Gazelle express September 2014

GAZELLE COLLEGES NEWSPAPER www.thegazellegroup.com

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CODE FOR SUCCESS P12

THE FUTURE OF LEARNING

INTRODUCING LEARNING COMPANIES P20

GAZELLE: UNITING BUSINESS AND EDUCATION

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NEWS • FEATURES • INTERVIEWS EVENT CALENDAR

SEPTEMBER 2014 ISSUE 01

CONTENTS

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WELCOME… …to the inaugural edition of the Gazelle Express, a newsletter bringing together news and stories from across the Gazelle Colleges Group.

Read on to hear about Gazelle students coding with The Duke of York and Lord Young, the stories of learners inspired by Gazelle social enterprise competitions to start their own companies and what leaders from the worlds of business and education had to say at the Gazelle Transforming Leadership and Governance Conference.

03 NEWS 06 INTERVIEW WITH FINTAN DONOHUE OBE CHIEF EXECUTIVE, GAZELLE

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MY GAZELLE

THE FUTURE OF LEARNING

FEATURES

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STUDENT IMPACT

TALKING BUSINESS

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THINKING DIFFERENT

EVENT CALENDAR 2014

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PUTTING COLLEGE LEADERS BACK IN THE CLASSROOM

THE POWER OF PARTNERSHIP

TUTORS & LEADERS

GAZELLE FOCUS

UNLTD AMBITION FOR ENTERPRISING STUDENTS

HIGHBURY BUILDING FOR THE FUTURE

Gazelle college students have secured funding from social entrepreneurs’ foundation UnLtd, to develop community-based business ideas.

A new property development company at Highbury College is opening doors for learners.

Gazelle college students have been inspired to start up their own companies thanks to support from UnLtd, the leading provider of support to social entrepreneurs in the UK. Gazelle has worked closely with UnLtd to create the opportunities for students to benefit from funding and mentoring in developing their business ideas, and learners from Warwickshire and Gateshead Colleges have been among the first to launch social enterprises.

They include four Warwickshire College students – Harry Bowen, Faith Matthews, Alice Stewardson and Josh Turner – who successfully bid for funding from UnLtd’s FE Pioneers Programme.

The ventures include Scratch & Sniff Pet Services, which will provide pet sitting and care services to help those unable to afford boarding facilities for their animals; Beauty Box, a mobile beauty service for older people who live in care home or remote areas; Oozie Smoothie, which produces personalised smoothies and allows customers to mix their own; and Makers and Creators, which provides resources and theme days to educators.

“The initial idea we had was to provide resource packs to schools so that teachers had resources available if they decided they wanted to make something with their children but they didn’t have the time to create the template and instructions,” says Josh Turner, co-founder of Makers and Creators.

Marla Nelson, Director of Enterprise and Entrepreneurship at Warwickshire College, commented: “Social entrepreneurs are becoming ever more central to the social and economic recovery in the UK, innovating for good and enterprising for sustainability.

Using this UnLtd/HEFCE funding,we are working towards building a sustainable system of support for social entrepreneurs.

“We are delighted to have used the funding to invest in our emerging student social entrepreneurs, so they can start up and thrive, building capacity, sharing knowhow, and achieve their full potential as powerhouses of the future.”

At Gateshead College, the UnLtd partnership has helped one student hit back at bullies by launching an anti-bullying social enterprise, BullStop. Leanne Morse, 17, from North Shields, suffered a relentless campaign of mental and physical abuse from fellow pupils over a twelve-year period. Her health deteriorated, her confidence evaporated and she developed an eating disorder.

But she is now working to educate teachers and students on issues surrounding bullying, through her new venture.“I am driven to help others and ensure that students get the support that I never received at school. It’s all about breaking down barriers and raising awareness of what is and isn’t acceptable behaviour in the classroom,” Leanne says.

“I don’t want other children to go through the experiences that I had to endure. I was humiliated in front of a whole class, physically beaten up, shoved into walls, had my personal possessions stolen and my homework thrown into the bin.

“Despite my best efforts to report this to the teachers, I felt that I wasn’t taken seriously and it really knocked my selfconfidence.”

Gateshead College gave Leanne the opportunity to promote her business idea via a series of workshops in which she talked about her experiences and offered suggestions on how to beat bullying.

Leanne is currently studying for a Level 3 qualification in music production at Gateshead College and is hoping to gain further recognised qualifications that will help her make the business a success.

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NO ORDINARY SCIENCE LESSON Leanne Morse, who is fighting back against bullies with her social enterprise, Bullstop

Enterprising construction staff at Highbury College have set up a property development company, purchasing houses for students to renovate and eventually sell on. Working within the Gazelle ethos, the innovative new company will give every Highbury construction student the opportunity to work on a live project alongside their studies.

The company has so far purchased two residential properties in a state of disrepair, giving students across a multitude of disciplines the chance to put their learning into practice under the supervision of highly skilled staff.

Involving plastering, groundwork, bricklaying, carpentry & joinery, tiling, multicrafts and plumbing, the aim of the company is to build a portfolio of properties that students can work on, generating income through their renovation and eventual sale.

Rob Higgins, Head of Construction at Highbury College said: “This is a fantastic opportunity for our students to put their classroom learning into a real-world setting. Where classrooms aim to simulate what the students would be doing, this project allows them to experience all of the challenges that a real house renovation brings. They are also gaining experience dealing with other professionals and suppliers and working with materials they’re not used to.”

The first property, a mid-terraced house in Fratton, Hampshire, is expected to be ready towards the end of the year.

GATESHEAD SOCIAL ENTERPRISE WINNERS Students and staff from Gateshead College have won the Social Enterprise of the Year Award presented by the National Association of College and University Entrepreneurs (NACUE).

The prize was given to the college’s enterprise society Northern Stars at NACUE’s annual Society Awards Dinner at Westminster Kingsway College in London for its ground-breaking ‘Turnip and go’ retail project.

The awards are given to individuals and organisations which have helped students to demonstrate high levels of enterprise and entrepreneurialism in their work. Northern Stars was described as “professional, committed, tenacious and the epitome of what an enterprise society should be”.

The idea behind ‘Turnip and go’ is to sell locallysourced fresh fruit and vegetables to college staff and students from a dedicated ‘market stall’ set up within the college’s Baltic Campus on Quarryfield Road.

The business donates 10% of its profits to the Gateshead College Foundation, an independent charity that helps people develop the skills they need to secure meaningful employment.

The judge praised the project, highlighting the fact that the students not only gained a qualification but real business experience and knowledge of corporate responsibility by promoting healthy eating.

Roy Thompson, president of Northern Stars, said: “The enterprise society is part of our wider strategy at Gateshead College to give our students the best chance of success in the jobs market, developing their skills and confidence so they can launch their own ventures or gain skilled employment within an established business.”

NEWS

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GAZELLE STUDENTS CODE FOR SUCCESS

With the hands-on experience you learn more Hannah Quigley NVQ Level 2 Apprentice, New College Nottingham

NEW COLLEGE NOTTINGHAM STUDENTS LEARNING IN STYLE Apprentices at New College Nottingham are getting the chance to learn on the job, thanks to an innovative partnership with a local hairdressing salon.

Hairdressing apprentices at New College Nottingham will have the opportunity to swap traditional classroom teaching for lessons from top industry stylists. Thanks to a unique training programme, the college’s hairdressing and barbering apprentices will be able to gain hands-on experience and learn on the job, preparing them for the world of work.

New College Nottingham has launched a new initiative in partnership with leading local hair salon Zullo and Holland and the Angela Vallillo Academy. The training programme will give students first-hand experience of working in a business environment and will enable apprentices to gain access to the latest industry equipment and cutting-edge techniques.

Apprentices will train one day per week at the Angelo Vallillo Academy, which will deliver the technical element of the

A group of Gazelle College students were taught to code in a day, as part of a major national enterprise conference hosted at the London headquarters of Bloomberg television.

‘Coders corner’ brought together students from Barking & Dagenham College, Cambridge Regional College, Cardiff & Vale College, LeSoCo, Middlesbrough College, North Hertfordshire College, Warwickshire College and Highbury College.

The students were taught by digital training experts Decoded, whose co-founders Kathryn Parsons and Ali Blackwell led the session. The day was an exclusive, oneday coding camp offering an unparalleled accelerated learning experience, taking the students from zero skills and confidence to an understanding of the coding principles required to develop apps, in a single day.

The event highlighted Gazelle’s ambition to put coding and digital skills at the heart of curricula throughout the college network, responding to the increasing importance of STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) skills in improving students’ employment and self-employment opportunities.

As seen on p18, colleges are developing their own ambitious plans to embed coding into their activities through Gazelle STEM Centres, and the network is working towards attempting a Guinness World Record setting coding lesson for thousands of students.

