FE Week Reporter | FE Week

Former students inspire next generation

Two women who run four childcare nurseries are now recruiting staff from the college where they first met. Sarah Saint and Leah Clarke are making business look like child’s play as they employ 45 employees who have been trained at Barking and Dagenham College. The successful business women who studied childcare in the late 1990s […]

Olive the cow arrives at pastures new

A cow called Olive has moooved into a college campus in Durham. East Durham College’s Houghall Campus has introduced the pure breed Hereford cow to help show agricultural students different breeding techniques and systems for cattle. Agriculture was reintroduced at the campus last year and a new herd will be introduced over the next seven years. […]

Building new hope for local community centre

Students in Yorkshire are helping a charity bring hope to a community. Apprentice plumbers, painters, joiners and electricians at Middlesbrough College have teamed up with The Hope Foundation to breathe new life into the Brambles Farm Community Centre in the north east town. The students are part of Middlesbrough College Build (MC BUILD) – a […]

Textile exhibition reveals town’s softer side

Textile students have been helping to show off the softer side of a town made of steel. Cleveland College of Art and Design students produced work for a special exhibition featuring a collaboration of artists celebrating the former mining town of Middlesbrough. Come and ’Ave a Go If You Think You’re ’Ard enough runs until […]

Complaints body call for FE students

Students in the FE sector are trailing behind their higher education counterparts when it comes to the handling of complaints, explains NUS vice president for FE Toni Pearce. While universities who wrong their students could face a hearing with the Office of the Independent Adjudicator, FE students have no such recourse — and it’s time […]

College’s work recognised with new title

A college in Hampshire is the only institution in the country to have its motor vehicle department named as a “showcase centre”. Fareham College was bestowed the title by ABC, the awarding body for a number of motor vehicle qualifications. ABC chose Fareham after looking at the college’s Ofsted reports and now the centre will act […]

Media students get on the airwaves

A group of students are “trailblazing” the way for future broadcasters after launching their very own radio studio. Leeds City College creative media students are taking over the airwaves at Yorkshire Radio to launch a weekly show featuring current affairs, music and more. Digital radio station listeners will be able to tune into Leeds City College […]

Rise in apprenticeships as HE wanes

With the cost of new tuition fee arrangements seeming to hit the popularity of higher education, EAL’s Ann Watson looks at the rising star of apprenticeships. The end of 2012 brought with it revealing figures from two of the most important bodies in the UK’s education sector. For the first time, the National Apprenticeship Service (NAS) revealed […]

Apprenticeships: new year, new agenda

Apprenticeships made the news time and again in 2012 with a host of reviews. Graham Hoyle, from the AELP, explains what he thinks should be on the apprenticeship agenda for 2013. As ministers consider the direction they intend to travel following the various reviews of apprenticeships that took place in 2012, it is worth doing a […]