Welcome to Blackpool and The Fylde College! Thank you for expressing an interest in a position at the College. We hope that the information which follows will give you a helpful insight into our organisation.

The College and Quality

Blackpool and The Fylde College is one of the leading colleges in the country, recognised for high quality and performance. This was verified at our last Ofsted/ALI inspection in November 2007 which designated Quality of Provision to be Outstanding and which made reference to a range of key strengths including: 'outstanding social and educational inclusion'; 'excellent contribution to the community and employer engagement'; 'outstanding leadership and vision'; 'good teaching and learning'; 'outstanding support for learners'; 'generally good achievements and standards'; 'outstanding resources and accommodation' and 'exemplary approach to equality and diversity'.

The College has been designated a National Beacon of Excellence and is a Centre of Vocational Excellence (CoVE) in three of its areas of work: Customer Service Quality for Resort Tourism; Building Services; Automotive Manufacturing Engineering.

Our work to offer education to all has been recognised by the fact that the College has twice been awarded the National Beacon Award for Equality and Diversity. We also have a National Beacon Award for Leadership in Curriculum Innovation and Development, a National Beacon Award for e-Learning and also, for our work in the field of Skills for Life. The College’s work with employers has been highly commended nationally and led to a National Training Award for Partnership and Collaboration in 2008 in recognition of the work we do with Gala Coral Ltd. The contribution made by the College to working with some of the community’s most disadvantaged adults and young people was recognised last year by the award of the Centre for Excellence in Leadership Award for Social and Community Cohesion.

The College employs over 1400 staff. We are committed to maintaining the quality and flexibility of our staff to meet the changing needs of our customers and to being recognised as an employer of choice, committed to equal opportunities for all. We have an outstanding record for training and developing our staff. The College has Investors in People and Charter Mark status.

The College is one of the country’s largest providers of higher education in further education. We are an Associate College of Lancaster University and the degrees achieved at the College are degrees of Lancaster University, one of the top rated universities in Britain.

The Community served by the College

The College has over 16,000 students including 5500 full-time students studying at over 30 centres across the Fylde.The College serves the Fylde coast including the towns of Blackpool, Fleetwood, Kirkham, Lytham St Annes, Poulton-le-Fylde and Thornton-Cleveleys. Additionally, we attract students regionally, nationally and from overseas for our specialist courses, especially in Higher Education and Nautical Studies.

The College operates from four main campuses: Bispham (north Blackpool), Central Blackpool, Ansdell on the south Fylde coast and Fleetwood, where the College’s Nautical Campus is based. We run three community centres of significant size: Seasiders, based at Blackpool’s football stadium, Carleton Court in Fleetwood and Carr Head in Poulton-le-Fylde. In addition, we operate community provision from a range of centres within Blackpool, Fylde and Wyre.

The economy of the local area is dominated by small businesses and employment is largely in service industries. As the UK’s largest seaside town, Blackpool is experiencing a decline which is now recognised and is to be tackled through an ambitious MasterPlan for regeneration with high public investment in infrastructure and private investment in casino and associated leisure and conference developments, aimed at making Blackpool a year round tourist resort.

Pauline Waterhouse OBE

Principal and Chief Executive