Floella Benjamin, Chancellor of the University of Exeter and former children’s TV star, has officially opened Exeter College’s new Hele Building.

The popular ex-Play School presenter and ambassador for young people met delighted students and staff in the newly built £5.5m structure housing the college’s Department of Health, Care and Public Services on Thursday, March 8th.

She was also met by a Royal Marine who abseiled down the Tower Building to deliver her a pair of scissors for the unveiling of a new plaque in the Hele Building.

Ms Benjamin said: “I am absolutely delighted to be at Exeter College. As soon as I arrived, the affection I felt was enormous. “I am thrilled to be opening this magnificent building. It has a lovely feel about it. As soon as you walk in you know you are in a space that is welcoming, fresh and light. Staff and students are working in early years here and that is what you have to feel in your heart when you are dealing with this important age group. The money spent on this building is a really important investment for the future. “I am so thrilled and happy that the university and college are encouraging young people to think about higher education.”

Early years students who take the BTEC National Diploma in the Hele Building said they were inspired by Ms Benjamin. Emily Harris said: “She was inspiring because she was telling us what we were learning was really important.” Hannah Reeves said: “She has children herself so she is a really good role model for us.” Olivia Spry said: “She said the children we are working with are the new generation.”

Margaret Emson, head of health, care and public services, said: “We are delighted to have welcomed such a well-loved and popular figure who has a lifelong passion for the type of areas our students will progress into.”

The Hele Building on Exeter College’s main, Hele Road site, was completed last September and is home to around 550 students on health and social care, early years and public services courses. The department offers vocational courses ranging from Level 2 (equivalent to GCSEs) to foundation degrees, with the bulk of students aged 16 to 19. It also runs courses for school pupils aged 14-16, adult learners and those training in the workplace.

The two-storey Hele Building also houses a student restaurant, learning centre with library, two IT suites and dedicated study rooms.

Ms Benjamin also visited the Foundations Studies department in the Ted Wragg Building which caters for students with a wide range of learning difficulties and physical disabilities.

Exeter College is currently undergoing a £25m construction programme. The Centre for Creative Industries in the city centre’s Queen Street was finished in 2004 and the Ted Wragg Building was opened earlier this year.
The college’s Essential Therapies faculty and Day Nursery will relocate from their Bishop Blackall sites in Pennsylvania Road to Hele Road next spring.

Young people in Exeter are set to benefit from greater choices and higher standards of education under a new partnership between Exeter College, the five secondary schools in the city and the two special schools. The Exeter4Learning partnership aims to raise the aspirations and ambitions of the city’s 14-19 year olds and to further improve levels of achievement at 16+ and 18+.

Exeter College principal Richard Atkins said: “This new partnership builds on other recent successes in the city, including the staying-on in full-time education rate post-16, which has climbed from 59% three years ago, to 71% in 2006. This means that the number of young people staying on in full-time learning in the city has almost reached the same levels as in the rest of Devon.”

One of the priorities of the new Exeter4Learning partnership is to offer young people more subject choice and career options at both 14+ and 16+. This year, for the first time, Year 9 pupils are able to choose from both the traditional academic curriculum in their own school and from a wide range of vocational options offered in other schools in the city and at Exeter College. From next year, the partnership aims to offer a range of new vocational Specialist Diplomas which can be started in schools and completed at Exeter College.

The Exeter4Learning partnership will bring together a city-wide Governors Group supported by the University of Exeter. The Strategy Group of Principals and Headteachers will be employing a new city-wide 14-19 Development Manager to ensure that young people are able to access this new curriculum offer. The Exeter4Learning partnership will be formally launched this summer and it is hoped that it will make a measurable contribution to further raising standards of education and training across the whole city.

Mandi Street, head of Isca College and Chair of the Exeter4Learning Management Group, said: “The mission of the new partnership is to increase educational opportunities for the young people of Exeter through collaboration. “We have been meeting to look at how we can work more closely together to further raise the achievements of all young people in Exeter, ensure they are achieving as well as they possibly can and have aspirations to go on to college and university. “We want to make education an asset of Exeter and celebrate all the great things we have achieved.”

Hundreds of pupils already attend Exeter College every year to complete vocational courses while at secondary school.

Some students also travel to a different school to study a particular course.

St Peter’s School pupils Simon Hendley, 14, and Adam Cunnington, 15, go to Isca College once a week to do Applied Art GCSE. Simon said: “The organisation works well because we have a taxi here. “We’re pleased we took the course because we are able to do the double award art course and we wouldn’t have been able to otherwise. “We have been able to use the specialist media equipment at Isca, like using the Macs for our animation project, and that’s been great.”

Come along and find out more about Higher Education at Exeter College.

Monday 5th March 9.40am – 12.00pm

Hele Building
Foundation Degrees in Health and Social Care Studies, Public Services, Public Services with Criminal Justice Coaching and Fitness, Sports Massage Therapy, Travel and Tourism Management.

Victoria House
HNC/HND Business, Legal Practice.

Wednesday 7th March 9.40am – 12.00pm

CCI Building
Foundation Degrees in Fine Art, Photography and Digital Arts.

