Telford College logo, white text stating Telford College with blue partly closed circle icon.

A year of change, celebration, and achievement

Graham Guest

By GRAHAM GUEST, Telford College principal and chief executive

How’s this for a mouthwatering mixture? Free mince pies . . . bacon butties . . . education advice . . . and a flu jab!

That’s precisely what’s on the menu at our Wellington campus on December 10 when we host a Saturday morning open event with a difference.

The event, starting at 10am, is designed to showcase our growing range of adult education courses, including distance learning programmes you can do from the comfort of your own homes. Many of them are free for qualifying students, and lots start in January.

We recognise this a busy time for everyone in the run-up to Christmas, so we’re also serving festive mince pies and bacon butties – and offering people the chance to get their free winter flu jab at the same time.

We’ve teamed up with Lloyds Pharmacy to offer this flu jab service, which is available to everyone who registers for the event. All the details are at www.telfordcollege.ac.uk.

It’s been a year of change, celebration, and considerable achievement for Telford College.

Achieving a ‘Good’ rating from Ofsted was a richly-deserved reward for all the hard work of staff, and students, but we have not rested on our laurels.

We’ve continued to invest in facilities around the campus, and expanded our course offering to include a trailblazing new ‘Future IV’ programme which is perfect for A level students with an interest in conservation, geology and the environment.

New T levels are just around the corner too, and we’ve built some fantastic links with local employers ahead of the roll-out of the first programmes in September. But we’d love to connect with even more businesses, so please do get in touch.

What else? In the past month we’ve been commended in the nationally-recognised Beacon Awards for our ‘high level of innovation, impact and sustainability’, which is fabulous news.

It’s always great to hear about the success of our former students, and one of them, Saqib Uddin, says he is ‘living the dream’ by covering the football World Cup in Qatar.

He’s a former media student of ours who is now an assistant producer for beIN Sports, based in Doha. Saqib told us: “If someone had told me I would have experienced this much at this stage of my career I would not have believed them.”

It’s a perfect reminder that you don’t have to leave Telford to achieve your education and career dreams.