Students, Placements, Petrol and Pasties

Well what a week at The Training Partnership…

We have seen fantastic sunshine and a great ‘feel good’ factor across beautiful Torbay. So much going on here…  the main thing being I have finally got around to sort out a TTPL blog… look out for more ramblings and good news stories from the TTPL team!

We have seen one of our students, Marc, having a great time with Ben, Jo and Jenny from Palm FM taking a mobile bed to sites around the area for a Bed Month promotion, Culminating in a pillow fight with Ben and Jo! What a great experience for him!

Ben and Jo Pillow Fight

We have also welcomed Ramon, an Italian group leader here to meet his students and to discuss future placements… If you have been to an event at the Riviera International Conference Centre you may well have met Giovanna who has been carrying out her placement there with Jenny Thompson and Kirsty Evans. It seems we will be receiving another 50 Italian students from the same group over the coming 12 months, good news indeed.

We are saying goodbye to a great group of German students who have been at businesses around the Bay, did you see Jacob and Philip doing some repairs with Simon Read on The Golden Hind in Brixham, or have you sampled the marvellous Bays beer that may well have been brewed by Oliver our visiting German brewer who did his unpaid placement with Bays Brewery in Paignton. They and the rest of their group are travelling home this weekend. At the same time we are looking forward to the arrival of 12 German students from the WMF group, they will be undertaking some Engineering and admin placements around the bay...I'm sure they will have a great time in Torbay.

Newsthat another 21 Admin students are arriving in July…anybody need a bit of unpaid admin support for four weeks? Just get in touch and we will see what we can do! It’s great that we are so busy and able to help so many businesses in the area.

On Wednesday I went to the Newton Abbot Chamber breakfast meeting, really good breakfast and met some great new people… will definitely be going there again. Even managed to place one of our Italians with Mid-Devon Advertiser, thank you Sandra :0) We also had our article published in This Is Business magazine, a great publication from The Business Hub in Paignton and put together by Kevin Reynolds… who are also hosting Frank, a German student helping out in their office. The magazine is available electronically now and will be distributed next week. You can read it here... This Is Business Magazine

We have confirmed a couple of delegate visits… one group of nurses who will be visiting the hospital and a number of local care homes, as well as some talks from local health professionals. We are also going to be welcoming a group of teachers from Germany who specialise in the integration of students with special educational needs into mainstream education…again, lots of seminar talks and a visit to South Dartmoor Community College are planned during their stay.

Thursday saw a great student meeting at Macaris on Torquay harbour side… our students all enjoyed coffee and cake in the wonderful Devon sunshine. A big Thank You to Macaris for looking after us so well.

With the power of Twitter and Social Media I have just seen the video produced by MGVP (another of our great Work Placements) of the Riviera Centre annual Tourism and Business Exhibition… yours truly captured on film yet again! See it here  

RICC Tourism & Business Video from MGVP

And… a fantastic Press Release from The Riviera Centre praising Giovanna and the work she has done…   RICC Press Release  Thank you for your kind words.

Another noteworthy event this week….Mia is now a non-smoker, well, certainly doing her best to become one…we all wish her well with challenge.

The Paignton Geo Play Park has opened on Paignton Green… looks far better than the blue hoardings that have been there during the works, let’s hope it is looked after and used as it deserves to be and attracts people to the Paignton area.

We have also endured the fuel non strike chaos, increased stamp charges and of course the evil spectre of a Pastie Tax… don’t panic! So a final visual thought here... courtesy of Dot at Dots Pantry

Well that’s it for now… speak again in April, and don’t believe all you hear on the 1^st.

It is a fantastic sunny day here in Torbay. Very busy in the office as always with plenty of student groups booking to come to South Devon for their work experience and even a couple of delegate visits. One group of Teachers from Germany who will be visiting South Dartmoor Community College and Torquay Boys Grammar and another group of 3rd year Nurses from France who will be here in July.

Closer to home we have one of our students, Marc, who is enjoying a great placement at MGVP in Torquay has been out with our local radio station Palm FM on their 'Bed Month' promotion, Ben, Jo and Jenny from Palm have been touring the area with a Bed... great fun for all concerned. Will get Marc to write a nice Blog for us to put up here.
We have also started to distribute and promote our great new video... I'm going to try and get a link to it on here... if not this time then certainly next time!!!

Still got to get my head around the whole 'Blog' thing so please bear with me... anyone who has anything to contribute please get in touch...

Have a great day :0)

Unpaid Work Placements

With so much talk in the press about Unpaid Work Experience  it highlights the stark difference to the European system where an unpaid placement or internship is seen as an integral part of the education and transition to work process and is often included as an important part of qualifications, including apprenticeships.

Most European students will need to carry out a placement in another country during their education as this is seen as a vital part of their qualification, giving confidence, independence, real world work and of course another language. In the UK we seem to undervalue the benefits of speaking to someone in another country in their own language – even if it is just a friendly salutation. The Leonardo mobility programmes set to provide a funding source to facilitate these mobility’s around Europe.

The Training Partnership Ltd was set up some 16 years ago to help provide such work experiences to EU students wishing to travel to South Devon, carry out an unpaid placement at some of our fantastic local businesses and often have a period of language training to enhance their already useful level of English. There have, in the intervening years, been many hundreds of students who have visited the Bay (well over 700 in 2011), studied here and enjoyed a placement with a local employer. The benefits of this are many fold; as an employer you have a motivated, career minded young person with a great range of skills, often up to graduate level, with a strong desire to speak and understand English: for the student, a life altering experience. These are not students who want to come here and ‘take local jobs’, they are required to return home as part of the funding, their driving force is having a CV that will lift them above the average, make them employable, help them ‘grow’ and of course be fluent in English. There is no doubt that by offering a placement you will change peoples lives, the other side to that is in return they may change the life of your business, your employees and of course, you.

Are these students exploited or used as unpaid labour? Not at all, they are usually funded via one of the EU mobility programmes (Leonardo Da Vinci and Erasmus being the most common), are provided with Host Family accommodation, have their flights and transfers paid, often given a bus pass to enable them to travel more easily and a 24 hour support system provided by The Training Partnership. If this is not the case they can be sponsored by their employers to travel and gain valuable experience that will benefit them on their return home, in some cases we have had students who have ‘self funded’ such is the desire to achieve fluency in English.