FE Week Reporter | FE Week

Sandra Coats, catering assistant, Barking and Dagenham College

The first thing Sandra Coats tells me when we meet in the canteen at Barking and Dagenham College is that she’s “what you’d describe as ordinary”. But at the end of last year something quite extraordinary happened to this catering assistant from Romford. She received a letter from Buckingham Palace saying that she’d been nominated […]

At last, a place at Oxford

A pilot programme provides a platform for outstanding career development that will help to address the current lack of university-led research that focuses on FE, says Jonathan Backhouse Shortly after leaving school with two GCSEs (B and C grades), dyslexia was diagnosed. I wonder what my teachers would have thought if they had seen me […]

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SFA parachutes £15m in to K College

A struggling Kent college that is being broken up following a “failed merger” owes the Skills Funding Agency at least £15m, FE Week can reveal. K College had received £3.2m in agency advances by November last year, on top of £11.7m of Invest to Save funds. The situation is revealed in confidential minutes from a […]

Mad Hatter’s tea party a pouring success

Tea was served in style when learners in Essex dressed up as the Mad Hatter and the White Rabbit to raise money for charity. Chelmsford College’s learner voice representatives, with staff and students, served afternoon tea, sandwiches, cake and scones, whipped up by the college baking department, raising £633.11 for the Helen Rollason Cancer Charity. […]

Engineers drop in on the Navy

Barton Peveril College engineering students Tom Abbey, Wesley Frost, Alex Wilson and Robert Winn dropped in by helicopter on the Royal Fleet Auxiliary stores ship, Fort Austin, on a fact-finding mission for their engineering education scheme project. The quartet has been working with the Royal Navy to develop a new system of measuring the distance […]

Exhibition pops up in Crewe centre

Photography students received highly commended awards for their efforts to make a disused shop space in Crewe’s Market Shopping Centre look picture perfect. The enterprising South Cheshire College level three students used their own work to create an eye-catching pop-up exhibition in an empty shop window. Their exhibition, named Unit 21, was part of the […]

Who wants to be a milliner?

A Birmingham fashion student showed her head for hats when her design was showcased during Ladies’ Day at the Aegon Classic tennis tournament held in the city. Level three student Anmol Hasinah, 18, won a competition at South and City College Birmingham to design a hat to be brought to life by Sharper Millinery. “It […]

Course ends in glittering finale

Coleg Gwent’s art, design and multimedia students showcased their talent at a dazzling end-of-course show. The exhibition at Newport’s Riverfront Theatre included fine art, textiles, illustration, films, interactive games, websites, graphics, animation, photography, and sculpture. “It’s so inspirational to see everyone’s work together in one big exhibition,” said third year art and design student Sam […]