Firstly I would like to offer all our students and staff a very warm welcome back to Medtia after the Christmas break. It is great to be back and we have hit the ground running this week as our teachers will explain in their pathway updates, starting with our Pre Interns..

Happy New Year from all of us at Pre-Intern. We hope you all had a lovely Christmas and are ready to get back into a routine just like us.
I would like to take this opportunity to welcome two new students to the Pre-Intern pathway, Jermaine and Dom. They have attended their first week of work placements and lessons within the group – we have enjoyed meeting them and look forward to getting to know them both throughout the year..

Our students have all spent this first week back settling into new placements and learning new routines and structure along the way..

We would like to welcome on board our brand new work placement, Hawthorns Primary School. They are providing Charlie with a fantastic opportunity, his placement is working at the school as Teaching Assistant supporting the Forest Schools programme and also working on the sports pathway with Tameside Active.

As a class we have covered some work on E-Safety this week with our students and discussed the dangers of using technology and what to do to protect yourself whilst online. Within this session we covered how to use social media in a safe way and how to make your account private and share information with only people you know.

Our plans for the first part of a term are to learn about budgeting for food shopping and the cost of running a home in Living Skills. In Employability we will be working on health and safety, focusing on hazards and risk assessments, then we will be starting a new unit on Personal Action Planning. Well done to the Pre-Interns for a great first week back!

Activ8 have been living up to their name with a very energetic start to the year..

We started the week with a weight training session at the OCL gym. On Wednesday the lads took on a gym challenge which included rowing 3km, treadmill running 3km and cycling 13km to burn off the Christmas calories.

On Thursday, Mr Lawrence took the group walking from Dovestone Reservoir up to Chew Reservoir and they finished the week with another gym session lead by Mr Smith.

Quite a busy first week back for the Key Stage 5 students!

Digit4ll have also hit the ground running..

The first week back and we are all back in the swing after the break. We have been settling in to the new term by working out how we are going to challenge the next term of the business. There are some key dates on the horizon such as Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day, where we can take care of your special gifts with personalised mugs and canvas prints.

We have ordered the next batch of cotton bags to be printed on as well as making our first canvas of 2019. Eliot did a great job of opening up the bags and checking that all the numbers are correct..

We have been asked to make a E-Safety poster for the building, so we set the challenge to our always faithful designers, Matthew and Danielle who quickly got on the task..

Once Mr Wood had checked over the design it was off to the printing team where Kevin got the tools out and did his thing..

So all in all, it’s been back to work we go!

We also sent £10 to the charity Plastic Oceans UK that we are linked with  for all the bags that we sold before Christmas. They were very happy with our work and if you check out our New Bridge Enterprise website here, on the Sea Clear page you will see a link to the great documentary about the world’s problems with plastic in our oceans. We have had the chance to watch this documentary (that you can access through Netflix) and has really brought home the problems that the world has with plastic use. As a class we have started to discuss our own personal use of plastic and how we can reduce this.

Please remember to check us out on social media – you can follow us on Twitter @_SeaClear and on Facebook @SeaClearEnterprise
Enjoy the weekend!

Our Bridging the Gap students have been working hard too, both at MMU..

It is our first day back at Manchester Metropolitan University and everyone is getting back in the swing of it after the Christmas break. Lewis is back at his IT placement and is already learning lots of new things, including how to fix cables around the university to ensure that all the servers are up and running (it’s all very complicated and I’m sure Lewis already knows more than I ever will about all things IT!!)

Jason and Reece have been getting ready to begin their new placements on Monday; Reece will be at the university library and Jason will be working in the Food & Beverage department. Both are looking forward to starting and we have been continuing our class work this week on the importance of making a good first impression, body language and work ethic. Photos to follow on my next blog of our students in their new placements!!

..and the Royal Oldham Hospital..

The students have had a very busy first week back at the hospital on their new placements. They are both feeling happy about their new uniforms and starting a new placement..

Dominic has started his placement with the Pharmacy Porters, which includes doing some work in the post room..

..and Ellis has started his placement in Cleaning Services..

Lumenus have certainly started the new year as they mean to go on..

This week Lumenus have jumped straight back on the horse, rehearsing for their touring piece ‘Everyday Heroes’ that we will take to Hawthorns School and Hollinwood Academy, and taking part in a read through of our summer show, ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’….

The students have worked incredibly hard and are prepared and ready for a busy and successful term. Happy New Year everyone !!!!!

In addition to their different pathway activities, all the students at Medtia also continue to work on their Functional Skills and you won’t be surprised to hear that this is another are where they’ve got the year off to a flying start..

In English we have been working extremely hard in preparing for the Functional Skills exams. The students have been practising how to write various forms of writing such as letters, emails and articles. They have been working tremendously and have settled right back in for the new term and have sat their mock exams. Every single student has made significant progress and improved both in their reading and writing abilities. All the students have passed their mock tests and we are in the process of entering them to sit the exams very soon. I am extremely proud of all the effort the learners put in to the English sessions and look forward to teaching them every day. There is a great atmosphere and they are all very enthusiastic and keen to to achieve their best. Well done!

Next week we will be meeting once again with our Student Council and I look forward to reporting back on our discussions. I hope you all have a restful weekend,

Daniel
Head of Key Stage 5 Pathways

You can view our previous blog entries here

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