Has anybody seen the new college in Hillsborough. I think its very good!

:clap:

yes the college does look nice but its a long way out behind the dog track great for late night courses

Yeah lol. There is room where you can see the dog track! Watch for free! yay!

:clap:

building looks pretty cool right now but give it a few months when all the students are in it and there is chewing gum stuck everywhere and it wont be looking like that

Yeh mega idea all those that finish there at 9.0pm will get into the conjestion from the stadium with a set of light that only let 6 cars onto both lanes of the carraige way that is especially if they have any intelagence to do that. That is only on a thursday and thats from March to October. Don't know about the dogs on the rest of the nights.

I am attending Hillsboro college next year and i went to look round a couple of weeks ago. I thought the building was nice and it looked nice inside but i was quite disapointed with it.

This is because our teachers at college have been raving on about this huge new all singing all dancing fantastic college when i found the rooms small and the refectory small. Also who puts carpets in the refectory and the art rooms?! :loopy:

I think at this moment i prefer my old college but i am sure Hillsboro will live up to its good praise

I'm considering doing a programming course in VB (Visual Basic) at Hillsborough College next year when my ECDL course finishes.

I'm just trying to get as many up to date IT qualifications as I can so I can get a better job in IT than Office Gophering for Bill Gates :P

My daughter stars there in September and thinks it's brilliant. She went for a look round a few weeks ago and was very impressed. It's quite out of the way down a not particularly nice bit and it's a bit isolated. I'm glad she won't be going at night as I don't fancy her walking around down there when it's dark.

does anyone know how kids are expected to get there?

its miles away from the tram, so will buses be put on to take them to the door?

whoever was worried about small rooms - well when i was at collage most of the teaching was done in small groups so it was fine to have small rooms.

Idle person buses already run up and down Penistone Road. That is less than 200 mtrs from the place. Supertram runs to Hillsbrough corner, whe I use to go to the speedway as a kid I walked from there and it was hardley a route march ( or has rhe earth moved since the 60's and the distance has become miles)

after a bus or tram journey if i was them i wouldnt want to have to then walk down that spooky lane by myself

plus theres a fair distance to other services, just seems a weird location to me.

dont call me idle.

Its very shiny .... looks more like an airport or something than a college! Did a piece in the exhibiton there the other week , was shocked to see how posh it is inside. I can't belive i've been studying at an absolute dive of a college (Loxley) then as soon as i leave they decide to make a nice new college ! :hihi:
If youre going to the Hillsbro' one next term make sure you carry your ID card everywhere as they were quite strict on getting in without it.

Originally posted by empea
after a bus or tram journey if i was them i wouldnt want to have to then walk down that spooky lane by myself

plus theres a fair distance to other services, just seems a weird location to me.

dont call me idle.

I walk down that spooky lane everyday to goto work, never found it the least bit spooky

The spooky bit is when you turn off Livesey Street just before the college to get to work.

I just hope all these new students wont mean increased waiting times at Lillys Sandwich shop.

And its literally 5/10 minutes walk to hillsborough corner. I think its an ideal location.

Originally posted by empea
does anyone know how kids are expected to get there? Adults are not the only ones to have legs you know.
I am off there in September and will have to walk from Hillsborough corner. A nice little walk. I had to do it before when I went on Work Experience to just past the college in one of the industrial units.

Hillsborough College Website (http://my.sheffcol.ac.uk/index.cfm?pid=163F8C21-BE99-453B-BDF5-E365111C4F35)


Education is worth it.

I start at Hillsbo college in Sept - two evening a week. I live on the other side of town and do not drive.

Did find the location a little daunting at first, but when I've done nightschool courses before the tutor usually starts by asking what rides home are availble by/for fellow studentiers...

All this about how dazzlin it is is quite inspiring, and serves to cancel out the negatives - just hope the tutors are as polished - that's my main concern!!

Anyway, if ness, the stride will clear my hed for lessons, and burn those pesky calories - meaning I can eat more chocolate - it's all good!!!

