FE Week Reporter | FE Week

Beauty therapy students go head to head

Beauty therapy students from across Kent showcased their make-up skills at a new salon academy. East Kent College hosted a competition for 12 students to transform a model using the theme of fantasy or fashion catwalk. The contest lasted three hours. Four East Kent students joined K College, Canterbury College and MidKent College students to […]

Student photographer snaps up award

A photojournalist has won a national award after capturing the reality of Britain’s drinking culture. Joel Goodman clinched the student image of the year in the National Council for the Training of Journalists’ (NCTJ) awards for excellence after snatching images outside a popular Manchester nightclub of passed-out revellers, fights, and paramedics and police at work. The […]

Students lay foundations for the future

Midland construction students have been transforming neglected land into a play area for local schoolchildren. North Nottinghamshire College students built a log cabin for environmental work and a pond for North Wheatley Primary School. Future plans include a lookout tower, an area for den building, a play tunnel and a range of outdoor musical instruments […]

Stellar opportunity for space engineers

Future space stars took a trip to the House of Commons to rub shoulders with scientists. Twelve students from Loughborough College’s space engineering programme for pupils aged over 16, the first in the country, gave a demonstration to Science Minister David Willetts and heard from Professor Brian Cox on the importance of space education. Anu […]

Barking & Dagenham models on parade

London students won a mayoral seal of approval when they created scale models of the capital’s landmarks for a float. Carpentry, painting and decorating students from Barking & Dagenham College made replicas of the Shard, the Gherkin, Tower Bridge, the Millennium Wheel and Tower 42 at Canary Wharf for London’s New Year’s Day parade. Anthony […]

Dance performance at Royal Armouries

A Yorkshire war museum was brought to life when dance students re-enacted a 16th century European battle. The performance at the Royal Armouries was inspired by the Battle of Pavia and choreographed by Briony Marston, a dance tutor at Leeds City College. “It was challenging for the students to adapt to a non-traditional performance space and […]

Will ‘guilding’ the LSIS be an improvement or disaster?

Stop tinkering with FE before another doomed organisation is set up (you only have to look back a few years), says Anne Nicholls And so, the Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS) is to close this August after barely four years, as plans for an FE Guild are put together. David Hughes, chair of the […]

Why it’s time for a vocational pedagogy

A new report highlights the complex task of the vocational teacher and offers important evidence for why FE needs a vocational pedagogy, says Charlynne Pullen This is a critical time for the UK economy. As it begins to recover, there will be a greater need for skilled individuals, and vocational education has a clear role to […]

The real case for chartered colleges

Chartered status must not simply be another quality mark: it should reflect the capacity of an institution to work with all its partners to help to shape what is on offer to its community, says Mick Fletcher The proposal to develop chartered colleges offers the prospect of underpinning the freedoms and flexibilities that government seems […]