At North Hertfordshire College and Hart Learning & Development, we’re proud to work with dedicated colleagues to help us reach our goals and our learners achieve their dreams. At our annual winter conference, colleagues from across the group nominate each other for awards to recognise their work and achievements. Join us in celebrating the winners from our December 2023 conference!
Dean Kilmartin, Motor Vehicle Tutor
“Dean is a kind and determined person who goes above and beyond for his students and the College. He always has an upbeat and happy can-do attitude. He adds sprinkles and sparkles to everything he does for his students and very much deserves this award and recognition.”
Cheryl Hall, Health & Social Care Tutor and Course Team Leader
“Cheryl’s development of the curriculum, work with the NHS, and community engagement is of an exceptional standard, leading the work on skills and employer engagement. Her impact on curriculum development and the team has been staggering and this filters through to other areas in the department. Her practice in the field of recall and retrieval is of an excellent standard and, again, this practice benefits the department as a whole. Cheryl’s capacity to share ideas, work across multiple teams, and successfully manage a variety of projects benefits the students and College immensely, creating a pipeline of high-performing practitioners to service a sector with a significant skills shortage.
“Cheryl’s work in Health really is a beacon of excellence.”
Meg Parker, Course Team Leader for Multi Skills
“Meg has progressed quickly within our department since she joined, and this is due to her passion for making a difference to the students who have enrolled at NHC who have SEN. She is committed to the students having a positive experience at college, whatever their level or needs, and is a dedicated and integral part of our team. Meg began her NHC journey as a Learning Support Assistant and completed the Award in Education (AET) and was inspired to continue and progress onto the Diploma in Education and Training (DET) to support her role as a tutor and joint Course Team Leader in Multi Skills. She is a highly valued member of teaching staff who goes above and beyond to offer an exciting, meaningful, and relevant curriculum to the young people she teaches. Nothing is ever too much for her. She works quietly and discreetly with ambition for students and the team members she supports.
Meg was nominated by several people, with comments including: “We feel lucky to have you as part of our team”, and “you’re a superstar and with your determination you will go far.”
Darren Hay, Employability Tutor
“Darren has worked tirelessly over a long period to ensure that Hart Learning & Development is the training provider of choice for a community-based hub which helps local residents with all things from addiction, housing, right through to training and movement into work. He has gone above and beyond in embedding HLD into this setting and we now teach out of the hub every single month and are being given new opportunities. This was also highlighted during our recent inspection and the feedback from the hub manager was something to be exceptionally proud of.”
Health & Social Care Apprenticeships Team
“This team goes above and beyond at every opportunity, both in supporting their apprentices, developing relationships with employers, and supporting each other within the team.
“They have continuously driven development and progression across all qualifications and in their own CPD to ensure that the provision is professional, ambitious, and inspirational. Feedback gained from employers and apprentices supports this. The team works within local and national geographical areas to provide needs-based opportunities and ensure success for apprentices from diverse backgrounds and with a wide range of support needs.
“The team work seamlessly together and operate with a high degree of respect and integrity, constantly pushing for excellence and that ‘even better if’ outcome.”
Rakhee Shah, Deputy Head of Computing
“Platinum and gold standard were two of the phrases associated with Rakhee’s contribution within her department in terms of work experience, employer and stakeholder collaboration during the Ofsted feedback sessions. With the recent introduction of T Levels, she has sourced all T Level placements through a successful employer recruitment and matching event, with employers asking to go onto a waiting list for future placements! Rakhee has also sourced a wealth of guest speakers and industry-led activity for students to benefit from and prepare them for their next steps. Whilst doing all this, she still teaches and leads with integrity and confidence, making them an inspiration to the team and other managers.”
Jenny Woolnough, Additional Learning Support Co-ordinator
“Jenny always has time for her team, putting others first to hear what they have to say and to support them. She always keeps her team informed and updated of any changes to make sure they have all the information needed for to do their job to the best of their ability. Jenny respects everyone she interacts with and makes them feel at ease. She facilitates the most individual support for learners and staff working in their team, driving them to their full potential.
