An Amazing Year

Isn’t it funny how young people educate you.  Our ‘boys’, they are 22 and 20 respectively, have been doing so for a number of years.  A few years ago, they introduced me to ‘Vampire Weekend’ and I love their music.  Whilst travelling in to work today, I heard a track titled, “Unbelievers”.  Words from this song resonated about our college:

“I’m not excited, but should I be?

Is this the fate that half the world has planned for me?”

In the last five weeks, I have been to a number of meetings in Yorkshire, Birmingham and London.  During each of these meetings, a range of people have come over to me to congratulate us on our excellent Ofsted report and all have said that we were very ‘unlucky’ not to receive a ‘straight’ outstanding judgement.  The comment from Tiger Woods, (I believe Gary Player first said it), when asked if he had got ‘lucky again’, made me smile.  He said, “Isn’t it funny but the more I practise, the ‘luckier’ I get”.

Yes, we know that there are many things that we can do to make us even better but it has been an amazing year so far:

·         the best set of results achieved at Wyke and the resultant points scores which will be published in the performance league table in January;

·         an excellent enrolment;

·         a very, very good Ofsted inspection;

·         buoyant applications for 2014-2015;

·         a brand new building with a Performance and Fitness Studio which will be available for use on the 6^th January.

So we should be excited and the words of the Lead Inspector in October come back to me:

“Don’t be content with being in the top 10% of colleges nationally, Jay.  Wyke SFC could become one of the top colleges in the country.”

Clearly, the last week of term and the build-up to Christmas is always hectic.  I would like to thank you for the tremendous work that has been done this term and for being so understanding during the ‘new building’ process.

Next term promises to be equally exciting.  Have a brilliant Christmas and New Year, come back safely and be prepared for the critical Mock examinations in January.  It will be an excellent indication how you are likely to do in June 2014.

Best Wishes.

Jay