CEO’s Update

“Our apprenticeship provision has improved against the national trend. We lead the way regionally on WorldSkills. We have received national awards for inclusion, marketing, research and teaching. Everyone has played a part in that success, thank you.”

Top of the World

It is really important that our students don’t just achieve their qualifications, but also get a sense of how world-class their skill level is. For that reason, we encourage participation in national competitions and especially WorldSkills UK competitions, based on global skills standards. Our Group lead on this is Jo Baxter and we have enthusiastic champions like Paula Hobday, James Woolley and William Gibbs taking part. I am delighted that this year we had 67 WorldSkills entrants, making us easily the biggest contributor in the Eastern region. Let’s keep giving our students these opportunities and smash the 100 barrier next year. Partly as a result of his WorldSkills involvement, IT lecturer Daniel Hulatt has won Bronze for the Pearson UK FE Lecturer of the Year award, previously won last year by our Art & Design lecturer Steph Lee-Vae.

Top of the Table

The national apprenticeship achievement rates for 2021-22 have now been published and show that our Group is improving fast when nationally achievement has been falling. Almost half of all apprenticeship providers are now in some form of government intervention. We are not, and we are now third in the table of the biggest colleges and third in the regional table. This shows excellent progress under the overall direction of Debbie Houghton and Tanya Baney.

Top Table

We are very proud that Shuttleworth College alumnus Mark Spencer is now a government minister, appropriately looking after food and farming. It was therefore lovely to be able to invite him back in May to see his old college, and show him the investment we have made in the facilities. We are continuing to invest heavily in the farm and student residences. Maybe we need to put a blue plaque on the door of his old room! (see page 15 to read more about his visit to us)

Top Team

This has been another year of success despite the poor and unfair funding colleges continue to receive. The merger with Central Bedfordshire College has created a regional skills powerhouse, enabling us to weather the poor funding climate. We are developing wonderful new facilities in Bedford and Corby, and begun to do the same at Shuttleworth. Our apprenticeship provision has improved against the national trend. We lead the way regionally on WorldSkills (see left). We have received national awards for inclusion, marketing, research and teaching. Everyone has played a part in that success, thank you.

Top Priorities

As we reach the end of the teaching year we now need to ensure all our students achieve, progress or secure great destinations. Secondly, we need to ensure we are organised for next year, enrolling students as soon as we can, and ensuring the timetables are complete so teaching staff can prepare in confidence.

Rachel Nicol Director of Governance and Clerk to the Corporation rnicol@bedford.ac.uk