Hands-on learning in the retail industry at The Source at Meadowhall

8 Feb 2007

Nearly 200 students have benefited from using The Source at Meadowhall for vocational learning.

The 14-16 schools programme allows students to experience hands-on vocational learning by combining lectures at The Source with work placements. The courses are designed to reflect workplace standards and covers topics such as stock control and security, customer care, transport, distribution and storage, and fashion retailing.

Two Sheffield students in particular have benefited; Nicole Oldham of Yewlands School is hoping that the course will help her achieve her dream of owning her own salon, and Ellie Welsh of Notre Dame High School, found that the hands-on learning and work experience helped her to decide what career path she'd like to pursue in the future.

Nicole, like many girls her age, had a keen interest in shopping and not such a keen interest in school. She had not been doing very well at school and had been talking socially to a friend whose son had moved on in leaps and bounds at The Source. Her teachers arranged for her to apply for the Retail Operations BTEC course. She was accepted and quickly became interested in the practical, hands-on vocational course.

Nicole from Yewlands School, and nine other girls from Notre Dame School, attend regular Wednesday lessons at The Source. All the girls have a keen interest in retail and want to know more about what is going on behind the scenes at shopping centres such as Meadowhall. They started the two year course in September 2005 and will complete their qualification this summer.

Nicole believes that the skills that she has learnt during the BTEC course are essential to her long term plans to own her own salon:

"This course was vocational, which means it's work-related, with modules in lots of different business skills like understanding retail operations, marketing, cost controls and how to deal with customers. This makes so much more sense to me because I can see exactly how all the business skills are going to help me get my own salon in the future.

"And, as my BTEC is an equivalent of 4 GCSE's, it's really going to help me get in to Sheffield College where I now want to carry on and study Beauty. After that, fingers crossed, my own salon!"

Like Nicole, Ellie did not find traditional courses particularly relevant to her future plans - and wanted to take a more interactive course. Her mum, who worked at Ellie's school Notre Dame, had heard about the vocational courses offered at the Source and suggested Ellie look in to it. She applied and was accepted on to the BTEC in Retail and Distribution, and hasn't looked back.

When she started on the course, Ellie knew she wanted to work with people but wasn't sure in what capacity. In her course, Ellie learned about a wide range of business issues including modules designed to help her understand the logistics behind the retail industry, as well as how promotion and marketing works. What really interested Ellie, however, was learning about the people that work in the retail industry and the importance of recruitment and human resources to business. She arranged to spend two weeks at her local town hall, working in the HR department, and this gave her a real taste of the recruitment industry.

"This course really helped me learn more about what jobs are out there - and make up my mind that I want to pursue a career in Recruitment."