Coders’ Corner took place as part of SUMMIT: The Future of Growth, a gathering that brought together

some of the UK’s fastest-growing companies. The students were joined throughout the day by figures including HRH The Duke of York, the Prime Minister’s enterprise advisor Lord Young and shadow Business Secretary Chuka Umunna MP. Each team produced an app by the end of the day, working together to decide on an innovative concept and then develop it with the skills they had been taught throughout the day. The students pitched their apps to a panel of judges including Martin McCourt, former CEO of Dyson, Martin Leuw, serial entrepreneur and Chairman of Clearswift and Incube8it and Els Howard from Pearson, combining app development and coding skills with hands-on business experience.

The winning team from Barking and Dagenham College were invited up on stage in the closing session of SUMMIT: The Future of Growth, to be interviewed on the main stage about their experiences.

Advancing the coding agenda as a core skills element for students is a new and significant objective for Gazelle. A major initiative to raise the profile of coding and its importance for Gazelle students is planned for the New Year. It will bring together thousands of students and offer an opportunity to create apps and learn new skills.

apprenticeship as well as teaching the apprentices business skills and more about the industry as a whole. The remainder of the week is spent with an employer, gaining on-the-job training and mentoring.

Hannah Quigley, 17, is currently studying for an NVQ Level 2 hairdressing apprenticeship at the college, and works at Zullo and Holland four days a week, putting into practice what she has learnt.

She said: “I have been finding working at Zullo and Holland really enjoyable. I think with the hands-on experience you learn more.”

The partnership came about as a result of feedback from apprentices and the industry. This feedback indicated that training in a business environment was required to enhance students’ learning experience and would also benefit the industry as a whole.

Olga Bottomley ,Commercial Director for Business to Business at the college, said: “It’ is not just an academy, it is an opportunity to upskill and train apprentices of the future. We’ve already received lots of positive feedback from employers who are telling us that the additional industry skills their apprentices will learn at the Academy will only enhance their workforce and in turn benefit their business.”

GAZELLE TO DELIVER £1M LEARNING FUTURES PROGRAMME Gazelle has been appointed by the Education and Training Foundation to deliver the Learning Futures programme, an ambitious new scheme to improve the use and awareness of learning technologies in the training and skills sector.

The programme will seek to support leaders and governors to make informed decisions about strategies for and investment in learning technologies; help teachers and trainers to be confident and skilled in the design and delivery of technology enhanced learning; and encourage employer engagement that will ensure access to industry standard technology and improve the line of sight to work on vocational programmes.

The programme invites sector staff at all levels to apply for funding and mentoring to develop and disseminate their innovative ideas and practices. They will focus on priority areas for development that have been identified in consultation with leaders and practitioners from across the education and training sector, and which also reflect the recommendations in the recent FELTAG report.

The programme is being supported by a Steering Group that includes representatives from the education and training sector, from industry, and from technology entrepreneurs. Members have been drawn from leading technology companies such as Microsoft UK, Intel and Google, alongside sector experts who include the 157 Group Executive Director Lynne Sedgmore, AELP Chief Executive Stewart Segal and AoC Deputy Chief Executive Gill Clipson. www.lfutures.co.uk

NEWS

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What do you hope to achieve in How would you summarise the the short and medium-term? value Gazelle has delivered for its members?

We want to continue growing the group and to develop and scale the models we have created for a small collection of colleges into the sector as a whole.

Millions of people pass through further education every year and we fully acknowledge that our work is only currently impacting on a small proportion of that number. Nevertheless, through our work with key partners such as AoC, we have been able to bring many more colleges into a dialogue around entrepreneurship, one we believe is fundamental to the future success of our college sector.

Towards that end, we are excited to be continuing our work with Pearson on developing entrepreneurial programmes and qualifications that can be deployed by colleges outside Gazelle. Moreover, through the Learning Futures programme we are delivering for the Education and Training Foundation, we aim to make a lasting impact on awareness and use of learning technologies in the sector, from procurement through to teaching.

Above all, the greatest challenge colleges face is how to survive and prosper at a time when public funding is being cut with unprecedented speed. That has meant a very urgent need for colleges to recast themselves as wealth creators, and to understand their economic role within the communities they serve. Raising awareness of this imperative and giving colleges the tools to cope with this change is something we are extremely focused on, both within and outside Gazelle.

Q&A Fintan Donohue OBE Chief Executive, Gazelle

GAZELLE IS HELPING SECURE THE SURVIVAL AND GROWTH OF A HARD-PRESSED SECTOR

How do you rate the progress of Gazelle to date?

Gazelle has comea long way in what is a relatively short time since its foundation. Our mission remains the same today as it was when I was one of five college Principals who founded the group in 2012. What we believed then was that the sector required fundamental transformation to cope with the pace of change in the wider economy, and that the traditional teaching and learning models cannot give students the range of skills and experience they need to thrive in today’s employment landscape.

That belief has not changed and we are pleased that Gazelle has played an important part in developing a wider realisation within the sector of how far we have to go to both survive as institutions and to cater to the vastly changed needs of our learners.

The credibility of our convictions has been supported by the creation of partnerships with organisations as significant and diverse as Pearson, the Kauffman Foundation and Babson College, while we continue to enjoy the support of a broad spread of leading UK entrepreneurs and business leaders.

Above all, we have created frameworks which can deliver on our mission of a further education system that gives young people opportunities to gain business experience, commercial nous and the confidence, determination and ambition to succeed and live out their ambitions. Over 3,500 students have now participated in one of our social enterprise competitions, and the pages ahead demonstrate the huge impact that entrepreneurial opportunities can have on the lives of young people, and the self-belief they can inspire.

We still have a long way to go to achieve our aim of developing a recognisable group of entrepreneurial colleges in the UK and further afield. But every student, teacher and indeed principal who has had their eyes opened to their entrepreneurial capability represents a step in the right direction.

How do you respond to the recent criticism of the value Gazelle has delivered?

Some of the criticism has been fair, particularly around the need to forensically evaluate and substantively communicate our impact for the sector as a whole, and to explain how public money has been utilised.

But we refute very strongly the accusation that Gazelle has overseen any wastage or misuse of these funds. The five founder Gazelle colleges that first committed to research, development and student led activity around enterprise earmarked approximately £200K per annum of their £40 million average annual budget to create a better outcome for their students. This was, in most instances, money that the colleges would have expended in any case on training, curriculum development, student enrichment and employer engagement over the three-year period, exactly what Gazelle has sought to deliver with added value.

By combining an element of their committed resource they sought to derive economies of scale. The boards of corporation have all stated that they derived benefit from the approach and are pleased that the founder phase created a larger Gazelle Colleges Group, which is now taking the agenda forward.

Subsequently, the 20 plus Gazelle member colleges earmarked approximately £40K of their average £30 million expenditure per college per annum to focus on the collective advancement of enterprise and entrepreneurship to benefit their students. That is, £1 in every £750 of college expenditure. Colleges make investment decisions of this nature regularly and without question, and what we have faced is a situation where the judgment of experienced principals and boards around value is being questioning by those wholly divorced from the process.

Indeed, despite attempts by some to define Gazelle as an organisation separate from its colleges, somehow accumulating an independent profit, we are an organisation that was created by its colleges and remains almost wholly owned by the colleges with Pearson UK the only non-college investing shareholder.

When Gazelle was first formed there was no significant interest, research or engagement with the world of entrepreneurship and enterprise. There was no visible network of social or commercial entrepreneurs engaged with our sector.

The LSIS sponsored research into entrepreneurship as a strategic diver for change clearly demonstrated this. Now Gazelle, having successfully partnered with The Association of Colleges, 157 Group, BIS, CBI, UKCES, employers and influential entrepreneurs to deliver research and very well received events, has contributed real momentum to a necessary debate around the nature of sector leadership, the design of future curriculum, the student experience and the role of enterprise and entrepreneurship in further education.

In bringing world class deliverers into a dialogue with college leaders on how to build more dynamic entrepreneurial capacity into their organisations we are, I believe, helping to secure the survival and growth of our hard pressed college sector. What else was out there for our leaders over the last two years by way of leadership development?

This short newspaper provides a flavour of that reality and it shows through the students, tutors, leaders and organisations featured just how far we have come in building connections and in creating opportunity. Innovation, networking, student activity, training and learning delivery all come at a cost. In the three-year period since Gazelle’s formation the five founder colleges will have expended approximately £500 million and the wider college group over £1.5bn across their entire budgetary spend.

The Gazelle investment is a tiny part of that and one which those who stay with us consider to be excellent value for money. Colleges will leave and join Gazelle depending on the level of commitment they can make to its agenda and the changing priorities that they have to consider annually. I expect that to be the case and respect the judgments that each college makes.

