Dolan Hotels launches educational partnership with Jersey’s secondary schools

Dolan Hotels has launched an on-going educational partnership directly linking its hotels and restaurants with four Jersey secondary schools; Le Rocquier, Les Quennevais, Grainville and Haute Vallee.

Dolan Hotels has launched an on-going educational partnership directly linking its hotels and restaurants with four Jersey secondary schools; Le Rocquier, Les Quennevais, Grainville and Haute Vallee.

The scheme, which started this month, has been developed by Dolan Hotels to share their professional knowledge and skills with students and support the curriculum work with hands-on experience. As a result of the partnership students will have opportunities to learn about the hospitality industry, catering and business management. 

The first meeting took place on Thursday 26^th September, when students from Les Quennevais School were invited to the Golden Sands Hotel for a tour of the facilities. It also gave the pupils in years 10 and 11 a chance to meet the team and learn first-hand what it takes to work in the industry. 

Andrew Shrimpton, director of Dolan Hotels, said: ‘We’re delighted that the schools are so enthusiastic about the scheme. We wanted to develop an initiative which allowed the schools to tailor the support they get from their Dolan partner property in order to cater for the individual needs of their students and curriculum. I’m glad to say I believe we have achieved this.’

Each school has been partnered with one of Dolan’s four establishments which include Hotel Cristina, The Somerville Hotel, The Golden Sands and the Merchant House Brasserie at Jersey Museum. By pairing the schools and hotels/restaurant up, it is expected that Dolan’s teams will become familiar faces at their partner school, allowing them to learn and respond to individual school requirements more effectively.

Helen Frost, a teacher at Les Quennevais School, welcomed the initiative: ‘This is a fantastic opportunity for our students to receive relevant, hands-on experience from the professionals. We have 40 students in Years 10 and 11 studying Hospitality and Catering – all keen to learn new skills in customer service, food service and restaurant profitability.’

The students from Years 10 and 11 who will benefit from the scheme will be studying a variety of courses including Leisure and Tourism, Hospitality and Catering, Food Technology, Business Communication, Business Studies and Creative Technology. 

‘It won’t just be our hotel and restaurant teams getting involved in the initiative,’ added Mr Shrimpton. ‘Many of our team members based at our head office in St Helier will also be contributing.  The schools are keen for their students to learn from our finance director, our marketing manager and our HR team too. We’ll also be welcoming students from Project Trident scheme into the business.’

Dolan Hotels, which is owned and managed locally, is Jersey’s only four-star hotel group, with all three hotel properties holding four JQA stars.  Each of the Dolan hotels boast a top quality restaurant, each of which has been awarded a Gold Highly Commended Taste Accreditation by Quality in Tourism.