CAREER ACADEMY GRADUATION!!!

Posting by Ranjit Hayer, Career Academy Manager

All that hard work has paid off! Our Year 13 Business Career Academy students have graduated from the Career Academies UK programme! Congratulations to them all!

I joined the students at London’s Institute of Education last week, accompanied by the Principal Paul Ashdown. We were there, with other Career Academy students from across the country to formally recognise the last 18 months of business experiences.

This is a national programme, run by Career Academies UK and it aims to raise the aspirations of 16 to 19-year-olds, boosting their employability skills by giving them real life experiences in business. In total, over 750 young people, drawn from 81 schools and colleges across the UK, will have graduated from the programme this year.

This has been The Sixth Form College, Solihull’s first cohort of Business Career Academy students and they have benefitted from over 15 guru lectures, 15 visits to a variety of businesses and 10 internships during their time in the programme. The 6-week paid internships were at Coventry Building Society, the Village Hotel, Grant Thornton Chartered Accountants, accountancy firm BDO, Chiltern Railways and Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council. The students have also each had a business mentor.

Their involvement in the Career Academy began in 2009 at 'A Capital Experience' in London. Guest speaker at that event was Action Jackson and he was again in London last week to offer his congratulations as the students graduated. It was good to see him again!

Director General of the Institute of Directors, Miles Templeman, was also there and he offered words of encouragement to all the students. He spoke about how graduates of the Career Academy are now able to significantly raise the UK’s skills level. He also spoke about the internships undertaken by students and said it distinguished them from other young people.

BBC journalist and presenter Evan Davies also congratulated the students on their achievements. He drew from his experiences of presenting “Dragon’s Den” and new BBC series “Business Nightmares” and offered the graduates four tips for the future; not to be afraid to make mistakes, to be able to admit and learn from these mistakes, to be humble and finally, to take the pride from when life is going really well and to hold this for when times are tough.

College Principal Paul Ashdown stood to applaud as each of our graduating students, as they picked up their graduation certificated and expressed his pleasure in their progress over the last two years.

He, like me, is very proud of the students’ achievements. I’ve seen how much they have developed over the last two years. In particular, their confidence has grown and this will benefit them hugely in the extremely competitive world of business. They have had so many wonderful business-related experiences, not least their six-week internships, which taught them so much and gave them real world experience. I wish them all the best for the future.

DUKE OF EDINBURGH STUDENTS BRAVE STORMY NORTH YORK MOORS

Posting by Grigor Wallace, Duke of Edinburgh Co-ordinator

Some of the College’s more intrepid students donned their backpacks and hiking boots over the Easter break, as they undertook an expedition to the North York Moors in preparation for their assessed Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award.

 

A group of twelve students were unfortunate with the timing of their expedition, as the weather took a turn for the worse, drenching them the first night, and that was before the walking even started! Unfortunately the weather worsened further on day one, but the lessons learnt on looking after equipment during difficult conditions were invaluable.

The weather did ease up slightly for the remainder of the trip however consistent heavy showers hampered progress. Understandably the morale of the students did fluctuate over the four days but lessons were learnt about how to react to difficult situations and how to maintain group morale. The wild camps were well received, and cooking, a major part of any expedition, was carried out safely following a balanced diet. Packs lightened considerably over the trip, which was a welcome relief to all!

This was a great experience for the students, because it provided very good preparation for their final expedition in the Cheviots in August. For that expedition, they will be assessed on navigation, camp craft, group organisation and leadership and of course the physical toil that comes with completing approx 16km per day in open and wild country with a large rucksack.

 

The behaviour of all the students who took part was excellent and their navigation was generally good in difficult conditions. Some of the students struggled a little physically and were victims of blisters, and weak ankles, but even that is a good learning experience and prepares them well for future trips.

 

Thanks go to the staff: Dave Lewis, Jenny Hall, Louis Hume, and Suzanne Madeley. Their help was invaluable and without it trips of this kind would not be possible.

There are lots of photos from the expedition on the College Facebook page.