It’s been a busy year so far Bridge College: between theatres, cycling centres, cafes and shops, our students who access work experience have been getting out and about in the local community, learning new skills while also helping others.
Work experience is hugely important for young people. Getting practical hands-on skills in the workplace can have a huge impact on their independence and confidence. Our amazing students dream about their future career like everyone else: some dream of working with animals, others love fashion, while others love working with people.
Our Careers and Employability team work very hard to find work experience programmes that suit the student’s skills, match their interests, and pushes them out of their comfort zones to try new things.
Here’s a whistle-stop tour of what our students have been up to recently:
Rio
Rio works at a Mencap charity shop in Manchester that Bridge College has a long standing relationship with. He often helps staff with admin tasks, like scanning book donations and logging them into the system on the computer.
This isn’t Rio’s first rodeo – he’s also completed a work experience programme at East Manchester Leisure Centre, another one of our long-term local community partners, where he served as a welcoming face to the public, greeting people and using the computer to book them in for activity sessions.
Sigad
Sigad loves nature, which makes his work experience with the Friends of Didsbury Park a perfect fit. He works alongside a team of volunteers to maintain the grounds of Didsbury Park, and is involved in a variety of tasks to keep the park beautiful and clean for the whole community to enjoy, including litter picking and planting new plants.
Uzayr
Uzayr is great with people – after practicing his skills at the Bridge College Café, he began his work experience placement at the Edge Theatre in Chorlton. The independent theatre has its own cafe, where Uzagyr worked making and serving drinks.
Building upon those skills, he’s now working at Home Café in Didsbury. Staff say that he has grown in confidence, and he is challenging himself to try new things all the time!
Lucie
Our college has its own work experience opportunities for students, and Lucie has been doing fantastically working in the café at Bridge College where she prepares food for her peers and staff members. Part of her job role is to assemble the food, and keep work surfaces clean. She works really well with the café manager to follow the tasks given to her and has learnt all about health and safety in restaurants, such as the importance of PPE.
Paul
Paul has been really busy maintaining multiple work placements. On some days he works at the Manchester Football Museum, where he is in charge of the memorabilia handling table and gives talks to visitors regarding the special items. On alternative days, Paul also works in the museum’s café, where he helps keep the cafe clean, stocks fridges, and serves the customers. To top it off, his third work placement is at the Cycling Centre.
Shabaz
Shabaz works in the Bridge Café as shift manager. He usually has packed days as he is responsible for taking orders, working as the barista, helping to prepare food, serving customers, and taking payments! This is a big achievement and the perfect placement for him, in which Shabaz has thrived in, developing his skills in customer service, organisation, time management, problem-solving, and resilience.
Kai
Kai may be a first year student, but he’s already proven to be a keen worker. He started by taking part in a shadowing program within Bridge College, which gave him lots of opportunities to try a variety of different internal jobs: from working with plants in our Horticulture room, to helping with printing as part of the Enterprise team, and even ground maintenance work with the facilities team and Bridge Café. Kai has expressed a real interest in the café, and now has a placement one day each week where he helps with various tasks, preparing food and serving customers on the till.
Work experience is an integral part of our curriculum. We’re looking for employers to offer a work experience placement for a few hours each week to young people from Greater Manchester.
Can your business help a young person with SEND gain work experience?
