We have received recognition for our work to promote and enhance science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects within the region.
We were awarded STEM Assured status; an accreditation granted by the UK STEM Foundation, in recognition of advancing and promoting STEM education and careers.
The group was praised for its dedication to providing high-quality STEM education opportunities to students and offering a diverse range of STEM-based courses designed to inspire and prepare them for the ever-changing job market.
The report highlighted that the group’s STEM provision is of a high quality, and is aligned with current and anticipated needs of the labour market.
It also said that the provision is committed to continual improvement and innovation and that there are clear engagement processes with employers and key stakeholders both at local and national level.
Ann Marie Spry, Group Vice Principal Adults, said: “We are committed to raising the profile of STEM across the region and addressing the skills gaps to drive economic growth.
“This achievement is a testament to the hard work of our staff and reinforces our position as a leading provider of quality STEM programmes. It also demonstrates our dedication to equipping our students with the knowledge and skills needed to succeed in STEM careers.”
The STEM Assured standard and framework benchmarked the college’s STEM provision in several category areas including: strategy and planning in relation to STEM economic priorities; as well as collaboration and consultation with stakeholders and delivery of STEM education.
STEM Foundation’s Chief Executive, Prof Sam Medhat said: “Luminate Education Group demonstrated distinctiveness in how STEM teaching and learning is approached.
“Its active engagement with employers has resulted in the development of innovative programmes in areas such as engineering, health, digital, bio pharma and environmental sustainability.
The group joins only a handful of colleges in the region to achieve STEM Assured status.
For more information about Luminate Education Group, visit luminate.ac.uk.
Leeds Conservatoire, a member of Luminate Education Group, has been awarded over £1.6m to make environmental improvements to its building.
The money has been provided by the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme; a Department for Energy Security and Net Zero initiative to help reduce carbon emissions across the country.
Leeds Conservatoire will be using the funds to replace old gas fire boilers, install double glazing and LED lighting, and replace its air heating and cooling systems.
Professor Joe Wilson, Principal at Leeds Conservatoire,said: “We take sustainability seriously and are pleased that these funds will help to reduce the conservatoire’s carbon footprint.
Luminate Education Group’s institutions operate across multiple campuses plus smaller centres and community venues, with a substantial collective carbon footprint.
The organisation’s Group Vice Principal for Development, David Warren, said: “This investment is important to us as we strive to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions across the group. We have already been making our campuses more energy efficient – through building improvements, waste reduction and energy generation, and are working on sustainable travel plans.
“We are also embedding sustainability into our curriculum, for example through offering carbon literacy training to all our students and staff, and increasing our green skills provision to support local employers as they embrace emerging technologies.
“We will be partnering closely with local organisations, businesses and community groups that value sustainability too, so we can coordinate our efforts and maximise the results.”
Leeds City College is celebrating after an Ofsted inspection found that it has made significant progress around safeguarding since its full review.
The focus of the visit was safeguarding for 16-18-year-olds at its Printworks campus and the Skills Programme for its 14-16 learners based at Park Lane campus.
The report praised leaders for taking safeguarding very seriously and added that the college has invested in a wide range of resources to enhance how it monitors, records and reports on safeguarding.
Ofsted also noted that the college has put significant and effective arrangements in place to ensure that learners aged 14 to 16 are safe. The report also highlighted that learners with high needs work positively with peers during small-group projects and are positive about their interactions with others.
Bill Jones, Executive Principal of Leeds City College said: “This is the best possible outcome for us and shows how we have consistently grown and developed our approach to keeping our students safe across the college.
“Safeguarding is our number one priority and we are continually reviewing and putting systems in place to make sure that all learners feel safe and integrate well into the wider college.
“The report is a testament to the hard work of our staff who ensure our students get the best possible opportunities in an inclusive & safe environment.”
Carol Layall, Director of Quality of Education added: “Our learners’ safety, wellbeing and personal development are central to our culture and form part of our wider strategy to delivering quality education across the communities we serve.
“Through the work we do, we ensure that classrooms are welcoming, feel inclusive and that students have a place where they can thrive and progress.”
Leeds Conservatoire has been awarded a funding boost from the Office for Students (OfS): £1million per annum for academic years 2022/23 to 2026/27 in recognition of its specialist performing arts provision.
This funding is designed to improve access and teaching resources for contemporary music, drama and dance courses, and will support:
improved delivery of teaching and learning to students;
development of partnerships with other higher education providers, nationally and internationally, or relevant industries to improve study and career opportunities for students;
access to specialist performing arts education for students from underrepresented groups;
provision of specialist equipment for students, such as musical instruments, costumes or computing equipment.
In the funding announcement, Susan Lapworth, Chief Executive of the OfS, said: “The performing arts make a significant economic and cultural contribution to society. They enrich lives and create tens of thousands of jobs across the UK. Students choosing performing arts courses develop diverse skills and have a wide range of career opportunities.
“The OfS’s investment will ensure that current and future generations of students – whatever their background – are able to succeed during their studies and into their careers. The small size and highly specialised approach of the institutions we are funding play an important role in their educational experience of students, and this funding will ensure they can continue to deliver a high quality experience.
“We continue to invest in alternative routes into higher education to widen the opportunities available to every student. Today’s investment in degree apprenticeships and Level 4 and 5 qualifications will ensure that more can be done to extend the range of training available. We encourage universities and colleges to continue to develop and evaluate these courses to ensure students are equipped with the skills they need for their first or next career.”
Professor Joe Wilson, Principal at Leeds Conservatoire, added: “We are delighted to have been awarded this funding and that the OfS has acknowledged the significant economic and cultural contribution to society the performing arts make. Our graduates are in demand and work in a wide range of roles but what makes them truly distinctive is the multidisciplinary training and entrepreneurial spirit that places them at the forefront of their fields.”