Glad someones put this post on as my son missed the celebrations night at the new college and hasnt had a look round yet.
Hes been transferred from stannington college.

Only just found this thread.

It may seem odd to you that I'm posting on this when I WON'T be attending the college in september, none of my family will be studying at it and I didn't attend loxley or Parson's Cross college.

As a former governor of The Sheffield College, I was given a tour of the place several times, seeing how it was progressing. All I can say about the college is that I am severely impressed, if only it could have stuck on schedule then it would have been open before longley park, and that would have chnaged the education balance in north sheffield severely.

The building is larger than many people think, even when given a tour I seemed to forget about the fact it has 3 wings. As for the refectory being small, it isn't really it just uses the space there much more efficiently. While traditional refectories try to seat people in groups of four, this simply defies classroom logic where groups of friends tend to be in sixes or eights. The table are designed to seat this many people and take up less spacethan two four seater tables.

It is all very modern and I liek the way everything in the college focuses in on the central area, where student services is located. The feel of students as a community is architecturally built into the place and that is something I cannot praise enough. The building is filled with natural light which amazes me still because you walk into the central area and it feels like an open air courtyard it has so many windows.

As for other merits of it. It is possibly the safest college in sheffield IMHO, it has a security gate so cars are much safer when parked there, it has a manned entrace to the building and this stops any problems with complete strangers wandering onto the premises and making trouble, something that has been happening more and more recently, especially at the two former centres of Loxley and Parson's Cross.

I'm not sure how many of you have been but did you get a chance to see the garden space at the back of the building? Can you imagine what that will look like when the students undertaking some horticulture based qualifaction are at work there? I think it will be a constant wash of colour with the natural greens highlighted against the maroon red of the college exterior.

The only shame in my eyes is that health and safety have closed all the rooftop spaces. The would have made excellent gardens, or relaxing space, escpecially for staff members.

Wilf

I enrolled on a couple college courses there the last week, it looks brilliant, in side and out, i think we should be proud to have a collage as good as this....:thumbsup:

Like one or two others on here,I enrolled in a couple of night courses this week.As someone who's never so much as set foot in a college before,I have to admit I was VERY impressed by the building and im really looking forward to starting there come september:thumbsup:

im going there to do A-Levels! Yay!

I was there to enrole a few weeks ago and while the building and the range of courses available are impressive, I thought the organisation was pretty shambolic.

Hundreds of people crammed into a poorly ventilated gymnasium on a very hot evening, no clear instructions as to which queue (of dozens) you needed to join for your course and then after all that being told that the course is full...but we can put you on the same course all the way out at Stocksbridge.

Having just finished my a levels and now off to uni, id like to express my concern about hillsborough college, it is for the people in the north of sheffield. But i expect there will be many students from central and south sheffield doing a levels there, which will look good on reports about the college. But i am guessing many of these (a-level)students would prefer to go castle college which is ideally based in the centre of sheffield but can't as (daytime)Alevels at castle college are to be relocated to hillsborough college.
Im sure i cant be the only one to think the south of sheffield is getting a raw deal, especially when there was stradbroke college which was closed 5 years before it could be legally knocked down(because of a BT phonemast) and became a hotspot for drugs and crime.
So living in a "deprived" area, you would think a levels would be made easier to access to improve the area, but instead of been a 5 minute walk to do a levels 10 years ago and 40 minute walk last year to castle, it would be a 90 minute walk to norton college or a 60 minute walk to peaks, havent a clue how long it would take to get to hillsborough on foot.
Seen as someone from the college is commenting on the forum, which narrow minded idiot decided to relocate a levels from castle to hillsborough as this is obviously a stupid decision, when it would be possible for both colleges to provide a levels all day long, improving the education of sheffields youth, by allowing them an hour in a library instead of them spending an hour extra travelling?

What are the science labs like there? I remember doing Biology A Level at Loxley in a very poorly adapted old music room - the new college has just got to be an improvement on this!