What will never change is our motivation to strengthen our colleges, to secure the future for our workforce and to continue delivering better opportunity for our students and communities.

What will never change is our motivation to secure the future of our workforce and deliver better opportunities for our students and communities

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INTERVIEW

Cathy Walsh OBE Principal and CEO Barking & Dagenham College

EAT UP! Devour, a student-led social enterprise at City College Norwich, has achieved a key milestone by providing more than 1,000 hours of paid work experience for hospitality and catering students during the past year.

The Devour business was the brainchild of 23-year old Sam Brown, a Foundation Degree Culinary Arts student from Norwich, who is also employed by the College as Operations Supervisor within its Hotel School.

Its mission is to be a sustainable catering company whose primary aim is to provide extra paid work experience opportunities for students at City College Norwich.

During its first full year of operation, Devour has provided a total of 1,036 hours of paid work experience to students and has paid out £7,480 in wages to its team of 75 student staff.

James Neal, 17, from Mundford, who has been employed with Devour since February, said: “Devour is a really enjoyable place to work. It’s great being part of a hardworking team, and the experience is really good for your CV.”

NEW ENTREPRENEURS GIVE SUPPORT TO GAZELLE Three leading UK entrepreneurs have joined forces with Gazelle to lend their support to the work and ambitions of the group.

Iconic fashion designer Wayne Hemingway MBE, founder of Red or Dead, is joined by nails inc founder Thea Green, who launched the hugely successful high street nail bar brand in 1999 and serial technology entrepreneur Martin Leuw.

They join the Gazelle Entrepreneurs group that includes founders who range from former Pizza Express owner Luke Johnson to King of Shaves founder Will King, and Unruly founder and COO Sarah Wood.

Commenting on the support of the new entrepreneurs, Gazelle CEO Fintan Donohue OBE said: “Entrepreneurs have played a vital role in the journey of Gazelle since our creation, and we are privileged to benefit from the insight, creativity and support of both new and longstanding Gazelle entrepreneurs.”

GAZELLE AND MICROSOFT ENCOURAGE COLLEGES TO GET SMART Gazelle has partnered with Microsoft to produce a report that lays out a bold vision for the future of technology within further education.

Entitled Further Education Reimagined, the report highlighted the significant changes that have occurred in how learners access information, and the growing preference for video content, social network and gamification.

Referencing research that shows children as young as 8 can learn effectively without tutor support, the report argued that the nature of teaching is likely towards a ‘learning coach’ role, with tutors supporting students in directing their own learning.

Launched at the Gazelle Transforming Leadership and Governance Conference, the report calls for a widespread debate within further education to ensure that the potential of technology to effect change and create new opportunities for students is maximised.

Dave Coplin, chief envisioning officer of Microsoft UK collaborated with Gazelle on producing the report. He commented: “The world of work is rapidly changing and as such, new skills-sets continue to emerge to support the jobs of the future. We have a big role to play alongside the education community, in order to prepare and equip young people with the right learning environments and skills that will inspire and prepare them as they go into their world of work.” Download via: http://bit.ly/1o10lfM

VIEW FROM THE TOP Finding success in the crowded London is market is no simple task for any company, let alone one of the capital’s 50-plus FE colleges. Yet at Barking & Dagenham College, Principal and CEO Cathy Walsh OBE has unlocked the secrets to success.

“We’ve grown from £28m revenue to £34m in six years, in a climate where our public funding has reduced by more than £6m. We have also grown our student base, and put ourselves in pole position to be an innovative, creative and entrepreneurial college.

“Six years ago my College was around 96% dependent on public funding, and today we have brought that down to 78%. We have achieved that through values that drive our behaviour, namely creativity, innovation, entrepreneurialism and risk-taking.”

Cathy credits an entrepreneurial ethos and a focus on students and customers first as the key drivers behind improved financial performance and learning outcomes.

“We are not a truly entrepreneurial college yet, but we are on that journey and we have made a great start.

“Because entrepreneurship takes you on a journey where you don’t always know the outcome, I don’t like to set targets against it. I’d rather judge impact on student, parent and business feedback. But when we are less than 50% dependent on public funding I will feel confident in saying that we are an entrepreneurial college.”

Much of the impetus behind Barking & Dagenham’s growth has come from opportunities that have been afforded by its membership of the Gazelle Colleges Group, Cathy says.

“Being part of Gazelle has provided both myself as CEO, and many different members of the staff, with developmental learning experiences and the opportunity to work with, and learn from, likeminded people in other colleges; and from the Gazelle entrepreneurs, many of whom have come to our college. They have inspired the students and our staff also draw a lot on their experiences and advice.”

“Going to Babson College [on the Gazelle Entrepreneurial Leadership Programme] and being trained in Entrepreneurial Thought and Action, going to Gazelle gatherings and training sessions have helped us introduce rigour and discipline into our thinking. The concept running through all of it is action and how you obtain tangible outcomes.”

“Being part of Gazelle has offered to teachers, the senior team, students and governors alike a framework that is about learning and putting that learning into action. I’ve learnt a lot from American colleagues and some of the more entrepreneurial Community College Principals, who we met through Babson.

“Fintan [Donohue, Gazelle CEO] has worked tirelessly to create opportunities to expose UK Gazelle college leaders to the people and thinking driving forward the agenda in the US.” The sharing of knowledge and expertise is another core part of the Gazelle benefit, Cathy suggests. “It provides a great opportunity to collaborate and cooperate, that wasn’t previously in existence in the FE sector, which is extremely competitive.”

“It’s great coming together as Gazelle Colleges.

There are many aspects of common experience we can mutually share. For instance I’m working with Preston’s College on their thinking about taking STEM forward across the curriculum; with North Hertfordshire College around the Learning Companies concept; and with Highbury College around applying Design Thinking and self organised learning environments (SOLE).

For students in particular, the entrepreneurial opportunities have been transformational, the Barking & Dagenham College Principal reflects. “I know for a fact that students are coming to us from other colleges because of the experience they will get with us. When they come to us, it’s not just about leaving with a qualification, but with a whole range of experiences. We open up their minds to the potential they have to create their own futures.

“Students are hungry for new experiences and in many cases are very enterprising already. Gazelle membership has enabled us to create the right climate and culture [how we do things], that enables learners to tap into their own potential. It’s about learning how to be more enterprising, how to step up and run your own business, and in particular how to be more confident and creative to take ideas forward.

“A big thing we share at the beginning of each year with students is that it’s important to fail. We cite the Gazelle entrepreneurs who talk about failure in their own experience. We use our own students’ success stories to inspire others, to show how the world is their oyster at Barking & Dagenham as a Gazelle college.

We want to work with them to create their futures and our best advocates for recruitment are our own students.

We’ve got a huge digital billboard at Westfield Stratford City as part of our recruitment campaign, which proudly shows our Gazelle status as BDC – building dynamic careers!”

We use our own students’ success stories to inspire others, to show how the world is their oyster…

FEATURES

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MY GAZELLE

We never thought we had a serious chance of making it to New York

TALKING BUSINESS

EMBRACING THE POWER OF TWO Edwina Dunn Founder of dunnhumby and Gazelle entrepreneur

The Market Maker experience gave one Cardiff and Vale College student the confidence to start her own company.

For Emma Nicolau, a recent graduate from Cardiff and Vale College, being part of the victorious Market Maker Experience team in 2013 was the stepping stone that transformed her from working for someone else to establishing her own business.

According to Emma, the competition “opened my eyes to what is required to start a business and gave me the experience needed to go it alone.” Emma had previously worked as a hairdresser in Cardiff after completing an apprenticeship. Taking part in the Gazelle-organised Market Maker competition gave her the experience and confidence to go it alone, “pushing me into applying for funding to start up a small business on my own and giving me a good idea of business plans and setting up and managing accounts.”

Emma was at the head of one of 369 student teams from across the country that participated in the 2013 Market Maker Experience, developing business ideas and products to sell on a virtual online marketplace.

Emma remarked that “I simply wouldn’t be where I am today, starting my own business, without the Market Maker competition. It has given me so much confidence, and I’m now happy to sell myself and my business to clients and investors”. Her experiences gave her invaluable insight into the huge amount of legwork, planning and preparation needed to succeed; all the things that “you would never ever think of unless you’d already done it yourself”.

Emma particularly stressed the beneficial impact of gaining experience of negotiating with suppliers, liaising

2,285 with clients and managing and extending a professional network, skills which have stood her in good stead when striking out on her own. “Just by doing this competition I’ve found it so much easier – my eyes are wide open to who I should be speaking to and what I should be doing to meet the right people.”

ChamelioNails being unveiled as the winning team by then Minister of State for Business and Enterprise Michael Fallon MP, and a trip to New York to pitch for investment, were particular highlights of the competition.

