Principal’s Update
Happy new year to you all,
I hope you enjoyed a good break over Christmas. Here we are 2025!
My daughter and her wife visited from Australia and my youngest is back from university for a month, so I had a house full which was lovely.
We have a busy four weeks of January ahead and below is a selection from our events calendar:
- Contemporary Challenges Workshop
- JTSF Pension Scheme – For our academic staff (support staff session is on 31st January)
- Highlands College Stakeholder Feedback Session (Strategic Plan 2025-29)
- School Council Network Meeting – CYPES
- FdSc Digital Technologies Meet and Greet
- Children and Young People’s Service Comms. Event
- ELSA Conference 2025
- PERCS Pension Scheme Information Session – Civil Servants
I recommend you attend the pension sessions if you are available as whatever your age, you should know your rights and benefits.
We have invited a range of current and potential industry/sector partners in this month to engage in a consultation event for the new Strategic Plan. Multiple surveys have already been collected and the data is rich and interesting. Indeed, many islanders really value the work that we do and want us to do more.
Quality Assurance
A team from Highlands College will be travelling to The Guernsey Institute to review their progress and performance, the review will take place on the 13th and 14th February. This coincides with our Construction department visiting the island to compete in the 2025 Pan-Island Skills Competition. Highlands launched the inaugural event in 2024, and we have high levels of confidence on the competitors’ chances to secure a win. Watch this space for more details.
Later this month, we have the College SAR 2023/2024 external validation event with panels members from CYPES, industry, students and our Governing Body. Thank you to Heather Audoire for leading this important quality process. We were unable to secure a parent panellist this year despite numerous invites. Fortunately, they have other opportunities via survey, evenings, bulletin and forums to engage with us.
This half term our annual anonymous QDP surveys will be out, plus, the second round of termly Progression Boards so the quality calendar is packed. Progression boards highlight students who are not meeting their expectations due to a range of barriers. 66% of referrals are coming after the first board, so they are responsive, but don’t wait for a board to make the referral, you are the experts in learning and sometimes you can’t do it all!
Have a great week.
Best wishes,
Jo