Solihull Council visit

Ranjit Hayer, Career Academy Co-ordinator & Business teacher

It’s been a really busy week for the College’s Career Academy students. Earlier in the week they found out about an exciting internship opportunity with Coventry Building Society, and that has been followed by a visit to Council House in Solihull.

The visit was a great opportunity for them to go behind the scenes at Solihull MBC and see what really goes on. They met with Mark Rogers, Chief Executive at the Council, who has been such a staunch supporter of the students and the Career Academy as a whole. He welcomed the students when they arrived.

                                   

Mark Rogers is passionate about the Career Academy, which is a national scheme that raises the aspirations and develops the employability skills of young people. Indeed, he has spoken of how committed the Council is to supporting initiatives that link business and education as the Career Academy does, and how he hopes more businesses come on board to support the scheme.

The students were shown round Council House by Paul Johnson, who is Director of Resources, and Philip Mayhew, who is Director for Business Transformation. We thank both Paul and Philip for giving up their time to speak with the students and give them such a valuable insight into the inner workings of Solihull MBC.

The students were shown the variety of Council departments, and got information on the different job roles and skills sets required to work at the Council. This included seeing where the Council receives its money from and the IT department. At the latter, the students saw how the infrastructure works, in terms of ensuring all the software works properly and how staff monitor the computers using sophisticated technology. There was a picture of the screens that highlight problems that the staff maybe experiencing and this works on a traffic light system, with green meaning “working ok”, amber signifying “there is a problem” and red showing that the software has “stopped working”.

The Marketing representative was also available and discussed how they use Twitter to discuss Council events and to notify members of the public what is happening at the Council. The students also saw how they put together the Council magazine that goes out to all Solihull residents. This department mentioned to the students the important skill of spelling in their line of work and how paying attention to what they are saying is crucial.

Another department they went to was Procurement, where they explained how they look at the companies who work for the council (e.g. the refuse collectors), how the light bulbs in the lamppost are changed and how recycling is done in different parts of the borough.

They were then taken to the Lean department where certain processes are looked at to see where savings can be made to ensure the people who need help receive it quickly. This department was made up of post-it notes, in which each step in processing a claim for benefits (for example) was visually displayed and then a brainstorming session was done to see how the process can be changed to reduce the time for the claim to be processed.

Lastly, the students got to go into the main Council Chambers and sit in the seats normally reserved for the Mayor of Solihull and councillors, which they obviously really enjoyed.

The visit was a valuable opportunity for the students and they learnt a lot. Check out the photos of the visit on the College’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/solihullsixthform.

Battling for an internship

Ranjit Hayer, Career Academy Co-ordinator & Business teacher

The College’s Career Academy is going from strength to strength, with more and more businesses supporting the scheme and the latest to visit the College was the Coventry Building Society (CBS).

Graham Emery, who is Resource Planning Manager at CBS is a fierce supporter of the Career Academy. He came into College to launch CBS’s recruitment process for the summer internship that they are offering one of our lucky Career Academy students.

These internships are six weeks of paid employment and are excellent opportunities for the students. They will get really valuable experience and the networking opportunities are great too. Who knows what it could lead to if they impress during their six weeks.

All our Career Academy students have been provided with an application for CBS. They have until 4^th April to complete their applications and then Graham will short list the ten students down to just five applicants. Those five students will be asked to visit a CBS branch and will go through a selection process.

The selection process is long and difficult. It will include a written test, followed by a mock interview and then an assessment in which they will be placed in front of potential customers to see how they respond. This process will help Graham to bring the shortlist of five down to the final two students. There will be a last one-to-one interview to see who gets the internship. It is going to be a tough process for the students, but great preparation for later employment interviews.

When Graham visited recently, he spoke to the students about the skills and qualities they look for in interns and the importance of customer service in their branches. He also went to say how he has offered past interns employment at CBS because they made such an impact on the staff and customers of the local branches during their internships.

It is exciting times ahead for the students … we’ll keep you posted as to how they get on!

Going Green!

Posting by Dave Abbott, Estates Manager

As the Estates Manager at The Sixth Form College, Solihull, I am responsible for all the buildings, grounds and main utilities at the College. I have a dedicated team of site staff who work hard to ensure the College is opened up early in the morning ready for lessons and locked up securely at the end of the day.

At a College as large as this one, we inevitably use a lot of energy – the heating, lighting and power in all the rooms on campus add up to a big bill for a start. We are on a drive to reduce our energy consumption, so that we can save money, but also so we help the environment and reduce our carbon footprint.

Part of this drive to go green has been launched this week, as we joined a national scheme called the Recycle Zone initiative, run by Coca-Cola Enterprises Ltd (CCE).

For those of you that don’t know, a ‘Recycle Zone’ is a public facility developed by CCE for recycling soft drinks packaging and it aims to encourage people to recycle their cans and plastic bottles when they are away from home. 

The Recycle Zone project is a partnership between CCE, WRAP (the Waste & Resources Action Programme) and plastics recycling charity RECOUP that combines each organisation’s expertise and forms part of CCE’s wider Keep It Going sustainable packaging programme.

