Lecturer in Functional Skills

Our vision is to be a College that is EXCEPTIONAL, EXCITING and VOCATIONAL.

With an annual turnover exceeding £40 million Colchester Institute is  the largest General Further Education provider of its kind in the area delivering a wide range of full and part-time vocationally orientated programmes, to both Further Education and Higher Education learners.

Colchester Institute has a clear dedication to meeting employer needs through the development of bespoke industry training centres, with more than 800 apprentices in learning at any one time. We have a network of delivery locations and some of the best facilities in the Country for hospitality, motor vehicle, engineering, construction, and performing arts.

With approximately 1,200 staff the College is one of the largest employers in the area. There are approximately 600 academic/teaching staff and 600 business support staff.

Over 12,000 students are enrolled each year, with approximately 5500 on full-time courses. The majority of students are local but many are attracted from further afield, including overseas.

Further education courses account for approximately 80% of the provision of the College. A range of well-established degree and higher education courses are also available, including new courses at foundation degree level, making up 20% of our provision.
Responding to a range of Government initiatives the College has also been successful in introducing a variety of short programmes to meet specific local and national skills shortages. An expanding range of short courses, tailored to meet the needs of the business community, are also provided by the Professional Training Centre.

The main campus is situated on the edge of Colchester town within easy walking distance of the town centre and mainline railway station. It is a large, open campus consisting of purpose-built accommodation including an extensive range of specialist facilities to support our educational programmes, such as two large halls with stages, drama studio, gymnasium and access to nearby sports fields.

Two large construction and engineering wings were opened in 2009. In addition there are facilities open to the public including first-class training restaurants and hairdressing and beauty therapy salons. The Colchester School of Art took residency of the historic Minories building in Colchester town centre in May 2008. This historic building is well known locally as being associated with the arts community and this acts as the perfect backdrop to host  exhibitionssupporting Art and Design Postgraduate studies.

Colchester Institute is keen to meet the more localised needs of its customers and ‘to take learning to the learners’. To support this aim the College merged with Braintree College in January 2010. The College at Braintree offers a variety of vocationally based Further Education courses and qualifications in areas such as art and design, beauty therapy, business, computer studies, construction, health & childcare, media, motorcycle and motor vehicle mechanics, music technology, performing arts, sports and recreation and travel and tourism.

The College at Clacton operates from two sites in Clacton. Responding to the needs of the local community, the main focus of provision at these sites is on vocational training, such as administration and IT, hairdressing, beauty therapy and construction.The Learning Shops based at Dovercourt, Witham and Colchester provide additional town centre locations for English, Maths, IT and Computer training.
 

In 2013, the College opened The Energy Skills Centre at Harwich to support skills development in this growing industry.  This centre complements the employer focused activity taking place at The Engineering Training Centre at Colchester, which was originally opened to support the aviation industry and is now heavily involved in skills delivery for the supporting employers in railway engineering.