West Suffolk College is celebrating a four-year partnership with the housing provider called Flagship Group.
Since agreeing to work with West Suffolk College, Flagship Group recently donated £4000 worth of building materials to the Built Environment campus that is based in Bury St Edmunds.
This equipment included top quality bricks, copper pipes and various other building materials relating to plastering, tiling, flooring as well as painting and decorating that have supported students in their studies on various construction related courses.
Rhys Snelling and Matt Rowe construction students at West Suffolk College working with materials that have been provided by Flagship.
Since agreeing to work closely with one of the top educational establishments in the region in 2020, Flagship Group has continuously donated products, sponsored apprenticeship programmes, supported with guest lectures and around 20 former students now work for a company that has their headquarters in Norwich.
Nadine Tapp, head of the Flagship Group Academy, said: “We formed a partnership with West Suffolk College to establish a true employer-educational model designed to increase talent coming into the sector, mitigating the risk of future skills shortages.
“We’ve been delighted with the success of the collaboration, which provides an entry route to apprenticeship opportunities at Flagship Services and Gasway.”
Ms Tapp went on to sat that Flagship’s apprenticeship programme was nationally recognised and had supported almost 300 apprentices since it was set up in 2013. Adding that over 78% of Flagship apprentices completed their programme - 24% more than the national average.
West Suffolk College students are delighted with Flagship support.
One of the students to benefit from the link is Elina Kolosova, 19 from Bury.
Elina is on a level two multi trades course at West Suffolk College and said: “The support we get from Flagship is amazing. With the materials we get, we can do so much more and it’s massive and helps prepare us for the workplace.”
Bailey Woolnough, 18, from Walsham-le-Willows is also on a level two multi trades course and thanked Flagship Group for their support: “A huge thank you to Flagship. The fact that they have employed over 20 students from the college means it is an important link up.”
The Flagship link-up is a boost for West Suffolk College's construction students.
Dale Potter is the course director for the level two building and property maintenance programme. Dale said: “The partnership has been brilliant and helps give our students a more rounded education by getting to work with these amazing materials.
Support like this has a massive impact on student retention and it gives them a ready made route in to an apprenticeships. It’s absolutely superb and I’d like to say thank you to Flagship Group.”