Originally posted by tom3t0
Having just finished my a levels and now off to uni, id like to express my concern about hillsborough college, it is for the people in the north of sheffield. But i expect there will be many students from central and south sheffield doing a levels there, which will look good on reports about the college. But i am guessing many of these (a-level)students would prefer to go castle college which is ideally based in the centre of sheffield but can't as (daytime)Alevels at castle college are to be relocated to hillsborough college.
Im sure i cant be the only one to think the south of sheffield is getting a raw deal, especially when there was stradbroke college which was closed 5 years before it could be legally knocked down(because of a BT phonemast) and became a hotspot for drugs and crime.
So living in a "deprived" area, you would think a levels would be made easier to access to improve the area, but instead of been a 5 minute walk to do a levels 10 years ago and 40 minute walk last year to castle, it would be a 90 minute walk to norton college or a 60 minute walk to peaks, havent a clue how long it would take to get to hillsborough on foot.
Seen as someone from the college is commenting on the forum, which narrow minded idiot decided to relocate a levels from castle to hillsborough as this is obviously a stupid decision, when it would be possible for both colleges to provide a levels all day long, improving the education of sheffields youth, by allowing them an hour in a library instead of them spending an hour extra travelling?

I think it is a shame that they seem to polarising A levels into just a few sites. I hadn't realised they were getting rid of the daytime A Level programme at Castle. Although I don't think it's just the South of Sheffield that is getting a raw deal here. Loxley and Parson Cross have both closed in favour of Hillsborough, which means whole sections of people in north Sheffield now have to travel some distance to do A Levels (a walk from some parts of Stannington or Parson Cross to Hillsborough can take some time, and with First going the way it is will Students really be able to afford the bus fares every day?).

So now to do A Levels you have to either get into one of the very few schools with sixth forms (which are hard to get to if you don't live in the West of Sheffield), or travel to either Norton, Peaks or Hillsborough? So where I live now Norton would be closest, but there is no direct bus route and it is a good hour's walk! Thank God I did my A Levels 10 years ago - I might never have gone to university if it had been now!

i went 4 a tour round it n it looks brill!
there are also loadsa courses there 2 choose from.
way better than what the loxley college and cross 1 was!

Originally posted by tom3t0
Seen as someone from the college is commenting on the forum, which narrow minded idiot decided to relocate a levels from castle to hillsborough as this is obviously a stupid decision, when it would be possible for both colleges to provide a levels all day long, improving the education of sheffields youth, by allowing them an hour in a library instead of them spending an hour extra travelling?

Well, as I never worked for the college (I was a students' union representative on the board of governors, and the board doesn't work for the college either) I cannot say who decided that, but like you I don't agrew with it. All I can say is that these decisions were made after the college had effectively crippled any form of disagreement by making trade union reps less effective (federalised structure) and removing the students' union from any position of power by denying them the ability to have full time elected sabbaticals or even any union development officer.

Wilf

Its brilliant its just a pity about the buses and trams as the college is a walk away from the trams and the buses aren't that frequent. I'm doing a book keeping course there but already regretting it especially as I work all day get there and then it takes far too long for me to get back. When im travelling there its the rush hour. Im beginning to wish i had done an evening course @ a different college

Complaint about the sheffield college:
Being a 'mum-at-home' who doesn't receive benefits I have to say I found hillsborough college really expensive.
I wanted to do something useful with one evening a week and decided to learn British Sign Language (I was a special needs teacher before I had the kids and was always conscious that I didn't have the signing skills to effectively communicate with some of the kids I taught).
To learn BSL in Sheffield it would cost me £170, and yet the same course in Chesterfield would only cost me £76. How is this almost £100 difference justified?

i went there to pick up my results. Thought it looked rather good but didnt really get a chance to look round it, just the bare bones really. Talked to my college lecturer and he informed me that although the staff rooms were alot smaller the place on the whole was great and he was looking forward to working here rather than the parson cross he previously worked at.

My wife turned up at the college to start a course this morning and found there is no parking facilities for the students only for the staff.