Jenny received numerous nominations, and some of the phrases used to describe her include: “Jenny smiles through everything, even when it’s tough. We are truly lucky to have her,” and “I’ve never had a line manager that I respect and appreciate more than Jenny.”
Tom McCall, Estates Administrator
“Tom is a discreetly vigilant, super reliable staff member for whom nothing is ever a problem. With an increasing number of issues requiring CCTV footage, he has become our Poirot of the cameras. Many hours have been spent viewing footage and tracking down incidents from all angles to ensure we have a strong evidence base to deal with concerns. At times, this must be extremely tedious. However, he approaches every request with a positive response and enthusiasm.”
MIS, Exams, and Reporting Team
“The MIS, Exams and Reporting Team work tirelessly in the background to support students throughout their journey with the College. This year, we threw an extra challenge their way which they took in their stride, and all pulled together to make things work. This September was a particular challenge with new methods of working for everyone, learning a new system themselves whilst supporting others to use it also.
“The team ensured reports were transferred over to enable other departments to manage their learners’ data, ensured achievements were all in the system to enable final outcomes for 22/23 to be reported both internally and externally, set up registers and reported attendance, and handled several hundred online enrolments! Teamwork has been key to working through this, as well as a sense of humour at times! The team have all gone over and above, some of them being very new in role, working many extra hours to ensure the work gets done and deadlines are met which is very much appreciated.”
Mary Hodgkiss, Learning Support Assistant
“Mary always goes the extra mile in her role as Learning Support Assistant, ensuring all Springboard learners achieve, whatever their support needs may be. She regularly gives up her own time to fetch and drive minibuses to facilitate trips and visits. She is inspirational in her approaches and will reduce the support given incrementally as the students’ needs reduce, empowering them. Mary has been at Springboard from the beginning and at the Hart Learning Group for over 25 years, helping to make it all it is today. She is a great team player who happily passes on her experience to new members of staff, making them feel welcome immediately. She is an inspiration.”
Sandra Shirley, Personal & Academic Development Tutor
“Sandra constantly and consistently demonstrates high levels of professionalism, respect and community spirit every day. She greets everyone with a smile and such enthusiasm that she lights up the ECC. Her ambition for our students is inspiring to all of us and Sandra clearly demonstrates huge amounts of integrity in the way she approaches everything with such warmth and passion. The team at the ECC are all so pleased to have her here supporting our students as we can all see how she strives for excellence and to raise the aspirations of all our students in every interaction she has with them.
“At lunchtimes, Sandra will often be seen building rapport with students in Student Services, showing great interest in their out of college life, work, and hobbies. She shows every student that she teaches that she believes in them and genuinely cares about their progress and personal development. She sprinkles special magic across the ECC to staff and students and sees the good in everyone.”
Emma Masters, Head of Wellbeing and Safeguarding
The Unsung Hero award this year went to Emma Masters, Head of Safeguarding and Wellbeing.
Emma is someone that works across the organisation and is known to most, if not all, colleagues as well as many of our students. She covers many sensitive and difficult areas of work with immense integrity, resilience, good humour and pragmatism. She is always positive, despite having to manage what must at time be ‘intense’ and difficult issues.
Here it is, The Big ONE
Kerry Pritchett, Head of Quality
“Kerry truly embodies the Groups’ values. She works across the College supporting all staff, from teachers and assessors to managers and support staff. She understands that it’s our organisations’ togetherness that allows us to improve and develop.
“Kerry approaches issues with a calm and positive ‘can do’ attitude, no matter how tough the task, and she empowers others to find solutions. More recently throughout the Ofsted inspection they supported staff to prepare so that they went into the inspection with confidence. She parachuted into teams and departments to make sure they were in a good position going into the Ofsted week, attended inspection meetings, dealt with some tough inspectors, holding her own and supporting her team and colleagues and she was a major player in the extremely organised “war room”, dealing with the 500+ requests for information throughout the week… and she did it all with a smile! Kerry is a rock for her team, staff, and for the Hart Learning Group.”
Congratulations to all of our winners!