FE Week Reporter | FE Week

Branching out in business

Two Warwickshire College students are proving that they can cut it in the world of business after opening their own tree surgery company. Andrew Plester and Graham Bird launched P and B Tree Services last month with advice and support from the college’s enterprise board. And they’ve already turned 75 per cent of their quotes […]

‘Qualifications don’t produce good teachers’

The new teaching and training qualifications for the FE sector dominated discussion at the latest Westminster Education Forum last Thursday. Shane Mann reports Changes in sector regulations were outlined in the Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS) report last month entitled Teaching and Training Qualifications for the Further Education and Skills Sector in England. It […]

Magnum head shares his skills

More than 100 photography, art and media students at Dudley College had a rare treat when documentary and art photographer Martin Parr, UK head of the Magnum Photo Agency, talked about his experiences and work over the past 30 years. He described how photaography had changed since the 1970s and how his career had been […]

Minister visits new £33m campus

It was a day of firsts when the leader of the Welsh government visited a new £33m campus. First Minister Carwyn Jones met the first learners to study at Coleg Gwent’s state-of-the-art Blaenau Gwent Learning Zone. As well as construction, the campus, which opened in March, offers courses in art, media, IT and independent living […]

LEPs can articulate the needs of business

The 39 local enterprise partnerships really do want to raise skill and employability levels as a fundamental to driving local growth, says David Frost Perhaps one of the most dispiriting aspects of working with local enterprise partnerships (LEPs) is that skills and employability feature at the top of all of their agendas. But if the […]

Finding the right blend

It’s early days for massive open online courses (Moocs), but do they have a role in FE, asks Peter Kilcoyne Funding cuts have had an impact on staffing levels at Worcester College of Technology (WCT) as in most FE institutions. As a result we decided early on to develop our online learning provision so that […]

Minister beams over college enterprise

It’s early days in the new relationship between FE and local enterprise partnerships, but how they will now work together was the centre of discussion at a London conference. Chris Henwood reports Further education and its place at the centre of local “entrepreneurial ecosystems” was the theme of a conference organised by the Gazelle Colleges […]

Consider all the options

The institutional bias towards a university education is unfair on young people, says Spencer Mehlman I am not against universities. They are incredible places for learning, with some of the most interesting and enthusiastic teachers you could ever meet. For many young people they will be the “right” next step. But the drive towards university […]

In search of a lost art

Curriculum design was a critical and well developed skill that FE staff once placed at the centre of their professional expertise, says Lynn Sedgmore. It’s time it was again… The freedoms and flexibilities of New Challenges, New Changes and the more recent Rigour and Responsiveness in Skills, have given colleges greater opportunities to be responsive […]