Middlesbrough College Group Annual Report 2022/2023

Welcome to our Annual Report for 2022/2023

Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer visited the College to speak with some of the students on the College’s many health and social care courses as part of the Labour Party’s campaign on the future of the NHS and healthcare.

Foreword

We are delighted to report another successful year here at Middlesbrough Group, and although we still face some challenges both in the UK and in the international market due to the legacy of Covid, our College team has collectively championed our students to succeed and to make great achievements on their courses enabling them to move on to bright futures in their chosen next steps.

Highlights include:

• Empowering Student Success - Delivered positive student outcomes, including high achievement, progress and positive destinations whether this be to University, an apprenticeship, employment or selfemployment

• Elevating Teaching Excellence - Achieved a GOOD Ofsted inspection of our Initial Teacher Education (ITE) provision, and further embedded our Taking Teaching Higher strategy across the College through increased investment in coaching, mentoring and external professional development

• People-centred Strategy - Consulted extensively with local stakeholders and published a new strategic plan 2023-2025 which has our people at its heart and fosters a community of growth and collaboration

• Our People Thrive - Launched our Thrive programmes for staff and students to ensure that we all assess, develop and reflect on the skills, knowledge and behaviours we each wish to develop

• Innovating Engineering - Secured funding and commenced work on TTE’s new state of the art Engineering Technical Training Centre which will open in Summer 2024 and deliver higher skills to the region

• Local Impact - Actively contributed to the development of the Local Skills Improvement Plan (LSIP) and worked collaboratively to develop our collective response through the Local Skills Improvement Fund (LSIF)

• Diverse Learning Pathways - Expanded further our sector skills academies, working with local employers, and our local job centres, and utilised devolved funding flexibilities through the Tees Valley Combined Authority to meet local employer needs

• Wellbeing First – Putting the needs of our students first, we have worked with external agencies, to effectively support increasing numbers of students with mental health and other safeguarding and welfare support needs

• Ensuring Satisfaction - Maintained our high levels of student, staff and employer satisfaction rates

• Unity in Diversity - Significantly increased the diversity of our staff body

• Financial Resilience - Secured Good financial health in a tough economic climate

As we come to the end of the year and look back on all that we have achieved, despite the challenging and uncertain economic climate, Middlesbrough College Group is confident that, working together with our local partners, we can continue to serve employers with highly skilled talent that they need and play an increasingly important and exciting part in regenerating our local and regional economy.

Zoe Lewis CBE Principal and Chief Executive Officer

Rob Davies Chair of Governors

About us

Middlesbrough College is the largest provider of post-16 education and training in the Tees Valley serving over 12,000 learners from across the Tees Valley and beyond. The College strategic plan and curriculum have been developed in direct response to government policy and feedback from local employers and stakeholders including:

• A significant expansion of STEM facilities (2015) and subjects such that now two thirds of our school leavers are studying in ‘priority’ sectors rising from one quarter in 2008

• The acquisition of a respected apprenticeship training company (NECC training) covering complementary sectors and a wider geographic reach across the North East of England – creating Northern Skills the apprenticeship and training arm of the College (2016)

• Forming part of the North East Institute of Technology (NEIoT) collaboration (2019)

• Utilising devolved flexibilities to develop new and improved bespoke employer led provision (BELP) through our new Adult and Community Learning Centre (2019)

• Transferring a strategically important specialist engineering training provider (TTE) from administration into the group (2020)

• Delivering T Levels from 2021

• Collaborating with local providers as part of the Teesworks Skills Academy consortium (2021)

• Working in partnership with our employer representative body (ERB) to develop a Trailblazer LSIP and delivering associated Strategic Development Fund projects (SDF) (2021-22)

• Developing Skills Bootcamps and Higher Technical Qualifications to meet local needs (2022)

• Prepared a £20m investment plan to relocate TTE to a new training centre and to develop a range of initiatives in response to the Local Skills Improvement Plan and levelling up partnership fund. All to be delivered in 2024!

