‘Experimental’ creations on the catwalk

Young designers in Cheshire raised eyebrows and money for charity when their work was shown at their college’s annual catwalk show.

Volunteer models wore creations by A-level textile and BTec art and design students at Priestley College, with all entry fees donated to the Teenage Cancer Trust and the college’s education fund.

Tutor Emma Lingard said: “All the pieces were experimental, but we encourage that at this stage because it is a good time for the students to be learning about materials and different techniques.”

Inspired by themes such as memories, organic structures, the urban environment, architecture and recycling, students used traditional methods and materials alongside some more unusual ones such as plastic, wood, wire and paper.

At the end of the show, Sian Day of the Teenage Cancer Trust talked about its work to build specialist hospital units for young people with cancer.

Featured image caption: Volunteer models, back row, from left: Hannah Broadbent, 16, Gemma Irvine, 18, Natalie Hassall, Lauren Muir, both 17 and Alicia Blackwell Edwards, 19. Front row: Alan Dodd, Lloyd Jones, both 17 , Dominic Saulte, Joe Thomas, both 18

Tune in to Weston on Wednesdays

Weston College music goes live next month when concerts, instrument lessons and music-mixing software tutorials are available for streaming between 4 and 4.30pm on Wednesdays.

Music curriculum manager Paul Raymond said: “Anyone can watch these free via www.musiccollege.tv, and, through Facebook and Twitter, they can make the whole experience interactive, ask questions, make comments and give feedback.”

He added: “We really believe that this is a step forward in educational opportunities and puts Weston at the cutting edge.”

The live lessons follow a performance last month at St George’s concert hall, Bristol, in which Weston students Bozanne Bozie, 16, Patrick Lim, 17, and Rosie Southern , 18, performed their own songs, accompanied by a professional string quartet.  The concert was filmed and streamed live last month by students from the college’s film and media departments.

Featured image caption: Weston College student Bozanne Bozie will be performing her own songs during live web broadcasts

All eyes on the prize in Newham

A Newham College men’s football team beat 15 schools, universities and colleges to get to the national final of a student  competition.

Newham beat Hertswood Academy 4-3 to win the Southern England Student Sports Association football plate final at Essex’s Ford Sports and Social Club.

The college’s FE sports co-ordinator, Liana Mathurin-Brown, said the team’s success was due to Erskine Smith, a coach from the Tessa Sanderson Foundation and Academy, and a former college worker.

“Since moving on from the college, Erskine has continued to give up his time for training and matches,” she said.

“He’s always on hand when players need advice.”

Featured image caption: Newham College footballers and coach celebrate their after their knock-out competition win

At the cutting edge of design

Textiles students in Somerset learned high-level techniques in a master class on pattern cutting from designer Julian Roberts.

The 85 learners on Strode College A-level textiles, art foundation and BTec art and design courses heard about Julian’s pioneering, no-waste pattern cutting technique, and then had a chance to try the method out for themselves.

College textiles course leader Sue Green, who organised the event, said: “It’s important to challenge our students to think creatively and to develop their own work in new and innovative directions.

“Working with a professional designer like Julian Roberts gave them a great opportunity to build on their skills, knowledge and confidence.”

Some of the students’ dresses made using Julian’s techniques will be on display at an end-of-year catwalk show in June.

Featured image caption: Molly Clark, 17, from Martock,  in the dress she made in Julian Robert’s workshop

Tyneside students try out the high life

High-flying travel and tourism learners from Tyneside took a trip to Stockport to dip into a specialist cabin crew course.

The 12 level three students ‘checked-in’ to a range of mock-up aircraft at Thomas Cook Airlines’ aviation centre.

Warick Stephenson, head of care, sport and leisure at TyneMet College, said: “These educational visits are invaluable. They introduce the students to ‘real life’ training exercises and give them an insight in to how the theory side of their teaching is put into place.”

The training covered manually closing aircraft doors, security and on-board first aid, including CPR and using a defibrillator.

Featured image caption: Amy Conway, 16, takes part in cabin crew training

Makeover for Crewe primary school

A team of enterprising learners in Cheshire have given a former primary school a new lease of life as a community facility.

The eight foundation degree public and community service students from South Cheshire College, who called themselves ‘Decor8’, raised hundreds of pounds through raffles, tombolas and a community fundraising wall in a local supermarket to decorate and furnish the building in Crewe.

Student Erica Smith said: “This has been a really fun project and we have all worked extremely well  as a team.

“People were very generous  . . . we’d like to say a big thank you to everyone who has supported us.”

The refurbished building will be home to the Cheshire Academy of Integrated Sport and Arts for people with physical, sensory or learning disabilities, and a Skills for Life group that will give young people the chance to learn new skills and sports. It also will host after-school clubs and community events for the over-60s.

Featured image caption: Ash Barrow, 18, and Steph Sandham, 19, have their paintbrushes at the ready

Lesson one: watch young adults on their smartphones

Technology offers learners different methods for coming to the same outcome. But no one is saying that it’s easy to find the right formula, says Carolyn Lewis

What encourages trainers to use technology to support learning and assessment? It could be the number of statistics that are published on technology use, such as how many hours a day learners spend on social networking, or it could be the increasing numbers of employers demanding flexibility and less time away from the workplace, instructions from Ofsted inspectors to embrace more technology or a drive to become more commercially sustainable.

All these reasons are valid, but there is another important consideration: what learners want.

So how do we take on board the objectives of those in charge of the finances without losing sight of learners needing to be at the centre of what we do?

Often trainers do not use technology because, they say, “my learners need constant support” or “my learners need their programme of learning spoon-fed to them”. But surely we need to be developing their independence and organisational skills if we are to prepare them for the world of work.

