The Isle of Wight College

The Isle of Wight College website has  been named by the Further Education Marketing Network as the best college website in the UK 2009.

The Marketing team consisting of Mary Silk (Marketing Officer) Martin Farrell (Lecturer/Graphic Designer) and Aaron Bentley (Website Designer) travelled to Coventry, after being shortlisted by the judges for the gala awards ceremony, and were pleased to be presented by Dr David Collins, Chief Executive of Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS) and Michael Phillips, Senior Account Manager, Educate  (the sponsor of the award) with the winner’s certificate and cut glass trophy.

The College Marketing Network's FE First Awards are now well established as the further education sector’s annual opportunity to celebrate marketing best practice. They showcase the excellent and imaginative work that is being achieved in further education colleges across the UK.

Each of the 15 categories has a specialist, independent judge, who not only looks for best practice in the category area, but also how the entry fits into the college's marketing strategy. They are also looking for detailed evaluation of success against goals and objectives. Overall, judges agreed that there is a huge amount of innovative and creative thinking going on in colleges, and a very high standard was set. Rachel Smith, the Director of Marketing for The College Marketing Network, said “It was very hard to judge as the quality of entries was so high.”

Aaron Bentley, the creator of the new site, said “We had an awesome time at the ceremony, meeting loads of like-minded people, but in the lead up to the reading of the results, I’d never been so nervous in my life.” We’re delighted to be awarded 1st place in such a prestigious category, the College Marketing Networks Further Education First Awards are incredibly popular and well respected, and to have the college’s hard work recognised at a national level is fantastic!” “This website has been a labour of love for me, and I really appreciate the huge amount of effort from everyone at college. Without their input the site wouldn’t have turned out as it did.”