Foundations Newsletter

Colleagues,

As we come towards the end of this academic year, it’s timely to look at what has been achieved and think about what the next year will bring for us.

At the beginning of the year, the Chancellor asked us to strive the make our Foundations programme the best from among the three federal institutions, and we have made great strides in that direction; retention up, Level pass rates up,  Exceptional Progression firmly established, and IELTS pass rates increased although, of course, that has been helped by the changes to the grades needed to be successful.

None of these would have been possible without your professionalism and dedication in making sure our students have the linguistic and numeracy skills needed to be successful in their BAS studies. It’s been really rewarding for me to be invited to your assemblies and college events and to share in your students’ success, and to see and hear how much they realize what you have helped them achieve, which is a great deal.

You have let me know at your faculty meetings the issues that concern you, whether individually or collectively, and every one of these is followed up either by dedicated Foundations staff or centrally, and although the answers you receive might not always be the ones you wanted, we do promise to follow up.

For next year, we already have more than 6000 applicants, a small increase on this year, and more Direct Entry students than ever before. We will continue to evaluate what we do and look at ways to improve, and I urge you to seek out relevant professional development initiatives which will benefit both your students and yourselves.

Being a Foundations teacher is, in my opinion, the hardest job in the HCT but you know that already, and it has been a real pleasure working with you this year.

Congratulations and thanks for what you do for your students;  they are lucky people.

Have a great, well-deserved summer break.

Warm regards,

Tim