Time to celebrate, on Saturday 15 October 95 students proudly took part in Strode Colleges Higher Education graduation ceremony at Wells Cathedral. The event commemorated students’ who graduated from June 2020 until this year. All graduates were conferred with their awards by Principal, John Revill. This was a great opportunity to recognise students’ merits and see in one place all the teachers, family, and friends, who all worked in unison to make this achievement happen.

Sarah Probert Head of Faulty Higher Education commented

“I am delighted to see so many students, families and loved ones celebrating at such a majestic venue and was thrilled welcomed back students from 2020, 2021 and 2022 to celebrate their outstanding University achievements.”

John Revill, Principal and CEO of Strode College said,

“At Strode College it is our aim to provide people who live in Somerset with opportunities to receive an outstanding education at any level and at any age. Every year we teach A Levels and professional and technical courses to over 1500 16–18-year-olds; adult courses to hundreds of people; and we teach children as young as two in our Nursery.

We are equally proud to deliver excellent Higher Education to students who range from age 18 to 90, and I am delighted that official reports show that we are achieving our aim: the Higher Education Quality Assurance Agency gave us the highest possible rating for our provision in 2017. This is testament to the high-quality teaching enjoyed by our students and the national standing and expertise of our tutors.

We remain committed to providing high quality, affordable Higher Education locally. It is wonderful to see so many students graduating with us this year and very pleasing that our number of HE students has increased again with almost 260 students joining us to study higher level courses this September – the highest total ever.

We have taught higher level courses for many years, but more recently we have increased the number and range of our courses. Our Higher Education provision includes degrees and foundation degrees in a variety of disciplines, as well as professional qualifications in Counselling, Teaching and Accountancy. In partnership with the University of Plymouth, we now have a Foundation Degree in English with Creative Writing. We have invested significantly in our HE provision, including our modern Higher Education and Skills Centre, and we continue to explore new areas of study relevant to the local and wider economy.

Somerset is a beautiful county with great people and culture, fantastic places to live, and breath taking landscapes. For many it seems an obvious choice to stay here to study - where you live and work, with your family and friends. Keeping costs down also makes sense - you can remain living at home, with the advantage of minimal travel costs and lower course fees.

I should like to congratulate every student who has worked so hard and achieved his or her higher-level qualification with us this year. I am delighted that you stayed, studied and succeeded in Somerset and I wish you all the very best for the future.

I would like to thank our distinguished guests who attended the graduation ceremony: -

• Mrs Jennifer Duke, High Sheriff of Somerset

• Christopher Groucutt, University of Plymouth, Partnership Manager

• Mrs Tessa Miller, Member of the Board of Governors

• Cllr Tessa Munt, Somerset County Council, Lead Member for Children and Families

• Cllr Laura Wolfers, Chair of Street Parish Council

Thank you to Organist David Bednall for the beautiful music played during the ceremony.”

The event was a great opportunity to recognise the wonderful support students received from their teachers, family, and friends, as they worked so hard to achieve their goals. Strode College interviewed some students on the day and here are their comments.

Brothers Daniel and Isaac Herlihy arrived in Somerset after finishing their A Levels in Kent due to their parents relocating to the area and they both found opportunities to study at Strode College’s Higher Education department. Daniel took an HND in Computing and Isaac in General Engineering. They both graduated in 2021, and both found jobs in their area of study. Daniel works for Leonardo Helicopters in their IT Department and Isaac works for Sun Chemicals. Isaac commented.

“YES, finally we are celebrating this achievement and we are very happy that the skills we acquired we can apply in our jobs today.”

“I enjoyed my time at Strode; my teachers were passionate about their subject. Phil, our tutor, was in the Navy and he passed on so many practical stories applicable to our training. Teachers are the driving force; the quality of teachings is stellar”.

“We feel honoured to have our graduation in this majestic place; it feels more like a great reunion since we have not seen our classmates since 2020. Rowland and I met in the course and now we both are doing our MA at York University and we both work for my father’s Architectural Conservation Practice.”

“It is a great achievement being here. I am looking forward to walking to the podium and receiving my award. I graduated in 2021 and it has been so long now it feels like a dream. I will return to study at Strode in the future to complete a Level 5 and work counselling children and young people.”

“I cannot believe we are finally celebrating our graduation. During the pandemic, we did much studying online; however, due to our small classes it was easy to communicate with my tutors if I had questions. Currently I am doing a BA in Interoperability to work in the Public Sector. I loved my tutors; they were all from the industry and taught us from experience, we had a policewoman, a firefighter and someone with a political background.”

“Having the event here at Wells Cathedral is just breath taking and I feel honoured. At Strode College classes always felt like a caring community of students. It has been a long journey for me from not knowing how to use computers programs properly to writing compelling assignment reports. For every project, I used my husband’s farm business issues to help my learning and now I am looking forward to doing more for the family business and leaving my place of work at a retiree community. I went from finding the course on a leaflet that came through the door to gaining valuable skills in business.”

Georgia Davis and Christina Packer met in the course and became the best of friends. Now they are both studying for an MA in Psychology at the University of Gloucestershire two days a week. Georgia’s interest is in Organisational Psychology and Christina’s is Counselling. They both loved the community at Strode College.

“The class size was the best as we had time to learn and socialise, teachers were just lovely and really got to know you as a person.”