Transform your career while transforming lives
Category: Success Stories
Publish date: 05/02/2020
Weston College values the skills, training and mind-set that veterans have developed during their time in the Armed Forces, and as such we would like to invite you to our upcoming recruitment events detailed below:
17th February - 1pm and 3pm -HMP Elmley
17th February - 4pm to 7pm Open Evening Visit Centre - Standford Hill
18h February - 1pm and 3pm HMP Downview
18th February - 1pm and 3pm HMP Coldingley
Please click here to email and register your interest.
Please also note that Work Experience Placements are available too.
In 2019, Weston College Group was awarded the prestigious Prison Education Framework contract to deliver education services in 19 prisons across the Southwest and Southeast of England.
The College - rated ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted – now provides nationally recognised qualifications and a wide range of extracurricular opportunities to thousands of offenders.
Our delivery focuses on transformational learning and raising aspirations – ensuring that education packages meet the needs of offenders when they complete their sentence.
The College is committed to helping a new generation of offenders gain skills that will help them find employment after their release. To achieve this, we deliver nationally recognised qualifications – including diplomas and NVQs – in all our prisons, and provide the highest standard of quality in all our teaching.
Our aim is to support you in delivering an outstanding and inclusive learning experience to support the successful rehabilitation, resettlement and employment of offenders on release.
Weston College is a proud recipient of the Silver Award for the Armed Forces Covenant. As a College we have a serious commitment to the Covenant, which is a promise to provide servicemen and women with training and work opportunities.
We have a strong history of supporting local military units and the Armed Forces community. In 2019, at the English Veterans Awards, a Weston College Public Services Lecturer won the Lifetime Achievement Award. The College itself was also a finalist at the ceremony after being shortlisted for Employer of the Year!
Case Study
Current Role: Curriculum Manager- Prison Education Weston College
Service: Infantry
Rank: Warrant Officer Class 2
Length of service: 24 Years (including boy service)
What did your job role involve?
Mainstream infantry progress with a rifle company, I completed 6 operational tours and 2 tours at Infantry Training establishments. My final 5 years were completed with the Reserves as their Senior Permanent Staff instructor. The role involved planning weekend and annual exercises both in the UK and overseas, and ensuring reserve soldiers were ready for active deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan. I was also responsible for planning internal and external training courses, live firing exercises to Company strength and the management of a G3 and G4 account.
What was your journey into teaching in a prison?
I completed MOUS qualifications on resettlement but didn’t see this as a future career, despite wanting something in the IT sector. Having trained soldiers from being a section 2 i/c at 19, I felt teaching was a skill I clearly had a talent for. Just prior to my release there was an open evening for teaching within Prisons. Although I wasn’t qualified, the College offered to guarantee teaching hours if I enrolled on the CertEd.
What transferable skills came in useful?
Diplomacy, honesty, teaching skills, planning, time management, initiative, being solution focused and integrity.