Bridgwater & Taunton College is located in Somerset, in the heart of South West England, in a strategic position that offers easy access to the rest of the UK via the M5, the rail network, and Bristol, Cardiff and Exeter airports. The College has centres in Bridgwater, Taunton and Cannington, as well as outreach centres in Yeovil and Paignton.
The College’s traditional role as a further and higher education college remains key, but workforce training has now become an integral part of its business; it also caters for individuals of all ages seeking to improve their career prospects by re-training or up-skilling in order to move into, or progress within employment.
The College has an excellent reputation regionally, nationally and internationally as a highly successful provider of education and training, and is one of the best resourced colleges in the UK. It has strategically placed itself at the forefront of technical and professional training to support businesses seeking to capitalise on the wealth of opportunities coming to our region as the UK moves from recession to recovery. For several years now it has been working with employers to develop and deliver a relevant, dynamic curriculum that addresses current and emerging skills gaps, particularly for higher level technical and professional training, and its early engagement and innovative approach has been widely recognised within the sector. In 2013 it received a National Association of Colleges Beacon Award for Employer Engagement, plus the prestigious President’s Award, for the recruitment, selection and training of an entire new workforce for the new DHL/Morrisons’ Distribution Centre in Bridgwater. The College also received the 2014 Times Educational Supplement (TES) Employer Engagement Award for its collaborative work with luxury leather goods manufacturer Mulberry in connection with the company’s new manufacturing base in the town.
In 2016 the College was named Sedgemoor Large Business of the Year and TES FE College of the Year, but its proudest achievement in recent years is the award of a highly prestigious Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education in the 2015-16 round. This award recognised the local, regional and national impact of the College’s partnership work with employers to put in place the skills training that industry needs, particularly in relation to the proposed nuclear new build at Hinkley Point C, where it has successfully engaged with a wide range of stakeholders to place FE at the forefront of the Government’s workforce training strategy.