Salford City College Group is a leading provider of post-16 Further Education in the UK. The College Group employ around 700 members of staff to support a student population of around 10,000 students per year, including full-time students, adult learners, apprentices and Higher Education students. Apprenticeships at Salford City College enjoy an incredible reputation for excellence and the College has won several national awards over the last couple of years, including ‘Learning Provider of the Year’ at the 2021 Learning Awards and ‘Student Experience Award – FE/HE’ at the 2022 Educate North Awards.
Exceptional people are at the heart of all that the Group achieves. Staff turnover is low, and in the most recent people survey, just over 95% of staff confirmed that they are proud to work within the organisation. Central to the objectives of the College is to ensure all students are provided with the highest-quality learning experience, to ensure they can go on and be successful in Higher Education or make the successful transition into employment, developing strong and lasting careers in their chosen occupations. The College Group offers a wide-ranging learning provision across various sectors. The vast majority of vocational provision across the Group is aligned to key economic sectors within Greater Manchester, ensuring that we are developing skills, knowledge and competencies in sectors that are key to the local area, where our students can find employment and benefit from long and successful careers.
Ensuring we have the best people across the Group, in not only teaching, training and assessing students, we also provide vital services, such as learning support, pastoral care, finance and marketing is vital. We have to ensure our people are not only outstanding practitioners in post-16 education, but we also have to ensure they are outstanding in their specific and specialist occupational areas – ‘dual professionals’ as we call them.
Industry Development Days
To maintain this ‘dual professional’ status while ensuring our people are current and at the forefront of developments within their chosen occupational specialisms, it is vital we give them significant time and exposure to their sectors to enable them to develop and learn. Relationships with industry are essential for our students too, and in turn, the more strategically we work with our industry partners, the better experience our students receive.
Over the last two weeks, colleagues across the Group have been spending time with industry partners, exploring their industries and sectors to keep their knowledge current and aligned to the development and trends. Over 180 staff committed to a collective duration of over 900 hours in industry. Over 100 different organisations have allowed our staff to spend time with them, recognising that by helping to develop our staff, we can ensure our students are better prepared for their future, and better prepared for the key economic sectors within Greater Manchester and further afield. These industry days are just a small element of our wider industry partners strategy, which ensures we as a College Group are working strategically with local and regional employers. Supporting our annual skills strategy cycle, industry partners have recently participated in our annual Employer Curriculum Boards, placing employers at the heart of our curriculum planning for the year to come.
Allan Milne, Director of Apprenticeships & Employer Engagement at Salford City College Group, commented: “It has been fantastic to see so many colleagues benefit from time in industry this year. Following Covid, we wanted to ensure colleagues across the Group picked up the mantle again; they did this in huge numbers, and feedback has been very positive. We have already had feedback on a number of key curriculum improvements colleagues across the Group are going to make following input and discussions with employers whilst in industry. The impact for our students will be a better-quality education, aligned to the needs of the employers they will hopefully end up working for one day.”
To learn more about becoming an Industry Partner of Salford City College Group, and apprenticeships at Salford City College, email industrypartners@salfordcc.ac.uk or call 0161 631 5555
