BIG support for Middlesbrough College winning their first anti-bullying award

Middlesbrough College has picked up the UK’s first BIG anti-bullying award.

The Bullying Intervention Group is a social enterprise, created to administer the award for schools, colleges and services for young people.

To earn the award, colleges must show they are working to crackdown on the issue, employ consistent good practice, actively include youngsters in their anti-bullying work and ensure every young person can fulfill their potential without fear of being bullied.

Suze Clarke, student liaison officer at the college, said: “We’re really pleased our work against bullying has been recognised.

“The BIG award is a national award which recognises that our bullying prevention and intervention work is consistent, comprehensive and thorough.”

Val McFarlane, BIG director, said: “Middlesbrough College has gone way beyond our expectations and has really used innovative and creative ideas to stimulate interest amongst their students about bullying, racism, acceptance and friendship.”

Stratford College performs at BT Live event

Midland college students shared a stage with Brit music stars Blur, Snow Patrol, The Stereophonics and Duran Duran. Seven of Stratford-Upon-Avon College’s extended diploma in music class were picked to perform at the BT London Live event in Hyde Park.

The event, part of the London 2012 Games closing celebrations, saw the students create their own band Strange Days as part of a project in tribute to American band The Doors.

They had been chosen from hundreds of bands from across the county by promoters Live Nation after they handed in a demo produced by music technology students using the college recording studio.

Singer Ben Paveley (above, middle) was also “spotted” by Pete Webber, from Live Nation artistic development team — and got to do an extra set of his own acoustic compositions.

The college’s programme area co-ordinator for music, James Maiden, said: “This has been a fantastic experience for the students and an honour for them to be a part of a once-in-a-lifetime event linked to the Olympics.”

Stratford College offers music and music technology provision at level two, level three and a new HND in music and a HNC in music business and management.

South Cheshire pitches in for team

College bosses have played their part in helping Cheshire footballers score a new home.

A new pitch at South Cheshire College, in been with, plays host to Betley Football Club’s home games.

The team, which plays in the Staffordshire Saturday County League, had been on the lookout for a new base over the summer.

Several former college sports students also play for Betley and the college’s community leisure chief, Graham Chafer, said: “We are delighted that Betley Football Club are using the new grass pitch on a Saturday and they are benefiting from the set-up.

“Other clubs are also keen to use our facilities which are available for hire in the evenings.”

Coleg Gwent goes to Paralympic Games

Wheelchair rugby proved a highlight for dozens of students when they visited the Paralympic Games in London.

Coleg Gwent sport students were at the Olympic Park to cheer on athletes in wheelchair rugby, goal ball, seven-a-side football and wheelchair tennis.

Sophie Walters, who was one of 33 to make the trip from Newport, in Wales, said: “It was really exciting to watch the Paralympic events especially the wheelchair rugby.”

Sport lecturer Mererid Dark said: “The experience was tremendous, one I will never forget. The Paralympic athletes made me feel very humble and proud to be a part of the event.”

MidKent supports former criminal

A former armed robber who spent eight-and-a-half years behind bars has started his own plumbing business with the help of the college where he trained while on day-release.

Lee Saunders studied plumbing for two years at MidKent College when he was in prison. Since his release in July he has won two contracts worth £1,520 to work on the college’s plumbing as part of its £25m refurbishment.

He said that he took up plumbing because he knew he was going to be behind bars for a long time and wanted to learn a trade.

“Having my studies to focus on has turned my life around really. I’ve come out of prison a different person,” he said.

“It’s brilliant. The college has helped me so much. I’ve a lot to thank them for.”

Stockton Riverside College welcomes Duke

The Duke of York opened a £12m state-of-the-art sixth form building at Stockton Riverside College on September 5.

The first students through the doors were greeted with a bright, Tardis-like building, full of state-of-the-art equipment, providing them with opportunities that were impossible in their old building.

The new facilities include a geology lab, a TV studio, digital media rooms, and a central sound recording studio.

The new £6m SRC Sports Centre has a climbing wall, all-weather pitch, badminton and trampoline facilities — all available for students and the local community.

The students’ learning experience is at the building’s heart. A central learning area with student help desk can be seen from all levels of the building as a result of two atria, which allows light to flood in.

Mark White, vice-chair of the SRC FE Corporation, said: “The pride of the staff and students who attend SRC Bede Sixth Form, their loyalty to this area, the culture and ethos of this small sixth-form college – everything that they stand for is represented in the design of this wonderful building.

“It’s a very special place, not just because of its design and the fantastic facilities it has provided, but for what it represents for its people and the wider community. We are extremely proud of it and thrilled that its importance to this area has been recognised with this official opening by The Duke of York.”

New Ofsted inspections to start this week

Matthew Coffey, Ofsted’s national director for learning and skills, writes for FE Week about the issues raised for providers.

It has been an eventful year for all of us involved in the FE and skills sector. In July, for example, we held our first learning and skills lecture at City and Islington College where the panel discussions, chaired by Baroness Sally Morgan, got to the heart of many issues affecting our sector.

Joining the discussion was Frank McLoughlin, principal of City and Islington College; Neil Carberry, director of employment and skills at the Confederation of British Industry; and Professor Ken Spours, head of the department of continuing education at the Institute of Education.

