Pembrokeshire College won a prestigious Beacon Award for the third year running by winning the Staff Development accolade sponsored by TES and AoC. Last year the college won the Life Sciences Award sponsored by the Partnership Trust and the year before, the British Council Award for International Student Support.
"I am delighted to have won a Beacon Award for the third time in a row," commented principal Glyn Jones.
"Since 2000, the college has put its staff development process at the heart of its strategic planning. The college realised that in order to successfully meet a range of significant challenges, staff development had to be the main pre-requisite for engineering real progress to its strategic targets.
"The challenges included the need to train staff to deliver a changing curriculum to high quality standard, statutory requirements for staff to attain teaching qualifications, a greater use of IT and interactive technology in teaching and learning, attainment of Investors in People and the need for a framework to address FENTO standards.
"In addition, it was decided to develop a more bottom-up approach in which all staff contributed both to the Institutional Plan and to the training programme needed to support the plan.
"As a result, the Beacon Award assessors recognised that the college's staff development policy included a single and coherent vision that encompassed a quite diverse range of activities that all impinged on the quality of the college's service delivery. This broad approach includes departmental review and planning, institutional planning, work-life balance practices, appraisal, Investors in People, the staff development panel, induction for new staff, mentoring for new staff, individual staff development folders and a rolling programme of training events and days.
"By developing a supportive employment environment we have tried to give staff ownership of and full involvement in the processes of training and of personal development. We think this has resulted in an enthusiastic and energetic input to all areas from our work from our staff," added personnel manager, Margaret Coldwell.