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14 May 2026

Night of dreams on a West End stage

Dreams came true for a group of young people London when they staged a spectacular production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at a West End theatre. More than 200 youngsters, led by learners from Havering College of Further and Higher Education, took part in the one-night-only performance of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical at […]

Zack hauls in £250-worth of equipment

Apprentices in Derbyshire swept the board in a ‘super-merchant sweep’ challenge to win equipment from a local building supplies merchant. The six Derby College apprentices had 60 seconds each to dash around a branch of Travis Perkins in Ilkeston, Derby, filling a wheelbarrow with equipment worth £250. Carpentry and joinery apprentice Zack Haslam, 17, was […]

Sixty-second film takes top honours

Young animators in London have won a national competition with their one-minute film about a frustrated penguin. BTec animation students at The College of Haringey, Enfield and North East London submitted the film, Flightless Birdie, to an under-18s award at the Animated Exeter Festival, the largest festival of its kind in the UK. Student Melda […]

Students get a taste of budgeting skills

Finance skills were on the menu when MP Nicky Morgan saw how Leicestershire students were learning to manage money. Ms Morgan, Cons, Loughborough, joined learners at Loughborough College in ‘The taste of money’, a challenge that introduced them to dining on a budget. Chef team leader Stuart Finn produced a range of dishes for very […]

Glastonbury review hits the right note

A music review by a student in Somerset has attracted attention from the Glastonbury festival organisers. Strode College A-level student and aspiring music journalist Rhys Buchanan, 17, from Street, reviewed the festival’s emerging talent competition for a local magazine. Glastonbury organisers saw a link to his review on Strode’s Twitter account, and re-tweeted it to […]

Business students get out on the road

Business students in Lancashire got a lorry-load of information about careers in logistics when they visited a local transport company. Students at Nelson and Colne College Sixth Form heard about a range of roles, from warehouse manager to driver to accountant, from Kibble Transport boss Matthew Kibble. He also treated them to a tour of […]

April fools: How we pulled it off

The Association of Colleges took FE by storm over Easter with its ‘plans’ for an anthem and a flag to raise the sector’s profile. The great and good even got involved with Skills Minister Matthew Hancock tweeting words of support. With a professional London-based media company, an Ivor Novello award-winning songwriter and former 4 Poofs […]

College takes Italian student to heart

An Italian MA student has been offered a helping hand by a Yorkshire college after she asked for advice from one of the college’s lecturers. Rosanna Cuomo, 23, is spending a month in Bradford receiving extra supervision on her dissertation after emailing Bradford College lecturer Dr Khosro Jahdi about an article he wrote for the […]

Learning on the job is not enough

Support for new principals is a key priority, says John Smith. But who will provide a framework as LSIS winds down? Ofsted’s chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw is right: the key to successful leadership and management essentially, but not exclusively, lies with the principal.  If not, what are principals for? But how are new principals […]