M&A 2020 Patrons Vision West Nottinghamshire College are reaching out to employers to help the college shape its curriculum strategy to better meet the needs of the local community
The Mission of West Nottinghamshire College is “To provide skills to enable students, employer partners and our community to thrive.”
Our Vision is to become “a force for raising aspirations across our communities, where high performing staff encourage students to stretch the boundaries of their potential and, in partnership with employers, develop the workforce of the future.”
In order to deliver on both of these, we are developing a curriculum strategy which will have engagement with local partners at its heart. One way in which this will manifest itself will be through an annual Skills Conference, where we will consider our medium- and long-term curriculum development plans with key partners.
The first of these will take place at 13:00 on Friday 5th March 2021, and they would really value your participation in this event, which will be held using Microsoft Teams. If you can’t attend for whatever reason, VWNC would be very happy for you to pass the invitation to a colleague; however, please be aware that the discussion will be at a strategic level.
If you would like to have additional invitations for your organisation, please let Eloise Hopkinson know and she will send a direct invitation – [email protected]
We haven’t finalised the agenda yet, but some of the discussions we will be trying to provoke will be along the following lines:

• Now that we are close to launching our automation and robotics curriculum, what should be our next major development?
• We hear a lot about digital skills, but what does this mean for our local community and how do we ensure the digital literacy needed for the future?
• What does “job ready” really mean, and how can we make sure our students meet that definition?
• How does low carbon transformation and growth manifest itself in Mansfield, Ashfield, and the surrounding communities, and how do we ensure that we give local people the skills they need to support it?
• What does the recovery trajectory look like for sectors most hurt by COVID, and how do we ensue that we have enough skilled people to support it?
• How do we shape our offer to make the most of the National Skills Fund and the Lifetime Skills Guarantee?

 
There will be more, and there will be some choice over which topics you engage with. We would also welcome any suggestions from you on what we might debate.
If you have a suggestion, please forward it to Eloise Hopkinson by 19th February 2021.
This conference is a really important step for us in ensuring that we are the college that our communities need and I really hope you can attend. Please let Eloise know if you or a colleague would be able to attend by 19th February 2021.