Thursday 8th March 9.40am – 12.00pm

CCI Building
Foundation Degrees in Creative Digital Video, Television Production, Performance Production, Journalism and Practical Media, Popular Music Practice.

As part of the Animated Exeter festival Exeter College is hosting a Creative Digital Arts careers and information day at its Centre for Creative Industries. The day will encompass a wide range of activities including workshops, screenings, demonstrations, information stands on courses and careers in animation and a chance to meet some of the animation professionals.

As part of the Exeter College Arts Festival (Mon 25th – Sat 30th June 2007), being held at the college’s own Centre for Creative Industries, we are running a Battle of the Bands competition.

The grand prize is a 2 day recording session in a local studio plus a pressing of 100 cds of the finished article!

The heats are on: Thursday 8th February, Thursday 15th March and Thursday 19th April in the Centre for Creative Industries theatre.
The final is on: Thursday 28th June and is being held in the Phoenix Arts Centre, Exeter.

How to Enter:
a) Complete entry form and send to:
Georgia Grayling,
The Centre for Creative Industries,
Exeter College,
Victoria Yard,
Queen Street,
Exeter,
EX4 3SR.
b) Telephone 01392 205971.

GIRLS were being taught that anything boys can do they can do better at Exeter College’s Women in Construction Day on Friday 2nd February.

The college’s construction training centre at Falcon House, Sowton, invited forty girls from secondary schools across Devon to find out more about careers in the building industry. They attended hands-on workshops in carpentry, brickwork and electrical installation and also had the chance to chat to construction tutors and students.

Organiser and civil engineering and construction lecturer Nick Thom from Exeter College said: “The day is about challenging stereotypes and giving girls more opportunities and choices. There has been a gender imbalance in the industry for a long time. We are starting to see a few more girls on our construction courses but we rarely get female bricklayers or carpenters.”

“If you never pick up a chisel or trowel you will never know if you are interested in the subject. There is nothing on our courses that a boy can do and a girl can’t and there has started to be a huge demand for females in the construction industry.”

EXETER College music and dance students are performing a ground-breaking stage production of one of the 20th century’s most popular choral and orchestral works this month. Carl Orff’s dramatic cantata ‘Carmina Burana’ is used in countless TV ads, films and shows including the Old Spice advert from the 1980s, Excalibur, Natural Born Killers and, more recently, in the opening credits of ITV’s The X-Factor.

The spectacular work was written by the German composer in 1936 and is usually performed by hundreds of professional singers in major venues such as the Royal Albert Hall. Although it was originally conceived for the stage to include dancing, modern performances rarely include choreography and are confined almost invariably to singing and orchestral playing.

But this month Exeter College’s music, dance and visual arts students are rediscovering the essence of the original composition by mounting what is believed to be the South West’s first, stage production of Carmina Burana
The college’s Student Choir, Victoria Singers, Choral Society and Orchestra will perform the spine-tingling work along with a choir from West Exe Technology College as well as instrumental players from Devon Music Service Ensemble and the Exeter Music Group Orchestra.

Over 150 young musicians and dancers from across Devon will take part in the ground-breaking production entitled Carmina Burana Project at St George’s Hall on January 30 and 31.

The ambitious performance will offer a preview of the work of the college’s new Music Academy being launched later this year – believed to be the first of its kind in the region. Two former Exeter College students are also returning as professional classical singers to take solo parts in the production. Thomas Hobbs, who was recently awarded the prestigious Peter Pears Scholarship at the Royal College of Music, will take the tenor part and Heloise West will sing soprano. John Hobbs (no relation), a performer known to concert-goers throughout the South West, will sing the solo bass.

Io Pugh, head of music at Exeter College and musical director, said: “The attraction of this piece is that it is a very accessible work with a particular emphasis on primaeval rhythms.Carl Orff was a music educator of children and found the way into the subject was through music and dance. Every piece he composed before Carmina Burana he destroyed or disowned because he wanted to get back to the simplicity of simple harmony and texture and rhythms reminiscent of dance.

“Through the Carmina Burana Project we are showing that these are the sorts of production Exeter College is looking to put on in the future with the start of the Music Academy in September. The piece is very challenging musically and our production is testament to the tremendous talent of the college’s music and dance students. We have tried to include as many college students in the project as possible from musicians and dancers to students doing creative lighting, video projections, stage management and front of house. But we are also going outside the college and making it an opportunity for young people in the community to get involved in an exciting production.”

Carmina Burana is based on a collection of 24 medieval texts written by Golliards, a roving band of students and lapsed clerics who mocked authority and celebrated the pleasures of life. Principal themes are life, love, lust, drinking, gluttony, gambling, but most of all, fate. It is a demanding modern work, full of pulsating and pounding rhythms. The famous O Fortuna movement that starts and finishes the work is instantly recognisable.

Exeter College’s production follows Orff’s concept of Theatrum Mundi in which music and movement are inseparable. Carmina Burana will form the second half of the concert. A short first half will consist of works performed by the soloists and Victoria Singers. Exeter College’s media studies students are also producing a documentary about the project.

The performances are on January 30th and 31st at St George’s Hall, 7.30pm. Tickets are £6 (£3 for concessions) and are available by ringing the college on 01392 205971.