FE Week Reporter | FE Week

Why FE needs trained teachers

Every learner in the English FE and skills sector deserves to be taught by qualified teachers and trainers — and that the right should remain in law, says Toni Fazaeli The issue of teaching qualifications has been in the news again, following Stephen Twigg’s announcement that if Labour wins the next election, all teachers will […]

Ross Maloney, chief executive, the Skills Show

Ross Maloney does not give much away about his personal life. But the chief executive of the Skills Show does admit that he’s a perfectionist with a critical eye — one that he casts mainly on himself. What is clear is that this conscientious 32-year-old has a lot on his shoulders. He’s responsible for carrying […]

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Carpenters do it by the book

Young carpenters in Sussex have posed for the illustrations in two new textbooks. Central Sussex College carpentry and joinery students Sam Folkes, 18, Charlie Barber, 17, and Shaun Scofield, 18, will feature in the City & Guilds textbooks due to be published later this year, after the college was approached to provide workshops and models […]

Dancers inspired by the works of Shakespeare

All the world’s a stage for Stratford-upon-Avon college dance students who will dance outside the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) as pre-show entertainment. The BTec level three dance students have devised a site-specific performance that is inspired by Shakespeare’s sonnets and uses the floors, pillars, staircases and walls of the theatre’s front-of-house areas. College dance lecturer […]

Film gives an insider’s view of care sector

The National Apprenticeship Service (NAS) has launched a film to encourage more young people into apprenticeships in the care sector. The film features four current and former apprentices working in different roles across the sector discussing how an apprenticeship has benefited them. Lindsay Giess, 32, who features in the film, completed an advanced apprenticeship in […]

Crumbs! That’s how to do it

Raising money for charity was a piece of cake for public service students near Manchester. The Warrington Collegiate services students raised more than £80 for the ‘Peace of Cake’ campaign for the Peace Centre, which works to support victims of terrorism and their families. The students were thanked by mascot Hero the Bear and former […]

Social enterprise offers prisoners a future

Prisoners at Eastwood Park women’s prison in Gloucestershire are learning to make luxury soap as part of a social enterprise. The scheme, launched by Weston College, employs eight women to design and manufacture the soap to help to prepare them for life after they are released. One of the prisoners, who cannot be named, said: […]

Muffin can stop this baking duo

Two entrepreneurial students in Yorkshire have whipped up a tasty business idea which they are marketing to fellow students. Lancaster and Morecambe College students Mathew Whelan and Mike Fort took the idea of the simple but messy method of microwaving a brownie in a mug and created the Lazy Bake, which gets rid of washing […]