When Emma and the rest of the ChamelioNails team first sat down to brainstorm ideas for a business, not even in her wildest dreams could the competition have led her to New York, yet in June the team took a trip to The City University of New York to sit in on pitches being made by students there and learn about their ‘Incubator’ start-up boot camp. “None of us believed that [the trip to New York] was going to happen, we didn’t think we seriously stood a chance of being flown over there.”

What most helped Emma in preparing her for the future was the hands-on experience that the competition gave her of “working in the real world.” The tutors at Cardiff and Vale College played a crucial role in this regard, with Emma pointing out that the most important contribution that the tutors made was “giving us an initial push and making us see that it was real, not just a competition, so that it is how we looked at it.”

From putting together a business plan and managing accounts to ‘soft skills’ such as leadership, team-work, liaising with suppliers and pitching to investors the whole process was hugely beneficial. Emma found that as the

Students have participated in the Market Maker experience to date other girls on her team were younger than her “they looked up to me, so I learnt how to direct and manage people”, putting her into a leadership position and greatly magnifying the impact of the competition on her personal development.

That isn’t to say that there weren’t challenges to overcome along the way. A team with no commercial experience coming up with a viable idea and business plan is an achievement in itself, before you factor in pitching for investment. From Emma’s perspective, sitting down as a group of people and coming up with an idea that they could go forward with, and the strategy by which this could be achieved, was a huge challenge given that “none of us had ever done anything like that before.”

However, she found that making a prototype was the most difficult aspect of the competition, an experience that forced her to “think outside the box, be proactive and solve problems.” In this respect, Emma’s tutors and the whole College acted as a great source of support and advice, with “anyone who could help coming in and doing so.” Staff members gave up their time to advise the team and facilities were made available to help the team get their idea off the ground, and the team “felt very supported, with everyone behind us from day one.”

Gazelle works with a range of leading UK entrepreneurs who offer their business expertise to help member colleges adjust and prepare for the current funding environment. With over half of the Gazelle Colleges Group now developing international interests, dunnhumby and Tesco Clubcard founder Edwina Dunn spoke to the principals at their summer meeting to share her experiences of building a global brand.

At dunnhumby, we used data in order to provide insights into a company’s customers, most famously in the case of the Tesco Clubcard. Our work was always about making the customer a central priority for companies and we were once told by the Tesco chairman Lord MacLaurin that, “you know more about my customers after three months than I know after 30 years”. Tesco doubled its market share after just 18 months with the introduction of Clubcard and the insight and targeting we pioneered.

As well as working with retailers and the top 100 global brands, we were busy building our own and expanding into international markets. That global expansion was in many ways founded on the power of people. dunnhumby was born from the kitchen table of our family home, and as we grew we never lost sight of those early days and the capacity for a partnership to do great things.

In particular, what facilitated our growth was a people philosophy, The Power of Two, which is about helping people with complementary skills join forces to solve big problems by capitalising on their strengths.

What my husband and co-founder Clive and I learned was that you are better playing to, and matching up, people’s skills than focusing on what they cannot do. It is this that can make a team of two much more than the sum of its parts.

No one is perfect, and in fact you don’t need someone to be good at everything, you play to your strengths (Strengthsfinder helps identify your top 5 Strengths) because the key to management and leadership is working out how people can complement, support and most of all push each other on to greater heights.

As we grew and developed our operations overseas in the US, Mexico, India and other markets around the world, dunnhumby arrived in teams of two. My experience has made me certain that two is the best number for achieving optimum performance.

Two people, who share a vision and join forces towards a common outcome, can spark each other off and spur one another on.

When you start building a team, there is a tendency for people to start hiding behind each other, even when they have a lot to offer. By focusing on the Power of Two, you ensure people do not retreat into their comfort zones; what’s more, pairs are more courageous, creative and productive than solo fighters. And they are more agile and effective than a squadron.

A two-strong team is lithe, limber and fast and, when the right individuals are paired up, a much greater force than its size would suggest.

When colleagues with complementary skill sets and personal strengths stand shoulder-to-shoulder, they benefit from enhanced perspective and the broadest choice of approaches. Difficulties that can appear overwhelming to one person become manageable to two.

After meeting the Gazelle Principals earlier this year I know that there is so much more to come from the group; and as is the case in any enterprise, growth, innovation and progress will come from the people that drive the network forward, seek out new opportunities and make things happen.

My advice would be to have the confidence to try new ideas and find a partner to accompany you on the journey: someone who respects your strengths and mitigates your weaknesses. As we found at dunnhumby, there is almost no telling how far the Power of Two can take you.

The Gazelle Entrepreneurs Edwina Dunn is one of a broad-ranging group of entrepreneurs who work with Gazelle principals and students to impart their commercial experience and develop the group’s thinking around enterprise.

They include: Ruth Amos, founder, StairSteady Rajeeb Dey, founder, Enternships Thea Green, founder, nails inc Sahar Hashemi, co-founder, Coffee Republic Wayne Hemingway, founder, Hemingway Design Luke Johnson, owner, Patisserie Valerie Emma Jones, founder, Enterprise Nation Charlotte Knight, founder, G’NOSH Priya Lakhani, founder, SOCO Martin Leuw, chairman, Clearswift Lara Morgan, founder, Company Shortcuts Penny Power, founder, Digital Youth Academy Ben Ramsden, founder, Pants to Poverty Doug Richard, founder, School for Startups Russ Shaw, founder, Tech London Advocates Claire Young, founder, School Speakers Hundreds of students across the Gazelle Colleges Group have benefited from the advice and inspiration of Gazelle entrepreneurs, with events across the country at national roadshows led by Doug Richard and Ariadne Capital founder Julie Meyer.

Edwina is also founder of the What I See Project, a global initiative to explore female identity and encourage aspiration. She will be visiting some Gazelle Colleges this autumn to talk about the project and how young women can approach careers in business and pursue their ambitions

STUDENT IMPACT

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THE FUTURE OF LEARNING The skills shortage that UK companies face is no secret; just last month, research from the Prince’s Trust found that three quarters of British businesses surveyed had concerns over the suitability of school and college leavers for the workplace.

For the past two years, the Gazelle Colleges Group has been leading the way in developing new curriculum models that address exactly this point: the breath of skills and experience needed to succeed after graduation.

Specifically, a number of colleges have been working to develop the Learning Company concept, one where students work in an actual or replicated business environment as they study.

“We didn’t want just to be a qualifications factory and we have the aspiration that our students are appropriately prepared for the commercial world.” says Gordon Barr, Vice Principal at North Hertfordshire College, where a Learning Company gym franchise has been operating for the past two academic years.

The idea was born in the midst of recession: “Initially the idea was that if the employers won’t employ our students, why can’t we as a college create job opportunities for them?”

The Fit4Less Learning Company at North Hertfordshire College is currently providing training and paid employment for 10 students, studying a combination of Level 2, Level 3 and Level 4 qualifications.

“Students participate in classroom based activities to learn the qualification content, then they will have a further eight hours of skills development time working with the public (members), and another 15 hours of paid work,” Gordon says.

“It’s a proper immersion in the world of work. They undertake all aspects of the jobs within the company, It’s not just a 9 to 5; there is shift work, they could be opening up at 6am or closing up at 10pm. They do all the health and safety checks, membership logging, cashing up, banking, inductions and fitness training.”

The Learning Company allows students to go much further than traditional qualifications, Gordon says. “In terms of the curriculum, we could see that the fitness qualifications we delivered were too academic: focused on the physiology, but not any of the commercial KPIs around what it takes to run a successful fitness business.“ The result is a more rounded experience, greater commercial awareness and significantly enhanced employment prospects. “The students’ ability to pick up a job within the industry has improved, their chances are much greater when they can talk about having practically applied their skills, unlike someone who has only learned the theory in a technical qualification.”

Gordon also suggests that, “through Learning Companies, students will learn three to four times more quickly than their peers who study in the traditional way. The golden nugget for us is the speed at which the students learn.”

And Learning Companies are not just having a beneficial effect on students, but also the college as a whole. “Teaching and learning and the commercial awareness of what goes on in a particular industry have become detached from one another over the years, but having a curriculum model driven by commerciality is making a real difference,” Gordon says.

The model has also provided important benefits to the college and boosted relationships with employers. “Currently, we’re working with a local high-street beautician on developing a joint venture. They found it a really refreshing way to work with their local college as employers and not just trying to sell them qualifications.”

What for North Hertfordshire College began as a pilot is now ready to be rolled out across the college: “The profit we make from the gym is being invested in new Learning Companies. We will have seven to eight ready for this academic year,” Gordon says, with the eventual idea being that supporting services from catering to communications will be converted into Learning Companies.

