FE Week Reporter | FE Week

Spicing things up at Walsall College

Young West Midland chefs added a touch of spice to their cooking when they received a master class in Indian cookery from professional chefs. The catering students at Walsall Collage were shown how to prepare a range of mouth-watering Indian dishes by experts from award-winning local restaurant Five Rivers á La Carte. Catering student Siana […]

We can do it, say Fashion Enter apprentices

Budding designers in London are saying “We can do it!” in a bid to encourage young people to take up apprenticeships. Apprentices at Fashion Factory, Fashion Enter, are part of a campaign to mark the opening of applications for Creative Skillset’s new higher level apprenticeship in fashion and textiles. Kristen Lucas, 19, a current Fashion […]

Carers’ helping hands get a manicure

Young beauticians in London got to share their caring side when they offered free treatments to a group of carers. The level two and three beauty students from the College of North West London invited the carers, who look after ill, elderly or disabled relatives or friends, into the campus salon. Maggie Barth, head of […]

Young athletes in the media spotlight

It was lights, camera, action in Hampshire when media students had the chance to put apprentice footballers on the spot as part of a joint training exercise. Media students studying a BTec level three diplomas at Farnborough College of Technology filmed 17 Aldershot Football Club apprentices being interviewed on a range of issues including racism, […]

Funding reform tops agenda

More than 150 representatives from colleges, training providers and government agencies came together for Lsect’s winter Data and Funding Conference. The conference, held at London’s Morley College, had a packed agenda, ensuring delegates left the event armed with hot-off-the-press funding updates and expert advice on the efficient use of data to raise standards in education. […]

Hats off to green thinking college students

Students in the South West have been putting their thinking caps on in record numbers to raise awareness of the environment and sustainability. More than 1,500 students and staff from across Wiltshire College’s 10 campuses donned specially made paper hats in an attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the most people wearing recyclable […]

A capital in crisis?

Tumbling inspection grades over the last two years have begged the question ‘is London learning?’ Chris Henwood looks at what’s happening to the capital’s big colleges. Are London colleges failing city learners? It’s a simple, but critical question based on a “worrying” trend in Ofsted judgements over the last two years. Of the nine inspections […]

Priestley College cricket star to play for England

A young cricketer from Cheshire will be stepping up to the crease to play for England this month in a series of matches in South Africa. Rob Jones, 17 and from Stockton Heath, is studying BTec sports performance and excellence at Priestley College and is one of 18 boys chosen from the England Development U17s […]

Getting up to date with exams modernisation

The cost of exams is a major entry in the expenditure column of a college’s balance sheet, but, as Rob Elliott explains, moves to simplify the current FE exams process could lessen their financial impact. Different awarding bodies in the FE world currently require candidate data to be sent in a multitude of different formats […]