We’ve had a busy week with a number of visitors to our Group.

We often get colleagues coming to look at our practice and this week there appears to have been a particular focus on our employment and post 19 provisions.

We welcomed a group from Bury who wanted to visit our ‘Bridging the Gap’ project at the Royal Oldham Hospital. It was brilliant to see the young people at work in their placements across the hospital. Our visitors were lucky that their visit also coincided with Callum’s Mum picking him up, as they able to talk to her and get her views on the project. It was wonderful to hear from her just how much of a difference it has made for Callum.

Another group from Leeds and York visited our Future Finders internship project at the new Oldham Leisure Centre. It was absolutely superb to see the young people so involved in their placements. They are very much a part of the centre now and the feedback we have had from the leisure centre clients is first class. One of the managers came over to tell me that the day before they had had a visit from a large multi-national builder who had commented on the number of people with additional needs that were employed or volunteering at the centre. After a conversation with Max (who is also known as ‘Mr Motivator’ and can be incredibly persuasive) they felt that they would like to become involved with our Group and the Future Finders project – Daniel will pursue the lead. Our strategy is slowly starting to make a real difference.

Staying with the positive theme of increasing opportunities for our young people, we now have the keys for Medtia Square and our premises team have been busy preparing the building. We are looking forward to sharing some pictures with you in the next couple of weeks once we have finished the adaptations. Families of the young people who will be using the centre initially have been invited to an open day on 23rd February.

Our Facebook and website pages seem to have gone into overdrive this week. Hopefully you have seen news of sporting events, a pirate play, our Year 13 residential to Calvert Trust, past students who are working with Dark Horse Theatre, polar bears, a sponsored swim and even a pancake war(!) along with many links that lead to you Mahdlo and POINT (Parents of Oldham in Touch). We are trying hard to keep you all up to date and share some of the amazing work that our young people do every day across the Group. We hope you enjoy hearing what we get up to!

I’m in Newcastle today talking about our buildings and curriculum – I certainly won’t be short of things to say!

Have a great half term,

Graham