Bilborough College alumni Grace Hodgett-Young has been nominated for an Olivier for Best Actress in a Supporting Role in a Musical for her performance as Betty Shaefer in Sunset Boulevard alongside Nicole Scherzinger on the West End. In her first role since graduating from Mountview in 2023, she won Best Professional Debut at the WhatOnStage Awards and will be part of the Broadway transfer later this year. Grace studied BTEC Extended Diploma in Performance Arts at Bilborough College. She is currently playing the lead role of Euridice in the West End revival of Hadestown – the cast also performed as part of the Big Night of Musicals in January on BBC 1.

Bilborough College alumni Ben Rose is starring alongside Michelle Dockery and Geraldine James in new six-part BBC Drama This Town, created by Steven Knight, best known for Peaky Blinders. It is set in the Midlands during the 1980s and follows the start of two-tone and ska music. The series tells the story of a band’s formation set against a backdrop of violence as the music scene explodes. This Town will be broadcast on BBC One and will be available on BBC iPlayer from 31 March. Ben studied Performance Studies and Drama & Theatre at Bilborough College, before heading to Rose Bruford to study Actor Musicianship. Ben also appeared in Line of Duty on the BBC.

Our third Student Equality & Diversity Forum is on Tuesday 23^rd April 2024.

The theme for the forum is ‘Breaking Barriers’ and our guest speakers this year are Richard Whitehead MBE and the Rt Revd Rose Hudson-Wilkin. Richard and Rose will be sharing their inspiring life stories at the forum and inspiring students with personal insights into how they have, and continue to, overcome barriers and limiting societal beliefs.

Anisah Osman Britton, who studied at Bilborough from 2009-2011, is one of the youngest people to be awarded an MBE in this year’s New Year’s honours.  She received her award last week from King Charles for services to diversity in tech.  Anisah is also a Forbes 30 under 30 honouree and is listed in the Financial Times’ 100 most influential BAME leaders in tech.

After completing her studies at Bilborough College, Anisah decided to intern in small to medium sized businesses around the world as an alternative to university. Following that, she started an online freelancing business for students, winning Young Entrepreneur of the year 2012.  Subsequently, she launched a coding school for women where, for every paying student, the school teaches a disadvantaged woman in India.  Anisah said of her time at the college, “your ability to make learning fun, your belief in students and the way you treated us like adults gave (and I’m sure still gives) students that little bit of extra confidence to achieve whatever it was we wanted to achieve”.

Bilborough’s current Principal, David Shaw, who taught French to Anisah when she studied at Bilborough College, is extremely proud of her achievements.  He said, “I’d love to express my surprise that Anisah has been honoured, but my only surprise is that it has taken 10 years!  Anisah always had a desire to make a difference, and she has maintained that drive in all she has done.  She is a perfect role model for our current students who, like her, are encouraged to believe that anything is possible with the right knowledge, skills and mindsets.”

Anisah is currently a reporter at Sifted, where she writes the Startup Life newsletter and is the author of ‘Brown Bodies’ where she explores sex in the South Asian diaspora.

The latest issue of the college magazine – Folio is below.

https://view.publitas.com/p222-16718/folio-issue-3-final-version/page/1

We are very proud that one of our brilliant Bilborough College Alumni (Geography, Biology, Chemistry and English) has been heavily involved throughout COP26 in Glasgow as part of the UK Government Team working on Communications. Jasbir Basi was an excellent student at the college who progressed to study at several Russell Group Universities and has since gone on to achieve great things in his very successful career so far, also becoming a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.

Commenting on his experiences Jasbir said “Working on COP26 has been THE geographers dream. A dream started a while ago in Bilborough” he strongly encourages students to choose Geography at A-level, saying “Bilborough is a fantastic place to study geography and would urge everyone to study it”.

Simon Holland, Head of Faculty for Geography, who taught Jasbir when he was at the college said “Jasbir is a great example of what our students can achieve if they work hard and follow their dreams to make a real difference in their future career”. “It is fantastic and humbling to see our great Geography students like Jasbir who we have taught about the challenges facing the world such as Climate Change actively being involved in the process of finding solutions to these difficult global issues”.

We are very proud of all he has achieved – he is a real credit to the college and his journey to this crucial global climate conference highlights the many and varied high quality career progression routes open to our students after college; Bilborough College students and alumni really do make a difference every day!

You can find out much more about COP26 here https://ukcop26.org/ .

Year 12 students took part in the college’s first ever fully remote work-related experience and progression (WREP) week. From May 24^th to 28^th 2021 all Year 12 students could access over 119 sessions with local and national providers, develop employability skills and learn more about their career plans. Every subject area at Bilborough Sixth Form College provided a career challenge and businesses also provided challenge activities in marketing, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, IT and fashion. We were able to attract international companies such as BBC, Channel 5 and the NHS to support the event with inactive workshops as well as many high-profile Universities such as Nottingham, Sheffield, Derby, Lincoln and Cardiff Metropolitan.

Over the week the sessions were attended over 5000 times and students reported how informative and beneficial the week was for them. Director of Curriculum and Quality Andrew Ball was pleased with the new programme and its wider impact on the student experience at Bilborough Sixth Form College. He said “I believe this was an incredibly valuable and positive experience for our learners and a huge thank you to all the staff and external organisations that worked tirelessly to host an event of this size in such a tough year for education and young people”. The event was well received by the students, Joshua Eaton one of our Year 12 members of the Student Executive team said “WREP week was a great opportunity to explore not only what careers our subjects can lead to, but to explore various different career paths that we may not have considered before. Hearing from Politics graduates who had gone on to work in City Hall London, the Civil Service, with the RAF and in political consultancy made me all the more excited to apply for Politics at university.” Alison Lardi, Careers and Progression Manager, added “We would usually invite employers and universities into college during the year, and students would go out on work experience placements, but this couldn’t happen this year. The WREP week gave our students an even wider range of opportunities than usual though, and they developed employability skills in the subject and employer challenges. We were proud of how well they engaged, and now feel they have a great foundation for informed decision-making about their futures”.

From 17 May 2021, Bilborough College will be part of a Research College Group. We will collaborate with colleges and sixth forms to raise the profile, standing and value of post-16 education and training through research.

www.researchcollegegroup.co.uk

A Bilborough College student is following in the footsteps of a string of famous graduates after securing a place at a prestigious London drama school.

Grace Hodgett Young was thrilled to learn she had an offer from Mountview, in Peckham, which counts Amanda Holden, Ken Stott, Sharon Small and Happy Valley, Shameless and Thin Blue line star Mina Anwar among its alumni.

Dempsy & Makepeace’s Glynis Barber, Downton’s Mr Bates Brendan Coyle, Shetland’s Douglas Henshall and soap stars Don Gilet, Michael French and Sally Dyvenor are also former students.

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Work by three teenagers from Bilborough College is featured as part of a national online art exhibition to showcase the life of sixth form college students during lockdown.

More than 140 students from 46 colleges submitted contributions to ‘At home’, which is being co-ordinated by the Sixth Form Colleges Association.

Bilborough College students Chloe Duriez, Ellie Edwards and Daisy Evans all had their submissions accepted.

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