A bumper blog for our first week back after our self-isolation period and credit to all the learners for settling back in to the week with ease. Many of them have been missing their time in College and placements and much prefer to be here, so fingers crossed that is the first and last time we have to shut our bubble!
We have had a birthday to celebrate; Mr Jordan C. turned 20 years old this week. He said that he is starting to feel old already as it felt like just another day with a few added extras! Thank you for bringing in the treats, the group sugar rush was a great way to end the day. Happy Birthday again Jordan, hope you had a great day and you enjoyed your KFC.
Employability
In this week’s lessons, I had planned to do some work around Apprenticeships and Job Searching, but during our daily Newsround session, we were listening to a story of a young man who had created his own skin care range during lockdown and how his business was thriving. Future Finders thought this was an incredible achievement and were busy chatting away about his accomplishments – this is where “in the moment planning” comes in and completing activities that engage the students, so they have set about planning their own businesses.
Now I am not going to give too much away in the ideas that they have come up with, we will share some of these next week when we will be holding our own ‘Dragons’ Den’ with the students pitching their ideas to us!! Wonder who we will invest in?
Employability Placements
We have had quite a number of students out on placement this week which has been amazing. It has certainly been quieter in the classroom but I would much rather see you all out enjoying yourselves out on placement, putting all your skills to good use!
If you remember we mentioned a couple of weeks ago about a new placement at AVRO Football Club. As you can see, Matthew and Jamie couldn’t wait to get started and have really enjoyed their first tasks..
Maria has also been out this week with Nathan working at Oldham Foodbank:
This week Future Finders began a new work placement at The Oldham Food Bank with Nathan and Kai. We were introduced to the volunteer teams in the separate areas and talked through the process from when the food arrives to leaving and ready to be delivered.
They got off to a flying start in the sorting room where we began with writing the sell by dates in bold on the top of the tins and front of the packets so that they are easier to see when picking and packing. The items arrive at the warehouse where this is the first job after everything has been weighed in.
Once this has been done we collect a shopping list, work our way around the warehouse collecting all the items, and load them into a trolley to be packed into bags. The next step is the bags are weighed out and put into crates ready to be collected by the volunteer drivers and delivered to families in the Oldham area. A big thank you to all the staff and volunteers who have made us feel very welcome!
English
This weeks Miss Asbury has done her intervention sessions and her set Employability class with the Future Finders group. They were discussing ‘plurals’ and ‘suffixes’, so baby becomes babies, knife becomes knives, and then fish, you would think become fishes, but no, fish is just fish, no matter how many of them there are. Who knew?
Maths
This session has been held virtually again and they group have been looking at percentages and working out percentages of amounts.
Again, the importance of times tables was brought up, so here I am going to leave this link here:
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button
I am going to start doing a times tables quiz on a weekly basis to test your knowledge….get practising!
Well after a very strange and challenging year, dare I say it……it is almost Christmas.
This time of year for us normally consists of the Christmas Show, pantomimes, days out and everything that is associated with Christmas. Some of these we won’t be able to do this year but we will try our best to make it as festive as possible.
Here are some dates your diary:
Christmas Jumper Day, usually this is on a Friday but as Future Finders don’t attend College on a Friday, we will be holding this on Thursday 10th December.
Christmas Dinner Day will be on Wednesday 16th December, for those that want one!
College closes on Friday 18th December, so Future Finders’ last day in College will be Thursday 17th December 2020.
The only date I haven’t given is for a Christmas Party Day. Future Finders students want to hold their own party in the last week of term, they have all said they would like to bring in a contribution which is amazing! We will confirm who is bringing in what and the date closer to the time.
It’s been great to have you all back in the classroom and accessing placements, same again next week! Rest up, have a great weekend and we will see you on Monday 😊
Have a great weekend!
Anne-Marie and the Team
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