Sustainability award for Luminate Education Group

Written by Jim Jack on January 23, 2024. Posted in Environment, News, Uncategorized

Members of Luminate Education Group have had their sustainability credentials recognised through a Green Gown Award.

The group was part of a successful entry that showcased the collective impact of action by West Yorkshire Consortium of Colleges’ (WYCC) seven members.

The bid outlined the scores of varied initiatives that each of WYCC’s partners have been undertaking to promote Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – the 17 global targets adopted by the United Nations to tackle poverty and protect the planet.

The members’ work over the past year has spanned all of the SDG categories which include Climate Action, Affordable and Green Energy and Responsible Consumption and Production as well as Reduced Inequalities and Quality Education.

Environmental action across the group

Some key examples included:

• Leeds City College, Keighley College and Harrogate College taking part in Planet Earth Games – with Keighley, which produced an indoor greenhouse and a suit of armour welded from waste metal, being crowned the national winner
  
  
• Running an array of sustainability-focused courses, with 86 including specific net zero or sustainability content, across multiple fields including digital, business, motor vehicle and travel, food and drink
  
  
• Harrogate College embedding sustainable practice across all of its provision, while consolidating its position as a green skills leader
  
  
• Leeds Sixth Form College’s staff and students leading litter picking sessions and community clean-ups, using the gathered rubbish to create a sculpture at Park Lane campus
  
  
• Engineering students visiting DRAX power station to learn about the sustainable biomass it now uses as its primary fuel and the company’s research into carbon capture technologies

Inspiring first steps towards net zero

Luminate Education Group’s Deputy CEO, Bill Jones, said: “Lessening the impact of the climate emergency is one of our top priorities and something we can only effectively do through collaboration with our partners.

“There is a huge amount of work to be undertaken to make all of the changes we need to become, as we have pledged, net zero carbon by 2035. So it has been inspiring to see the commitment, passion and professionalism of our staff and students – along with those of our partner colleges – as they’ve thrown themselves behind this.

“We’ve made a great start and winning this Green Gown Award is a testament to that and will motivate us as we forge ahead with more sustainability improvements.”

The power of collaboration – and estate-wide improvements

Luminate Education Group Consultant, Jennifer Miccoli, added: “We did a huge amount of sustainability work as part of the WYCC bid, which was led by Shipley College. The collaboration with other colleges, and sharing of resources, was great and enabled us all to pick up some fantastic ideas.

“Our efforts included everything from small student-led community projects right through to reviewing our group-wide processes, particularly regarding our buildings, so we can target what will make the biggest difference in terms of our carbon footprint.”

In terms of the group’s buildings, a new advanced management system has been set up across each site to record and drive efficiencies in the use of energy, water, and heating. A range of multi-million pound infrastructure / rebuild schemes are also in the pipeline, including at Harrogate College and Leeds City College’s Mabgate campus, where the work will be completed to meet the BREEAM (Excellent) sustainability standard.

The installation of solar panels at Leeds’ Printworks campus meanwhile, due to be completed by this summer, is expected to save some 370,000 tonnes of annual CO2 emissions. Leeds Conservatoire is also, thanks to a £1.6m award from the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme, on course to slash its carbon footprint by upgrading its heating and cooling systems, windows and lighting.

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Luminate colleges secure funding for green skills investment

Written by Courney Hindmarsh on October 3, 2022. Posted in Uncategorized

Keighley College and Leeds City College are two of six further education providers across the region that will receive a combined £293,000 to invest in specialist equipment to deliver electric vehicle and retrofit training, grow and embed green knowledge within the curriculum and improve links with businesses to develop and enhance their green skills.

Bill Jones, Deputy CEO at Luminate Education Group, said: “We are delighted to be working with partners across the region to provide a solid foundation for future workers to develop green skills and learn about sustainability.

“As education providers, we aim to deliver quality learning experiences to our students, supporting them to progress into rewarding jobs that act as a catalyst for development in our region.

“This project will allow us to explore more green opportunities, and ensure that we successfully embed sustainable development goals into our curriculum.”

The Department for Education has announced that it will invest £2.6m in West Yorkshire’s colleges through the Strategic Development Fund. 

The fund was launched in 2021 to help colleges and further education providers to transform their facilities and offer high quality technical training that better meet the needs of local employers and boost job opportunities for their communities.