Many young adults know more about taking charge of their lives than we give them credit for. How often have you seen a teenager feed their curiosity by turning to their mobile phone to find something out, or to organise a night out with friends on Facebook?

Technology can make learning more varied, interesting, fun and well supported”

Watch a teenager on their smartphone and consider the skills that they are using; research, communication, organising, comprehending and, in some cases, analysis, synthesis and evaluation — even if they are in simplistic forms. They are comfortable using these skills and probably don’t equate them to other areas of their lives.

Technology allows us to harness these skills, to offer learners different methods for coming to the same outcome. No one is saying that it’s easy; neither do they have perfect formula for engaging the non-engaged. But applying the skills that come naturally through the use of technology to learning gives us the best possible chance of achieving it.

It would be easy simply to find a great e-tool and then think “what can I use this for and what learners am I going to try it out on?”

Don’t do this.  The technology should be identified for a need and benefit. For instance, how can you improve things for learners who are not great at communicating? The answer might be mobile Skype or Whatsapp, but your choice is likely to take into account any barriers that your learners might face to using technology.

A protected online learning environment offers safeguarding and support, and gives you the ability to integrate different resource types — video, audio, text and games —to meet different learning styles. The flipped classroom model can improve engagement as it encourages online learning as the outcomes are visible when put into the practical face-to-face environment that follows.

Technology does offer learners the freedom of independent learning, but skills need to be developed first.  Most of all, technology can make learning more varied, interesting, fun and well supported, but if learners haven’t experienced it, how can they express it as their preferred style?

In an ideal world, learning using technology should be delivered by staff who are comfortable using it with learners who say it is their preferred way of learning.  However, lack of skills, and lack of awareness of how technology can be used often becomes a barrier that needs to be challenged.

Carolyn Lewis, managing director Vocational Innovation 

Warwickshire’s shooters are on target

A group of newcomers to clay shooting started their competitive days with a bang when they won top prize at a schools’ challenge in Buckinghamshire.

The first ladies’ team from Warwickshire College to enter the competition beat its nearest rivals by a full 10 clays.

Paige Neale, Aimee Misters, Lottie Horrabin, Tori Frogley and captain Tiffany Lees were awarded a new 12-bore shotgun for the college as a prize.

In the men’s event, the Warwickshire team of Nathan Mockler, 18, Sam Treadgold, 18, Will Garrett, 21, Sam Clark, 17, and captain George Huck, 18 lost by two clays to come second to local rivals Warwick School.

Sam Treadgold took overall second place in the competition.

Warwickshire College has also been shortlisted for the Clay Pigeon Shooting Association’s school of the year award, which it won last year.

Featured image caption: Warwickshire College women’s clay shooting team, from left: Lottie Horrabin, 18, Tori Frogley, 17, Paige Neale, 19, Aimee Misters, 18, Harriet Jones, 18, and Tiffany Lees, 19

Middlesbrough recruits 50 new staff

A ‘courageous’ Teeside college is braving economic storms to recruit more staff and invest heavily in new buildings. Eleanor Radford finds out why

A Teeside college principal admits that he’s taking a risk recruiting 50 new staff and pioneering a £20m investment.

But Mike Hopkins, principal at Middlesbrough College, is “clear” student numbers will continue to grow.

Mr Hopkins is overseeing a heavy investment in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM subjects) over the next three years by erecting new buildings and extending a sixth-form centre that opened last year.

He said the college wanted to help “combat national skills shortages”, and was now advertising for lecturers in specialities from computing and health care to engineering and A-level subjects across the board — an investment of around £1m.

“At the moment we’re in a virtuous cycle,” he told FE Week.

“The more staff we recruit, the more income we receive, and then the more staff we can take on and the better facilities we can get.”

How had the college achieved this when other providers were struggling, with redundancies becoming common?

“When I arrived in 2010 the college had £7m in reserves and the board very courageously decided to spend it when others might have thought ‘let’s ride out this storm of austerity’,” said Mr Hopkins.

In September the college unveiled MC6, a new sixth-form centre, built using reserves and attracting 200 new A-level students.

“We expect another 150 on top of that this year,” he said.

“Our A-level centre is already very busy and unless we start building this summer we won’t be able to accommodate what we anticipate will be growth next year — we’re getting particularly buoyant applications in STEM subjects.”

Middlesbrough College had applied for a £6.5m capital grant from the Skills Funding Agency, and aimed to plough a further £13.5m of borrowed money into what Mr Hopkins described as the “ambitious but necessary” expansion.

Plans included a £3.5m construction yard and open access virtual learning area for STEM students this year, and a further £3m extension to MC6 next year, again for STEM students.

The board is taking a risk, but we want to deliver high quality now”

This would allow the college to enrol a further 450 A-level students, said Mr Hopkins.

The bulk of the cash would then be invested in 2015 when the college hoped to build a £12m STEM centre for training in advanced manufacturing, process, engineering disciplines, digital, warehousing and logistics.

“If we don’t get an agency grant for £6.5m it will all be borrowed money so we’ll either get £20m grant or £13.5m,” said Mr Hopkins.

“The board is taking a risk, but we want to deliver high quality now and we don’t want to be scrambling around in September for part-timers.”

He said the college was being “brave” but was determined to do the “best” it could for a community in the eighth poorest town in the country.

He said: “If these numbers of students don’t come in I will be at best embarrassed.”

However, he added: “I’m really clear they will come in. While we have wonderful facilities, no one has ever been cared for, cooked for or cleaned by a brick. It’s people that make the difference. I’ve got wonderful colleagues who make my job very easy.”