Creating brighter futures

Mollie’s Motel and Diner have just been welcomed as Future Talent Business Partners of Weston College, in association with the Catering and Hospitality Career Excellence Hub (CEH). The CEH allows learners to take part in many career boosting benefits, and work alongside professionals to pick up skills and knowledge to impress employers looking to recruit the best talent.

Mollie’s is a growing family of motel-diners with big ambitions. In spirit, Mollie’s was born in America – an offspring of the classic roadside motel and drive-in diner, a welcome stopover on a route to somewhere. They borrowed the inviting red neon signs and the easy-going vibe, the burgers, the shakes, the bottomless coffee, a dash of nostalgia, but there’s nothing old-school about Mollie’s. Expect innovative digital check-in, EV chargers, designer rooms with a fresh Soho House look and affordable prices.

Mollie’s reached out to Weston College as part of their career pathways project, hoping for support in their current team’s growth and development, as well as an exciting welcome into the hospitality industry. The company as a whole want to support their people, the communities they serve, and playing a part to reinvigorate the industry.

Trudi Parr, People and Development lead from Mollie’s, spoke about what being part of the Career Excellence Hub means to them: “The Career Excellence Hub helps us provide additional support and structure and gives us an additional platform to reach and enrich the future lives of people joining the hospitality sector and at Mollie’s.

“We want all our team to have a clear career pathway and for us to be able to provide the tools that enable this. Being part of the Career Excellence Hub will help us achieve our goal and promise our team the investment and support in building a longstanding career.”

Once the CEH has been fully embedded into Mollie’s career pathways programme, drop in events will be held for their own team, as well as external events for freshers’ and apprenticeships, to engage with as many people as they can. Trudi explained, “We have a responsibility to invest in the future of hospitality employees and we are looking forward to working with our partners at the career excellence hub to do this.

“We encourage other businesses considering it, to join us! It gives the opportunity to reinvent the narrative, support the development of talent and support the community in an industry that we love.”

Sandra Bull, the Dean of Faculty of Service Sectors, commented, “We are so thrilled that Mollie’s has joined our Hospitality and Catering Career Excellence Hub. Our mission statement is ‘creating brighter futures’ and we passionately believe in helping all our students reach their ultimate goal, focussing on their future employability and developing the skills they will need to have a successful career, and we are confident that Mollie’s will be able to support our learners in this way. We’re so excited to see what happens from this partnership.”

If you’d like to learn more about the Career Excellence Hub, click here!

This summer we were presented with a really exciting opportunity, to create a new forest school for our Education and Early Years students!

It has been fantastic to see this come to fruition, with support from across faculty to make this such an exciting environment for learners. A couple of weeks ago, we joined forces with Construction staff to clear the brambles and build a wooden bridge to make the area safe and ready for learners.

The concept of Forest Schools originated in Scandinavia. The teaching approach was widely adopted in Denmark throughout the 1980’s and was believed to be the solution to the lack of indoor facilities for Pre-School children.

In the early 1990’s a group of nursery practitioners visited Sweden and witnessed the benefits. Following their return to the UK they developed a programme for Forest Schools. Forest Schools has now become widely accepted across the UK and the approach has taken on its own unique flavour which is being adopted elsewhere in the world.

The Education Career Excellence Hub at Weston College has always spent time on the theories and delivery linked to Forest schools, but this year with the support of our Future Business Partner’s Puxton Park and Busy Buddies, our learners can experience their own dedicated area on a weekly basis.

At Weston College we are committed to supporting learners to become more environmentally conscious, and we are always looking for ways to help the younger generations appreciate the outdoors and natural environments – with this being the next step in our journey.

There is also an increasing awareness of the importance of understanding wellbeing and self-development from a young age, so it is vital that our learners here at Weston College get the chance to understand and develop the skills required as they enter this Education sector changing for the future.

Going forward, our T Level learners will be instrumental in designing this space as part of their programme, and will study the holistic and learner led approach where space allows children to take risk and problem – solving a natural environment.

The Education Career Excellence Hub at Weston College delivers a wide range of courses where learners can go on into a teaching profession, teaching assistant, nursery professional, childminder or educational support. Find our full suite of course, by clicking here.

Sandra Bull, Dean of Faculty for Service Sectors