‘Courageous’ college in Doncaster praised by Lord Lieutenant

The Lord Lieutenant of South Yorkshire Dame Hilary Chapman spoke of her admiration for Harrison College, Doncaster, as she toured the specialist business, enterprise and employability post-16 education provider for students with special educational needs.

“It is absolutely amazing,” the former chief nurse told principal Gemma Peebles after meeting staff and students. “I love the fact it is focused on young people, families and the community. It fills a gap in provision, and I have never seen anything like it.

“I can relate to all of the college’s values, and it has taken a huge leap of faith which is so courageous. This is so enabling for people who have been written off with a label. It is a very powerful model.”

Mrs Peebles told the Lord Lieutenant that she had worked in education for 12 years, latterly

as a head of sixth form and a consultant. She said she constantly came across the same issues, finding suitable places for post-16 students with additional needs.

“So I told my husband that I was going to start my own college, which I did at the kitchen table,” she said. “I had one young man. We now have capacity for 35 young people each year and have already received 80 applications for next September from students aged 16-25. Of these 96 per cent go into apprenticeships, jobs or education after being with us two years.

“We make sure they have the skills they need and look for opportunities for them in the workplace, anything from the racecourse to the council, environmental projects to private businesses.

“We work in health and social care and with MIND. Whoever wants to work with us we say yes and the more people the better.”

Dame Hilary heard that the college had been funded by Mrs Peebles and received some Lottery funding seven months into the project.

Mrs Peebles told her: “We take students for two years. We never set them up to fail and our SENDCO is very good at assessing candidates to ensure we have students who will be able to access our study programme and are likely to succeed. It is about offering an individual approach and drawing out individual skills.

“You need to develop strategies to survive in the real world, to give them the tools to move forward with their ideas. We build what employers need into our curriculum and if everyone does their job then the student becomes employable.”

Harrison College currently has 19 staff and there are aspirations to expand to other areas in the Sheffield City Region.