Principal’s Update

Last week Deputy Andy Jehan, Minister for Infrastructure, came to the campus together with Jersey Property Holdings to see the areas where ongoing delays and lack of funding for maintenance was having the greatest impact.

Sadly, last week, yet again the Sport and Media block had leaks into classrooms even though the scaffold is now down and the roof fixed. Also, there were leaks into the kilns in the Art block, so they are now out of action due to fire risk.

Some good news is that the maintenance budget has been mostly restored by Ministers. The budget is now totalling £2,192,411.00 scheduling works into 2028. On the original Government Plan 2024 to 2027 it was £2, 96 million ending 2027. Clearly, with a scaffold up every term, some works have already been completed, but only a planned rebuild will truly address the needs of learners and colleagues to work in a fit for purpose environment.

I am grateful to Rob Moy who has worked with me over the last four months to make the case for restoration of budget and to the support of Minsters and CEHA Scrutiny panel.

Thank you to all staff involved in the Parents and Carers Open evening for Year 11 prospective students lead by the Employability Team.

James Bennett reported that we had 609 Year 11 students in during the Experience Days and we had a good turnout at the evening sessions.

These are very important engagement sessions because the students and their parents/carers get to meet staff and current students, and you are the best advocates for the work we do here.

They also often ask questions face-to-face which they would never ask via email or the schools. We have students form all schools, private, selective and the 11 to 16s, but also Elected Home Educated Students and La Passerelle.

All college budget holders have been engaged in a Zero-Based Budgeting exercise, this established a gap of £800k between where we would meet budget holders expectations and our current budget. That is only for non-staff costs – we have yet to conduct the analysis for that. Clearly, central government if looking for cuts in expenditure and growth demands so we will need to close that gap.

All digital licensing/software and equipment replacement plans are over seen by Terry Walters and the Senior Leadership Team. All budgets requests for that spend will be held under one code. There will be further briefings at Heads of Department.
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I met with staff representatives who highlighted the following:

➕ Attendance calls from admin team to students are having a positive impact

➕ They like the Insight tracking app on TEAMS for assignments and think more staff should know about this

➕ Teams are capable and deal with cover effectively

➕ Events and Estates good consultation making life a lot easier + addition of 4^th caretaker allowing for cover and other complex works requiring repairs to be completed
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➖ Difficult to know who does what across college

➖ Ageing buildings constant work and not attractive to site users

➖ Some workflow practises still need simplifying

➖ How does Student Voice feedback get actioned

➖ No display boards in Turner – can we revisit this

➖ EBS functionality – all admin want access, some waiting 4 to 6 months for the access they require

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I have already followed this up – some have simple remedies but will close the loop at our next meeting with “we said, and we did” and cover in the bulletin again.

This week at SLT we will be focusing on Succession Planning for all middle and senior roles across the College. Tony Tyrer will share up-to-date statistics on teaching staff utilisation which we aim to be around 92/93%.

On Wednesday night we have the Skills Recognition Awards at the Royal Yacht where Kate Hobbs will be part of a panel. Rob Moy will be attending the Amicus 10-year anniversary on Thursday evening, and we all have a GoJ CPD Connect session on Friday afternoon to complete central training modules.

I hope you enjoy your week. Lecturers are being observed as part of the termly Learning Walks process – English and Maths staff are preparing their students for the all-important mock examinations (this term in class and in February in the Hall). Please encourage students to make the most of the support offered.

Best wishes,

Jo