Ceramic artist all fired up to help kids

A young North Somerset ceramic artist will be helping schoolchildren’s ideas take root.

Hazel Jackson, 25, a Weston College third year degree student, will work with lecturer Simon Taylor to create a ceramic ‘tree of life’ for the spiritual garden.

It will take pride of place at Worlebury St Paul’s CofE Primary School.

The ‘tree’, measuring 6ft x 5ft, will consist of seven ceramic friezes each based on Bible-inspired pictures drawn by pupils at the school.

Hazel said: “I’m really looking forward to working with the children and creating a wonderful work of art.”

The children’s designs will be voted on by parents, governors and church members.

Simon said: “The tree of life project is so exciting. It provides an opportunity for pupils to showcase their creative talents that will be combined with Hazel’s designs and made into a ceramic sculpture to enhance the school’s spiritual garden.”

Head teacher Gillian Quick said the project would commemorate the school’s expansion this year.

She added: “The theme of the Creation was chosen because of our Church school ethos, and will involve all of our children and school community.”

Doncaster College takes on veterans for charity

Staff and students from Doncaster have kicked off a training regime to tackle a charity five-a-side football match against former pro stars.

The Doncaster College learners and lecturers are taking part in the Team of Steel tournament organised by Weston Park Hospital Cancer Charity as part of their Do Your Bit Campaign.

The competition will see them compete against former Sheffield United FC players at the club’s ground.

Tina Harrison, acting deputy director of the charity, said: “Weston Park Hospital is Doncaster’s local specialist cancer hospital so it is fantastic the college is supporting the work of the charity in this way.”

Team organiser and Doncaster College course leader Paul Kellaway said his previous work for Sheffield Teaching Hospitals had made him aware of the ground-breaking research done at Weston Park Hospital.

He added: “Having this prior knowledge further motivated me to become the driving force behind putting a team together for the tournament.

“My mum, Dorothy, who is now in remission, has had both surgery and chemotherapy for non–Hodgkin’s lymphoma at Weston Park Hospital.

“It is time we defeated this devastating disease and its sometimes tragic consequences for patients, families and friends.”

College helps learner launch clothing line

A Brighton business student is making his voice heard by launching his own t-shirt brand with help from a local businessman.

Tom Lawson, 18, teamed up with City College photography student Tyler Vaughan and part-time games designing student Adam Garwood, both also 18, to form Sick of Silence Clothing after getting some advice from the college’s resident entrepreneur, Nigel Lambe.

Tom said: “We all have real passion for fashion, design and business but were slightly unsure how to start up and what approach to take with the company.”

He added that the support available at the college had helped them to take the project further.

“Nigel Lambe was a great source of knowledge on the legal side. We made our first sales at the college’s Christmas fair; the college then paid for us to attend an enterprise conference in London where we were able to meet some really inspirational people which drove us to do even more with the business,” said Tom.

Their clothing range is now available online, at www.sickofsilenceclothing.co.uk and will soon be available in local independent shops.

Students breathe new life into old police car

A duo of Devon apprentices have earned their stripes by restoring a decommissioned police car to its former glory.

South Devon College automotive apprentices Jack Cleaver, 24, and Jordan Brewster, 20, from Teignmouth, took 18 months to strip down, re-spray, apply period stripes and replace engine parts of the 13-year-old 1.6 diesel Ford Escort.

The car had been deteriorating since being taken out of service in 2006.

Jack, from Torquay, said: “I really enjoyed working on this project. The vinyls were the trickiest part of the car to put on as it all had to be done by sight. The most fun part was stripping it down.”

The car, which patrolled Plymouth and Ivybridge during its service for Devon and Cornwall Police, will form a memorial piece at the Heritage and Learning Resource, in Okehampton.

Brixham PCSO Paul Martin, who oversaw the restoration on behalf of the police, thanked the college and the sponsors, local companies Mill Autoquip, Gliddon Ford and Avon Auto Colours.

He said: “This completed project is a real credit to the college, apprentices and staff involved.”

Design students help raise LGBT awareness

Creative learners in London aimed to turn heads, change minds and promote diversity for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) History Month.

BTec art and design, and graphic design students at the College of North West London were challenged by tutor Philip Crichton to create eye-catching posters to raise awareness of the event last month.

It celebrates the lives and achievements of members of the LGBT community, and the college marked the month as part of its regular work with LGBT rights charity Stonewall.

Chris Dye, Stonewall’s education officer, said: “It’s great to see students actively involved in the college’s work to tackle homophobia and celebrate difference. When the work is led by students themselves this has the most impact.”

The posters are displayed around the college’s two campuses in Wembley and Willesden.

Heads in the cloud for game design students

Two groups of Midland computer whizzes managed to create a 2D game without even sharing a classroom.

Level three diploma games development students at Birmingham Metropolitan College worked on the project from campuses four miles apart using ‘cloud’ technology.

Student Liz Wright, 18, said: “A resource like this means that if for any reason I couldn’t make it into college then I could still collaborate online with my classmates and teachers, and carry on with my work.”