The long-term ambition is that every student in the college will have the opportunity to work as part of a Learning Company. “It’s getting to the point where there will be a Learning Company in every curriculum area and every student will be able to access one either through work experience or project-based learning, if not full time .”

He credits the sharing of knowledge and experience with fellow Gazelle colleges as a critical part of the concept development. “It’s been really helpful that we joined together and shared good practice, what works well and how we could do better. It was nice not just being alone testing the model, but one of a number of leads across a handful of colleges.”

And what has begun within Gazelle could grow to become a defining feature of the sector in the years to come. “In the future, Learning Companies will become something that is seen not just as an innovation within FE, but an integral part of it. All students will understand what a Learning Company is and not just in the UK. We are already seeing there is a big export market for it.” Indeed, Gazelle is now working with the Department for Education on potentially incorporating the Learning Company model into the key requirements for work experience in colleges.

When it comes to tackling the skills shortage, Gordon sees Learning Companies as the glue to bring colleges and employers together: “We hope they will become a talent pipeline for employers locally, regionally and nationally, so that rather than employers advertising, they will come to the college in the first instance.”

The golden nugget for us is the speed at which the students learn

TEACHER FOCUS

LORRAINE SUTHERLAND Lecturer Lorraine Sutherland has overseen the development of a flourishing media Learning Company at City College Norwich “The reason I really wanted to get involved with the Learning Company initiative is that we have a duty as people in education to ensure that the young people leaving us have a future and a skillset they can utilise.

“That’s where I feel most strongly about the Learning Company model. It allows young people to progress into work, Higher Education or set up on their own business, it raises aspirations and that’s the most important part.

“We started in the first year as Creative Toast and then rebranded as Zanas Media. It’s been far more ambitious second time around and we really upped the ante. Within the first four weeks we were working on our own TV show. It was quite pressurised however the students get a lot out of it.

“Three students who finished this July have already set up their own businesses, one videography company, one design agency and a digital company. In fact, I have just met with one of the students and he has set-up two companies!

“The primary thing the students all say in their feedback is that they gain so much from the real world context and having to work to real deadlines. As soon as you’re dealing with a client, that changes everything and it changes their attitude.

That’s invaluable.”

“The students grow enormously. Often they come in and have still got a bit of a school mentality, but that quickly gets left behind. The experience has a huge impact on their direct media-based skills, but most importantly on their softer skills such as; leadership, team management skills, adaptability.

These are the skills that can make someone employable.

“It is really inspiring and it mimics industry, but we are not running as a business and don’t have a legal status. We mimic and replicate the practices of a business, but it is not a business. Rather it teaches business skills.

“Eventually I’d like to run it as a business and to retain some of the students after they graduate to work with us. They always come back: last year when we made the live TV show, the previous cohort came and helped. It’s a kind of community and you share a vocabulary of best practice.”

“We aspire to become a fully running businesses but it has to work with what the students are learning. It’s not about turnover, it’s about learning and student development.”

STUDENT IMPACT

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This competition has helped give students valuable experience and confidence about what they can achieve.

Michael Fallon MP Then Minister for Business

1,447 Students have participated in PantrepreneurSHIP challenge since 2012

BOTTOMS UP! A Gazelle competition to market and sell ethically-sourced pants is inspiring a new generation of college entrepreneurs.

“As soon as we won I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face, I felt anything was possible. I had never won anything that big in my life.” So says Steven Upton, 19, a member of A Pants Company, the five-strong team from Barking & Dagenham College who won the Pantrepreneur Challenge 2014.

Steven is one of 3,732 learners who have participated in two major social enterprise competitions created by Gazelle since 2012. Pantrepreneur has run for three successive years, with student teams from across the country forming to brand, market and sell ethically sourced underwear, in collaboration with social enterprise Pants to Poverty.

A Pants Company beat off stiff competition from the other four finalist teams, selling £4,000 worth of stock and impressing the judging panel with the quality of their presentation.

The concept behind Pantrepreneur may be a light-hearted one, but the purpose behind it strikes at the heart of what Gazelle is seeking to achieve for colleges and learners across the UK: to create opportunities for young people to try out entrepreneurship and gain business skills, experience and confidence that will set them up for careers in a fast-changing economy.

“There’s a big drive and passion in running your own business,” says Steven, who is studying for a BTEC in Games Design & Animation. “We worked so hard to succeed and that’s what I loved about it. We got a team together, settled on a name, we found out what worked well and how to work together.”

A big part of the experience, he says, was learning to cope with and overcome difficulties. “It was very challenging selling the product. We had to stock-take, get out there and really find anywhere we could to start selling. We approached a lot of people, had to explain the concept to them and the cause behind it, and obviously some were easier to convince than others.”

“The rejection does get you down a little bit sometimes, but we learned to push past that. When we were making sales we thought we were behind our target but it turned out we weren’t. That taught me a lot about achieving something you feel like you can’t: pushing ourselves, getting a bit stressed about it. It was really good for me.”

The result of the Pantrepreneur experience, Steven says, has been to inspire a much greater interest in pursuing a career in business. “Now I’m doing another competition with a couple of the others from the team. We feel confident enough to do that with the skills we picked up along the way.

“We’re also starting up a business while staying at Barking & Dagenham College. Our idea is about digitising the business card. In the long run some of the others want to start up their own entertainment company. There is so much you can do when your eyes are opened to it and so many places you can go.”

Adnan Mahmood, tutor and chief entrepreneurial lead at the College, who coached and taught A Pants Company, agrees that the experience has been transformational for his students, including Steven. “There were so many highlights: seeing all the business plans flourish, all the events we held. Seeing the students grow and get to where they are now. It’s made a tremendous difference for them.

“There’s been great support from the College from Cathy Walsh OBE, our principal and CEO and throughout the whole organisation: the team got a chance to showcase their work to our Governors and Strategic Leadership Team as part of the internal judging panel.”

In particular, Adnan says, Pantrepreneur allowed the development of capabilities that cannot be easily taught in a classroom. “It was greatly beneficial in terms of soft skills: presentation, communications, team work and the techniques needed to sell.”

Another core component of Gazelle’s programme to create student opportunities in entrepreneurship has been the Market Maker Experience.

This competition gives learners the opportunity to develop their own unique technology-driven business ideas. Businesses in last year’s competition ranged from a customised nail polish provider to a car safety enterprise and a boutique chocolate maker.

The businesses are mentored by experts from the Institute of Directors, and get the chance to sell their products on the Market Maker platform, a virtual commercial and financial environment that simulates a real market economy.

The Market Maker Experience 2013 final was hosted at the Institute of Directors and attended by then Minister for Business Michael Fallon MP, who commented: “It is important to nurture the aspirations of budding entrepreneurs. Their business ideas, drive and ambition are vital to the future strength of our economy. This competition has helped give students valuable experience and confidence about what they can achieve.”

With thousands of students already given new opportunities and experiences in just two years, Gazelle’s social enterprise ambitions are taking root and helping create a new culture of confidence and self-reliance within student communities across the country.

FROM COTTON TO BOTTOM Participants in Gazelle social enterprise competitions don’t just get the chance to hone their commercial nous and skills. Those who succeed in winning the competitions are offered life-changing experiences that have included trips to India and New York, to pitch for business investment.

The Pantrepreneurship Challenge winners accompany Pants to Poverty founder Ben Ramsden to India, where they visit and work alongside local farmers who are harvesting the ethically-sourced cotton that is used in the pants they sell, getting a first-hand understanding of how the cotton farmes live and work.

“As part of our trip we were able to visit the cotton-picking villages in Odisha and the cotton processing factories in Tirrupur, to experience the whole production process,” 2012 winner Shaun Welch remembers.

“The foundation of our education at a Gazelle college and the nature of this competition are entrepreneurially based yet I was struck by how many similarities in entrepreneurial spirit I could share with the farmers and factory workers in India.

“The children that we met in the village schools and their families were so diligent and determined to work hard, their spirit and drive was comparable to the determination most would associate with entrepreneurs in the West. Yet at the same time they displayed more hospitality than I had ever received. They had so little yet were eager to share it all with me. We were thrown a welcome party everywhere we went even though many had little to give, and despite the language barrier I feel that we all connected with the people we met.

“Meeting people who have nothing yet were prepared to give everything made me determined to do better in my own life when I have so much to hand and it has made me appreciate everything.”

TUTORS & LEADERS

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55 Gazelle leaders and managers trained as certified Design Thinkers

THINKING DIFFERENT The Design Thinker courses provided by Gazelle are changing the way colleges develop and deliver new ideas.

How do you come up with solutions to the same old problems? It’s the question that troubles organisations large and small.

According to Jerry White, Deputy Principal at City College Norwich, the key is to unlock latent creativity. The college has been piloting a scheme where curriculum teams are challenged to come up with one entirely novel idea about how to deliver their course.

