Members of staff from the University College Isle of Man (UCM) visited Jersey’s Highland College as to judge its educational performance.

The initial peer review started before the pandemic when teams from Jersey’s Highland College and UCM visited the Guernsey College of Further Education.

This is part of the reciprocal agreement with Jersey and Guernsey.

During the visit, the team (alongside Guernsey College of Further Education) had a programme of activities analysing and reviewing all parts of the college’s offering, including the facilities, ‘student experience’, adult education, curriculum, quality of teaching and learning, operations and strategic objectives, which then contributed to a report on the outcomes.

UCM principal Jesamine Kelly said: ‘The peer review is an incredibly helpful way for us to benchmark what we’re doing.

‘We don’t have Ofsted on the Isle of Man, but it’s important for us to make sure that what we’re doing is the best it can be and identify any improvements we need to make.

‘This is just one part of our process for making sure what we are doing is right for our students and right for the island.

‘As well as being a “critical friend” to the teams in Jersey and Guernsey colleges, this gives us the opportunity to look at what they are doing in a location which faces similar challenges to the Isle of Man, to see what works well, which we can in turn adopt, and identify the areas that we excel in.

‘In order to deliver the best outcome for our students, and the best student experience, we must always look at best practice, how other organisations operate and of course the industry, and activities such as this enable us to do so.

‘We’re looking forward to welcoming teams from Jersey and Guernsey to evaluate us at UCM and provide some valuable insights and feedback.’

In addition to the peer review, individuals from other teams across the University College have visited colleges in the North West of England to compare quality, review best practice and look at improvements at UCM.

Members of UCM’s construction team attended an exhibitiond and staff from the Synnova hair and beauty team visited a professional beauty exhibition.