The Tes FE Awards 2019 takes place on Friday 22 March. The deadline for buying "early bird" tickets is Friday 15 February. For more information, visit tesfeawards.co.uk.

Sitting in a prime seafront spot, overlooking the stunning vista of the Bristol Channel, Foxes Hotel certainly has a lot going for it.

The early-Edwardian building is situated in the quaint seaside town of Minehead, Somerset, which is nestled between the beautiful hills of Exmoor and the sea.

But it is not just the views that make Foxes Hotel special. It is a hotel like no other: its aim is to transform lives.

The hotel is run by Foxes Academy, which is part of the Aurora Group, an independent specialist college and the country’s only training hotel for young adults with learning disabilities. It helps dozens of young adults start careers in the hospitality and catering trade every year. “We change the lives of our learners and their families,” says its principal Tracey Clare-Gray.

Foxes Hotel prides itself on great service, evidenced by its TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence, which hangs proudly in the reception area. Now the hotel can add two other awards to the wall after the college was named specialist provider of the year and overall FE provider of the year at the Tes FE Awards 2018.

‘You can be the best’

“We want to change society and I think this award is really putting that out there,” Clare-Gray adds. “It is actually the beginning of the change of attitudes in society to disability. We were delighted to get the specialist provider of the year prize, but to get the overall provider of the year was gobsmacking.

“That is the signal to the rest of society – and the rest of the FE providers – that if you have a learning disability you can be as ambitious as anyone else and you should be as ambitious. You can be the best.”

The college’s 83 learners, with 28 different types of disability between them, run the 15-bed hotel. They prepare breakfast, lunch and dinner in the kitchen. They greet diners and serve them in the restaurant. They make-up the rooms and do all the laundry.

Not only do they work towards a City & Guilds Level 1 NVQ Certificate in hospitality, but learners come from all across the country to live away from home in supported accommodation in the town.

By their third and final year, the learners could be living in a house where they get themselves up each morning, wash and dress themselves, get to the hotel independently, and shop, cook and clean for themselves.

“From the first year, we’re already talking about the end,” says Emma Spry, the senior leader for education and ICT.

“We say this is why you’re doing it and ask ‘What do you want at the end?’ It shows them why they need to learn what they are learning,” she says. “If they understand the ‘why’ they then have the passion for it and they want to do it.”

“The expectation is employment, paid employment,” Clare-Gray attests. “We have really high expectations of our learners.”

This goal is shared by one of the learners, Stephen, who is in his penultimate year. He has his sights set on working in catering when he graduates. “I would prefer a paid job,” he says. “I think I deserve a paid job.”

The work staff at the college do makes that ambition a reality for most of its learners. Around three-quarters of Foxes’ graduates enter sustained work when they finish. This is more than 10 times the employment rate for people with learning disabilities nationally.

Foxes has cultivated relationships with 50 employers in the local area, as well as international chains such as Hilton Hotels, to offer learners work experience.

Work experience coordinator Ross Addicott says: “One of the benefits we find is the impact that our young people have on employer’s teams. It can bring out some skills in their teams that they didn’t know they had in terms of supporting someone with learning disabilities.”

Real-life experience

Everything the learners do at Foxes is grounded in real life, which is what sets it apart, Spry believes. “You need some element of functional skills to be able to do the job that they want to do. Simple things like counting cutlery, they need to have a basic understanding of maths to be able to count the amount of cutlery they need to lay the table.

“So we underpin all that in our sessions. It’s not just maths for the classroom, it’s maths for the workplace and for independent living.”

Laura Salter, curriculum leader for functional skills and employability, says learning is 24/7. “It’s not Monday to Friday, nine to five. Our learners work evenings, weekends and bank holidays.

“They don’t just start at 8am. They’ve already got up, they’ve had breakfast, they’ve prepared themselves for employment. Made sure their personal hygiene and presentation is fit for employment. They’ve got all that learning before they step through into that session that day,” she adds.

Another important aspect of the Foxes philosophy is self-advocacy. “We teach them the skills to be able to raise their voice if they have a concern so they’re not exploited in the workplace,” says safeguarding lead Lorraine Atkins. “The course they go through here gives them the confidence to be able to speak out, but also gives them the understanding that they don’t need to be sworn at in the workplace, they don’t need to be shouted at,” she adds.

The work does not end when a learner leaves Foxes, either. Their transition into work and independent living is and supported and monitored.

This also means that each year, one of the graduates is able to come back to speak to the current learners about their life and job once they have left Foxes.

“It’s about instilling that belief that you can do it and will do it,” Clare-Gray says.

“That is one of the greatest gifts that we give.”

This is an edited version of an article that appeared in Tes on 23 March 2018 

The Tes FE Awards 2019, sponsored by the Education and Training Foundation, takes place on Friday 22 March. This year the awards will also host the AoC Beacon Awards. The deadline for buying "early bird" tickets is Friday 15 February. For more information, visit tesfeawards.co.uk.