Annual Report 2012 - Highbury College

Celebrating success
Dr Susan Pember OBE, Department for
Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS)
Priority 1
Student success, resilience and employability
Our top priority is student success. We are ambitious for our
students and have high expectations for what they can
achieve. In the context of extremely high success rates we will
broaden the concept of success to encompass a more holistic
and personalised approach. Students will leave Highbury with
not only vocational and academic qualifications, but the
employability, entrepreneurial and enterprise skills to apply
them in all parts of their lives.
In 2012:
• 2010/11 figures from the National Data Service confirmed
that our headline student success rate of 91% made
Highbury the top-performing general further education
college in the South East Region and the overall topperforming
college in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.
• Our student success rate for 2011/12 was 93.6%; Success
rates for students aged 16-18 were also high at 93.1%.
• The overall pass rate for A Levels was 96%.
• The success rate for Apprenticeships increased from
80.7% (2010/11) to 84.3% (2011/12).
• 48% of our Level 3 and Level 5 students progressed to
higher education and 82.2% of students who applied for
a place in higher education were successfully placed.
• The College achieved its targets for success in the key
areas of Apprenticeships and Level 3/A Levels.
• Of this year’s group of volunteer teaching assistants
studying at Highbury, over 50% were taken on by their
schools at the end of the programme.
• An Ofsted good practice report in April confirmed that
at Highbury ‘a strong strategic focus is placed on
ensuring the success of students and developing their
employability skills’.
• In November, Highbury students competed at The Skills
Show, the national final for WorldSkills UK, and won
five medals.
• Highbury students helped to keep the London 2012
Olympic Games safe, working through the Bridging
the Gap project to provide qualified stewards and
security staff.
• We supported our students through the
university/higher education application process (UCAS).
Highbury students went on to study at university in a
range of competitive areas including dentistry,
architecture and forensic psychology.
• We provided targeted support for more than 450
vulnerable students through our Support to Achieve
programme to build resilience and support success.
• The College held its first student conference. The event
was attended by both FE and HE students, and included
a session on safeguarding facilitated by police community
support officers.
• We piloted five student wellbeing support groups to
improve the confidence, self-advocacy skills and
employment opportunities for students with mental
health problems. We secured additional funding from the
Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS) to further
develop our wellbeing support groups.
• We developed a 16-19 ESOL Youth Group, a personalised
programme for looked after young people who need to
improve their English language skills, confidence and
employment prospects.
• The College facilitated several social enterprise initiatives
to build the self-esteem, confidence and employability
skills of students on our Foundation Learning
programmes, including Moving On and the Prince’s Trust.
• Highbury’s annual Graduation and Celebration of
Achievement was held at Portsmouth Guildhall. Guest of
Honour was Dr Susan Pember OBE, Director for Further
Education and Skills Investment and Performance
Directorate at the Department for Business, Innovation
and Skills (BIS). Also in attendance was The Lord Mayor of
Portsmouth, Councillor Frank Jonas.
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