A FOCUS on where their students are heading, rather than solely on academic results, has been hailed as the reason for UTC Swindon achieving the town's best post-16 education progress score.

The measure shows what grades pupils actually achieve compared to what grades they were expected to achieve according to their GCSE results, and UTC was the only college in Swindon to achieve a positive score this year.

Jon Oliver, the principal of UTC, said: "This positive post-16 score is testament to the hard work and commitment of our students and staff. They have dedicated themselves to improving standards and staff have ensured that students gain enormously from the time spent with us.

"The results are well deserved and have given students a strong foundation to successfully apply for employment, apprenticeships and university courses."

Asked what it was about UTC that stood out among Swindon's post-16 education options, Jon said: "I think UTCs nationally are having similar findings and results.

"Employer links and applying their learning towards that end are important to us. Students come to us with a desire for engineering or digital technology and they have a very focused idea of what they want to do, so there’s a much more explicit focus on that link from education to the next step.

"The courses are very academically demanding as well. The BTEC engineering course the students take here is recognised by every university, which not all are. But it also links into what lots of employers want in terms of the skills and qualifications for their own people."

Jon added: "Swindon has a very low rate of university intake, and we have not found many students want to progress into university yet. Really, it’s the higher apprenticeships which have been a massive destination for students.

"We are much more geared towards that, and young people are saying, 'we don’t want to saddle ourselves with debt, we want to get into a job' – and that’s what appeals about apprenticeships."

UTC Swindon recently announced that it has launched a new digital specialism, to run alongside its engineering specialism, offering students opportunities to build their skills in highly sought-after digital technologies.

UTCs nationwide saw 97 per cent of all students who left in 2017 entering employment, further education or training.

Only one per cent of UTC students did not enter employment or further education.

Joanne Harper, executive principal at UTC Swindon, said: "The progress made at post-16 shows that our students are receiving high quality teaching; the same teachers also teach our Key Stage 4 students where progress from their starting points at the UTC is also positive.

"The quality of teaching and learning is the most important aspect of any school improvement plan and these results show that the UTC is on the right path and is already making rapid improvement.”

UTC Swindon opened in September 2014, with capacity for around 600 pupils. In January 2017, it received an Ofsted report which graded its overall effectiveness 'inadequate'.