This is not the first time we have been doing our bit for the environment. Staff and students have been recycling paper and card for some time now, but we are delighted to extend this to recycling plastics, aluminium and steel cans. We hope that the addition of Recycle Zones – separated containers which are located outside by the Dance Studio and also in the Refectory – will raise environmental awareness among our students and staff.

It’s early days, of course, but I’m delighted to say the scheme seems to be going well so far. Away from College, it has been shown that if recycling is made simple, people are happy to do their bit and I’m sure that will be the case here at College too.

We have had some wonderful support from some students already. One student – Polly Burton – has even set up a student society with the express aim of raising awareness of environmental issues. She launched this society by showing a film called “The Age of Stupid”, which depicted what might happen if we don’t do something now about environmental issues.

Thank you for your enthusiasm so far in recycling plastics and cans and keep up the good work! The more we recycle, the less we send to landfill.

The step up from School to College

Posting by Sonia Wood, Director of Teaching & Learning, Division D

The work the college does with schools is vital. Schools do their part to prepare their students for whatever is in store for them post-16, and we do our best to support that work in a variety of ways.

We work with a large number of schools, but with a small group of them – known as partner schools – we have particularly strong ties and we get large numbers of students from these schools. A member of senior staff will act as a direct point of contact for each of these schools and I fulfil that role for Lyndon School.

My work with Lyndon School goes on throughout the academic year, but we are at a particularly vital stage in the process now, with interviews taking place. The majority of students from Lyndon School who have applied to study at The Sixth Form College, Solihull in September were interviewed on Tuesday evening. These interviews were taking place to establish not only if they are likely to fulfil our entry requirements (set to ensure they have the potential to achieve at advanced level), but also to ensure they have chosen the subjects and courses appropriate for them.

A number of teachers and senior staff from Lyndon School visited the College to see this process in action, but also to meet up again with some of their former pupils. Some of those students who left Lyndon to come to the College last summer gathered to tell the staff from Lyndon School about the differences between school and college.

The students who were part of this informal chat are of varying achievement levels and are studying a diverse range of subjects and courses, including both A levels and BTEC courses.

The biggest single difference that the students had identified between school and college was the notion of “independent learning” and “taking responsibility for study”. All recognised that advanced level study is not “spoon-fed” to them. Indeed, as well as the set lesson time, students are expected to complete at least 4 hours of independent study time per subject outside of lessons. Teachers at College will also not endlessly chase them for homework, but expect them to show their commitment to their studies. Indeed, students spoke of wishing not to “disappoint” their teachers and rather than fearing punishments, so students are motivated to reach their potential in different ways.

Staff from Lyndon were fascinated to learn what the students thought, particularly their recognition that a good attitude to learning is essential to succeed. There was a feeling from students that at school students work because it is compulsory to do so, but at college students are motivated to work hard and achieve for their own benefit. They thought this was partly because they were focussing their time on subject areas that really interested them, but also because they harboured specific goals beyond College, be it university or employment.

Particularly fascinating was the students’ perceptions of the relationship between teacher and student. At school, teachers are real authority figures and are addressed as “sir” and “miss”. At College, teachers are often referred to by their first names and a more mature relationship is forged.

The entire session was a fascinating insight into how students really feel and the adaptations they need to make to adjust from school life to college life. Lyndon School have done an enormous amount to develop these young people both educationally and emotionally and the head teacher spoke warmly of how proud she felt to see how they have grown up and matured now they are at College.

This type of work goes on with a number of other schools and it is all geared towards ensuring the step up from school to post-16 education is smooth and straight forward.

College Photo Shoot

Posting by Bev Bishop, Marketing Co-ordinator

Today the College held an official photo shoot, in which new imagery for next year’s College prospectus was taken. We had a professional photographer come in to College and we took over the Dance Studio for the morning.

29 students took part in today’s photo shoot. They were split into groups of 4 or 5 students and photographed together. It was all done expertly, with professional lighting and a white screen background so the resulting pictures can be cut out and put in front of any background we need in the final prospectus.

We were trying to capture images of students looking happy and comfortable with each other and given that the College is so large and not all the students knew each other they did a great job of bonding. All involved showed great maturity and enthusiasm for a process which feels quite alien.

We took hundreds of photos over the course of the morning and from that we will probably only end up using six pictures, but that is how professional photo shoots work – you take loads more than you need and then you have lots to choose from, so you can pick a shot in which everyone is looking at their best.

You’ll have to wait until the new prospectus is out in September to see the finished product, but it looks like we got what we were hoping for.

Huge thanks go to all the students who participated – it is a tough thing to organise, as I was looking to represent the entire College community in just a few photos, so we want a balance of gender, ethnicity and career ambitions. Trying to fit that into the timetable so no one missed a lesson was not easy, but the final product will be worth the effort.

I must also thank the photographer Tim Robberts and the marketing agency Box Clever Marketing, who designed the College prospectus and website, for their hard work.

Below is a sneak peak behind the scenes.