like making the mousses, preparing the salads and making sandwiches..

Sometimes, if it gets busy, I will serve the customers their meals..

The last jobs that need to be done are filling up the sauces, wrapping cutlery and cleaning the tables..

Then I sit with my job coach to write my diary and go through my targets..

Finally this week’s ‘Worker of the Week’ is Liam, who fought the elements last week to ensure that he still got to work at the Royal Oldham Hospital despite the treacherous weather. Well done, Liam!

I hope that you all have a lovely weekend. I am off to London to visit friends….I may even take in a show!

Daniel
Director of Employment & Co Head of Site at Medtia Square

You can view our previous blog entries here

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