Skills Minister, Gillian Keegan MP visited our Bromley

This was a huge undertaking from planning to implementation and involved staff from all corners of the organisation and the enlisted help of the community too. I’m glad to say that all those who stepped forward and volunteered in a range of different roles did a truly magnificent job, enabling us to keep our classrooms and workshops open for our learners most in need of face-to-face learning; later for those returning to complete practical assignments and assessments.

In May, hopefully you will have (if you are a member of our Academies Trust staff) attended one of the Trust Roadshow events online. These were arranged to give staff an opportunity to contribute to our work on growing a ‘One-Trust’ culture. This means coming together as one larger organisation, developing cultural change and becoming a more united and coordinated body. This is a very important, yet difficult transition for the Trust to make and one in which has seen a largely positive response during our consultation period. We are now poised to see how much further this journey can take us together as we move confidently into next year and beyond. A regular hashtag used on our Colleges’ social media platforms is #LSECfamily; we’d like to extend and apply this to the Trust propelling ourselves further into becoming a fully integrated and cohesive #LSEATfamily.

Just prior to the last half term, our Endeavour Academy was presented with a Gold Award for Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural (SMSC) development along with being awarded its national quality mark. This is a fantastic achievement for the academy as well as the Trust and something to make us all proud. A big well done to Head of School, Margaret Rozaria and her amazing staff and pupils for such commitment and dedication in achieving such success.

So, while I’m on the subject of awards, you may have heard by now about the College’s resounding success in the Tes FE Awards 2021 back at the end of May – a rather good month all round if I may say so. The College won three awards – Contribution to the local community, FE College of the year, and Overall FE provider of the year. We won these awards because of the great things we have done during the course of this year – a real culmination of how we have innovated, planned, and accomplished together, as a team, and applied our STARS values to everything we do. This is how its done

and it means that we all finish the academic year as WINNERS. Well done and congratulations

to you all for your contributions to the fantastic outcomes that have been achieved again under very difficult circumstances. These are the challenges that can make life more interesting and by overcoming them make our lives so meaningful. We have all drawn strength from and supported each other so well; I believe it is this togetherness that we can hold on to as we move forwards into next year. We have positioned ourselves favourably for the changes that lie ahead of us with the government’s new vision for further education and I’m confident that the London South East Education Group will continue to be a sector leader in all areas that we cover – primary, secondary, alternative provision, special educational needs, further and higher education.

Now is the time to take a very well earned break, recharge those batteries and take a breather. On our return, we have much to live up to as a multi-award winning institution and we will do this by continuing to innovate, place ourselves at the very heart of everything that is important to the UK’s economic and social recovery, leading by example, sharing good practice and being vocal. We will also be promoting and advancing our latest social enterprise initiative #GoodForMeGoodForFE, which is all about empowering our staff, students and employer partners to become more involved in community volunteering.

We have become an organisation that is well and truly ‘on the map’ and we aim to stay there. Have a great break.