A PIONEERING new Exeter College centre dedicated to the late professor of education Ted Wragg has opened.

The Ted Wragg Building at the college’s main, Hele Road site, caters for students with a wide range of learning difficulties and disabilities. It has been fully refurbished under a multi-million pound college-wide construction programme and opened to students for the first time this week. It features innovative facilities including a mock ‘flat’ where teenagers can learn skills to be able to live independently. There is also a specially-adapted kitchen where students with additional needs are taught about healthy eating and cooking.

The college’s Foundation Studies department started seven years ago with just 70 students and has been housed in four different sites. But today it is one of the college’s biggest departments and caters for around 400 young people with varying needs from across Devon, from pupils who have been excluded from school to those with severe learning difficulties and others working at entry level and level 1.

The department’s ethos is to encourage non-traditional learners and there have been outstanding success stories involving students who have been out of education for long periods going on to university. It is now one of the biggest further education centres for students with special needs in the region.

Joy Mosley, Head of Foundation studies, who won a national award for her work helping teenagers with learning difficulties, said: “The department suggested it be named the Ted Wragg Building because he was so supportive of the college and especially young people with learning difficulties. One of the last projects he did was The Unteachables documentary for Channel 4.

“There are a lot of students out there who think that college is not for them. Education has let them down. They have not found their potential and can have very low self-esteem. “We have a very supportive and experienced team who are able to deal with the students’ learning difficulties and design a curriculum that suits their particular needs. “We treat them as adults. We give them respect and expect respect from them in return.”