North West

Happy New Year! We hope you had a lovely break over Christmas and it’s been a good start to 2026 for our North West colleges.

It was, as always, a very busy start to the academic year, from results day and enrolment to plenty of policy announcements impacting the sector. The 2025 AoC conference was our biggest yet. It was great to see over 140 delegates from the North West, nine North West-led breakout sessions and Sir Martyn Oliver be introduced by Stockport College student Hajira.

We launched the Adult Learning Pays campaign, which aims to ensure that the importance of adult education and the benefits it brings are recognised.
It will be great to discuss this further: we hope to involve lots of North West colleges, stakeholders and politicians in the campaign.

Last term, we hosted 12 North West regional networks with 190 attendees, with lots of brilliant discussion and debate, including input from senior officials, DfE, Ofsted and Irwin Mitchell. We have also welcomed new network chairs and vice-chairs, including Alan Brown at Riverside College Anne-Marie Francis at Wigan & Leigh College for the NW Curriculum and Quality Network, Katie Goodwin from Trafford & Stockport College Group for the Northern SEND Forum and Jane Nickisson from Reaseheath College for the Northern HE Forum. Information on this term’s regional events can be found here.

Congratulations to North West colleagues who were awarded for services to further education in the 2026 King’s New Years Honours, including Lisa O’Loughlin CBE, Anna Dawe OBE, Julia Heap OBE and Rachael Hennigan OBE. We are incredibly proud to see your hard work and dedication recognised.

We are pleased to see so many North West finalists in this year’s Beacon Awards, including Oldham College, City of Liverpool College, Blackburn College, Coleg Cambria and Hugh Baird College. We have everything crossed for wins in March! It was brilliant to see Ella Toone, Wigan & Leigh College alumni inducted into the FE Hall of Fame. Congratulations also to Warrington & Vale Royal College who were recently awarded Employer of the Year: Platinum at the Investors in People awards. If you have anything you’d like us to share, please email AoC.North@aoc.co.uk.

Colleges Week 2026

Colleges Week is coming up soon, Monday 2 to Friday 6 March 2026. Information and resources are available here. Please let us know if you have any activities planned so we can promote and get involved.

Best wishes,
Rebecca Durber
Area Director (NW) and Senior Policy Lead (Devolution)