The South West is set to benefit from Government funding after City College Plymouth was named as one of 21 general further education colleges in the country to receive Government funding to become a Maths Centre of Excellence.
The Centres are designed to test and share new ways to teach students who are re-sitting their Maths GCSEs. The colleges will share £40million in funding over the next five years to: design new and improved teaching approaches; develop teaching resources; build up teachers’ skills; and spread best practice through education networks.
Weston College of Further and Higher Education in Somerset has also been named as one of the colleges to receive a share of the Government funding.
David Ralph, Chief Executive Officer at Heart of the South West LEP, says the funding is essential to improving skills: “Every business we work with needs employees who are skilled in those two most important areas of numeracy and literacy. So to support our region in improving skills and addressing current and future skills gaps, we need to ensure both our young people and our adults learners have the fundamental numeracy skills they need to succeed.
“This announcement is good news for the South West. Working with our further education colleges to train and reskill our workforce is essential to achieving the LEP’s key priority of improving productivity and investment in our region.”
City College Plymouth was chosen to become a Maths Centre of Excellence due to its ability to strongly demonstrate a commitment to improving maths outcomes by implementing a range of effective and innovative maths teaching methods and approaches.
Over 450 students sit their Maths GCSEs at the College each year. Students who study GCSEs do so for a number of reasons: to re-take and gain better grades in order to progress to higher level study or into employment; to develop their career; and for interest as part of a lifelong learning programme.
Nadia McCusker, Director of Quality Improvement and English and Maths at City College Plymouth, said: “This is good news for those looking to improve their maths skills in the region. The funding will support us to provide our students with even more exciting and innovative teaching and learning.
“Our lecturers are real experts in their field, making learning engaging and relevant to our students. Their innovative methods of teaching and the way they build our students’ confidence resulted in this year’s Maths GCSE students gaining an impressive 99% pass rate.”
The Centre of Excellence for Maths at City College Plymouth will be accessible, innovative, supportive and technology focused. The Centre will support both young people and adults to gain those all important grade 4s (Cs) in as little as six months.
If you would like to improve your GCSE Maths grade to increase your employment prospects, access better career options or simply help your children with their homework, then give the College a call on 01752 305300 or visit www.cityplym.ac.uk/maths.
