News

Dudley College’s Chief Executive Officer Lowell Williams has been named as one of only 7 appointments to the government’s new advisory group which has been established to improve the quality of further education. The group which will be known as the National Leaders of Further Education (NLFE), is made up of some of the best principals in the country from colleges who have been rated good or outstanding by Ofsted, the sector regulator. The NLFE has been created in order to bring the quality of all of the 300 FE colleges across the country up to the standards of the very best, as part of a raft of initiatives the government is taking forward to strengthen the role and remit of the FE Commissioner.

Friday 1st December saw yet another cohort of Dudley graduates receive their Higher Education Awards, in the company of their friends and family at our annual graduation event. With learners from 24 different programme areas ranging from HNC Electrical Engineering to HND Travel and Tourism – the evening showcased the breadth of our higher education provision and was testimony to the real difference we make to the lives of our learners.

Children from the Ileys Community centre in Smethwick took part last week in an innovative project to teach them about the history of the Black Country and show them how traditional skills such as forging and chain making are being updated by new technology.  The project which is a collaboration between the Black Country Living Museum and Dudley College of Technology is intended to give the children an appreciation of the industrial past whilst introducing them to future career options.

Earlier this month (November) the college played host to two important groups of visitors. The first were delegates from Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh and Ghana who were part of a British Council initiative and the second a group from the Indian Skills Ministry supported by the Association of Colleges (AoC).

The newly formed Dudley Academies Trust (DAT), which is under the sponsorship of Dudley College of Technology, has made another key appointment with the engagement of Jo Bull, to the role of Headteacher: High Arcal School. Jo, who is currently Interim Headteacher, will take up the post with immediate effect.

Motor vehicle students at Dudley College of Technology have taken the exciting delivery of their very first Westfield sports kit car as part of a new initiative to drive up their skills base. The Westfield FW Special Edition Kit model, costing just over £20,000 will be used to teach the fundamentals of motor vehicle design and construction to Level 3 Motor Vehicle students at the college’s Wolverhampton Street campus.

Amy Hill (aged 18) is set to start a new life working in an orphanage in Kimberley South Africa, having found a new focus thanks to the support and mentoring she has received from the Talent Match programme delivered at Dudley College of Technology. Talent Match is a service that helps young people struggling with a range of issues that are keeping them from employment or further study deal with them and move on in life.

Dudley College of Technology is celebrating another successful year of helping hundreds of learners to secure successful grades in their GCSE resits results with an overall success rate for all learners of 55% grade A*-C in mathematics, whilst under the new numerical grading system 71% of students achieved grade 9-4 in English.

Dudley Sixth College students have again excelled in their A Level studies, with an overall pass rate of 98% showing a consistent picture with last year’s results. With more than 1400 individual entries with a high percentage of them achieving higher grades.

Dudley College is delighted to announce that we are now a select member of the National Training Partnership for rail. The National Training Partnership creates a UK wide education and training supply chain to deliver apprenticeships and professional development to the UK rail industry.