Ellen Thinnesen will be the new principal of Sunderland College come the New Year, following the retirement of Anne Isherwood.

Ms Thinnesen will arrive from Tameside College where she was deputy principal. Prior to this, she held various senior management and teaching roles at Grimsby Institute of Further and Higher Education.

Ms Thinnesen said she felt “honoured” to be joining Sunderland College.

“The organisation already has an excellent reputation for the quality of its teaching and learning and I’m looking forward to working with the staff, students and governors to build upon this,” she added.

“There are some exciting times ahead with the opening of the college’s new £29m City Campus, which will provide our students with the highest quality learning environment and I’m delighted to be leading the college into its next stage of development.”

Rob Lawson, chair of governors for Sunderland College, said the board were “delighted” with the appointment of Ms Thinnesen and thanked outgoing principal Ms Isherwood for her three years of service as principal.

“She [Ms Isherwood] has overseen the development of the new £22m Sports and Arts Academies at Bede Campus, played an instrumental role in securing the development of our City Campus and built upon the college’s core strength of teaching and learning,” he said.

Meanwhile, training provider Qube Learning has appointed funding and compliance specialist David Hawkins of SRF Consultancy as their new quality and compliance director.

Mr Hawkins has spent more than 16 years at SRF where he advised colleges and independent providers.

He said he “couldn’t be more pleased” to have joined the Qube executive team.

“Qube are an organisation that I have always enjoyed working with and share my values of having the learner experience at the heart of operations,” he said.

“It’s too easy today for observers to knock apprenticeships from a distance without understanding the immense effort and skill it takes on behalf of learners and providers in order to achieve, whereas Qube are able to celebrate the learner journey.

“I’m very much looking forward to helping the organisation continue to grow and make a difference to the apprentices and learners they develop.”

And, Jason Gunningham, head of sport, outdoor education and public services at Bridgwater College, has been appointed to the national committee of the England Colleges Football Association (ECFA) by the Association of Colleges Sport.

The role will see Mr Gunningham help support and shape the various initiatives being planned by the ECFA to “enhance and develop” football provision within FE.

Mr Gunningham said: “I am extremely honoured to have been asked to apply and then accepted onto the ECFA national committee.

“The initiatives aim to increase the participation, quality and breadth of offer that colleges can deliver within their own institutions, and obviously this allows me to transfer best practice throughout the country to our own award winning provision, here at Bridgwater College.”

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