LO4: second daft

UTC on the rise?

UTC Sheffield is a college for 14-19 year olds, which provides specialism education in either Advanced Engineering & Manufacturing or Creative & Digital Media. Students will do one of the technical specialists alongside their GCSEs or A Levels, which produces a career, focused education.

Opening in September 2013 to support technical education, an area that has been greatly devalued over the years, it does this by providing the appropriate resources and subjects, which adhere to the chosen technical qualification. Currently the UTC (and other schools like it) are trying to change the perception of technical subjects as sometimes they are not recognised in performance measure and often devalued. The UTC offers a wide range of subjects, which help students move forward with their future careers and ambitions.

A former student, Florence Gibbs-Price, who joined the UTC in 2014, stated that the environment in the UTC was a “more relaxed and mature environment” this helps students achieve high-level results as they are in productive surroundings. A unique side to the UTC is the relationship between students and teachers as they are comfortable around each other, which provides mutual respect. Florence studied Creative & Digital Media and said that it gave her the knowledge to grow in her current photography course at Lincoln Art College; this can also help her with employment as she has a vast knowledge in different sector of media meaning she has a 2-year advantage over other students.

In February 2016, the school had its first Ofsted inspection; they received a ‘Good’ rating. In the report, areas, which need most improvement, were English and Y10 Attendance, Alex Reynolds confirmed the school had improved in these areas since the inspection and continue to grow year on year. According to the Ofsted report, the UTC received a ‘Good’ rating in areas such as; quality of teaching, learning and assessment, 16-19 study programmes, personal development, behaviour and welfare. 

The current Principle, Alex Reynolds, believes UTC can give students a head start in their chosen industry as they have either a 2-year or 4-year advantage learning about the different sectors of their specialism. The UTC offers the OCR Cambridge technical qualification, this is because it offers both technical and academic content which helps students who either want to achieve a university destination or to an apprenticeship destination after leaving. Although providing a technical education 48% of students still go on to achieve a university destination and only 28% choosing an apprenticeship but this is still higher than a normal college where only around 7% of students choose an apprenticeship.

This September the second UTC Sheffield at the Olympic Legacy Park (OLP) campus opened offering specialisms in Health science, Sports science and Computing. Both UTCs operate in a similar way offering a technical qualification alongside GCSE or A Levels; this means students can do subjects across campus, which has widened the range of subjects they can offer.

For more information or if you wish to apply to the UTC Sheffield, you can enquire through the website: www.utcsheffield.org.uk.