Well, the sun is shining as we come to the end of another action packed week at Medtia. The college has felt a little quieter this week as most of our students are now out for their full three days on placement. It is lovely to see that we have new employers working with us this term including Oldham Library and the café at The Old Toll House Garden Centre. Over to our Future Finders team for a full update..

This week has been a great week for all our Future Finders – we have all been out on placement!!!! We have all been working hard not only in work but on our independence skills. Monday – Wednesday are placement days and we have all been very busy.

First of all Joshua, Fahad and Liam have all had their first week at the library! If you remember, in last week’s update I said that they would have someone special showing them the ropes…….well, cast your mind way back to our first cohort of Future Finders and Sam who was part of that group and began volunteering at Oldham Library independently. He went from just a couple of hours a week to now working 4 days a week and has become the mentor for our new young people based on their placement at the library which is just amazing!!

Our Future Finders got off to a flying start with Sam introducing our students to the world of work. Sam’s knowledge of the library system is exceptional and he showed the students how to return books, putting them in the correct numerical or alphabetical order – this is more difficult than it looks! Liam and Fahad worked really well throughout the day alongside Sam while Joshua found his niche on the computer helpdesk in the Refectory, dealing with the public, money and printing.

Joshua, Liam and Fahad have all settled in well and Joshua has already been ‘promoted’ within the library and is enjoying working on the information desk, helping people with their enquiries and printing problems!! This has meant that this week we awarded Joshua with our ‘Worker of the Week’

Well done to all of you and you a great big THANKS to Sam for showing them around!

Zanub has been at Premier Inn this week – her first week as well! She has settled in well and is starting to get to know the team. She had a surprise visitor this week as well…….do you all remember Liam who was part of our 2nd cohort of Future Finders? Well, he is still working hard at the Royal Oldham Hospital and he called down to Premier Inn for a brew and a catch up!! It was great for Zanub to see what can be achieved with a bit of hard work and it was great to see Liam as well!!

Jason has had another great week this week – but I will leave Jason and his Job Coach Maria to let you know what he has been getting up to in this week’s Day in the Life…. Over to you Jason!

A day in the life of Jason
The Old Toll House Café and Garden Centre in Dobcross

I have started on a new placement at The Old Toll House Café and Garden Centre in Dobcross. We arrive for 10.30am and I put my belongings away and put on my apron ready for work. I begin by helping out with the pots with Angela the owner as she gets busy making pies and preparing all the fresh food they cook daily.

I am getting to know the staff and remember their names and I am slowly getting into a routine. To begin with I tackle the pots that need doing and then start on food preparation. I am learning how to peel vegetables and wash them ready for cooking, building on my kitchen skills daily. 

Lewis, one of our other Future Finders students, has talked to me about my new placement and you can see the interview here..

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Reece is still at dsgnuk working on coding and he is loving every minute of it. He has worked hard on his independent travel from work to home and next week he will be focusing on travelling straight to placement from home, so we won’t see him at Medtia now until Thursday!! Keep up the good work Reece.

Thursday is our classroom day and this week we have worked together, interviewing one another about how our first week at placement has gone! We spent time creating questions, then paired up and filmed the interviews on our new iPads before we watched some of them back to see what we had all been up to!

Modern technology, it’s great!!! You will be able to watch one of these videos on this week’s Day in the Life from Monday and the others may even be used in next’s week blog too!! We have also been busy creating new display boards..

That’s it from us for this week – another busy one at Medtia, just how we like it!! We’ll keep you updated weekly. Have a fab, restful weekend everyone!!!

A letter has been sent home (click here to view it) with details of Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission’s upcoming return visit following the Oldham Local Area SEND inspection. As part of the re-visit, they would very much like to have your views which you can give at an open meeting on Monday 23rd September. You can find more details on the POINT (Oldham’s Parent Carer Forum) website here.

I would like to take this opportunity to remind you that we do not allow fizzy drinks or energy drinks on campus. Please reinforce this with your children and support us to ensure that they don’t drink these drinks before or during their college day – too much sugar is not a good thing when learning!

Have a fantastic energy drink free weekend!

Daniel
Head of College

You can view our previous blog entries here

Click here for this week’s news from Graham