Walsall College wins National Award for Skills

Staff and students have been celebrating this week at the news that Walsall College has been presented with the prestigious Association of Colleges (AoC) Beacon Award for Skills.

The College was presented with their award, sponsored by OCR, by John Hayes MP, Minister of State for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning at the presentation ceremony in Westminster on Wednesday 8th February.

The College has adopted innovative approaches to teaching the functional skills of literacy, numeracy and IT within all of its vocational areas which has lead to a significant improvement to the success of its learners.

Investment in staff development at the College has resulted in significant numbers of staff improving their own functional skills, which has directly resulted in improved success rates for the students.

Jan Myatt, Curriculum Manager for Functional Skills said: “Winning the AoC Beacon Award for Skills was a great achievement, recognising the whole-college approach to functional Skills that we have adopted at Walsall College as best practice within the FE Sector. The award is testament to the hard work of the Functional Skills team and the curriculum teams, who worked with students to secure an outstanding success rate for Functional Skills in 2010/11”.

Mark Dawe, Chief Executive of OCR and sponsor of the award, said: “High-quality, creative delivery of Skills qualifications is something that OCR strongly believes in. We are delighted that this Award recognises the outstanding work done by individual FE Colleges in this key area which is vital for enabling student progression in work and life.”

hair of the AoC Beacon Awards, Dame Patricia Morgan-Webb, said: “I should like to congratulate all of this year’s winning colleges and encourage them to really make the most of this opportunity to celebrate their achievements and invigorate the sector as a whole through the dissemination of their outstanding teaching and learning practices.”

The AoC Beacon Awards are now in their 18th year and are awarded each year to UK colleges who capture and celebrate the positive impact they have on their students, staff and communities.