“It’s very important to give staff permission to come up with ideas and be creative,” Jerry says. “It’s about allowing people to have really crazy ideas and go off the scale, even if you then step back from that in the final implementation.

And those weird, wacky ideas are often the most inspiring and engaging ones.”

Jerry has been one of the leading proponents within the Gazelle Colleges Group of design thinking: a unique methodology designed to instill creativity and help leaders and managers approach problems from new angles and which is now being developed to improve teaching and the way colleges work with small companies.

“It provides a framework series of steps on how we are going to tackle a problem with a fresh pair of eyes: generating some innovative thoughts and then narrowing down on what’s most achievable and easily tested out.

“It’s not some magic dark art,” Jerry says, “but what it does give you is a really great framework and a great set of tools with which to really look at problems in a way that does lead you to innovative solutions rather than same old answers.”

A two-day intensive programme, Design Thinker training is provided by Gazelle in association with awardwinning training provider ExperiencePoint. So far dozens of principals and managers from Gazelle colleges have undertaken the training to become certified Design Thinker Leaders.

“Everyone can be creative, but sometimes we need the tools to unlock that capacity,” says Lesley Donoghue, principal of Reading College. “Design Thinking provides a framework that gives us the confidence to think and act innovatively.”

According to Jerry, a significant benefit has been to streamline the creative and decision-making process amongst the senior team. “I’ve often been in situations where you have a problem and people try to brainstorm the answers before they have properly observed what the issue is. You can then find yourself a long way down the road before you have properly defined the issue at hand.

“Observation is extremely powerful and the first challenge is to understand what is really going on, not just what managers assume to be the case, which is an easy trap to fall into.

“One issue might be that not every student we invite turns up for interview. You could blame the process — are the letters going to the right place — or numbers, but have you actually gone out and asked the students what they think?”

“It’s about not rushing for solutions but spending a bit of time discovering where the problem really lies. For college managers it’s about getting back to the shop floor, finding out first hand what’s going on, and not jumping to solutions.”

Another important learning has been in how creative thinking is undertaken. “Design Thinker structures your approach to brainstorming ideas in a very particular way.

It’s a technique that requires preparation and a particular way of running those sessions. It’s not just a case of getting out a flipchart and throwing ideas around the room.

“What the Design Thinker course did is give us five or six guidelines about how to structure a brainstorming session, and it’s enhanced the way we engage and come up with creative ideas.”

In implementation, the emphasis is on delivery and what can be done today and not tomorrow, he says. “About four or five of the ideas from curriculum teams have been taken forward and our focus has been on very quick and dirty prototyping of ideas. We don’t spend six months developing the perfect pilot. It’s much better doing something quick for 20 students over five weeks and then you can get instant feedback and improve based on the experience. It’s low cost and low risk for students, staff and the college.”

“It allows us to be quick and swift in how we implement ideas. It’s about getting on, getting stuff done, low cost ways of testing out new principles. In other words, about being entrepreneurial.”

PUTTING COLLEGE LEADERS BACK IN THE CLASSROOM A leadership programme in partnership with a leading US business school is helping Gazelle principals realise the blueprint for entrepreneurial colleges.

85 Gazelle college leaders completed entrepreneurial leadership programme

Since late 2012, Gazelle has been partnering with Babson College, America’s leading provider of entrepreneurial learning, to deliver a unique and influential Leadership Programme for principals and senior leaders from across the Gazelle Colleges Group.

The Leadership Programme is a core foundation of the Gazelle ambition to build a recognisable cluster of entrepreneurial colleges. It responds to the challenges posed by the increasingly complex and fast-moving global economy, equipping leaders with the awareness and techniques for embedding entrepreneurship at the heart of their colleges to respond to this changing world.

The programme works with leaders on how they can create a new type of college with a curriculum that blurs the edges of learning and transforms the way in which colleges are led and managed. Utilising Babson’s Entrepreneurial Thought and Action® methodology, it identifies ways in which leaders can solve problems and create the conditions for innovation within their colleges.

The result is a human-centred, action-based programme for college leaders and managers, to inspire innovation in the service of educational, economic and social value in the further education sector.

“I was really impressed by the fact [the programme] is based on science; it’s based on research, so it’s not

It’s about helping individuals and departments at all levels of the college to be more innovative in their day-to-day work.

just some idea some consultant is selling. It’s based on evidence that it works and that’s so powerful,” is the view of Dr. Mary McIvor, director of further education at the Northern Ireland Department for Employment and Learning.

Over 70 leaders from the Gazelle Colleges Group have now participated in introductory Gateway Modules of the Leadership Programme, and many principals credit its influence on changing the way they think about managing change within their colleges.

“We formed the basis of an action plan to take to the board in just three days,” says Preston’s College principal and chief executive Lis Smith. “The three days provided a perfect time for uninterrupted learning, reflection and, from it, real action which has been of real benefit.”

For Stella Mbubaegbu CBE, principal and CEO of Highbury College, the main benefit of the programme was the focus on delivering practical outcomes and moving from idea to realisation. “The programme focuses on practice and action,” she says. “It has concentrated our efforts on rapid experimentation, framing new opportunities and minimising risk.”

Activate Learning CEO Sally Dicketts CBE has also participated in the programme and praises its focus on creating a thoroughgoing culture of collaboration within colleges. “Departments are operating too much in isolation from each other and we need to connect the dots,” she argues. “They need to be brought together at all levels to connect skills and thinking across the organisation. Setting shared strategic goals that unite faculties and can be worked on collaboratively is one way of achieving this, and the Leadership Programme was extremely helpful in identifying how this could be achieved and delivered.”

South West College director and CEO Malachy McAleer believes that the Leadership Programme has helped his college franchise the entrepreneurial mindset beyond the senior leadership team. “It is not enough for senior managers to be on board with building an entrepreneurial college,” he says. “We must work to encourage it across the entire college and build a widespread culture of commercial awareness.

“It’s about helping individuals and departments at all levels of the college to be more innovative in their day-to-day work. Helping staff and students to take decision making responsibility and set their own targets is one way you can help people to think and act more creatively.”

And with the support of Babson College, the business school with a reputation for nurturing some of America’s most innovative entrepreneurs, Gazelle College leaders are well on the way towards delivering on the vision of the entrepreneurial college.

TUTORS & LEADERS

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A PROBLEM SHARED IS A PROBLEM HALVED

NO ORDINARY SCIENCE LESSON

The STEM Centre model being adopted across the Gazelle Colleges Group is changing the face of science learning.

Not everyone has fond memories of school science lessons. But with a little inspiration from CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Gazelle Colleges are seeking to make arid science lessons a thing of the past.

Enter the Gazelle STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) Centre. Pioneered by South West College in Northern Ireland, STEM Centres bring together the teaching of science, technology, engineering and maths into interactive applied learning scenarios. Students learn through themed activities, including those based on forensic drama CSI, learning the skills and processes behind crime scene analysis, fingerprint testing, and creating e-fits of suspects.

In autumn 2013, two more Gazelle Colleges opened STEM Centres: North Hertfordshire College and Barking & Dagenham College, building on the work of South West College and developing and utilising a model that is becoming an active blueprint for the entire Gazelle Colleges Group.

“We were impressed with how South West College had really stripped away the perception around science and STEM and how they were using a tech infrastructure,” Barking & Dagenham College Principal and CEO Cathy Walsh OBE says.

“There is a perception in schools, colleges and universities that STEM and science is about lab coated technicians, and people who communicate better with computers than people. What I really liked about the STEM Centre approach is how it encourages young people to engage in activities that bring these subjects to life, from primary school upward.

The Centre has allowed the College to deepen links with its local schools and business communities.

“One year down the line we have had hundreds of primary school children and teachers coming through the STEM Centre learning experience. It has helped them take back into their classrooms and schools new ideas about modernising the delivery of STEM learning.”

“We’ve run a Coding Club, open to the public, where the youngest person taking part is 9 and the oldest is 59. That is the result of our students taking part in a coding competition through Gazelle, a great opportunity we would not have had without Gazelle. The students came back, shared their learning and used the STEM Centre as the base for the Club.”

“In addition, in partnership with Siemens we have developed a Mechatronica Academy for apprenticeships in the STEM Centre, with the employer fully engaged in working with the college, as a result of our innovative STEM work.”

At Preston’s College, plans for a STEM Centre have enabled the college to develop a partnership with a key local employer, BAE Systems. This encapsulates the college’s ambition to ensure that learners have the best possible opportunities to develop the skills most keenly sought after in the jobs market.

Chris Wood, Vice Principal, Excellence and Learning at the college, says it will enable the learners to “give employers what they want and look for when hiring.

Skills and attributes are the most important things employers look for, and through the STEM Centre we will replicate the real world skills that students need.”

