Inaugural Lecturer Awards Ceremony – Thursday 19 April 2007

For the first time ever, Dunstable College has held a ceremony to publicly recognise the hard work and achievement of its lecturing staff; in particular Course Team Leaders of Highly Commended and Commended courses (that means those courses with success rates well in excess of national benchmarks). The ceremony was attended by the Mayor, Councillor Cynthia Gresham, the Governors, College Directors, lecturers and their families.

Colleges often run ceremonies for their students and Dunstable has been doing this for a number of years. However, as College Deputy-Principal, Jerry Goodwin, explained, “Dunstable College wanted an event to recognise the very positive contribution of its teaching staff towards the improving success rates within the College. The College’s overall success rate jumped a full 10% in the academic year 2005/6 and the College is on target to achieve a similar leap in its results for 2006/7.”

As well as presenting Certificates of Commendation to the appropriate lecturers for their Highly Commended and Commended courses, a number of prizes were awarded to recognise the contribution of individuals for specific achievements. Among these:

Rachel Halling was awarded the Mayor’s prize for particularly effective work with disadvantaged learners. Rachel is based at the Learning Warehouse in Leighton-Linslade where she has been in charge of the Skills to Succeed ESF (European Social Fund) project. The project is aimed at 14-16 year olds identified by their school as at risk of dropping out of education and not achieving, or at risk of entering the NEET (not in employment, education or training) group. Through her work on the project, Rachel has successfully worked with these difficult to reach learners and through her dedication and persistence she is achieving great results. There are students on the course who, at the beginning, were very resistant to walking into an educational establishment, but are now attending additional classes on a voluntary basis. Since September Rachel has been relentless in accessing courses and networking with different organisations to help produce a set of individual programmes which allow clear progression and Rachel’s personal dedication and encouragement have been identified as key success factors. This progression can be demonstrated as some of Rachel’s young people have now been accepted on to full-time vocational courses at the College beginning in September.

Sue Cox and Martin Rawles shared the Principal’s prize for particular achievement in promoting the College externally. Sue was recognised for the way in which she promotes the College so positively to local schools via the hugely successful 14-16 year olds’ Increased Flexibility Programme, for which she is the Co-ordinator, and Martin, who is the Course Team Leader for the Public Services courses, won his prize for securing excellent press coverage for his work and for helping his students win a wide range of awards.