Colleges are the obvious one-stop-shop for re-engaging disenfranchised young people after Covid and bridging the UK’s skills gaps, says Karen Johnson
It’s a little over three years since the beginning of a wave of lockdowns to combat the Covid pandemic. By now many of us are back to business as usual. But for a whole generation of young people whose education and early career opportunities have been stifled the journey has not been quite so smooth.
According to a recent report from City & Guilds, there are over 800,000 young people in the UK who are not in education, employment or training (NEET). While this figure is shocking to some, we educators know all too well that young people have been among the hardest hit by the devastating aftershocks of that period.
In response, we need nothing less than a seismic shift in how we think about education. It’s no longer a case of retaining our students, but of reintegrating them and offering them a much-needed second chance.
Implementing programmes nationally to capture the nearly 16 per cent young people currently classified as NEET is not without its complications. The government’s spring budget recognised the role that economically inactive people could play in filling the 1.3 million vacancies in our economy today. However, consistent underfunding means that existing services and programmes are already under immense strain, and not operating at the scale required to solve the problem.
One such programme is NEET re-engagement programme at Leeds City College, which aims to improve young people’s skills while helping them prepare for their next steps. Further education colleges are unique in their ability to provide a ‘one-stop shop’ for careers advice, pastoral support, education and work experience. Other organisations offer some of these services, but it’s rare to find one that has it all.
Our bespoke programme helps students aged 16 to 24 to develop skills in essential subjects, particularly maths and English, all while engaging them in enrichment activities and supporting them with progression.
The move to online learning during the pandemic deepened the chasm of access to quality education. For some of our most vulnerable young people, the amount of lost learning was substantial, leaving them wholly unprepared for further education or employment. In crafting and delivering our programme, we focus on removing such barriers.
We need a seismic shift in how we think about education
It’s not just in the classroom that young people are facing struggles. Mental health charity, Young Minds reported in 2021 that 67 per cent believed that the pandemic will have a long-term negative effect on their mental health. Issues of low self-confidence have been directly linked to long periods of social isolation; I’ve had countless young people tell me they simply don’t feel up to the challenge of employment.
One of the young people on our programme had always dreamed of pursuing a career in creative arts, but was too anxious of being around so many people after lockdowns to pursue their ambition. This example is repeated everywhere across the country.
We often think of young people as highly social, but in reality the thought of stepping back into a classroom for the first time in over two years has been undeniably overwhelming. We are fortunate enough to have a smaller facility that can host our programme, and have implemented shorter session times to make them more manageable.
But by far the most common barrier is finance, with the rising cost of living meaning many young people are undertaking temporary, part-time work at the expense of their studies. As part of the programme, students are offered meal cards and free bus passes to minimise cost and support with their responsibilities outside of the programme.
Even in its infancy, I’ve seen this programme make a real difference to those who had nowhere else to turn, and with 14 new referrals already this month, it’s clear there’s demand. Like many others across the sector, we are proud of the work we’re doing and we know more needs to be done.
Put simply, the UK’s labour market cannot afford to disregard the potential of so many. Colleges are a natural place to invest in the multi-faceted work this challenge requires, and failure to reengage those who do not currently have the resources to fulfil their potential constitutes a huge missed opportunity for policy makers.
Leeds Conservatoire has teamed up with the British Youth Music Theatre (BYMT) to produce a new theatre production.
The show, titled The Steadfast Tin Soldier, will feature a cast of disabled and non-disabled young people.
BYMT’s mission is to create opportunities for young people and early career creatives from all backgrounds to develop theatre skills and enhance wellbeing, through the collaborative and inclusive process of making original musical theatre.
In line with Leeds Conservatoire, BYMT’s values include being inclusive and making everything they do accessible, taking responsibility for developing and nurturing collaborative processes.
Matthew Bugg, Senior Lecturer in Musical Theatre at Leeds Conservatoire, said: “It is enormously beneficial for creative team members, students and diverse artists to work in a safe context of learning, where questions can be asked and new approaches explored and evolved.
“This process and its evaluation will help Leeds Conservatoire’s Musical Theatre Department develop models for best practice that can be shared across the wider institution and across the sector.”
Conservatoire students from year one and two BA (Hons) Musical Theatre, plus MA Musical Theatre Company and MA Musical Theatre Creatives participated in the week of development. This was an opportunity to develop The Steadfast Tin Soldier and how the material could be presented in an authentic, inclusive and relevant way, experienced by deaf artists and British Sign Language (BSL) interpreters were actively involved.
The creative team included Karen Mettam and Sarah Cox (BSL interpreters), Matthew Hinchcliffe (actor and BSL interpreter), Anthony Underwood (director and writer), Emily Gray (Chief Executive and Creative Director of BYMT) and Matthew Bugg.
Caroline Parker MBE led a participatory workshop that enabled students and staff to become more aware as to how to meet the access needs of Deaf and hearing impaired artists and audience members. This included learning how to begin the process of interpreting a song in sign language.
Sophie Braithwaite, a young Deaf performer and dance teacher from Deaf EXperience Limited (DEX) joined for the full development week. DEX is a youth organisation based in Halifax whose participants are all Deaf/hearing impaired.
On the final day, the wider DEX team was invited to attend the sharing of The Steadfast Tin Soldier and gave feedback on the development of the work.
Anthony Underwood, director and writer of The Steadfast Tin Soldier, shared how useful the week had been:
“I can’t express enough how amazing the students all were from start to finish. Their feedback and creativity were invaluable, and I am extremely proud of the conversations we had and the conclusion we came to for future development. It was beyond a helpful week.”
