Education & Skills

London South East Colleges

needs your teaching talent

London South East Colleges delivers further and higher education to over 12,000 students at its eight campuses across Bromley, Bexley and Greenwich. We are looking for motivated, committed and talented staff to fill a wide range of vacancies at all our campuses.

The ground-breaking pilot scheme will offer candidates the opportunity to compress their full-time hours into four days. Timetables will be developed to fit this working pattern, supporting teachers with an improved work-life balance. In addition, the college is offering competitive salaries and a generous annual leave package. Commenting on the innovative approach to recruitment, College Principal Asfa Solail, says: “By introducing the option of a compressed four-day week, alongside the many other benefits on offer, we hope to increase the number of potential candidates and secure the talent we need to continue delivering high quality maths, English and STEM teaching. “As an organisation, we are committed to the mental health and wellbeing of all staff. Work-life balance and managing workload are a huge part of this – so we hope that offering a four-day working week will be an attractive option for many people. “Going forward, we are keen to explore further options for more flexible working across our whole workforce – including home-based and hybrid support roles. We must support people’s changing lifestyle needs while meeting the needs of our business and, ultimately, our students and communities.”

Recruitment events for prospective English and maths teachers will be taking place at London South East Colleges over the summer and vacancies can be found here: www.lsec.ac.uk/work-for-us

To find out more and to discuss the career opportunities on offer, contact the College’s HR team at: HR@lsec.ac.uk Greenwich Adult & Community Learning

London South East Colleges offers a wide range of short courses across its campuses in Greenwich. These courses help people learn new skills, progress at work or into a new career, start or grow a business or just meet new people and do something they enjoy. Learning is proven to improve wellbeing; keeping people active and helping them to explore their creativity. The affordable courses and activities on offer span a wide range – from art, construction and jewellery-making through to digital skills, languages and English & maths.

For more information about these courses, visit https://www.lsec.ac.uk/acl-courses

Case study: Susan Cavell

Adult student Susan decided to use her spare time to develop a new hobby in which she could develop some new creative skills. At this time Susan had also inherited several pieces of Chinaware from her mother and decided that she could put them to good use by repurposing them, which is when she signed up for the part-time mosaics class at Greenwich Park Centre.

Making social action part of our sector’s DNA

The Platinum Jubilee celebrations not only recognised the Queen’s incredible 70-year reign but brought together communities in a unique and heart-warming way.

Street parties, fetes and parades up and down

the country – including many events held by colleges – gave people an opportunity to join their neighbours and celebrate together in a way we haven’t seen (or been able to) for a long time.

Volunteers’ Week also happened to fall across this special week of royal celebrations and again, is something in which so many people in our sector have played an important part. Colleges sit at the very heart of their communities; something which became very clear when we launched the Good for Me, Good for FE campaign at exactly this time last year. Within weeks, well over 100 colleges around the country had pledged their support and wanted to be involved.

One Year On…

One year on and we have far exceeded our collective target of generating £1m of social value. The volunteering and fundraising activities carried out by FE staff and students across the country have been immense, providing tangible value to the communities we serve and delivering positive, measurable and cohesive impact locally and nationally. The concept of being a civic institution is spoken about frequently but actually operating as one requires a genuine desire to put social change and social mobility at the heart of a strategic operating plan. It also requires a huge commitment from individuals within an organisation. A personal connection to the causes being supported is needed in order for employees to champion local community action and sustain involvement. This was our Corporation’s ambition when we decided to move to a social enterprise operating model. We looked at how we could focus our wider

Once engaged with the class, Susan was quickly hooked on creating imaginative art for the garden, concentrating on exotic birds and flamingos, incorporating lots of vibrant colours. It wasn’t long before Susan’s confidence grew, and she started experimenting with other, more complex and unusual materials. Inspired by the beautiful orient, Susan recently created a large Chinese dragon – a piece of work which features three Koi carp fish and a beautiful dancing Geisha girl.

Feel inspired to develop your creative skills?

college endeavours on delivering greater social value for our local community and realised that the concept of moving towards being a ‘business with social objectives’ was a natural fit for our organisation. This direction of travel was also very much in line with the Independent Commission on the College of the Future, which advocates colleges to act as anchor institutions. According to Sladek (2019)… “Everyone knows by now that colleges and universities are “anchor institutions”: important place-based engines that play key roles in local economies. But the raw facts of size and place are just the beginning of the story; what matters is not just the fact that anchors have an impact on communities, but what kind of impact they have, and on what terms. It is one thing to be an anchor institution. It is another to consciously and intentionally adopt an anchor mission, leveraging all available institutional and operational resources for community benefit.” As we’ve progressed through this journey, it has become clear that the social impact work we are supporting and advocating for is already being carried out by staff and students – and indeed always has been.

Staff Contribute to their Communities

The contributions staff make to their communities outside of work have been astonishing to see. The scope of activity is vast: from ongoing fundraising challenges through to scout group leaders, football coaching and hospital volunteers. Local and national charities have joined us on this journey and we have together had a far greater reach and influence than we dared to imagine just 12 months ago. We also recognise and are most grateful to own internal volunteer board members. The sector would be unable to operate without its own army of volunteer supporters. Our governing boards, trustees and local community governors are not always thought of as ‘volunteers’ but they most certainly are, with many giving significant hours of their time over the course of an academic year. We know that this is the tip of the iceberg in terms of volunteering contributions. Yet the importance and impact of people giving up their time to help others in a vast range of contexts is not recognised or celebrated enough. Colleges (and FE as a whole) struggle to articulate the impact and value of this type of work though. Every college is generating millions of pounds of social value every year without really knowing or thinking about it. Using Social Value Portal’s National TOMS framework, we have been able to convert this ‘social currency’ into an equivalent monetary value, enabling us to better communicate the exceptional impact that colleges provide to their communities.