STEM Centre

TTE Relocation

MC Digital

Middlesbrough College is situated in the heart of the Tees Valley, an ex-industrial area characterised by some consistent and common economic themes:

• The second most deprived LEP area in England

• Lower than average job density and high proportion of low skilled / low paid jobs

• A lower proportion of the population is qualified at Level 2 and above than in other regions of England, and 16% of the population have no qualifications

• The proportion of pupils in the local authority who achieve GCSEs grade 5 or above in English and mathematics is significantly lower than the national average

• A net graduate exporter with a proportion of those that remain here, being under-employed

At Middlesbrough College we firmly believe that every one of us has the potential to achieve great things and through building confidence, developing new skills, and providing work simulation and relevant industrial experience we can unlock ambitions and support everyone, no matter what their starting point, to achieve a brighter future.

The College curriculum has been developed over years, through strong bi-lateral partnerships with employers and through close and regular analysis of the changing labour market requirements.

Our students

“ I have had nothing but support, care and championing for all teachers. It has been a pleasure to come back to education after 20 years and feel apart of a group. ”

57% male

40% 16-18

26% consider themselves to have a learning difficulty or disability

Over students

43% female

60% adults

19.5% are from a black and minority ethnic group

40% live in a deprived area

83% live within the Tees Valley combined authority

35% live within Middlesbrough’s local authority

“ I have gained confidence since starting the course, it has helped to develop my skills and have been able to gain a place at university. ”

Student Satisfaction

92 %

of students said their teaching was good

94 %

of students feel safe in College

95 %

of students said the College encourages respect of people from different backgrounds

92 %

of students said their personal tutor has supported them

Student Outcomes

84.4% 91% 60% 82.8% 69.7% 97% 92.8% 98%

“ I have had a truly enjoyable year and the teaching has been utterly outstanding ”

16-18 year-old Achievement Rate (national rate 81.1%)

Higher Education (HE) full-time students pass rate

High Needs students Achievement Rate

Northern Skills and TTE apprentices combined Achievement Rate (national rate is 57%)

of Adults doing Access to HE courses progress into Higher Education

Adult Achievement Rate (national rate is 86.7%)

of HE students doing a degree gain an upper second class or first of employers would recommend Middlesbrough College, Northern Skills or TTE

“ The staff in my department are all excellent at their jobs and are all dedicated and amazing people. ”

Our staff

“

I like the friendliness and investment in staff and students. ”

“ I enjoy the team that I work in, we feel like more of a family and we support each other with IAG. ”

“ I love teaching new skills to learners and watching their confidence grow through the course ”

“

It’s great to work somewhere that has such a positive impact on the area and the people within it. ”

“

The whole college has a wonderful ethos and I love that. I feel really comfortable working in the college. ”

“ Engaging workforce, positive attitudes and lots of energy ”

What staff say enjoy working at Middlesbrough College agree with the overall strategic direction of the college feel safe at work

say they get help from their colleagues feel trained and supported to do my job role treated with respect from colleagues

“ Support from my manager has been fantastic and it’s great to work in a department where there is a real sense of unity and camaraderie. The openness and approachability of the senior leadership is very positive. ”

Our strategic plan

Our Mission

To develop skills, knowledge and behaviours that help individuals to thrive and enhance the region’s economic and social prosperity.

Our Values

Take Responsibility

Aim High Respect Others

Work Hard

Do What’s Right

Challenge Yourself

Take Pride

Our Strategic Plan

Mission

To develop skills, knowledge and behaviours that help individuals to thrive and enhance the region’s economic and social prosperity.

Our Ambition

OUTSTANDING TEACHINGAND LEARNING

Ensure students achieve their full potential through outstanding teaching & learning.

Our Commitment Support our employers with their workforce development needs.

OUTSTANDING

Our Community

Provide a safe, welcoming, inclusive and supportive environment for our community.

Our Team

Attract, develop and retain a highly skilled, value driven and passionate team of staff.

Our Resilience

Maintain financial and regulatory stability.

OURPARTNERS

- Work closely with our external partnersshaping policy and adaptingouroffer.