This would mean that local businesses have access to the home-grown talent they need for the jobs of tomorrow and more people don’t need to leave their hometowns to get a good job.

Project Director of the West Yorkshire Consortium of Colleges, Joanne Patrickson said,

“This funding will make a big difference to our colleges and in turn, the businesses and communities in West Yorkshire. 

“Part of the funding will be a capital investment into equipment and machinery to allow our colleges to train the workforce in electric vehicle maintenance and retrofitting buildings.

“Colleges will be employing dedicated teams to work closely with businesses in the region to understand what help they need to become more sustainable, and the WYCC The Green Skills Service to help employers access the training and resources they need to take action.”

The £2.6m is contracted to be spent by 31 March 2023, but this initial investment will allow these new initiatives to establish and offer training that will prepare the workforce for a sustainable future.

You can find out more about the plans here.

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Scoring high on student satisfaction

Written by Jim Jack on September 7, 2023. Posted in News, Teaching and Learning, Uncategorized

Student satisfaction rates at University Centre Leeds (UC Leeds) and Leeds Conservatoire have once again been ranked as some of the best in the country.

UC Leeds outscored other local higher education providers – including Leeds Arts University, Leeds Beckett University, Leeds Trinity University and the University of Leeds – in six of the seven categories in the 2023 National Student Survey (NSS).

Those included quality of course teaching (93%), learning opportunities (88%), academic support (92%) and assessment and feedback (just under 92%).

UC Leeds was ranked above the national average in most areas of the survey too, including on a newly introduced question about mental wellbeing support. Over 88% of its students, compared to 81.6% nationally, said they were happy with the information that was provided about such services.

Glowing feedback ‘a credit to our teams’

Dean of Higher Education at UC Leeds, Dr Sarah Marquez, said: “We are really pleased with this fantastic feedback, which is a testament to the hard work of our teaching and support teams. It is wonderful to hear that so many of our students have been pleased with the quality of our courses and instruction.

“It is particularly pleasing to see improved ratings in several areas where we were already scoring highly, including teaching and academic support. Satisfaction in learning resources, meanwhile, jumped by nine percent – from 72.5% to 81.6% – which reflects our recent investment in facilities like our fantastic new digital hub.

“Our goal is always to deliver high calibre education along with outstanding experiences, including talks from inspiring speakers and visits to outstanding workplaces, to our students.

“These wonderful survey results show how much such initiatives are valued and will spur us on to even greater things.”

Hitting the high notes

Leeds Conservatoire, meanwhile, achieved the highest scores of any UK conservatoire in two of the survey’s categories – for assessment and feedback, and organisation and management. The specialist provider of higher music and performing arts education also scored above the national average for conservatoires in all seven areas.

Those results were music to the ears of Leeds Conservatoire Principal, Professor Joe Wilson. He said: “We’re so proud of this year’s NSS results and are thankful to our staff for their continued commitment, and to our students for recognising the conservatoire with this fantastic feedback.

“Leeds Conservatoire has a national and international reputation for creativity and innovation, and for being a truly contemporary specialist teaching institution.

“Our staff and industry partners are at the cutting edge of their creative disciplines, and our students are encouraged and supported to explore their individual artistic identities.”

More than 339,000 students took part in the 2023 NSS to rate their experiences of higher education.

The Office for Students, which manages the survey, updated the format this year following a public consultation.

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Keighley College teams up with Camp America to give students a chance to work overseas

Written by Jim Jack on August 23, 2022. Posted in News, Uncategorized

Earlier this year, Keighley College teamed up with Camp America to offer up to 90 students across Luminate’s further education colleges a once-in-a-lifetime work experience opportunity in the United States over the summer.

The placements were offered through the Turing Scheme, a UK government programme for overseas study and work. The trip, designed to hone students’ employability skills as they look after and become role models to children at the camp, included travel, accommodation and living costs.

Keighley College’s principal, Kevin O’Hare, travelled out to see how the camp counsellors were getting on across the various sites they were sent to, what they were learning from their experiences and what their plans were following on from their placements.

His trip took him to Camp Laughing Waters in Gilbertsville, East Pennsylvania; Camp Herrlich on the border of New York state and Connecticut; and French Wood Sports & Art Camp in Hancock, NY. In each, he found the students who have taken advantage of the offer having the time of their lives.

Alongside teaching and sharing skills and knowledge with young campers, they have been making friends with the international cohort of camp counsellors and planning a number of subsequent adventures.

