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Bicton College launches new EaRTH Hub

Bicton College’s innovative new Environmental and Renewable Technologies Hub (EaRTH) has been officially launched. The event, which saw nearly 200 people attend, was designed to showcase the new centre, to demonstrate the cutting-edge technologies and to give thanks to all those in the community who have been part of its construction. There were short talks […]

Apprenticeship inquiry heads to Northampton

The inquiry into apprenticeships by the Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) Select Committee will head to Northampton next week. An itinerary for the visit, which takes place on Tuesday, March 13, has been released today. During the visit, members of the cross-party committee will undertake visits to Cosworth Ltd, GE Precision Engineering Ltd and Church […]

Prince of Wales amazed by Great Yarmouth College showcase after royal visit to campus

Students at Great Yarmouth College treated the Prince of Wales to a showcase of vocational skills when he visited their campus. The Prince even tried his hand at construction skills in the brick workshop and later asked catering and hospitality students if canapes they had designed and created specially for him could be boxed for […]

Are they trying to simplify funding or simplify FE?

The latest announcement on simplifying funding, ‘A New Streamlined Funding System for Adult Skills’ represents a small step forward. There is clear evidence that colleagues at SFA and BIS have listened to the sector and have found, like all new brooms before them, that while everyone will buy the idea of simplification in theory its […]

Battle lines drawn over apprenticeships

Lord Knight of Weymouth gave the opening address | Scott Upton, vice principal of Sandwell College speaks out | Karen Woodward, NAS said quality was illusive Reinforcing standards, the growth in new adult starts and the ever elusive definition of an apprenticeship was at the heart of the agenda for the last session of the […]

A good, not ‘satisfactory’ education for all

Firstly I would like to thank FE Week for the opportunity to contribute to this regular column. I’m going to start off with than the recent announcement by Sir Michael Wilshaw, HMCI, about replacing the ‘satisfactory’ judgement with ‘requires improvement’ and our proposals to introduce ‘no-notice’ inspections for the FE and Skills sector. The main […]

City College Norwich and the Bradford Factor approach to sickness absence

City College Norwich is a college of Higher and Further Education with over 14,000 students and 1,000 staff based in Norfolk. About four years ago, one of the biggest HR issues for the college was managing sickness absence both long-term and short-term intermittent absences. Long-term sickness cases remained unresolved for lengthy periods of time and […]

Social media in colleges – When an employee falls foul of the law

Social media is the broad term given to describe the latest evolution of internet and web based communication platforms that enable users to rapidly connect and interact in a variety of different formats. As employers, FE Colleges are not immune to the ramifications of employees using social media. Quite apart from social media now being […]

PAC takes evidence on adult apprenticeships

It is not just the BIS Select Committee keeping a close eye on apprenticeships. The Public Accounts Committee last week held an evidence session on adult apprenticeships after the National Audit Office’s report last month. The witnesses were Martin Donnelly, permanent secretary of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, Geoff Russell, chief executive of […]