TEACHINGAND LEARNING

Our strategic plan

Our Ambition

• Teachers continue to provide a high quality of education and training with specific focus on application of cognitive science in conjunction with curriculum reform and our Taking Teacher Higher strategy

• Our Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programme to support new staff into the profession and develop existing staff was judged as ‘Good’ in our latest inspection and our staff receive high levels of training and support, through ITE provision and extensive professional development opportunities

• Continue to embed our digital strategy to address digital poverty of our students and upskill staff, building on our Microsoft Showcase College status

• Destinations of all our learners remain highly positive, with 95% progressing to a positive destination, including Higher Education, apprenticeships, employment or further study

• Our apprentices achieve significantly higher than the national average at 70%

• We have expanded the range of personal development opportunities and skills competitions throughout our curriculum to ensure our learner experience is holistic, and that they are ready to take their next steps

• By expanding the range of employer forums/advisory boards we are assured that the curriculum we offer is closely matched to employer and local skills needs. Feedback is used effectively to shape future provision

Our Commitment

• Responded rapidly and collaboratively to the Local Skills Improvement Plan (LSIP) through expansion of our capacity in construction, engineering, health care and professional sector delivery

• Driven work placements to record levels and continue to invest in development of work placement resource and capacity to ensure our students have access to this essential element of their employability

• Worked closely with employer partners and stakeholders in design and implementation planning of levelling up fund and the Local Skills Improvement Fund (LSIF) to ensure capital investment is aligned to local skills needs and those of our employers

• Continue to pioneer government initiatives such as Bootcamps, and increased the range of Bespoke Employer Led Provision (BELPS) to support partners in recruiting qualified local people into their businesses and upskilling the current workforce

• As part of the North East Institute of Technology (IoT), in collaboration with our IoT partners have developed a range of employer responsive programs such as green construction/retrofit and continue to increase our Higher Technical Qualification (HTQ) offer to support skills at Level 4 and above in response to the levelling up agenda

Our strategic plan

Our Community

• Worked with partners, supported students in increasing numbers with their welfare, mental health and safeguarding needs

• Provided a welcoming, calm and orderly environment where students displayed respect for staff and each other

• Continued to promote diversity in our college community through a variety of events, groups and celebrations

• Continued to develop our Thrive programme to include participation in social action projects for all students to promote citizenship, working with community organisations

• Developed a careers strategy to ensure support for all progression pathways is of the highest standard

• Maintained a proactive, well attended student council where students feel able to make suggestions and positively contribute to the development of the College

• Continued to develop our students employability skills by engaging them with a wide range of employer encounters and internal and external work placements

• Continued the proactive approach to supporting those who have experienced sexual abuse and harassment

• Our accreditations include Disability Confident Leader, Bullying Intervention Group and the Matrix Quality Standard

Our Team

• Implemented a new Thrive workforce development portal through which essential and bespoke training can be housed, tailored and tracked with the view of creating a continuous development culture where personal reflection and developmental curiosity is the norm

• Maintained excellent relationships with our unions and very high levels of staff satisfaction in our annual survey

• Significantly increased the proportion of new staff who are from BAME communities

• Continued to increase the number of apprentices employed across the College

• Developed further our people management systems including on line appraisals, holidays, sickness, probation and improved reporting

• Improved further our start for success programme which ensures new staff receive a high quality induction into the College and their role

• Expanded further our wellbeing strategies including establishing our wellbeing group and raising awareness of our Employee Assistance Programme which supports staff and their families 24/7 with a good take up of counselling and other services

• Harmonised and simplified a wide range of contractual variations and HR policies and procedures

• Launched our management training programmes alongside a range of flexible and intuitive staff CPD programmes

Our strategic plan

Our Resilience

• Maintained Good financial health in challenging economic and inflationary times

• Progressed our ambitious digital transformation strategy and extended the ‘MC Click’ free laptop offer to all full time students at all levels

• Continued our ambitious campus development with the new TTE build starting on site (completion April 2024)

• Launched our Sustainability strategy and action plan

• Created a large bespoke flexible exam space for students across the campus

• Secured a positive enrolment across all provision types in spite of the challenging environment

• Further Enhanced our risk management, cyber security & Business Continuity processes

• Achieved Microsoft Showcase School status

• Brought in new governors with the required expertise and experience to succession plan more experienced governors

Our Partners

• Consulted widely with over 200 stakeholders in the refresh and publication of our revised Strategic Plan 2023-2025

