Portsmouth College is a Beacon College! The College can lay claim to this prestigious title after being named recently as an Association of Colleges (AoC) Beacon Award winner for College/School Partnerships.

The AoC Awards celebrate outstanding teaching and learning in further education Colleges and provide national recognition for excellence and innovation in the sector. This year’s winners were announced at a ceremony hosted by comedienne and author Shappi Khorsandi at the AoC’s Annual Conference in Birmingham on November 17.

The College was a close runner-up in 2008/09 for the Partnerships award and decided to try and go one better this year. Since his arrival as Principal in 2005 Steve Frampton has been totally committed to working with Portsmouth City Council and his headteacher colleagues at all of the City’s schools in an effort to raise aspirations and success rates for Portsmouth students. These high-level efforts have been complemented by an ongoing programme of curriculum, careers and enrichment links between staff at College and their colleagues in local schools. The programme also includes specialist revision skills and examination support work with students as well as joint curriculum and staff development programmes. Furthermore, the initiative exchanges ideas and expertise with schools and communities in Ireland, Denmark, Norway, Lithuania, Czech Republic, Spain and Portugal.

These efforts have contributed to consistently rising achievement levels in the City and a significant increase in students’ progression rates at 16, notably to Portsmouth College. The Beacon Award judges described the project as ‘outstanding’ as it offered ‘genuine commitment to successful and substantive partnership work, resulting in significant improvement in GCSE results, higher student aspiration and lower numbers of young people not in employment, education or training (NEET).

College Principal, Steve Frampton has been inspirational in his efforts to engage with partner schools and with a whole range of other individuals, groups and organisations in the City which share his vision of first class educational opportunities for all of the young people of Portsmouth. Steve was present at the AoC Awards ceremony in November:

"It was a wonderful moment when Portsmouth College was announced as this year’s AoC Beacon Award winner in the College-Schools Partnerships category. In the past four years we have worked to become a highly proactive partner in the City’s educational landscape with the aim of improving the aspirations and achievements of all of our students, in school and in college. It has been an honour to work closely with the schools and the City Council to realise the whole range of individual projects which together make up our unique partnership commitment. I would like to thank all of our partners and sponsors who gave generously of their time to support the College’s bid for the award, for their generous testimonials and for their unflagging support for the goals we all share. The Award is also a tribute to the fantastic commitment of all of our staff at the College and their belief in the young people of Portsmouth. It was a very proud moment for me to see that our Portsmouth partnerships programme was regarded as the best in the country.

The College will host a local celebration event for all of its partners in the New Year and will be presented with its Award by the Rt. Hon. Kevin Brennan MP, Minister of State for Further Education, at a national presentation ceremony due to be held at Westminster in February 2010.