The software the learners used, IBM Smarter Planet, included tools such as file sharing, web conferencing and instant messaging, and was developed by the college to allow it to deliver learning to students outside traditional classroom environments.

College principal Dame Christine Braddock said: “Using the latest developments in cloud computing, we can improve the quality of our teaching and support for BMET students, equipping them with the skills employers value now and in the future.”

Apprentice lays career foundations

A Lancashire construction apprentice is building on his career with a scholarship awarded because of his academic ability and potential to excel.

James Martin, 21, is studying for a diploma in construction and the built environment and an NVQ in built environmental design at Bolton College and has been awarded the scholarship by the North West Institution of Civil Engineers.

James, who also works for Lancashire County Council as a technician in the highways department, said: “I am over the moon to receive the scholarship. It came as a total surprise for me, as competition was tough. Receiving the award has boosted my confidence in the workplace and will only serve my future career prospects.”

The QUEST (Queen’s Jubilee Scholarship Trust) technician scholarship gives financial assistance to students getting hands-on experience while studying towards a professional engineering qualification.

Roger Kendall, professional building lecturer at Bolton College, said: “James is very deserving of the scholarship and I’m thrilled his hard work and dedication to the industry has been recognised. He is an outstanding student, who will be an asset to any project he works on.”

Alumni can offer more than money

Universities don’t bid a final farewell to their students — the world of higher education alumni bodies is a well-populated one that brings its own rewards. It’s about time FE colleges jumped on board, says Iain Mackinnon.

Why would a college bother to make links with its alumni? Professional fundraisers in universities sometimes contrast their sharp focus with what they see as the rather woolly alternative of ‘friend-raising’, as though the only reason to connect with former students is to take money off them.

I suspect that mentality has held us back a bit in colleges, but I now see encouraging signs of action from colleges which have realised that alumni offer them far more than a rather hazy glimpse of modest donations.

Take Sheffield College, for example. It features a number of former students in an excellent promotional video using their enthusiasm for their old college to attract new students.

Or Leeds College of Music — now part of the Leeds College Group — which has dozens of pen portraits on its website of former students now well-launched on their careers, to inspire and inform current students.

Or Moulton College — Northamptonshire’s land-based college — which connects recent alumni and current students through a structured mentoring programme.

What connects them is a focus on recent alumni, and on immediate benefits to current students.

In my own college, I have drawn attention to Dora Rudolf who joined us to learn English, went on to do a cabin crew course, and has now landed a job with Emirates.

I want her to come back to inspire and excite the next group of cabin crew students (and to pass on tips about the latest practice to her tutors), and I’d love her to go into an Esol class, too, to show students that it is realistic to aim for a good job after the course.

At long last it does look like colleges are finding ways to convert what has long been strong latent interest into action”

And, if we keep up the relationship, I hope Dora will open the door for work experience places with Emirates, and for her, or a colleague, to advise us on our curriculum.

But when I surveyed the scene two years ago, I found very little alumni activity in colleges.

Beyond a few examples in Scotland (which is always worth a look for English colleges seeking inspiration), and some sixth form colleges building on old boys’ and old girls’ associations, the greatest activity was in residential colleges, both those serving students with special needs, and land-based colleges.

We now have two organisations offering professionally packaged alumni solutions to colleges, other colleges getting going with their own home-grown initiatives, and a workshop on alumni relations at next month’s Association of Colleges (AoC) conference for communications professionals.

To say the issue is ‘taking FE by storm’ would be going too far, but at long last it does look like colleges are finding ways to convert what has long been strong latent interest into action.

Think Alumni exhibited at last year’s AoC annual conference and has signed up a dozen or so colleges, from New College Nottingham to East Kent, by offering them a ready-made package. Visit www.thinkalumni.com for more details.

And Future First is a charity originally set up to reconnect recent former students with their old schools, so they get the same kind of face-to-face advice on careers that pupils at private schools get. The need is identical in colleges, so I’m pleased that it has now extended its work to include us. Visit www.futurefirst.org.uk for more details.

Further useful resources can be found through the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (www.case.org), Giving To Colleges (www.givingtocolleges.org) and the FE Fundraising and Alumni (www.jiscmail.ac.uk/FEFUNDRAISINGANDALUMNI) discussion group.

To a great extent this is unchartered territory for Britain’s colleges. I have been trying to understand what we can learn from universities and from US community colleges, who are slightly ahead of us.

We have a lot to learn, but we are in the learning business and there is a growing college community of interest to learn from. The prize for our students is great if we get this right.

So why would a college bother to make links with its alumni? To help its current students, of course.

Iain Mackinnon is a governor of Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College. He will be chairing a session on ‘Developing successful alumni relations’ at the AoC Communications Conference on Wednesday, March 20.

White paper raises the flag for sixth form colleges

Colleges often feel undervalued and under threat. The Sixth Form Colleges Association, launched last week, is determined to change that

More than 150 guests were at Westminster for the official unveiling of the rebranded Sixth Form Colleges Association and heard how sector principals were competing in an unfair education market.

The event, on Tuesday, came just hours after the association, which previously called itself a forum, produced a White Paper for ministers, arguing “students should receive the same amount of funding for their education, irrespective of the type of institution they choose to study at”.

