Mid-Cheshire College Celebrates Six Year Turnaround

Mid-Cheshire College Celebrates Six Year Turnaround

2 February 2009

College has moved from ‘Failing’ to ‘Outstanding’

When John Reilly took over as principal of Mid-Cheshire College in 2002 he was keen to make a quick impact, but before his first week in the job was over the LSC had placed the college into “serious concerns”. Now just over six years on, staff and students are celebrating the publication of their latest inspection report which has shown that Mid-Cheshire College has been transformed from a “failing” college into an “outstanding” one, achieving Grade 1s across the board.

Almost all curriculum provision is now Outstanding or Strong, and the college’s success rates are among the best in the sector. As a result the number of fulltime students has increased by over 60% over the past five years.

According to John Reilly, the change of fortune is down to ambition. He says “When the college was at its lowest ebb, it would have been easy just to have earmarked a return to “satisfactory” performance as our objective. However, we decided that we would challenge the staff to have the ambition to make Mid-Cheshire College a “top 10%” college. This became the driver that influenced all the developments and initiatives that improved our performance, making us stronger and stronger each year”.

Managers made teaching and learning the central focus of activities, re-focusing the College as a centre for vocational education and training. They challenged staff to develop new vocational specialisms and launched new areas of training, which helped drive up student numbers and improve financial performance.

John Reilly continues “Whilst we appreciate that we are, at heart, an educational institution, there is now a great stress on running the College in a business-like way. Everybody is expected to hit their targets and keep to their budgets. This outstanding financial performance has allowed us to make significant investments in teaching and learning, new posts and staff training”.

Liz Davis, the LSC’s Director of Area for Cheshire and Warrington, said “The LSC encourages all those delivering education and training to aspire to excellence. We recognise the key role that colleges play in our communities, and the important role they play in meeting the needs of young people and improving adult skills.

“On behalf of the LSC I would like to offer my congratulations to the staff, students and governors at Mid-Cheshire College on this impressive result. I know that they have all worked extremely hard to achieve this and I wish the college and its community every success for the future.”