COURSES FOR SCHOOL LEAVERS
Your Future Starts Here
With hundreds of exciting courses, this is where your journey begins. From day one, you'll be supported, inspired, and on track to a rewarding career.
See SubjectsJoin a Career Excellence Hub and gain real-world skills, experience, and confidence to reach your goals.
Whether you're finishing school, changing direction, or learning English with our ESOL courses – we’ve got you covered.
Get started today – pick a subject and apply online in just 5 minutes!
Find Your Future Path
QUALIFICATIONS EXPLAINED
A Levels develop the knowledge, skills and study habits to excel at university, as well as the attributes recognised by employers.
Your academic studies will be complemented with enrichment opportunities such as trips, mentoring and work experience, providing the perfect springboard for your future career.
A Levels are assessed through exams at the end of two years of study. Most learners study three subjects - some choose four.
With an apprenticeship you’ll go straight into the workplace and be shown clear routes to progress straight into employment within a specific occupation. You can achieve nationally recognised qualifications, earn a wage, and gain skills that will see you get ahead. On average you will spend 20% of your learning time in the college and 80% within the workplace
Professional and technical qualifications are designed to provide you with the knowledge, skills and behaviours needed to gain employment within specific industries or occupations. They provide a balance between theory and practical skills development. They are suited to those who want to get hands-on experience within a particular vocational area. These programmes include work placements. Assessment is more varied and will include exams, coursework and practical work.
T Levels give you the chance to learn what a real career is like while you continue your studies. T Levels have been designed with leading businesses and employers to give you the knowledge and skills you need, including a minimum of 45 days on an industry placement – this means you will spend 80% of your learning time in College and 20% within the workplace.
LATEST NEWS
Apprentice chefs and hospitality students at Weston College have showcased their skills at a prestigious awards dinner.
The talented students prepared dinner and served at the front of house at the Bristol Life Awards winners’ dinner at The Chocolate Quarter in the city.
Apprentices from The School of Food, an innovative chef training programme jointly run by Weston College, treated guests to a delicious meal of flat breads and dips; asparagus, nudi, puree salsa verdi; pressed lamb shoulder, lamb rump, potato terrine, sprouting broccoli; and lemon, lavender, raspberry delice and raspberry sorbet.
The Level 1 and 2 hospitality students, who train in the College’s Grove restaurant, served drinks, canapés and hosted tables. All of these skills are reflective of the work the learners need to complete to become competent in their sector.
The Grove training kitchen and restaurant, is a commercial eatery that is open to the public and run solely by students. You can check out its menus and events at www.weston.ac.uk/grove.
The Bristol Life Awards celebrate the very best Bristol businesses at a highly prestigious evening that’s become a highlight of the city’s social calendar. The awards are organised by MediaClash, publishers of Bristol Life, Bath Life and magazines for Cardiff, Exeter and Salisbury, and award-winning foodie mag Crumbs.
The award categories included: Arts, Bar, Business Services, Café / Coffee Shop, Charity, Civic, Creative, Education, Event, Financial, Food / Drink Producer, Gastropub, Hair and Beauty, Health and Wellbeing, Homes and Interiors, Legal, Leisure and Tourism, New Business, Restaurant, Retailer, Technology and Innovation. Award winners have been invited to a special dinner, also at The Chocolate Quarter.
Find out more:
New generations of students are set to benefit from the opening of a flagship facility at Weston College. The £13 million Health and Active Living Skills Centre, completed by Midas Construction is based at the college’s Loxton Campus and will welcome its first students this September.
The aim of the bespoke facility is to provide learners with knowledge of the healthcare and sport sectors as well as vital industry skills. The centre will bring together the College’s health and social care, sports therapy and active living courses into one facility, which will benefit students, businesses and the wider community.
It features a state-of-the-art training hospital ward, one full size 3G pitch, one full size rugby pitch, a multi-gym and a sports hall. Dr Paul Phillips, CBE, Principal and Chief Executive of the Weston College Group, said: “This outstanding new training centre is the latest step in our drive to provide students with the very best learning facilities and resources.
