It’s been an extremely busy week at Medtia Square and we have so much to update you on, so I’ll pass you straight over to our staff and students, starting with Tara..

A day in the life of Tara
Premier Inn Central

I work at Premier Inn Central with the housekeeping team, helping the team to tidy the rooms ready for the customers. My shift starts at 9:30am and this is the routine we follow for the rest of the day..

The first job we do is collect the clean laundry that has come in the delivery and put it in the laundry room for when we need fresh laundry for the rooms..

We have to make sure that the right laundry goes on each shelf so that we know what to get when we are cleaning a room and we get the right linen..

The next job of the day is housekeeping. We partner up with one of the housekeeping team and together we help to clean the rooms. I’m currently working on the ‘Gold Route’ when I’m cleaning rooms and this is the routine we follow….first of all we knock on the door twice and say ‘housekeeping’ so that anyone inside knows who it is..

We then go in and the first thing we do is to check if there is any water in the kettle and if there is, we empty it out. Next we open the curtains and windows in the room..

This makes the room look nice and fresh for when customers come back into the room. After this we make sure that we empty the bins of any rubbish and replace the bin bags..

When we have finished in the bedroom, we go in the bathroom and make sure that it is clean and presentable. We shake the shower curtains to remove any excess water and check that everything is in order..

We have to make sure that we keep on top of all our work at Premier Inn so that we finish all the rooms in time, ready for the customers. Our work isn’t finished just yet, though! Once all the rooms are ready, our last job is to make sure that all the dirty laundry is put into cages ready to go to laundry..

Tara has been really enjoying her time at the Premier Inn and found that she has learnt both job skills and life skills whilst on her placement. Head housekeeper Lyndsey is really impressed with how well Tara works, both independently and also within the housekeeping team. Well done Tara!

Now our job coach, Anne-Marie has this week’s update on all our Future Finders..

Another fabulous week here at Future Finders…..some more new placements, potential job opportunities and much more!!

Monday as always is our classroom day, starting with working on our Functional Skills in Maths and English. Here is a quick update on what we have been up to with Mr Holland:

“In Maths this week we looked at multiplication, addition and subtraction, while in English we designed a magazine, editing and creating the end to our story, looking at nouns, pronouns, verbs and adverbs to make the story board more interesting”

This week we have had a portfolio session in Employability, making sure all our work from our last unit is completed. We have also been completing some work whilst out on placements around Health and Safety in the workplace. Alongside this we did some Living Skills, looking at moving into our own homes and what bills we would have. We were set a budget and from that, we had to pay rent and all the bills. We identified what we thought would be an essential item or a treat and with the money we had left from our budgets, we went shopping. It was interesting to see how much things were and how looking around or maybe buying special offers can help.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday continue to be our placement days. One of our many roles as Job Coaches is to continue to build our working relationships with our employers. Here is some feedback we have received this week:

‘He has done really well this week. He is starting to settle in, we have done some of his induction. He is a lovely young man.’ ~ Deborah, Manager at Age UK, Uppermill

‘Afsana is doing great! She has settled back in well to the team. We have had Early Years professionals in this morning and they have observed Afsana, who planned and brought in the materials needed for a new activity for the children. She is doing brilliantly’ ~ Carol, Manager at The Childcare Village

We have been busy building up relationships with new employers as well this week who have heard what our Future Finders offer is. We have been contacted by a company called NSL who have a placement opportunity for one of our learners. We sent over the students’ CVs and profiles and they wanted to meet Kyra. She went for an informal interview yesterday and was offered the opportunity to start with the company next week!! Well done Kyra!!!

As you may be aware, the New Bridge Group runs our ‘Bridging the Gap’ project at the Royal Oldham Hospital. We have been working with them over the last few weeks to see what we can do to support them outside of the hospital around work that can be carried out at Medtia. Each week the hospital hands out over 100 patient packs to people who are due to have operations and preparing these packs is an essential part of the pre-op department. We have worked with them to outsource this work, so we pick up the leaflets, put the packs together and deliver them back to the hospital. Once we had arranged this, we needed to find the perfect young person for the role and Edward has been lucky enough to gain this as his new placement opportunity..

The hospital were expecting us to complete 100 packs but Edward has smashed that target this week – well done Edward!

In last week’s blog we mentioned that Seb had gained a placement at Age UK in Uppermill. Well, this week he has also started work at their shop in Lees – more great work from Seb, well done!

Colette has also been successful in gaining a new placement opportunity at a local café – more on that next week!

We really value the employers who work with our young people, providing not only placements but also making each student feel a real member of their team and offering them invaluable support and encouragement. This week our job coach, Colin tells us more about Tesco..

This is our third year working alongside Tesco who have been a valued placement provider for all our young adults. Over the last 3 years, 5 students have accessed placements at Tesco and been given the opportunity to attempt various different roles supported by job coaches and staff..

Some of the tasks our students get to experience are working on the tills, stacking shelves, stock rotation and general customer service. This has had a positive impact around their social and communication skills, understanding work ethic and has promoted their independence.

Tesco have offered our students the opportunity to not only be part of the team in store but they have also invited us to work with them supporting community projects like their litter picking day.

Christian, the previous manager who helped create links for Future Finders to work with Tesco, has supported us to move on to different and larger stores in the local area where the continued support has been invaluable. Christian said:

‘Working with Future Finders has been a highly positive experience for all involved. Giving Future Finders students the opportunity and chance to build on skills and offer new skills to the company has been a huge success.’

Here are some quotes from other Tesco employees:

‘All students who are working on placement at Tesco are valuable members of our team’ ~ Staff member
‘Students are very confident and have taken to all jobs given to them very quickly, they are brilliant’ ~ Staff member

We look forward to continuing to work with Tesco in the future as they have been an invaluable workplace provider.

On Monday we have our first ever Medtia Student Council and I am looking forward to reporting back on our discussions in next week’s blog. Have a great weekend,

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

You can view our previous blog entries here

Click here for this week’s news from Graham