“Innovation, enterprise thinking, tenacity and creativity are the skills that we want our learners to have. These are the skills that will see them shine above other candidates and enable them to bridge the gap to the shop floor, and it is through the STEM centre that we can achieve this.”

“The Centre will be utilised by all of the college’s students, from across the whole curriculum. “Our ‘One College’ culture will ensure that students from all areas will benefit from the Centre, which is at the heart of our mission to deliver the skills our students need to gain employment in a dynamic and complex world.”

For Signe Sutherland, principal and CEO at North Hertfordshire College, the STEM Centre has also been an important tool for developing employer relations.

“Stevenage is a very STEM-centric town, the space industry hub for the UK. There are satellites on the moon that were built here.

“But our young people’s aspirations were not to achieve jobs in these blue chip companies and the employers themselves have tended to think their role kicks in at graduate level. They hadn’t previously seen the college as a place they could recruit from, but when we spoke to them about the STEM Centre they thought it was a fantastic idea, and they have taken it very seriously. It has led to over 40 work experience placements for 14-year-olds.

What the STEM Centre has enabled North Hertfordshire to do is develop a distinctive reputation.

“It’s a space that allows all our curriculum areas to run competitions and knock-on events, we have done coding days in there and Raspberry Pi events. We’re getting a reputation as a regional centre for STEM, it’s seen as a space for staff development and CPD for schools.”

Above all, Cathy Walsh says, a facility like the Gazelle STEM Centre makes the college a more attractive proposition for a great many learners. “It can’t just be about transmitting information any more. Today people will simply go online. The STEM Centre is about providing added value: easy access to fabulous infrastructure and resources as well as social, economic and fun dimensions to learning.”

Working groups and collaborative forums are helping college staff share best practice across the Gazelle Colleges Group.

With 23 member colleges across the country, one of the intrinsic benefits the Gazelle Colleges Group offers is the potential for networking and collaboration.

“We work closely with our neighbouring colleges and schools in the Tees Valley, however this represented an opportunity to work with colleges across the country and we’ve continually benefited from this extra stimulus, comparing approaches and sharing good practice,” says Tom Metcalfe, project co-ordinator at Middlesbrough College.

He sits on Gazelle’s student and staff ambassador group, which brings together learners and tutors from across the group to connect with and learn from their peers.

One of a number of collaborative working groups orchestrated by Gazelle, this provides a forum to share and develop ideas from a student perspective and to help embed an entrepreneurial ethos across the college network.

“One of the key remits of the group is seeking consensus about the policy input we can make and bring to bear on a national level,” Tom says.

And for colleges at different stages of their development with Gazelle, the benefits can be significant in hearing the experiences of those who have been active members since the beginning.

THE WORKING GROUPS STAFF AND STUDENT AMBASSADORS Bringing together staff, teachers and managers from across the group to share best practice in teaching and learning.

“The meeting at Carlisle College was a very beneficial one and a half days,” says Munim Sikider, a student ambassador from City College Norwich.

“The best part was that I met other people who have the same vision as me. I met people my age or a couple years difference who have achieved so much.”

In the view of Claire Woodhams, head of student services at North Hertfordshire College, “It has been really valuable to share best practice amongst the colleges and to develop new ideas the meetings are truly thought provoking.”

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Chaired by Mike James, principal and CEO of Cardiff & Vale College, the business development

working group looks at an innovative mix of income generating activities: from consortium bidding opportunities to co-funded offerings and means of generating new commercial revenue.

It is carrying out research into issues such as the number of colleges that actively engage with the top 100 employers in their own area in order to access training budgets, and will be reporting on its findings in the autumn.

“The Gazelle Business Development Working Group provides a unique platform for our colleges to share ideas and create innovative solutions to the range of challenges we face,” says Wijay Pitumpe, vice principal at Barking & Dagenham College.

MARKETING A new group developed following the Gazelle Accelerator programme, which will meet for the first time in October 2014.

“We’re perhaps not as far down the path as the others, and it’s always useful to remember we’re on a journey and to meet others at these conferences who are in a similar position to us.

“Then some of the more established colleges have clearly got a lot of fantastic entrepreneurial activities in place and newer colleges to the group like ourselves can take back learnings from that.”

“For example, City College Norwich have accomplished a project, the Big Student Takeover, which we’re now looking to emulate ourselves. It’s examples like that where, as a group, you hear one particular college is doing something that would relate to your students. You can talk to their representatives and work out how it would apply in your own college. There’s a great desire for sharing which underpins the ethos of the group.

“If you can quickly identify particular projects and narrow down the individuals who are pushing forward on that specific agenda, you can wield a huge amount of learning and collaborative action.”

As well as the working groups, over the last year a dedicated training programme has been operated for college marketing and business development personnel.

The Gazelle Accelerator brought together experts from the worlds of communications, marketing, events, enterprise and networking, in a series of masterclass sessions.

Notable speakers included Will King, founder of King of Shaves; David Ball, founder of global events consultancy BrandFuel; Emma Sykes, director of communications at Ella’s Kitchen; Carole Stone, founder of polling agency YouGovStone; and Lucy West, head of news at ITV Granada.

“I was delighted to take part in the Gazelle Accelerator programme,” says Michael Jacobsen, producer of the stage production of Dirty Dancing and chairman of the Global Entrepreneurs Agency. “I am very passionate about entrepreneurship and the potential of young people and it was great to speak with those college staff who are delivering the Gazelle movement on the ground.

“I had some really thought provoking discussions at the masterclass and the programme felt like a really great opportunity for all of the colleges to come together, share ideas, hear advice and enhance their skills.”

GAZELLE FOCUS

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UNITING BUSINESS AND EDUCATION Gazelle brings together business and education leaders to identify solutions to the sector’s core challenges.

Some of the leading figures in British enterprise joined governors, principals and senior managers from across the sector at Gazelle’s second annual conference, themed Transforming Leadership and Governance.

Several hundred leaders from 54 colleges came together at the Department for Business to hear from experts and share ideas around creating new revenue streams, managing affordable risk within colleges, delivering innovation and transforming employment and selfemployment opportunities for students.

On the first of two days, delegates heard from business luminaries including Lord Bilimoria CBE, founder and chairman of Cobra Beer; John Cridland CBE, director-general of the CBI; Sir Rod Aldridge, founder of Capita; and Kate Robertson, co-global president of advertising group Havas.

They shared lessons from their own successful business careers and how the tenets of an entrepreneurial brand can

DIRECTOR-GENERAL, CBI

FOUNDER, CAPITA

JOHN CRIDLAND CBE

SIR ROD ALDRIDGE

For too long we’ve thought education and business are different. Actually what we need are dynamic partnerships; college principals need to identify where their business is going and find some partners in the community.

The ethos of Gazelle in what they’re trying to do with their colleges is very similar to what I think about entrepreneurship. It’s about the attributes of an entrepreneur: being passionate, being determined, being creative.

apply to colleges. “Companies that really succeed are driven by amazing leaders,” Lord Bilimoria commented. “That is infectious [and in a college environment] it goes right through to the students themselves. It’s that attitude that counts more than anything else.”

These speakers focused on the entrepreneurial imperative for education, and how an early experience of business can unlock the future talent on which UK companies depend.

Philippe Legrain, former economic adviser to the European Commission president, provided an international perspective on innovation in education and where the Gazelle model and ethos sits within the European framework.

Away from the main stage, a series of breakout sessions gave delegates the opportunity to share their ideas and experiences, around some of the major challenges facing colleges leaders at a time of diminishing public funding. Themes included commercial learning, employer engagement, relations with LEPs, securing new market opportunities, and managing affordable risk.

“There are new markets out there and as we are creating new opportunities for our students we ourselves need

CHIEF ENVISIONING OFFICER, MICROSOFT UK

DAVE COPLIN

Working with Gazelle has been a phenomenal experience for us.

to model that same mindset. Entrepreneurship is about practice and you can’t just teach it without also practicing it,” reflected Highbury College principal and CEO Stella Mbubaegbu CBE. The then Skills Minister, Matthew Hancock MP, also addressed delegates. “[We need] colleges that are innovative, that are self-confident, that have strong leadership and good governance. This is all about improving standards for learners,” he said.

The conference also marked the launch of two landmark reports co-authored by Gazelle with, respectively, Microsoft UK and Intel, and the 157 Group and UKCES. Further Education Reimagined highlighted the untapped role of technology in transforming teaching and learning, while A New Conversation: employer and college engagement added ideas from across the sector to the debate on how stronger relationships can be built between colleges and employers to tackle the skills shortage.

