New College Durham is one of the leading Further Education colleges in the North East of England. The college continues to be a high performing college and is within the top 15% of Further Education colleges in the country.
The college’s financial performance remains at ‘Outstanding’ and cash balances remain strong.
New College Durham provides an extensive curriculum from entry level to level 3 across all but one sector skills area that serves students from County Durham as well as attracting students from across the North East and further afield. We have some unique curriculum areas that offer courses from entry level 3 through to level 6 at degree level. The college offers courses from Foundation vocational pathways, A-Levels, Dental Nursing, Robotics, Green Technology through to Podiatry. The college has worked hard to ensure that the vision to provide first class learning and training for individuals, business and the community is embedded within the curriculum. The college was graded as Outstanding in 2009. Since then, we have not rested on our laurels, indeed the college’s academic performance and achievement rates remain at the highest levels and our student achievements and pass rates remain high.
The college has maintained its high standards and outstanding quality student experience during a period of economic challenge and significant growth and diversification in funding and has actively sought out opportunities to innovate and develop. Working with key regional employers and securing the buy in from partner FE colleges, Newcastle University and key regional employers, the college is the lead institution for the North East Institute of Technology (IoT).
The college is committed to ensuring its curriculum meets the needs of industry and has committed over £8 million to a STEM centre, providing outstanding resources within the Engineering, Construction and Digital sectors. In addition, the college has invested heavily in Digital and Graphics and is one of only two colleges in the North East to offer the newly introduced T-levels in 2020. With further significant investment planned to support additional T-Level qualifications being offered from 2021/22 including Health and Life Sciences, Business and Leadership and Early Years.
New College Durham is nationally recognised as a leading provider of apprenticeship delivery. The college offers a wide range of provision in both frameworks and standards from level 2 to level 7.
The broad range of provision includes well established curriculums in areas such as Construction, Engineering and Digital, as well as diversifying into new sectors such as Fire Safety, Dental Nursing and Human Resources. This has ensured over 1,000 apprentices are in learning year on year, meeting the needs of local and regional employers.
The college offers an extensive portfolio of over 50 different higher education qualifications from level 4 to 7 that are designed, developed and maintained to meet the skills needs of regional and national employers. The college has been validating its own foundation degrees for over 7 years, as well as working in partnership with the Open University to validate degrees and Masters qualifications.
The college places a strategic value on higher education within the curriculum. Following the publication of the details for Degree Awarding Powers, work has commenced to secure these in order to extend the college’s awarding powers to level 6.
New College Durham was one of the first colleges to be awarded Foundation Degree Awarding Powers and continues to be one of a small number of colleges to hold these powers.
As a disability confident Leader, we are committed to employing disabled people and people with health conditions making reasonable adjustments to support disabled applicants when required.