An association spokesperson said: “Data from the Department for Education shows the median funding per learner in academies with key stage 4 is £7,880, while the median funding per learner in sixth form colleges is £4,601.

“Furthermore, sixth form colleges have to pay VAT on goods and services, while schools and academies are reimbursed for these costs — an anachronism which costs sixth form colleges an estimated £30m per year.

“Forthcoming changes to the way that 16-18 education and training is funded will further disadvantage sixth form colleges.”

Association chair David Igoe told Westminster guests: “We [sixth form colleges] are noted for the excellent quality and 76 per cent of our colleges are judged by Ofsted to be outstanding or good.

“We educate more than 150,000 young people aged 16 to 18, we supply one-in-seven of all entrants to British universities and we are true engines of social mobility with more students of disadvantaged backgrounds and low retainment that can be found in either schools or academy sixth forms — so we do a great job.

“But, despite this, we do feel undervalued and under threat. We accept there is a market for sixth form education, but it’s not a level playing field. We are in the market at a disadvantage.

“We play uphill against the opposition. We are very concerned about our future and the White Paper highlights this.

“We want the government to build on the success of the sixth form colleges model, which provides a template for efficient and effective delivery for 16 to 18 education.

“We want to create a genuine mechanism for sixth form colleges to grow and promote the sector in the same way that academies and free schools are actively promoted by the government. We hope this will be a real springboard for a better deal for our colleges.

“We are now a strong association with a clear agenda, and we look to politicians from all parties and constituencies to support us to give us that level playing field where our quality and our success will be the only thing that counts.”

The event, with guests including Lady Sharp and MPs Sir Bob Russell and Nic Dakin, also marked the official launch of the all party parliamentary group for sixth form colleges.

I don’t think sixth form colleges are properly appreciated by ministers”

Group chair Kelvin Hopkins MP, who has been a governor of Luton Sixth Form College for 20 years, said: “This is a very special reception because it comes so shortly after the formation of the all party group — and it genuinely is an ‘all party’ group.

“I happen to be a Labour member of Parliament myself, but we have vice chairs from four other parties and a secretary from the Conservative Party. All parties support it because we all know what a superb job sixth form colleges do.

“We felt it necessary to raise the flag for sixth form colleges, to lobby ministers and to ensure they are aware of the great value and tremendous success of sixth form colleges.”

He added:  “My view is that the government would do well to form many more sixth form colleges if it wants to make sure youngsters get the best possible education between the ages of 16 and 19, and that they have the most efficient form of education in that age group, too.

“My second House of Commons speech, many years ago, was in praise of sixth form colleges. I asked ministers to do more to support them and to sustain them and to treat them fairly in relation to other educational institutions.

“I said in my speech they were geese that lay golden eggs. Another metaphor was that they were jewels in our educational crown, and I genuinely believe that — they are the best educational institutions we have.

From left: Sixth Form Colleges Association chief executive David Igoe and Student award winner Edvarda Salinaite, 20, with Shadow Education Minister Stephen Twigg

“Every other institution has some kind of drawback, but sixth form colleges actually work and do a superb job. I don’t think sixth form colleges are properly appreciated by ministers.They need to be told and it’s our job to tell them just that.”

FE Minister Matthew Hancock was at the launch and paid tribute to the performance of sixth form colleges.

“Sixth form colleges have for decades now been doing the job and playing the role that is central to the government’s vision for the future of education, which is autonomous and strong organisations with local leadership embedded in the community,” he said.

“There is one sector that has excellent results … through strong local leadership of organisations that are responsive and autonomous that has delivered high standards, and that’s the sixth form college sector and I support you hugely in what you do.”

Shadow Education Secretary Stephen Twigg, who gave out awards to sixth form college students for efforts to promote international understanding, also spoke at the event.

“I’ve had the opportunity over the last year or so to visit several sixth form colleges around the country and to see the brilliant work that is going on. We’ve had a number of meetings and I look forward to meeting the all party group now that it’s been set up,” he said.

“The principle of the level playing field is a sound one and I look forward to engaging with the association and with the all party group over these next few months in terms of the detail in the White Paper, which I very much welcome.”

Arthi Nachiappan, 18 and from Nottingham’s Bilborough College, claimed the association’s gold medal. She speaks English and Tamil and is studying Spanish and French. She also goes to Polish language sessions every week and is a member of the Sierra Leone Project.

She said: “It really is an honour to be here at the launch of the SFCA. It’s important for me to highlight that there are many other students in my college who could equally have been nominated for his award.

“I hope politicians across the political spectrum will continue to support this dynamic and effective form of post-16 education so that students in the future can have similar opportunities to improve their own international understanding.”

The silver award went to Edvarda Salinaite, 20 and from Grimsby’s Franklin College, while bronze was picked up by Kyle Turakhia, 17 and from Leicester’s Wyggeston and Queen Elizabeth I College and Sheikh Shahnawaz, 18 and from Birmingham’s Joseph Chamberlain College.

FE Minister Matthew Hancock

Caption for featured image at top of article: Student award winner Arthi Nachiappan, 18, addresses audience members at the launch event