Telford College is building a high-profile role in the business community
Lawrence Wood, Telford College principal and chief executive, gives his thoughts on the year ahead, including National Apprenticeship Week.
Partnership is one of the most important words for our team at Telford College this year as we seek to expand and strengthen connections with the local business community.
My experience of working closely with industry goes back many years, and I know that it really can make a difference.
Since taking over as principal and chief executive in August last year, I have carried out an in-depth review of the college’s management structure and introduced a new-look executive leadership team.
It includes a new position of executive director for employer engagement and partnerships, who will play an active and high-profile role in the business community. We need employers to know that our doors are always open, and build relationships with senior members of our team.
A college cannot succeed in isolation; it needs to be very much rooted in its community. That requires a strong connection to local schools, ensuring that when the next generation of workers are making career choices they have a good understanding of the career pathways available.
Key to that is our work with employers. If we get that right, we are setting young people up with the skills they need – not just technical skills, but soft skills around communication and teamwork too.
These soft skills are just as important for the development of a workforce. I have been hearing this loud and clear from many Shropshire employers.
When a business employs a student who has been trained at Telford College, we want them to see certain qualities which employers value. It could be something as simple as timekeeping and punctuality, which is so important.
And it’s not just about school leavers, it’s about the whole workforce. We must take away all the jargon to offer businesses a clear and understandable menu of opportunities.
Telford College is playing an active role in the Local Skills Improvement Plan (LSIP) for the Marches area, working closely with the team at Shropshire Chamber of Commerce.
We have just opened a new Local Skills Improvement Training Space at our Wellington campus to meet a need identified by the LSIP for more upskilling opportunities, particularly in specialist areas of manufacturing and engineering.
We read the report, and we listened. Employers said they wanted flexibility, with modular training in practical subjects, so we developed courses in the areas they identified, with multiple start points where staff can step in and step out as required.
It’s National Apprenticeships Week from February 10-14; another wonderful opportunity for us to showcase some of the work we are doing with many of the county’s biggest employers.
We’ve just appointed a new apprenticeship manager, Tom Ruston, whose business development experience has included the management of large apprenticeship levies, making sure it is used to deliver the right sort of learners, and right levels of service. You’ll see him out and about over the coming weeks and months.
by Lawrence Wood
