By Graham Guest, our principal and chief executive
It’s been an incredibly busy couple of weeks for the team at Telford College – launching new expansion plans, attending top-level meetings with Government, and picking up national awards recognition too.
Our leadership team was honoured at the Institute for Turnaround’s annual awards in London, a prestigious event which showcases ‘the very best in turnaround and transformation practice and outcomes’.
Telford College was named runner-up in the Community Impact category, having been nominated by Barclays, which was fantastic recognition.
When I took over as principal and chief executive to oversee the merger between TCAT and New College Telford, the college was declared financially ‘inadequate’ and had been given a ‘requires improvement’ grading by Ofsted.
Today we are proud to be officially recognised as financially ‘Outstanding’ after delivering a surplus for the past four years, and have been upgraded to ‘Good’ by Ofsted.
But we’re certainly not resting on our laurels. The college has exciting plans to expand its A level provision, including a new dedicated sixth form centre and specialist maths & digital skills hub in the heart of Telford, as part of the Station Quarter development.
And for adult programmes leading to employment, we have now been ranked the highest and top performing college in the West Midlands Combined Authority area, based on achievement and retention.
This is all testament to the hard work and dedication of so many members of the Telford College team. We also owe a debt of gratitude to the many supporters and stakeholders who supported and believed in us along the way.
During that trip to London in the week of the awards, we were also involved in a reception at the House of Lords to mark ‘Love Our Colleges’ week, and met with education secretary Gillian Keegan and shadow leaders from Labour and the Liberal Democrats to discuss future plans for further education.
All in all, it was a very productive couple of days – great profile for Telford College, and fantastic to be able to contribute to such high-level debates around the skills revolution.
We now turn attention to planning for our next open event on November 15, from 5.30pm to 7pm. Come and visit our Wellington campus to learn all about our exciting plans for the future, and evolving, expanding curriculum.
