Creating outstanding opportunities at Sunderland College

Sunderland College has two goals for its health and science learners:

• Create outstanding opportunities for learners
• Develop a career-focused curriculum.

By delivering our qualifications and working with local employers in the healthcare sector, the college is creating excellent opportunities for its learners. Many progress onto healthcare courses at university, and our qualifications enable the college to support a variety of individual needs.

Shaping the curriculum with local employers

Local employers, including Home Group and Sunderland Care and Support, share their feedback on the college’s curriculum to make sure learners have everything they need for taking their next steps. Plus, they guarantee an employment interview with them, making themselves future employers.

The college is running the T Level in Health in 2021-22 , with the Supporting the Adult Nurse occupational specialism. They’re working in partnership with the University of Sunderland and South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust to deliver the programme.

Learners will interview with the university for a place on its undergraduate nursing course. They’ll visit for an induction day and work closely with student nurses, seeing what’s expected of them in this career path. The university also supports learners with their UCAS applications.

The NHS Trust is promising all learners an industry placement, where they’ll work with a healthcare assistant mentor and adult nurse on the ward.

Helping a variety of learners

The college says there’s lots of choice for optional units on our courses. This helps them deliver what employers are looking for and meet a variety of learners’ needs. With 426 of them, not every learner will like being assessed in the same way. Our qualifications are giving the college more opportunities to help more learners in a way that suits them.

Learners progress all the way from Level 1 – 3 at the college. Most will then study a health course at university, such as midwifery, paediatric nursing, mental health nursing and disabilities nursing.

Flexible and responsive support

Carla Raine, the college’s Curriculum Manager for Health and Care, says our support and communication is effective. ‘‘There's always someone who you can chat to and ask any questions. As a teaching team, we appreciate the support we get from this communication.

‘‘We've asked NCFE to join us on continuing professional development (CPD) sessions or put bespoke sessions on for staff, and they're always open and flexible in supporting us with that. When you're in the middle of an academic year and it’s really busy, we really appreciate that flexibility and responsiveness.’’

Carla recommends our qualifications to others. ‘‘The qualifications are very robust but they give you the flexibility to support learners in achieving their qualifications, and get the very best out of them.’’