City College Plymouth (CCP) has become the second college to join the 157 Group since it exclusively revealed its expansion plans to FE Week in January, bringing membership of the group to 28.
The group’s chief executive, Ian Pretty (pictured above), said he was “pleased to welcome” CCP, which was rated ‘good’ by Ofsted at its most recent inspection in 2012, “to our network of forward thinking, entrepreneurial colleges”.
Today’s announcement comes a little over a month after Cardiff and Vale College became the first college to join the 157 Group after it exclusively revealed to FE Week that it was planning to expand following a strategic review.
At the time, Mr Pretty said they had had enquiries about joining the group from 15 colleges.
“City College Plymouth is a pillar in their region with excellent employer engagement and apprenticeship programmes and an exciting plan for investing in a new STEM Centre of Excellence,” said Mr Pretty about the group’s newest member.
“City College Plymouth will make an excellent addition to our network of forward thinking, entrepreneurial colleges around the country and we look forward to working with them,” he added.
CCP, which has an SFA allocation of £9.1m and an EFA allocation of £10.8m for 2015/16, was awarded the Association of Colleges Beacon award for promotion and delivery of successful apprenticeships in 2015/16.
Phil Davies, CCP principal, said: “At City College, we work extremely hard to build and sustain mutually favourable partnerships with leading local, regional and national employers.
“To have that hard work recognised by such an influential group is simply marvellous, and we can’t wait to get started supporting the 157 Group in their mission to transform professional and technical education and support the UK’s productive economy.
“After all, their mission very much reflects our own.”
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