We Need to Take this Further

Now, as a sector, we need to take this further. Volunteers’ week provided a great opportunity to showcase some of the brilliant work that college staff and students do, but it goes far beyond one single week of activity. FE colleges have the capacity to link up with local and national charities and community networks – providing longer-term volunteering opportunities for staff and students and supporting vital causes. This is no different from the strategic partnerships colleges are so good at striking up with businesses to help support students into employment.

Good for Me Good for FE

Good for Me Good for FE has highlighted the phenomenal amount of interest in social action and volunteering within our sector. We must now harness this, particularly in the difficult times we are living, with so many people in need of emotional, financial and mental health support. It is time for colleges to make sure that social impact becomes an intrinsic and evidenced part of their DNA – something we are now well on the way to delivering, with the tools needed to measure and monitor our impact. We are proud to be pioneering this work, leading with our founding partners at Loughborough and East Coast Colleges, a network of 140 colleges nationally that have all made the decision to have a wider impact on lives and local communities. We all stand together and draw strength from the unity we have created. The benefits of the Good for Me Good for FE network to the individual, the college and the local community of the G4ME network is far greater, far more inclusive and far wider- reaching than we could have envisaged this time last year. I am immensely proud of each and every volunteer and participant college and the network we have created. I am looking forward to celebrating our sector-wide progress in the coming weeks as well as launching our collective future ambition.

By Dr Sam Parrett CBE, Group Principal and CEO, London & South East Education Group

Croydon’s

GOING PLACES

That’s why LSBU are here and committed to this area.

Our new campus is the latest in a string of exciting developments in one of London’s most ambitious areas. Home to big businesses, start-ups and a uniquely South London buzz: we’re playing our part in its future.

Our new home will be in a Grade II listed building, Electric House, in Croydon town centre. With its original purpose of empowering local people to explore new technology in mind, we aim to build on this mission by allowing our students to engage with the latest innovation in technology and build digital innovation.

LSBU is here to meet the need for an exceptional civic university powering the future workforce, building sustainable and engaged communities and boosting the region’s standing on a national and global stage. We’re providing ambitious, business minded Londoners with a brand new business hub, brimming with entrepreneurial spirit, where students, staff and our Croydon community alike gather to share knowledge and ideas.

As well as Undergraduate programs in Business Management and Accounting and Finance, LSBU Croydon offers CPD and upskilling short courses, designed to help the local community get into careers and improve their job prospects.

Find out more www.lsbu.ac.uk/croydon

Boost your business with HELP TO GROW at LSBU Croydon

London South Bank University (LSBU) aids the growth and recovery of SMEs in Croydon with its government subsidised Help to Grow programme. The impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic have been challenging for all businesses and led to sharp a drop in economic activity in the UK, with SMEs being hit the hardest and now requiring the most support in their recovery.

There are six million SMEs in the UK which account for over 99% of all businesses, 33% of employment and 21% of all turnover – so the effect on the UK economy will be felt for a long time unless they are prioritised in receiving support.

Over recent years there has been increasing demand for fairer government funding and investment in south London, coming from the public, the council and members of parliament. LSBU is taking action in supporting business growth in south London and the Croydon area with this subsidised programme, designed and delivered around the needs of business owners. Participants of Help to Grow receive multi-faceted training to develop strategic skills to increase their business’ long-term productivity, resilience and capacity to innovate. Some of the key benefi ts to business leaders include peer support, one-to-one mentoring, a hybrid learning environment and access to an alumni network. Let’s explore what the programme entails.

Accessible Training

The fact that Help to Grow is a 90% government funded programme means that specialised business growth training becomes accessible and affordable, especially in the wake of unprecedented disruption when SME debt has increased signifi cantly.

Expert-Led

Participants will learn directly from industry-leading facilitators, trainers and support leaders, who have been handpicked based on their knowledge and understanding of the challenges faced by SMEs. All have extensive experience in either leading small businesses to success or are experts in their particular business discipline, meaning business owners will fi nd the support they need to achieve their individual business goals.

Peer Support

Peer group sessions provide an invaluable opportunity for business owners to share ideas, challenges and successes in a confi dential and supportive environment. Peer collaboration allows participants to gain insightful and objective viewpoints that help tackle problems from a different perspective and feed directly into plans for business development.

One-to-One Mentoring

Navigating an ever-changing economic climate is more challenging than ever, so receiving tailored advice to reach individual business goals can vastly impact success. Each participant receives 10 hours of dedicated support from an experienced mentor to develop a business growth plan unique to their needs and ambition.

Flexible and Hybrid

Designed with business owners in mind, the programme is manageable alongside full-time work and fi ts around busy working schedules. The combination of virtual and face-to-face learning allows fl exibility whilst retaining the same level of high-quality teaching.

In times of uncertainty, business owners need to equip themselves with a robust business plan that mitigates risks, accounts for varying scenarios, and keeps operations agile and resilient against external infl uences. The Help to Grow programme takes participants through the four key stages of Innovate, Market, Build and Grow, to create a realistic and valuable Growth Action Plan specifi cally for their business. Current participant Liam Oliver has already seen the benefi ts of attending the course and says: “The whole course has been invaluable in changing my mindset towards the growth of the company. We move into this year with natural growth but the course has changed the conversation between myself and the other directors, enabling us to start planning strategically. The sessions with the mentor have been extremely useful in focusing on a strategic growth plan for the business.”