FE Week Reporter | FE Week

Central Sussex College: Rome wasn’t built in a day – it took a month!

Roman architecture came to Crawley after a legion of students from Central Sussex College completed their very own, miniature version of the Colosseum! The fifteen students, all aged 16-19, are studying Building Craft Occupations (BCO) at the Crawley campus, and were inspired to recreate the world famous structure after looking at construction techniques throughout the […]

Ex Grimbsby student, actor John Hurt wins Gold Award

Award-winning actor John Hurt CBE, famous for films such as The Elephant Man and The Naked Civil Servant, has won an Association of Colleges’ Gold Award. He was nominated by The Grimsby Institute for continuing to inspire generations of art and drama students. John said he is “forever grateful” for the time he spent at […]

NUS VP advice to FE post-EMA

In the past few weeks, we have heard final details about the Discretionary Learner Support Fund that is to replace the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA). Managers in Further Education won’t be strangers to the idea of Learner Support Funds, but there are some distinct differences that make this one much more difficult to distribute. Providing […]

Comedian returns to Filton for Prize Day

Bristol comedian, Justin Lee Collins is taking time out of his busy schedule to congratulate local students at Filton’s Award Ceremony. Justin will return to his roots to host Prize Day at his former college. The college is awarding students with cash prizes to assist with their education or career paths. Prizes include over 40 […]

Peter Jones Academy hitting the headlines

BBC Dragon, entrepreneur and now further education celebrity, Peter Jones has been bringing FE into the nationals this week – kicking and screaming. Now I know that FE Week has called FE the invisible sector, (see article below) but Peter Jones has proved us wrong. The Daily Mail ran two stories, suggesting Peter might be […]

Simplify the funding formula? Heard that before!

Both the Young People’s Learning Agency (YPLA) and the Skills Funding Agency are beavering away, independent of each other, on two brand new ‘simpler’ funding formulae for the 2012/13 academic year. The YPLA (soon to be Education Funding Agency) will attempt funding rates based on 16-18 year-old learner programmes (as opposed to individual enrolments) and […]

Justifying the subcontracting top-slice

Colleges are increasingly at risk of being percieved to be ripping off partners by “top-slicing” 30 per cent or more in subcontracting agreements. Although the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) does not impose a maximum percentage charged by colleges under subcontracting arrangements – its guidance states this should not exceed 15 per cent without a detailed […]

Toni Fazaeli, CEO, Institute for Learning

Friday has become Toni Fazaeli’s least favourite day of the week. Before boarding the train into London – where she commutes to the office from Leicester each day – she buys a strong coffee to help “brace herself” for opening the trade industry paper, the TES. It has been a bumpy few years for the […]

Daily Mirror probes subcontracting “scandal”

The award-winning Daily Mirror Investigations team, Andrew Penman and Nick Sommerlad, this week launched an in-depth probe into the activities of Luis Michael Training which has run into trouble as a subcontractor providing sports apprentice courses. Big colleges including South Thames and Sparsholt in Hampshire pulled out of contracts and stopped payments, claiming the outfit […]