On the second day of the conference, there was a strong focus on the need to innovate teaching and learning in STEM subject areas. Delegates were joined by leading figures from the government’s Your Life campaign to raise participation in maths and science across the education

system, including chair Edwina Dunn, co-creator of the Tesco Clubcard; LinkedIn board member Sherry Coutu; and then education minister Elizabeth Truss MP. “If you study maths or physics it doesn’t mean you’re going to be in a lab coat,” Sherry Coutu told delegates. “It opens up and demystifies the myriad of fabulous careers you can have if you study those subjects.”

Delegates also had the opportunity to engage in an accelerated Design Thinker session, overseen by ExperiencePoint director Andrew Webster, to brainstorm and co-create new ideas and solutions.

“It never ceases to amaze me, some of the solutions that you come up with,” City College Norwich principal Corrienne Peasgood said. “Some of the things we talked about in terms of developing online science labs, I’m definitely going to take back [to my college] and get on with.”

Her positive experience was reflected by other attendees, including Karen Spencer, principal of Harlow College. “I came away from both days of the conference thoroughly inspired,” she said. “There was a lot of food for thought — specifically how we change education to meet the needs of industry.”

FOUNDER AND CHAIRMAN, COBRA BEER

LORD BILIMORIA CBE

To me as an entrepreneur, the concept of Gazelle colleges is music to my ears. Companies that really succeed are driven by amazing leaders and that is infectious. It goes right through to the students themselves.

GAZELLE FOCUS

www.thegazellegroup.com

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EVENTS CALENDAR

2014

Oct / Nov / Dec FEMALE ENTREPRENEURSHIP PROGRAMME Edwina Dunn, founder of the Tesco Club Card, is working with Gazelle to develop a number of events for young women who might be considering starting their own business. These events will focus on self-confidence and networking with like-minded women. Edwina’s ‘What I See’ project will be central to these events. http://whatiseeproject.com We will provide further information on these events shortly.

AUDIENCE

Students

OCT

OCT

NOV

Thu 02 & Fri 03

Wed 15

Mon 03

GAZELLE PRINCIPALS MEETING

GAZELLE T-SHAPED LEARNING WORKSHOP

MARKET MAKER

Gazelle principals will meet to discuss the strategic direction for the group in 2015.

AUDIENCE

Principals

Tue 07 & Wed 08 GAZELLE STAFF AND STUDENT AMBASSADORS MEETING This group of students and staff ambassadors will meet to continue work on embedding the Gazelle message in their colleges and sharing innovative ideas across the group.

VENUE

Barking & Dagenham College

AUDIENCE

Student and Staff Ambassadors

The aim of this workshop is to support teachers, learning coaches, assessors, learning company and other academic staff, across all subject areas, in developing an entrepreneurial teaching mindset.

The workshop will support delegates and provide a greater focus on destination outcomes along with the ongoing development and expansion of T-shaped student skills.

Specifically the workshop will support staff who do not come from an entrepreneurial background or are not sure how they can implement it within their sector areas.

AUDIENCE

Teaching Staff

Mon 13

Thu 16 & Fri 17

THE IDEA NOMINET DUKE OF YORK AWARD

MARKETING WORKING GROUP

Live pitch/winners event – end of the pilot.

Launch of the national programme iDEA 2014.

VENUE

Telefonica O2 Arena, London

Marketing Leads will work together to ensure that Gazelle messaging, branding and communication to all stakeholders is impact and value driven.

AUDIENCE

Marketing staff

Mon 13

Fri 17

THE EDGE CHALLENGE

TEACHING & LEARNING WORKING GROUP

Short listing

This curriculum focus group will meet to discuss progress with the development of teaching and learning products and services.

AUDIENCE

Heads of Curriculum

Selection of the team finalists.

AUDIENCE

Students

Mon 03 THE EDGE CHALLENGE Pitch presentations will take place during the week of 3 November 2014 at Edge’s office in London.

AUDIENCE

Students

2015 We are also planning a number of unique activities

Thu 13 – Sat 15 The Skills Show – NEC Birmingham Following the success of the GCG exhibition stand at the Skills Show in 2013 we are currently planning a range of student and staff-led activities which will showcase innovations and entrepreneurial teaching and learning from across the group.

AUDIENCE

Students and staff

Mon 17 – Sun 23 GLOBAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP WEEK AUDIENCE

Students

Mon 17 MARKET MAKER FINAL As previous years the final will be held during Global Entrepreneurship Week and teams will compete for the first prize of a trip to New York.

AUDIENCE

Students

Tue 18 – Thu 20 THE ASSOCIATION OF COLLEGES ANNUAL CONFERENCE AND EXHIBITION This annual conference sees colleges from across the UK showcase best practice across the sector.

AUDIENCE

Principals, Governors and Senior Teams

GUINNESS WORLD RECORD ATTEMPT: CODING Gazelle is currently in talks with Gazelle Tech Entrepreneurs to look at how we might bring thousands of students from across the UK together to write code for an app in a world record attempt!

BREAKTHROUGH FUTURE 50 Working with key supporters Gazelle will identify the most ambitious and dedicated students from across the Gazelle Colleges Group who demonstrate an entrepreneurial attitude and spirit.

We will celebrate their ambitions and achievements in a dedicated high-profile event.

GAZELLE DESIGN CHALLENGE A new competition that will unlock the creative potential of learners across the Gazelle group, offering the opportunity to bring a design idea from concept to reality. Further details to be announced later in the year

www.thegazellegroup.com

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GAZELLE: THE POWER OF PARTNERSHIP Collaboration with some of the world’s most enterprising individuals and organisations has boosted Gazelle’s role as a force for change in further education.

The power of partnership has played a central role in the growth of Gazelle since its inception in 2012.

From five founding colleges, Gazelle has developed into a national network and one which works alongside some of the leading figures and organisations in UK education and entrepreneurship.

TEACHING AND LEARNING In autumn 2013, Gazelle went into partnership with Pearson, the world’s leading learning company, to extend the model for entrepreneurial teaching and learning across the UK further education sector.

The partnership will see Pearson work with Gazelle on developing a range of programmes for principals, teachers and students designed to underpin the development of entrepreneurial colleges.

A significant milestone came in May 2014, when Gazelle and Pearson launched a BTEC Award in Understanding an Entrepreneurial Approach. This aims to develop and assess the specific skills for T-shaped learning, beyond qualifications and embracing the qualities needed for the modern workplace.

Tutors will be encouraged to teach and assess in a range of ways that enable students to demonstrate enterprising capabilities in addition to their core skills.

ENTREPRENEURS Gazelle has been supported in its aims by an expanding group of entrepreneurs, that includes some of the UK’s most prominent founders and business leaders.

Gazelle entrepreneurs range from founding Dragons’ Den panelist and School for Startups founder Doug Richard, to King of Shaves founder Will King, Nails Inc founder Thea Green, iconic fashion designer Wayne Hemingway and Coffee Republic founder Sahar Hashemi.

The entrepreneurs work with the colleges, from mentoring students to advising principals, speaking at events and promoting Gazelle’s work in the media.

Speakers at national Gazelle events have included enterprise superstars including Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales.

Gazelle students were given the opportunity to interview both on stage at the Global Entrepreneurship Congress and ACCELERATE 2013 in Liverpool.

“Hearing from such successful and well-known speakers provided us with great insight into how to run a business,” said Kirn Chakraborty, student at Gloucestershire College. “I was lucky enough to share a panel with Lord Young and Doug Richard – not something you get to do every day.”

TECHNOLOGY Gazelle has been working closely with Microsoft UK on developing a vision for the future of technology in further education. In May they published Further Education Reimagined, a report that highlighted the changing ways in which learners are accessing information, and the need for colleges to better harness technology to help students manage and direct their own learning.

At the launch of the report, Gazelle CEO Fintan Donohue OBE commented: “Technology creates significant opportunities for colleges, but to take advantage, the sector must fundamentally change how it thinks about delivering teaching and learning,” “Pouring investment into historic teaching models will not deliver the flexibility that students are looking for, and fails to recognise the huge change that has occurred in the way young people access information.”

Now Gazelle will get the opportunity to play a fundamental role in developing the learning technology capability that can ensure colleges are fully equipped for the digital age. It has been chosen by the Education and Training Foundation to deliver the Learning Futures programme that will provide funding to projects across the training and skills sector that: • Support leaders and governors to make informed decisions about strategies for and investment in learning technologies; • Help teachers and trainers to be confident and skilled in the design and delivery of technology enhanced learning; • Encourage employer engagement that will ensure access to industry standard technology and improve the line of sight to work on vocational programmes.

“Our aim in the Learning Futures Programme is to unlock innovation in teaching and learning, help teachers and trainers to be confident and skilled in the design and delivery of technology enhanced learning; and encourage employer engagement that will ensure access to industry standard technology and improve the line of sight to work on vocational programmes,” says ETF’s director of vocational education and training, Jenny Williams.

The report can be downloaded from: http://bit.ly/1o10lfM