About Us

The Board discharges its responsibility for setting the strategic direction of Colchester Institute by agreeing the Vision and Mission statements and the College’s Strategic Plan.

Over the period of this plan (2021 – 2024) we will produce an annual programme of activity that will enable us to:

1. Provide an outstanding experience which enables students to succeed in their qualification goals, progress to the highest levels of learning and move on to destinations that fully reflect their achievements at Colchester Institute.
2. Create a teaching and learning environment that encourages reflection on learners and learning, methods and approaches, and allows us to challenge and change the way we do things whether in a classroom, workshop or virtual environment.
3. Offer a curriculum that not only provides the skills needed for successful careers, but also supports and develops the whole person towards being an active, effective and valued member of their community.
4. Seek new ways to promote equality, diversity and inclusivity in all our operations, ensuring they are fully embedded into the curriculum for all students, and aspiring to parity of recruitment, achievement and opportunity for both students and staff.
5. Become a provider of choice for more employers to meet not only their training and workforce requirements, but other business-development needs.
6. Fulfil our social and environmental responsibility through our actions as an organisation and through our privileged position as an influencer of young people and adults, including contributing to the drive towards net zero carbon.
7. Become an employer of choice, which recognises, trusts, empowers and develops its workforce; and takes positive steps to ensure that the workforce is truly representative of the communities we serve.
8. Maximise the recent re-development of the Braintree Campus, through increased stakeholder engagement and a curriculum, across all provision types, that fully reflects the District’s needs.
9. Further develop the digital and physical resources that support the ambitions of this plan; delivering sector-leading advances through ongoing strategic digital transformation and ensuring that physical resources reflect modern and future work environments.
10. Secure the future of our organisation through strategic investment; sound financial planning and control; careful risk management and appropriate commercial decision-making.

The Vision and Mission Statements seek to encapsulate the core purposes and aims of the College. The Board recognises its obligations to all those with whom it has dealings: students, employees, local and national employers and industries, suppliers, other educational institutions and the local community. It also recognises that it has accountability to tax payers. Board members are committed to ensuring that they conduct their business in accordance with the highest ethical standards, to this end, every Board member signs a Code of Conduct. This is based upon the seven Principles of Public Service set out in the Nolan Report, these are:

• Selflessness
• Integrity
• Objectivity
• Accountability
• Openness
• Honesty
• Leadership

The Code sets out the ways in which members are expected to deal with their statutory accountability, how they exercise skill, care and due diligence, and the Board’s powers, conflicts of interests, collective responsibility, openness and confidentiality, complaints, attendance and good governance.

Colchester Institute is a mixed economy college of Further and Higher Education, established by the Further and Higher Education Act 1992. The statutory Instrument and Articles of Government sets down the membership, the powers and the responsibilities of the Board of Governors.

Much of the further education work of the College is funded through the Skills Funding Agency and the College is required to abide by the Financial Memorandum and the Audit Code of Practice.

The Colchester Institute Board of Governors is made up of members from a wide range of backgrounds, reflecting the communities the College serves and members elected by the staff and by students. The Principal is the only member who is both a Board member and a member of the executive.

The Board has overall responsibility for the educational character and mission of the College, for the general oversight of its activities and is accountable for the proper use of public funds and for exercising a duty of care for the assets of the College.

The Board of Governors and Colchester Institute are committed to ensuring that there is no discrimination within the College on the grounds of age, disability, family responsibility, marital status, race, colour, ethnicity, nationality, religion or belief, gender, sexual orientation, trade union activity, and any other irrelevant criteria.

Visit our governance section for further information

We are a College proud to encourage widening participation. We aim to provide a welcoming environment in which all learners are encouraged to realise their full potential; where every individual is valued and offered equal opportunity to progress.

To achieve this the College aims to ensure that all actual or potential learners are treated in an equivalent fashion regardless of age, disability, family responsibility, marital status, race, colour, ethnicity, nationality, religion or belief, gender, sexual orientation, trade union activity and any other irrelevant criteria. We seek to promote awareness of equality and diversity throughout the College and embrace diversity in all its aspects.

Colchester Institute is committed to the wellbeing of learners within all its learning locations and campuses; it is committed to promoting their welfare, protecting their physical and emotional well-being and safeguarding them from all forms of abuse.

The College’s Safeguarding policy aims to ensure that all learners attending the College and any of our other training locations do so in a safe and secure environment.

Colchester Institute expects all staff, students and visitors to share this commitment.

Colchester Institute welcomes the opportunity to forge relationships with the many communities that surround us, and to work collaboratively with our local contacts. These are some of the ways in which Colchester Institute provides community engagement opportunities and works with other organisations, for the benefit of local people and communities:

Colchester Institute Foundation Trust (CIFT) is an independent charity which raises funds to benefit students residing in the catchment areas served by Colchester Institute, including students studying Further Education, Higher Education and Apprenticeships.

The principle purpose of CIFT is to benefit Colchester Institute students who are experiencing financial hardship to the extent that they are struggling to participate at College / University and complete or achieve their qualifications.

Whilst the College has access to Government awarded discretionary Learning Support Funds to provide financial support for students on low incomes, who meet pre-defined eligibility criteria, in the current economic climate there are often cases where an individual student needs more financial help than these funds can provide.  Additionally, some students who do not meet the eligibility criteria for government-funded support, can still struggle to meet the costs associated with studying on vocational programmes and CIFT can often provide support here too.

In most cases students should first approach the College / UCC to see if funded support is available to them after which they can then submit an application to CIFT, see application form below,

Colchester Institute Foundation Trust awards can only be considered where a student can demonstrate commitment to their chosen course of study and that the impact of the award could mean the difference between them staying on the course or having to withdraw.

Support for Apprentices

As apprentices are classed as being in full time employment, the College is unable to use government funds to support their expenses, this group of students are often the ones most in need of financial assistance as they, and their families, are unable to claim most state benefits. CIFT actively encourage applications from Apprentices.