FE Week Reporter | FE Week

ALT delegates seek technological innovation despite challenging times

[Click here to download the FE Week ALT conference double page spread (3mb)] The education sector is seeking innovation at a time when budgets are increasingly being slashed. Colleges are now looking to technology not only as a way of improving efficiency and running costs, but as a means to improving the student experience in further […]

City & Guilds allocated more than £8m for 25,000 Asda apprentices

The Skills Funding Agency (SFA) has allocated more than £8m to City & Guilds in order to deliver 25,000 apprenticeships at Asda. The funding will be used to train employees from May 2011 to July 2012, comprising of £736,824 until the end of July 2011 with a further £7.7m between August 2011 and the end […]

FE Week joins 1000 mile in 10 day charity challenge

FE Week cycled hard last month to join South Birmingham College Principal Mike Hopkins and local blind man Dave Heeley as part of their Top2Toe charity challenge. We followed the pair as they exited Birmingham, creating an exclusive video report and in-depth interview about their progress. Mike Hopkins and Dave Heeley were riding a tandem […]

New Year, New Challenges

The latest bundle of Papers which came out from Government over the summer on FE reform pose more questions than answers, nearly 60 questions in all covering most aspects of the FE system. Nor are things likely to be clear for some time. We’ve got an Education and Skills Growth Review under way, consultations going […]

Quit the excuses and listen to those not attending

Many colleges are nervously counting 16-18 year-old learners in and out of classes this week, totting up the totals and making judgements about whether or not they are below, on or above recruitment targets. When 16 year-old enrolments do not materialise into attendance the same excuses are rolled out at this time every year. The […]

Sixth Form education property hotspots

The Telegraph ran a story this week on the back of new research by the website PrimeLocation, who found parents are prepared to pay a £77,000 premium to live near the best schools and colleges. The Telegraph published a guide to 20 prime education property hotspots across the country, naming what they regarded as the […]

City College boxer wins Junior ABA title

One of City College Brighton and Hove’s sporting apprentices, Archie Hutchins, has recently been crowned ABAE Junior Champion. Archie has been an Advanced Apprenticeship in Sporting Excellence (AASE) student at the college since the scheme began last year. Archie’s hard work paid off when he beat John Newell of Shannon ABC by 27 points to […]

Red tape cutting too good to be true?

The Bureaucracy Busters, rated PG, coming soon to employers and training providers near you? This is the latest in the Coalition’s on-going saga of deregulation and slashing red tape (see front page). For too long vexatious bureaucracy has held back innovation; Whitehall pen-pushers have strangled professional freedoms and a culture of targets has drowned out […]

Trafford College student gets a yes, yes, yes and yes from the X-Factor judges

No this isn’t a line from ‘Harry met Sally’, it was the unanimous decision from the X-Factor judging panel to put a Trafford College student through to the show’s boot camp phase. Viewers of last Saturday’s audition show saw 19-year-old Mischa Bryan wow the panel with an amazing rendition of Aretha Franklin’s R.E.S.P.E.C.T. Her remarkable […]