College hailed for star performance

Oldham Sixth Form College, which has 300 pupils from Rochdale, has been hailed as the highest rated educational employer in this year’s prestigious Best Companies Awards.

The college once again achieved a two-star “outstanding” accreditation — it was also labelled outstanding by Ofsted inspectors last year, who gave it their highest rating for the fourth time running.

The college is also in the top 5% of sixth forms for students’ progress in new A-level league tables, which puts it alongside independent schools.

In total, 795 companies applied to achieve “star status” accreditation this year, with 150 being successful in achieving the “outstanding” rating.

The list includes household names such as Kellogg’s, American Express Services Europe, Pricewaterhouse Coopers and Unicef UK.

Every organisation that enters is given a Best Companies Index score, which is calculated from employees’ responses to the 16 key questions within the Best Companies employee survey.

These questions cover areas such as leadership, wellbeing, personal growth, my manager and my team. The questionnaires are administered by the Best Companies team, according to a strict process.

The college’s deputy principal, Jayne Clarke, and personnel manager Linda Burrows travelled to London to receive the award, presented by the chief executive and founder of Best Companies Limited, Jonathan Austin.

Ms Clarke said: “We are delighted to receive this award as recognition that the college is maintaining our outstanding record as an employer, in addition to our status as an excellent provider for students.

“Our staff are our most valuable resource and it means a great deal to us to know that they continue to rate the college as an outstanding place to work.

“We hope this award will further help us continue to attract the very best staff.”