Career Academy visit HMRC

Posting by Ranjit Hayer, Career Academy Co-ordinator and Business teacher

The business experiences for the Career Academy students have been coming thick and fast in recent weeks and just before we broke up for Easter, we squeezed in a quick visit to Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC) offices.

These visits are part of the Career Academy scheme at the College, which sees ten lucky BTEC Diploma Business students benefitting from opportunities with local firms. As well as visits, there are guru lectures, mentoring and internships that form part of the scheme.

                                                           

During this visit to HMRC, the students learnt about the “lean management” system, which has been widely used in manufacturing industry because of the high cost of machinery used in making goods. HMRC have introduced this system to their call centre environment, to help ease the flow of calls made, including enquiries about tax codes, from initial query to closing the query. This involves breaking each query down, looking at the paper work and the number of people involved with it and then finding a more efficient way of dealing with it and ensuring customers that make the query receive fast service.

That sounds quite complex, but Christine Holmes, who works for HMRC and also sits on the College’s Local Advisory Board for the Career Academy and is a “Partner in Business” to these students, demonstrated the use of the lean system, by setting up a Stickle brick activity. This activity spanned five rounds, in which the students learnt how over time businesses develop simple systems and forget there is a pressure to keep things moving quickly and change those systems that are ineffective. The students played the game and saw how the use of quality in the delivery of any product/service is integral part of business world today.

The students also got the chance to question a panel of HMRC experts, who explained why they work for HMRC, how they manage the lean system in their roles and the importance of always thinking of how to make the job more efficient.

They were also taken on an office tour, where the students saw the system in operation in the number of complaints the department receives, and how each call is monitored (hourly, daily and weekly).

It was a non-stop day, but was thoroughly enjoyed by the students. We thank Christine Holmes and the rest of the staff at HMRC for giving up their time to help the students.

There are more photos at www.facebook.com/solihullsixthform

Students in Conservation Project

Posting by Maxine White, Leisure Studies teacher

Who says that students don’t care about the environment. Conservation plays a big part in the A level Leisure Studies course and a small group of students on this course undertook some conservation work just last week.

The clearance work was on the Alderbrook, as part of the A2 Leisure Studied “In the Outdoors” module, which requires students to plan and take part in a project of their design and choice.

We did this on Friday and we had a lovely afternoon, as the sun shone. We were well prepared, done up as we were in wellies and waders borrowed from the Geography department. We had black bin bags, gloves and grabber sticks and set about the task with enthusiasm, as you can see from the photos!

The students spent the entire afternoon clearing from the source of the Alderbrook to the bridge outside the college entrance in the park and cleared six industrial sized black bags of rubbish found in the Alderbrook.

We had a very productive afternoon and covered part of the assignment requirements in the process. I must thank the students involved, who were:

• Samantha Kruger
• David Griffiths
• Mark Stannion (Project Leader)
• Liam Styler
• Jamie Grenfell
• Jamie Hay
• Alex Griffin

Dance Delights!!!

Posting by Dance teacher Suzanne Tromans

Well, we have been busy, ‘mad March’ hares! So busy that we’ve only just got the time to stop dancing, sit down and tell you all about what has been happening here in the dance department!

Firstly, 36 dance students spent an insightful and exciting day at the Birmingham Royal Ballet studios on Thursday 3 March. We arrived early and took part in technical and choreographic workshops based around ‘La Fille Mal Gardee’; one of professional works we study as part of the A level course. We had a live pianist, learnt repertoire and devised our own responses to tasks set by the professional dance artist leading the sessions. Despite the hard work, much fun was had!

After a quick change, we were led up to one of the enormous dance studios where we were privileged to watch the end of a class for the men in the company. We were absolutely astonished at how they made everything look so effortless and the strength and muscular definition that the dancers had. If only we could have left that session being able to do 6 pirouettes and split jetés like the male dancers!

We were then led to another studio where we had a chat with some of the dancers. One of the dancers was from America and she had initially trained in jazz before someone discovered her and suggested she try ballet – she then explained how she found out how good she was at it and how she came to train in England. We then met a male dancer from SOLIHULL – proving that Solihull is a hot-bed for dance talent! We asked them loads of questions about the life of a dancer and how injuries affected their work.

After lunch, we watched the matinee performance of ‘La Fille Mal Gardee’ which was most enjoyable. We left the Theatre after 5pm after a long but interesting and exciting day. Thank you to Birmingham Royal Ballet and the Sixth Form staff for making this day happen.

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15 March saw all second year students visit Malvern Theatres to watch the Richard Alston Dance Company. Earlier in the year students had taken part in an all-day workshop led by one of the RADC artists in which they learnt repertoire for their forthcoming examinations. By watching the company perform live, students were able to decipher the demands made on the dancers and helped them understand how they should be performing in their own work.

Students were lucky enough to listen to Richard Alston talk about the three dance works they saw in a pre-performance talk. This helped them understand the dances and also unpick Alston’s unique sense of musicality and architectural choreography.

It was clear from the recent practical examinations that this trip had clearly allowed the dancers to understand what they were aiming for when performing in the Alston ‘style’.

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27 March saw the College Dance Company, 2FoldDC, perform in both matinee and evening performances of ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ at Solihull Arts Centre. 2FoldDC had been approached by the Principal of Planet Dance School, Beverley Drew, to be guest performers. Ms Drew had seen the company perform at the Arts Centre in October and was so impressed with them she asked if they would perform as part of their school dance show.

Members of 2FoldDC obviously took up the challenge and had a most enjoyable day. They performed three dance pieces: (1) a contemporary piece created last year about the effects of caffeine (brought on by our addiction to the Costa Coffee shop here at College) using coffee cups and pillows; (2) a jazz piece and (3) a modern piece which looks at the use of emails and the use of sign language to communicate.