18 May 2022

Ofsted

We are pleased that the inspection visit has now ended and we look forward to the publication of the full report which should be released no later than Wednesday 29 June.  Thank you to all of you who completed the questionnaire which was overwhelmingly positive.  Your support was greatly received.

Capital Funding

I am pleased to report that the College has recently secured approximately £1.2million in additional capital funding for upgrades to fire alarms and electrical infrastructure in Kingston building.  Work on the project is expected to commence in the summer holiday.  This represents another significant enhancement of our facilities, building on the fire safety upgrades that have been taking place over the course of this academic year and other recent refurbishment works.  Further exciting plans are under development and we expect to learn the outcome of another major funding application towards the end of 2022.

Visit from Michael Gove (Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and MP for Surrey Heath)

Last Friday Michael Gove visited Collingwood and met with Mr Baird and a group of students from our Debating teams.  They told Mr Gove about their debating experiences and were able to raise with him some areas of interest.  I also spent 20 minutes with him and took the opportunity to talk to him about our recent Ofsted inspection, the Government’s White Paper, school finance and the key issue of teacher recruitment.

Mr Gove was very complimentary about our students and said that he would like to attend a future Debating competition to support our team.

Start of the Examination Season

The exam season has now started, and the invigilating team have already mentioned that our students are very well-behaved and engaged during their exams.  We anticipate some very good results from our students this year and getting this initial feedback regarding their focus in the exams is very encouraging.

There has been considerable media attention on the issue of schools finding it exceptionally difficult to find external exam invigilators this year and, in some cases, some schools are having to resort to using parents, teachers and older students.  I just wanted to reassure you that we have a full compliment of very experienced invigilators who do an excellent job for us in ensuring our exams are carried out in line with Exam Board regulations.

Mr Tanner - Principal