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Principal’s Update
Ian Pryce CBE
CEO The Bedford College Group
Principal’s Update Our own local authority!
We generally have four groups of students to enrol.
On Saturday 1 April the reorganisation of local government in Northamptonshire came into effect. The district councils and county council have been disbanded and replaced with two unitary authorities: West Northamptonshire and North Northamptonshire. The latter now covers the previous boundaries of East Northamptonshire, Kettering, Corby and Wellingborough councils, so pretty much the Tresham College territory.
1. First, those whose programmes simply continue into next year e.g. A Level students or most apprentices. 2. Second, existing students progressing onto a next-level programme. 3. Third, new students who have accepted offers for September. 4. Fourth, new students who only apply to come to college in the summer. It is intended that we enrol the first three groups before we break up in the summer. This is so the relatively small number of new applicants can be enrolled in September.
Cruel clawback Priorities for the term
It is lovely to see so many staff and students back on campus. It has been a tough, unsettling and tiring year for everyone but hopefully we will slowly return to more traditional arrangements. You will have seen many stories in the media of lost learning and declining mental health, especially among young people. It is very important we set some clear priorities for this term rather than try to do everything that we think needs doing. The biggest college wide priorities are to ensure we finish off the study programmes of all our students and apprentices so they are able to progress to their next step. For many, that next step will be with us. It is important we ensure young students in particular progress and continue in education, particularly if they are unable to secure employment in the way they might have done in previous years. Our other priorities are around student recruitment for next year, particularly around the implementation of the new student data system due to be completed in June. Did you know you can follow Ian on Twitter?
Last year the government responded to the impact of lockdown on adult student recruitment by setting a threshold of colleges hitting 68% of their allocation to retain the whole amount, which was seen as fair. This year, despite lockdown hitting recruitment even harder, the Department for Education (DfE) has set the threshold at 90%, a level few colleges will achieve. There is a campaign to get the decision changed given the threshold is a very arbitrary number. The impact on some colleges is huge with Leicester College set to lose £4m. A letter has been sent by David Hughes, CEO, Association of Colleges which you can read together with more details from the AoC here: www.aoc.co.uk/news/government%E2%80%99s-recoveryplans-in-jeopardy-because-cuts-adult-training-funds https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/582855?fbclid=Iw AR0l2ps1CDBAO9Oiypcd8E72Bx6WDuobJGT7tQWU88w yHFyvJ3tK-D6Puqw
@ipryce
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