Good afternoon Board Members,
I am now in to my third week and I have loved every minute of my time at Bolton College, so far. The people surrounding me have been so welcoming and I have a great sense of belonging already.
I have met with groups of students and team members, getting their feedback and then challenging myself and my teams to demonstrate we are actively listening. The Executive Team have responded really positively to me and that gives me a huge sense of optimism. I have also managed to meet a number of external stakeholders, some of whom were part of my selection process. This week I chatted with Esme Winch and Graham Guest from the Further Education Commission. We are collaborating with them to plan and coordinate them supporting our ambitions towards improved financial health and improved quality outcomes and experience through a free ‘health check’ Today I also spoke to Bolton FM (starts at 9:18) as a follow up from our media release that featured in the Bolton News – beware it goes on a lot longer than I anticipated. We have also opened discussions with our unions in anticipation of commencing consultation on pay award for 2024-25.
Excitingly we are in the process of planning a small event, for the 31 January, to celebrate the opening of our new Digital and Engineering Centre. It is really important that our students and team members study and work in environments that are relevant and well maintained. One very early observation, and aligned to feedback from both student and staff voice is the perceived lack of investment in learning and social spaces. This is something we will be working on with the team and students and will be hopefully identified as one of our priorities within our next 5-year strategy.
Here are a few recent successes to share with you: In recognition of her achievements and for being an inspirational ambassador for Boltonians, College alumni Kiera Byland BEM was recently inducted into the Albert Halls ‘Female Corridor’ wall of Bolton Women
Ongoing work to engage Seddon Construction, the UK’s largest privately owned and family managed business based in Bolton, has now resulted in us becoming a preferred provider. Seddon’s have transferred apprentices from other colleges and have recruited further apprentices in painting and decorating and bricklaying
Led by us, 18 staff across the GM Colleges group have now successfully completed Gold (train the trainer) Anatomage training, certified by OCN. The GM Anatomage FE group represents the largest group of collaborative 16-18/FE providers in Europe. Training will now be cascaded wider at the college so that students in Health, Science, Sport and Beauty benefit.
In September we linked with Amazon to deliver supported internships and a cohort of 7 were enrolled. Already, just 4 months into the 10-month programme, the Amazon manager has shared that all students are work-ready and will be offered direct job opportunities.
Over the coming weeks me and my team will be focussing on:
1- Consulting to agree a pay award for 2024-25
2- Developing draft Strategic Plan 2025-2030 for consultation with wider stakeholders
3- Crafting an internal and external stakeholder engagement and communication plan a) Reviewing college organisational structure to drive improvements and support our ongoing success in respect of Ofsted outcome and Financial rating
Something to look forward to…
We will be ordering each of you a badge that you can wear when visiting or representing college. Here is the design we have gone for.
