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13 May 2026

Author: FE Week Reporter

Havering College students show fashion flair

The next generation of up-and-coming designers from Havering College of Further and Higher Education showcased their creations at a major catwalk event. Five final year BA Fashion degree students from the college in Hornchurch, Essex, took their cutting edge collections to London’s Alternative Fashion Week. Press photographers from across the globe descended on the six […]

Gary Lineker gets behind Salford City College

Students from the Salford City College Sports Academy were recently invited to Old Trafford to meet England football hero Gary Lineker. The BBC Match of the Day host was guest speaker at the Greater Manchester launch of Drive IQ – a programme to educate young people before they get behind the wheel, made up of […]

What counts as being a successful college?

The 157 Group has been debating how it moves forward six years on from its inception. The sector context in 2012 is very different from 2006, not least with the new flexibilities and freedoms, the changing style of Ofsted, fiscal reductions and a new spirit of entrepreneurialism. A key question is how a successful college […]

Gemma Knott, policy and communications officer, 157 Group

“The worst thing that could happen to me is for someone to say that I didn’t try hard enough,” says Gemma Knott, the 157 Group’s policy and communications officer. A self-confessed “geek,” she loved reading and writing from an early age and excelled academically. But there were few role models on Northfields estate in Leicester […]

FE should learn ‘employment truths’ from welfare-to-work

The relationship between further education, the world of work, and local economic development is at a crossroads. With over one million young people unemployed for the first time, FE colleges are now in a unique position to revolutionise how they support learners’ migration from training into gainful employment. The Wolf Review suggested we shift the […]

Shaping apprenticeships the Australian Group Training way

Before we look at shaping the future, I’d firstly like to look at the past by sharing some history behind the Australian Group Training model. Group Training in the Australian landscape involves organisations legally employing apprentices across many occupational sectors and, in turn, placing them with a host employer. The Group Training Company essentially manages […]

College redundancies and restructures

Staff from Gateshead College protest over pay cuts and increased working hours. As the economic downturn continues to put pressure on the sector, staff at FE colleges up and down the country are increasingly facing the prospect of redundancy. In the last few weeks, a wave of institutions have revealed plans for potential redundancies in […]

Finger pointing as MPs criticise value for money at Morrisons

Geoff Russell, CEO of the Skills Funding Agency points to David Way, CEO of the National Apprenticeship Service, at the BIS Select Committee, chaired by Adrian Bailey Members of the Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) Select Committee have criticised the poor value for money offered by retail apprenticeships. MPs questioned David Way, interim chief executive […]