In a world in which, as it becomes more global, there can be seen a parallel stream of parochialism rising to the surface, making these connections with other cultures and people is an essential experience which we are proud to have been able to offer our students.

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Breaking down research barriers to enhance teaching

Written by Jim Jack on October 12, 2022. Posted in News, Teaching and Learning, Uncategorized

A new group has been started to ensure our staff can learn about and benefit from each other’s research.

Laura Kayes hopes the Research Development Group (RDG) will encourage colleagues from across multiple disciplines and campuses to share the extra work that so many of them are doing. The group also picks topics of general interest to discuss, and delves into existing research.

Laura, an Advanced Practitioner in teaching, learning and assessment and a Creative Arts lecturer at University Centre Leeds, uses her own research to inform her teaching.

She is currently undertaking funded* research – through her doctorate in education with the University of Sheffield – into the impact poverty can have on 16-19 year old learner outcomes in FE.

Laura was asked to take over the RDG shortly after it had started, at the end of 2021 – and jumped at the chance.

A chance to share insights

She said: “The group is about enhancing scholarly activity within Luminate Education Group. When I started conducting my own research, I realised that there’s a lot of valuable research that’s not being shared, and I wanted that to happen.

“Further education is rich in the diversity of its workforce but for some of our staff their first contact with higher education may be doing a PGCE or teaching qualification.

“So they’re not too familiar with higher education and it can seem a bit intimidating – there’s a tendency to always see the word ‘research’ and think it’s very academic, and I wanted to break that down.

“For the first  session after I took over, I brought in research about how to be authentic in the workplace. That seemed a good starting place because it impacts everybody, is something we can all talk about and, though it had been researched, it had been done in a very human way.”

Gaining insights from outside our comfort zones

Laura is conscious that one of the strengths of the Luminate group – its size and breadth of campuses and disciplines – can also be a barrier when it comes to collaboration.

The RDG, however, is focused on encouraging colleagues to look outside of their own fields to see what they can learn from, and share with others.

She said: “As teachers we’re curious people, that’s why we’ve chosen to go into this field, but it’s really easy to become insular once term starts and we’re all so busy.

“We’re massive here at Luminate so sometimes it’s not so easy to share practice. But we all have lessons to be learnt from different fields.”

A bite-sized approach

Aware of how intimidating some research can seem, Laura is getting the group to adopt an approach that makes sophisticated ideas easily digestible.

At another recent meeting of the RDG, for example, Zach Cotter – who has a doctorate in neuroscience – spoke about his in-depth research into the workings of the brain.

The subject could easily have seemed impenetrable but Zach, a course leader for T Levels in Digital Design and Production and Digital Support Services, took pains to make sure that wasn’t the case.

Laura said: “Zach brought along some really scientific research about the mind and talked a lot about brain scans.

“There were some really challenging ideas in there but he was really gentle in his approach, so it didn’t feel overwhelming, and the feedback we got was that it was accessible to people.”

She added: “Going forward I want to use a gradual release model that lets us break research down into bite-sized pieces so we can discuss it, consider how we might apply it, and even conduct our own research on the impact of doing so.

“We have a lot of staff involved in research that not too many of the wider group know about, so the next step is to get them feeling like they have something valuable that they’re willing to share.”

The RDG is open to any colleague with an interest in educational research, and meets once every half-term.

*Laura’s research is being supported by the Association of Colleges (AoC) and Northern Council for Further Education (NCFE).

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Luminate Education Group secures £51 million to transform its buildings

Written by Jim Jack on July 27, 2022. Posted in News, Uncategorized

We have received £51m funding from the government to replace and upgrade some of our buildings.

The investment will ensure that we can create great spaces for our students so that they have access to modern, fit-for-purpose facilities.

Work will begin at Mabgate later this year and part of the expansion will include the development of new higher level technical and apprenticeship courses. There will also be a purpose built Adult education building, which will replace Leeds City College’s Enfield Centre.

As demand for student places continues to grow, the expansion programme for Mabgate will create much-needed community facilities and will add to the group’s portfolio of city centre bases. 

The campus will also create space for University Centre Leeds and Leeds Conservatoire – bringing together the group’s further and higher education provisions.

There are also significant refurbishment plans for Park Lane Campus. Major works will also be carried out at Harrogate College and plans include the demolition of the old A block building, which will be replaced with a net zero, purpose-built building.

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