FE Week Reporter | FE Week

Harlow College Bids for UTC

Plans for a new university technical college (UTC) for Essex were submitted last week. Harlow MP Robert Halfon has been working closely with Harlow College to prepare a bid to bring a UTC to Harlow. The bid has has been publicly backed by a number of organisations. These include Harlow and District Chamber of Commerce, […]

The ‘Arts’ provided award winning inspiration for Sparsholt College

‘Phyto Inspiration’ – the plants behind the arts – depicted a garden displaying the plants that have influenced and stimulated architecture, artists, musicians and poets over the ages. In addition to securing a Gold award, Sparsholt College was also the winner of the Best Continuous Learning Exhibit. Designed and created by a team of 16 […]

Hadlow College’s free school bid with a ‘rural ethos’

Hadlow College in Kent is proposing to have its very own free school. The school will have a specialism described as a ‘rural ethos’. If successful, the ‘Hadlow Rural Community School’ will be a secondary school for pupils aged 11 to 16 and based on Hadlow College’s campus. If the land-based college is successful the […]

Life’s a beach at Bournemouth and Poole College

Forty enthusiastic Italian students say they will be taking home fantastic memories of Bournemouth after a year experiencing A-Levels at Bournemouth and Poole College. The students say they were mightly impressed by the quality of the teaching at the college as they experienced a year of life at a typical English college. They studied a […]

College finances redder than they might seem

The Times Education Supplement on Friday published an “exclusive” on the state of the college finances. The headline was somewhat eye-catching: “FE colleges in the black”. The researchers used the college accounts for 2009/10 published by the Skills Funding Agency this spring. The numbers showed that colleges reported an average operating surplus of about £300,000 […]

WorkdSkills needs help

The ‘greatest skills competition in the world’ is coming to London this October. The competitions in 45 skills areas over four days will host hopeful medallists from over 50 countries/regions and attract 150,000 visitors. The organisers are looking for 2,500 volunteers, to take on roles from Tour Guide to Press Office. For more details on […]

Shane Chowen, vice president, NUS

He has been pelted with eggs at a rally, escorted away from violent crowds by the police, but as he comes to the end of his stint as vice president (FE) of the NUS, the incident Shane Chowen seems most indignant about involves Vanessa Feltz. In a live radio interview on the education maintenance allowance, […]

Ofqual disappointed

The head of qualifications regulator, Ofqual, has written to all awarding organisations following a series of errors in AS-level exam papers. A maths question from OCR, biology question from Edexcel and a business studies question from AQA all contained mistakes worth up to 11% of the marks. Ofqual has discribed this as “disappointing and unacceptable” […]

16-18 funding continues

The Young People’s Learning Agency has confirmed they will, in exceptional circumstances, continue to fund non-accredited provision for 16-18 year-olds. Their e-bulletin states: “In light of the publication of the Government’s response to the Wolf Review of Vocational Education the DfE has agreed that the YPLA should continue to fund – for a further year […]