Meet Liz Mouland, Head of Marketing and Admissions at Plumpton College
This month, we meet Liz Mouland, Head of Marketing and Admissions at Plumpton College, to discover how the College supports learners, schools, and the community through flexible admissions, outreach, and unique opportunities across their campuses.
Tell us about your role
I’ve been at Plumpton College for eight years and my role is to oversee the work of our schools liaison, recruitment, marketing and admission teams. We cover all aspects from outreach through to joining the College and we do this by showing people the vast array of our offering and providing careers advice and guidance including support during their application process.
Plumpton College has both your main site and One Garden, tell us a bit about both sites and what’s available for learners
Our main campus is at Plumpton College where most of our provision takes place. We have a long-standing presence at Stammer Park (where One Garden Brighton is located) predominately for adult courses in horticulture. There was an opportunity through National Lottery Heritage funding to reopen the walled garden and restore a larger area of Stanmer Park.
The funding provided an opportunity to get people into nature and using green space, connecting Brighton better with Stanmer Park as well as making the space more accessible. We were able to open the walled garden, create a space for education and support businesses by using local produce in One Kitchen and One Market, our food and retail spaces.
Our courses at One Garden are part time adult provision and include floristry and horticulture as well as one day workshops for those wanting to try something new
How does Plumpton College work with local schools and colleges?
We have a student ambassador programme and try and take as many students as possible out to talk at schools and colleges about their stories, in particular our students who had no background in land and environment before joining Plumpton. We aim to challenge some of the stereotypical perceptions of what Plumpton College is and does and focus on giving information about the huge variety of learning and career opportunities there are in land and environment. There is a national skills gap in land and environment careers and young people are seeing first-hand the issues of climate change, war, cost of living and food security. We help young people connect with issues and be part of the change.
We attend careers fairs, parents’ evenings, assemblies and run specialised workshops. Our workshops are STEM related and provide additional resources in schools and colleges. We offer CPD in upskilling careers leaders and we are engaged with Head teachers through cluster groups. We continue to grow as a college and want to get people excited! There are so many opportunities and careers options available for students studying on our courses.
We have been commended for an AoC Beacon Award for our outreach work with young people aged 16-18 who are NEET. This outreach programme has been developed to respond to the growing number of young people who are NEET and provide these vulnerable young people with the skills, confidence and opportunities to find a pathway for progression. You can find out more here.
What support do you offer around flexible admissions for learners?
We pride ourselves in having a transparent and flexible process around applying and transition for learners. Our work is about ensuring learners are on the right path, at the right level. For us, it’s about integrity and looking after each individual. If students don’t get the entry requirements for their first choice with us, we work to find another option to get them to the level they need to be at to succeed.
We work hard at our transition support which is tailored to make sure students feel ready for the change to an open, rural campus. We have an amazing bus network run by the College which offers security and safety for learners getting to us and we have bursary provision for learners to enable them to use the service. Each year the College subsidies around 50% of the costs of all tickets.
We have a range of bursaries on offer for both our FE and HE learners which can be found here.
What support is there at the College for learners with additional needs?
Our Inclusive Learning and Development Team is committed to including and supporting learners to access all available opportunities and to have a positive learning experience. The team talk at our open events, and you can book in to speak with them individually. The team do their own transition for individual learners to help them feel confident and really ready to start at the College. We have and Inclusion Handbook which gives a good overview of all our support.
How can schools and learners find out more about the college?
They can contact our School Liaison team, Jess and Claire will be happy to discuss ways to work with your school or college. We aim to bespoke where we can with visits on site and to schools, CPD for teachers, staff training and more. The details can be found here.
I know the College always have lots of events, how can schools and colleges find out about these to advertise to their learners?
We do have lots of events! The best way is to look on our event web page. Our next event is open day coming up on Saturday 18th January. Our annual STEM day for schools and colleges runs in the summer term and early bird access for that will go out soon, get in touch with Jess or Claire to make sure you are on the list.
In March each year we have Lambing Live where schools across East and West Sussex and Brighton & Hove can join us in an interactive and engaging virtual laming event held over Microsoft Teams including live Q&A sessions with our Shepherd and the students. Email our team at schoolsliaison@plumpton.ac.uk for all the details.