• Worked with the Association of Colleges to actively influence education policy with a particular focus on the White Paper – Skills for Jobs and the funding and accountability reforms

• Worked collaboratively with other local colleges (FE+) to support the North East England Chamber of Commerce in their production of the Local Skills Improvement Plan (LSIP) and our collective response to this through the LSIF fund which aims to improve the local skills pipeline

• Worked closely and at short notice with Tees Valley Combined Authority to pitch a skills solution to key potential inward investors that we hope will choose Teesworks to invest and develop

• Secured increasing levels of adult education through meeting devolved authority priorities and achieving high quality employment outcomes through our growing bespoke employer led programmes and improving our offer of adult basic skills

• Lead on national skills priorities through becoming an early adopter of T Level qualifications, a developer of Skills Bootcamps, through delivering Multiply programmes and through developing Higher Technical Qualifications (HTQs) within our North East Institute of Technology consortium

• Secured funding for a new TTE centre which will expand further into green technologies, construction started on site in 2023 and will open in Summer 2024

• Worked closely with Middlesbrough Council to develop a Towns Fund and levelling up partnership fund solution to local needs as well as a wide range of partnership initiatives aimed at widening participation and supporting local residents, particularly those economically inactive

• Supported a range of local business events targeting key priority groups including Tees Business Women, Tees Tech Awards and other skills and business related events

Summary of awards

Middlesbrough College celebrates success at every opportunity with over 300 student awards being given. Here are just some of our amazing students from 2022/23.

Grace Davis receiving the Overall Apprentice of the Year Award

Precious Olukoya receiving the Overall Progression Studies Student of the Year Award

Bobby Kent receiving the Overall Childcare Student of the Year Award

Tianna Maloney receiving the TTE Student of the Year Award

Aimee Wood receiving the A Level Biology Student of the Year Award

Megan Jukes receiving the Overall Engineering Student of the Year Award

Mille Jackson receiving the Creative Media Student of the Year Award

Charlie Hoskin receiving the Overall Outstanding AchievementSport Student of the Year Award

Summary of finances

The Middlesbrough College Group continues to report “Good” financial health despite ongoing inflationary cost pressures and some difficult trading conditions, particularly in the apprenticeship market. The College reported EBITDA (cash income) of £2.8m in year which was reinvested in support of capital expenditure and servicing of borrowings.

The Middlesbrough College Group manages financial performance against the strategic plan by reference to a suite of financial performance metrics. During 2022/23 the college saw an increase in energy costs of circa £1m and sought agreement from our governing body, to utilise our underlying financial strength to cover this excess cost until it stabilised. This meant that students and staff were not impacted by high inflation and the college has been able to return to a surplus position in 2023/24. Financial

At

Key developments for 2023/24:

Develop further our Thrive for students and in particular our soft skills assessment, employer encounters and social action projects 1

2

3

Develop further our Thrive for staff and in particular our management development and career planning initiatives

4

Develop a SEN strategy

5

Achieve Beacon status for careers and employer engagement

Harness the power of HOW2s to ensure a reflective and developing teaching workforce and launch a new graduate recruitment programme targeted at skills shortage areas

Strategic developments to 2025:

1

Deliver the TTE relocation and develop new green initiatives

2

Fully deliver the Local Skills Improvement Fund schemes and the Levelling up partnership fund projects

3

Conduct two year curriculum planning to mitigate the impact of the qualifications reform on our students and employers

4

Carry out a curriculum review in collaboration with other local providers

5

Continue to strengthen our Thrive for students and commence work with Middlesbrough Local Authority through PROCLAIM

Public Value Statement

Middlesbrough College is committed to adding value to the social, economic and physical well-being of the local community it serves.

We are committed to raising aspiration, increasing opportunity and providing a foundation for sustainable economic growth and prosperity.

Central to our responsibility is our work with partner organisations and our obligation to enrich the social, cultural, economic and physical wellbeing of our whole community.

In practice, this means we are ready, willing and able to respond to the needs of our community whatever and wherever they may be.

In making this commitment we may be challenged to work in new ways and, at times, our own capability or capacity may be tested.

We are nevertheless determined to devote ourselves to, and measure ourselves against, this endeavour.