Congratulations to Hereford Sixth Form College. Last week it became the first college to successfully convert to academy status.
It’s fair to say that Hereford is one of the stars of the sixthform college sector. To recap: it has been graded “outstanding” by Ofsted. Its financial health is rated as “outstanding” by the Education Funding Agency. And it was named sixth-form college of the year at the TES FE Awards 2016. Not a bad legacy for principal Jonathan Godfrey, who retires this summer.
And where Hereford has intrepidly ventured, more will follow. The Sixth-Form Colleges Association tells FErret that 18 colleges - around one-fifth of the sector - are already at an “advanced stage of the conversion process”, with two-thirds actively considering whether to academise.
Celeb support
The option to become an academy was made available following a campaign by the SFCA to remove the imposition of VAT on colleges, which costs sixth-form colleges around £385,000 on average.
The campaign roped in former college students who have ascended to celebrity status, not least actor Colin Firth and television presenter Dermot O’Leary. Lo and behold, George Osborne, then chancellor, announced in the 2015 Spending Review that academy conversion was being made available.
FErret will be fascinated to see how many more colleges opt to follow suit in the coming weeks.
Share your gossip, scandal and intrigue with FErret by emailing ferret@tesglobal.com
