FE Week Reporter | FE Week

Can colleges profit from the new HE market?

At first sight the HE White Paper looks like good news for FE providers of HE. It speaks warmly of their distinctive contribution to higher education, highlights them in its strategy for diversifying the range of providers and recognises the difficulties they face in competing with universities when the latter still validate their degrees and […]

Cornwall College works with green power to embed STEM subjects early

One thousand school children from 60 schools gathered at Newquay Cornwall Airport this week to race electric cars that the pupils designed and built from scratch. The annual South West Regional Heat of the Greenpower schools electric car races, organised by Cornwall College, is the culmination of months of hard work from primary and secondary […]

Potential ‘dragons’ at Chichester College

Chichester College is calling all young entrepreneurs to “Pitch for a Place” at their new Peter Jones Enterprise Academy. The event will take place on 4th July at 4:30pm, and the college is encouraging young people from all over Sussex to ‘come and present’ their potential business ideas to a panel. If you think you […]

Harlow College student helps launch the new NUS card for apprentices

A society for apprentices with a NUS discount card for members has been launched to boost the status of skills-based training. The Apprentice Society and its membership card are being billed as a skills-based equivalent to the National Union of Students and its NUS Extra card. Skills minister John Hayes, Robert Halfon MP and apprentice […]

Position yourself to further your career

Jobs are getting thinner on the ground in FE as colleges across the country are making redundancies. Yet, no matter what sector you work in there is a limitless amount of generic information out there on how to further or even protect your career. The obvious advice can often be overlooked but it’s often the […]

Quality on the bench

For the past ten years I have been working for a private training company offering apprenticeships. Previous to this, I spent 14 years in an FE College leaving after reaching the dizzy heights of Director of Studies. Transferring a college based quality system to work based training has been an interesting experience. We have achieved […]

Surge in the over-25s sees record rise in apprentices

The Government’s apprenticeship recruitment target of 203,200 for the financial year to March 2011 was exceeded by 54,000, John Hayes, Minister for FE, announced last week. Particularly striking has been the volume of those apprentices aged 25 and over who started in the first three quarters of this academic year (August 2010 to April 2011). […]

Morrisons, Elmfield and the over-25 apprentices

Morrisons boasts that it is the UK’s biggest provider of apprenticeships, although in reality the funding is claimed from the Skills Funding Agency by the independent training provider Elmfield Training Ltd. In the context of a national record number of apprentices (see page 1), what stands out is the rapid increase in adults aged 25 […]

Bicton florist wins South West UK Skills competition

Bicton College floristry student Sachiko Smale has won through to the national final of the UK Skills Advanced Floristry competition. Sachiko, who is studying for her Level 5 Master Diploma of Professional Floristry [NDSF], created a stunning bridal bouquet. Sachi said, ‘Winning this competition has proved that I am doing fine and has given me […]