“We have worked with key business partners to ensure that the Health and Active Living Centre will tackle the current skills shortage in the sector and address the longer-term issues that affect our health service and the health of the local population.” The West of England Local Enterprise Partnership through the Local Growth Fund, administered by the West of England Combined Authority contributed £5.4 million towards the project, match funded by the college.
Chair of the West of England LEP, Prof Steve West, said: “We’re pleased to support the new Health and Active Living Skills Centre to deliver important investment in skills for health and social care professionals working in our region. It will also give young people the skills they need to progress further in their education and secure better career prospects right here in the West of England.
“We need to train more people for future careers in our hospitals and community services - this will improve the quality of care and improve people’s lives. With more highly qualified professionals, and with people trained in a wider range of disciplines, people will be better cared for.” James Rimmer, Chief Executive of Weston Area Health Trust, said: “This is a fantastic opportunity for partnership working between Weston College and Weston General Hospital.
“This demonstrates the investment we are both making to support the learning and development of students. We hope it will also help the recruitment and retention of staff as well as supporting the increased demand on healthcare locally”.
The development also continues a strong framework partnership between Weston College and Midas, who have worked closely together on a number of recent projects including the newly built Construction Training Centre.
Derek Quinn, Executive Director for Midas Construction, said: “This fantastic new development will have a significant long term impact on staff, students and the local community and we are pleased to have been able to complete the project on time for Weston College.
Weston College is set to play a lead role in tackling the construction skills shortage by opening a multi-million pound training centre.
The Weston College Construction Training Centre, completed by Midas Construction, opens in May and aims to offer training in seven key areas of training – plant, health and safety, scaffolding, highway and groundworks, warehousing (e.g. forklift training) and apprenticeships.
The state-of-the-art training centre has been created in response to the growing demand for a trained and skills construction workforce in the region. The industry-specific training it provides has been designed with employers’ needs in mind, and will be available on request, rather than fitting into the traditional academic year.
Dr Paul Phillips CBE, Principal and Chief Executive of the Weston College Group said: “The Construction Training Centre is a big step into commercial training and starts an exciting chapter for us.
“Over the last ten years, we’ve built strong relationships with employers to develop our apprenticeship provision. But we’ve recognised, more and more, the need to deliver training at the point of need – not only for school leavers during the academic year.
“The Construction Training Centre means employers can come to us at any time for short courses, top-up courses, and to up-skill staff who are taking on new roles.”
“This month we launched the new website – www.construction-training-centre.co.uk, which enables people to easily navigate between the seven key areas of training.
“It’s also designed to make it as quick and simple as possible to book and pay for the more basic training online. This includes non-practical, class based, one-day courses – for instance, Site Safety Plus, Health and Safety Awareness, and Driver CPC courses.” This training centre has been made possible through the efforts of Weston College in partnership with the West of England Local Enterprise Partnership and North Somerset Council.
The financial investment has been provided by the College match-funding a successful bid for £3.3m funding from the West of England Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) through the Local Growth Fund, administered by the West of England Combined Authority.
Chair of the West of England LEP, Prof Steve West, said: “We’re really pleased to support the fantastic new Construction Training Centre at Weston College. This will help to equip our current and future construction workforce with the skills they need to drive forward the building of new homes, business premises and infrastructure as our region grows. It will also help them to secure better career prospects and make the most of the opportunities available right here in the West of England.”
West of England Mayor, Tim Bowles said: “Construction is a key contributor to our region’s growing economy. It’s clear that there are huge opportunities here and we need to continue to provide the right skills to sustain the industry. The West of England Combined Authority has committed to working with colleges, councils and businesses to help the construction industry fill the estimated 82,500 jobs that will be created by 2036. The new Construction Training Centre at Weston College is a great example how we are addressing that challenge. It will help prepare young people, apprentices and higher education students for successful careers in the construction sector.”
Derek Quinn, Executive director for Midas Construction, said: “We are delighted to have created a much-needed training centre which will benefit students and the wider construction industry for many years to come. Midas is passionate about supporting the training and development of our staff and the communities we work in so we are proud to help develop a highly skilled and highly-trained workforce for the future.”
WHICH LEVEL IS RIGHT FOR ME?