And it will come as no surprise that the new common inspection framework for FE and skills will start this week. From now on, providers can no longer be judged as “satisfactory”. Instead, we are replacing the category with “requires improvement”.

At last week’s AoC seminar, several HMI-facilitated workshops allowed delegates to explore the new framework in detail.

Sir Michael Wilshaw, the chief inspector, recognised the quality of our providers.

He said that he was impressed by learners and the wide range of courses, from entry level to degrees. He had often heard the FE and skills sector described as the “Cinderella” of education, but he did not share that view.

“Nothing could be further from the truth,” he said. “I have no doubt about the importance of FE, the range of learners you serve, the talent and commitment of the people working within the sector or the expectations now being placed on you to help the country out of the depths of recession.”

Like me, Sir Michael was struck by the differing in standards, both in providers he visited and our inspection findings.

Just raising expectations through targeted inspections will not be enough”

He recognised our risk-assessed approach had targeted inspections on providers where there was the greatest concern. This inevitably led to a more negative grade profile than if we had kept using our previous approach.

The conference was also an opportunity to underline our concern about the quality of teaching and an undue focus on passing qualifications without ensuring that learners were sufficiently challenged or adequately prepared for the next stage in their lives.

In September last year, there were more than 350 learning and skills providers judged as satisfactory in their most recent inspection. Sixty-nine colleges had been judged satisfactory for two consecutive inspections, including 29 that had been judged satisfactory for a third time.

Just raising expectations through targeted inspections, however, will not be enough.

Ofsted has a greater role here. We can complement the work of those bodies charged with bringing about improvement and invest more of our resources to supporting providers to improve.

I will provide more detail on our plans in November.

Inspections under the new framework will start this week with a much-reduced notification period of two days. We launch Learner View, our online tool designed to enable learners to tell us their views about their college or provider, at the same time.

And, of course, as the new academic year begins, the production of the chief inspector’s annual report gathers pace.

This year’s report is much more interactive to enable greater access to the vast body of knowledge collected from inspections last year.

I look forward to seeing all FE professionals out and about, either on inspection or at the packed conference programme we have committed to attend throughout the autumn term.

Go on – take the pill and join the tablet revolution, says Clay

The tablet computer is not new. It’s beenwith us for around 40 years, but only recently has it had an impact – and a big one – on learning and teaching in FE institutions.

The Association for Learning Technology’s (ALT) annual conference in Manchester (see picture) was a chance to debate its use and its future.

James Clay (right), the information, learning and technology manager at Gloucestershire College, asked questions such as what sort of learning activities and scenarios are making best use of the tablet? And, where will tablets take us?

“Virtually every educational institution I’ve been to in the past 12 months has been talking about tablets,” he said. “They are in classrooms, in libraries, in workrooms and in the hands of learners.”

When he later spoke to FE Week he criticised the unnecessary use of pilots and projects to test the device, arguing that learning providers often replicated research already carried out by another institution.

“The core reason why we use pilots is because we can’t afford a roll-out,” he said.

“I have to admit, I’m not a great fan of the word pilot or project, because it implies it’s going to end. To me, if you’re introducing a new technology it means that you’re changing the way that society works from then on. If you do a 12-month pilot, it implies that at the end of the 12 months you’re going to stop using it.”

To stress his point, Mr Clay used the example of a free e-book collection his college was given by JISC, an organisation that champions the use of digital technology in education.

Virtually every educational institution I’ve been to in the past 12 months has been talking about tablets”

“I remember talking to someone who asked which group we were going to pilot [the collection] with. I said ‘no, we’re going to roll it out across the whole college and we’re going to target everybody with the e-books’, because the research had already been done.”

Only a few people used e-books when the college introduced them, but the right structures were in place when they became part of mainstream and their use rocketed.

Mr Clay told delegates that it was key to think where technology would be in the next five to 10 years, rather than where it was now.

“You’ve got to focus away from the here and now,” he said. “Just because it’s popular, just because it’s mainstream, doesn’t mean that’s its the future, it means it’s already here.”

Mr Clay added that it was not about trying to predict new technological devices, but rather considering what was going to happen with society in the future.

In terms of FE, he believed that technology would remove the geographical boundaries between colleges.

“Colleges can be anywhere,” he said. “At the moment you go to your local college because it’s local, because geography is important.

“But in a few years’ time, when people have got these connections, geography will be less important. It will still be a factor, people will continue to go to their local college, but for many it will become less important.”

He said the “smarter colleges” were already looking into this. “They’re getting their name about in other locations, competing directly with local colleges. It’s about awareness-raising, so that when people think ‘I need to do a college course’, the one they think about is not their local one.

“We cannot afford to let learners fall down by the wayside.

“Technology is a solution to that problem, because it enables us to provide a much greater depth and richness of resources, different kind of learning experiences, and new ways of assessing learners that will allow us to ensure that our learners are successful.”

Mr Clay reinforced how tablets could help with a student’s learning: “It’s about personalisation.

“A learner who missed last week’s class or didn’t quite grasp the outcomes, can go on their device to go back to last week’s lecture notes and assignment materials.

“Likewise, the learner who read the textbook and thought ‘this is really easy’, is being directed to go forwards.”