Well, this week has got us all feeling festive! On Tuesday we had an amazing Christmas dinner over at First Choice Homes in their conference room. The food was provided by the Atrium and Becki, Sammy and Toni did an incredible job at preparing an amazing dinner! Thank you ladies!

Our Digit4ll group have been travelling all over the place filming Christmas shows and on Wednesday my two worlds collided when Digit4ll went over to The Christie Hospital to record for a film I have commissioned..

Outside of school I run the Manchester Show Choir and I recently set up The Pure Imagination Trust, a charity that provides live music in hospitals and health care settings. The charity is only a few months old but this week, we have provided live musicians at The Christie Hospital every day. As chair of trustees, I was tasked to find a company to film some of our work for promotional purposes and who better to fit this brief than our amazing Digit4ll students. I have already seen some of the footage and it is brilliant! Thank you to you all for fitting me in.

On Tuesday evening I was over at New Bridge School to see our annual Christmas Extravaganza and I can honestly say it is the best one I have seen yet! Congratulations to all of the students.

Now for some updates from our pathways, starting with Bridging the Gap..

A Day in the Life of Ellis  
Pharmacy Porter at the Royal Oldham Hospital

My working day starts at 9.10am. I have to wear the Porter uniform and my ID badge. I meet John at the Chapel and we set off on our collection round..

First we have to go to the pharmacy to collect the flatbed truck. We start on the top floor wards and clinics collecting empty blue pharmacy bags and boxes..

I love working with John – we make a good team..

Next we go to the wards and clinics on the lower floors. When we have collected all the empties, we return to pharmacy to drop them off. The blue bags go back in the pharmacy and the green boxes go into the pharmacy stores..

When the deliveries are ready for us, we get our recording sheets and clip board and start entering the amount of bags and type of bags onto our record sheet. This is very important so that there is a record to say which bags have been dropped off and where. We keep a record by asking the senior nursing staff on each ward to sign for the bags and boxes we hand over. Some of the bags have controlled drugs inside them, these bags are locked with a security tag..

Now it’s time for a quick brew and a few minutes break before our next job..

When we have finished all the medication deliveries, we go down to the large storeroom with our flatbed truck. We load the truck up with boxes of Hemosol and Prismasol, which we have to deliver to the ICU unit..

I have to remember to lift heavy boxes the way I was shown in my training to protect myself..

All ready to deliver to the ICU..

I work until lunchtime then go for my dinner with Dominic and Amanda. After lunch I go back to work and do the rounds again. I finish my placement around 2.30pm then spend the last half an hour in class catching up with work.

On a Tuesday afternoon and Thursday morning, as part of the Porters I work in the post room. I go out on two post rounds collecting mail from different departments..

..and I sort mail into the correct pigeon holes..

I enjoy both my placements and I have learnt lots of new things. The staff are friendly and helpful and I like having a laugh with them all.

All in a day’s work!

Our Pre Internship students have been busy too..

Over the past few weeks in our living skills lessons, the students have been learning about healthy snacks that they could make themselves. After some negotiations and taking KFC off the menu, the students decide that they would like to make wraps.

The first week the students focused on the ingredients and worked together in small groups writing wish lists for their wraps. They chose the vegetables, meats, proteins and sauces that they wanted to try. It was a bit of task explaining to Fahad, Luka and Kieran that ketchup doesn’t go well with spinach or cottage cheese! Thankfully their team leaders Josie and Dylan manage to convince them that mayonnaise was a nicer and healthier option..

For the next lesson it was time to make the wraps. Everyone had a go building and rolling their wraps and there were a couple of firsts for some of the students; Kamran tried an olive, Fahad chose 3 different types of vegetables and Dylan swapped his favourite Iron Bru for some pure orange!

When they had finished their wraps the students reviewed their choices of ingredients and all the students said that their wraps were delicious and the best part of the lesson was making the wraps themselves..

In Employability our students made the centre pieces and a decoration for the Medtia Christmas dinner, again this was another practical lesson and the students enjoyed getting creative and messy..

Then it was over to Rezual and Josie with the help of Future Finders Colette to decorate the Atrium ready for the Christmas dinner. All three students worked very hard to prepare and clean up after the staff and students from Medtia and have each earned themselves their workers of the week awards. Well done you were fantastic!

Our Workers of the Week definitely earnt their awards for working extremely hard making decorations and getting the room ready for Christmas lunch…well done Josie and Rezaul, the room looked amazing!

I would like to finish by saying a huge thank you to my extremely hard working staff. At this time of the year, most people are winding down at work but for us things are busier than ever. Mr Handrick and Mr Slater have literally been out filming most evenings with students and Mrs Preston and the performing arts team have also been giving up their evenings to do the school show. You are all so dedicated to ensuring that our students get the best possible opportunities and so, on behalf of our students and families, thank you!!

This will be my last blog of 2018! Another year over… I am off next Friday as I am jetting off to Miami for the start of my Christmas holiday. I would like to wish you all a wonderful Christmas and a fantastic New Year. I look forward to seeing all of our students when we return on 7th January.

Daniel
Head of Key Stage 5 Pathways

You can view our previous blog entries here

Click here for this week’s news from Graham