Students are currently parking on both sides of Liversedge street bumper to bumper.

Parking on the Street will end as there are notices on the lamp standards to say that street parking will be restricted from the 30th September, there are no notice to say where they can park.

She reported for the course which was advertised as commencing at 9.30 until 3.00pm in the college syllabus.

She was told that they had now altered the schedule and that she could only stay for 2 1/2 hours and would have to pay another 145 pounds to stay until 3.00pm.

To expect an OAP to pay nearly 300 pounds without any concessions for a 1 day course doesn't prove any encouragement to older citizens.

The class were then told the workshop classes had been suspended as the three workshop's extraction equipment was not up to the safety regulations.

Only one of the three workshops had extraction fitted and that was not up to standard.

She was told there is a 6 weeks delivery on the equipment but the council and the college have not ordered it yet and so no-one can say when the workshops will be ready.

They were told the shortened course would start on the 2nd November but couldn't guarantee the use of the workshops, seeing this is a practical course not having a workshop seems ridiculous.

We are returning back to New Zealand in January and so the whole point of attending this new college has gone out of the window.

Even on the sign up day there was complete confusion amongst the staff and the whole experience of attending this college has proved to be one disaster after another.

I do hope for the sake of the students of Sheffield that someone down there gets their act together.

The college looks good and built in a good accessible place but I'm afraid the management do not appear to be up to the job of running the facility.

The management track performance looks pretty bad and there is plenty of room for improvement in both organisation and communication.

My daughter started college there in September and loves the place, compared to Castle College it is a palace. She walks from Hillsborough corner and does not find it a problem, but whether her views change in the winter months we will hjave to wait and see.:clap:

Too many bloody teenagers wandering through Hillsborough now. A gang of em forced me to walk in the road the other day. If I wasnt in such a good mood one of em would have been lamped!!

All these complaints of a short walk from the bus stop and maybe a half mile from the tram, sheer idleness. Is it also this idleness which stops people spelling correctly, am shocked to see all these students who cannot spell even with spell checkers available on computers. Enrol on a literacy course while at this new college.

Bus Drivers reoprting that services 53,77 &80 are full to capacity and most students / passengers are left behind waiting up to 30 mins for an empty bus.

Extra buses put on by First South Yorkshire Buses to cope........................You Must Be Joking!!!

I'm with desy and scotcross on this - there are shedloads of buses and trams through to Hillsboro' corner ......walk for goodness sake! young people need all the exercise they can get. Empea, what other word word would you use to describe someone who feels a ten minute stroll is beyond them?
And what's so "spooky" about the road down there?
Headless horsemen charging about? Wraiths? Ghouls?

The college is ok, But the one thing they missed out was a breastfeeding area, So much for Sheffield being pro breastfeeding when the college dont even have a room for it !!!!

It annoys me to see people having a dig at the area I live and work in, some people are never satisfied. Livesey Street is only a short road, fair enough it has trees and the river on one side for a few yards, but on the other it has the casino and a guarded car park (until 5.00 am) so hardly a desolate place. In fact since the college was built I have never seen the road as busy.
If you want spooky carry on to the end and into the old Wardsend Cemetery you can actually cut through there to Shirecliffe etc, there would be reason to complain if that was the main access to the college.

Originally posted by empea
after a bus or tram journey if i was them i wouldnt want to have to then walk down that spooky lane by myself

plus theres a fair distance to other services, just seems a weird location to me.

dont call me idle.

Crikey you sound idle to me. I used to live at the middlewood end of hillsborough and attend stannington college, and I walked there and back every day, it took about 45 minutes through all the back streets.
And the lane you had to walk down to get to that was slightly longer.

And guess what, 19 years later I am attending my third year at college this time around, at evening class and they have sent me to Tapton school which is a Languages branch of Hillsborough college. The building is also fairly new but far less convenient to all of us than norton was last year.
I finish work at 5.50pm and have half an hour to get there, which I did in my car, and it took 20 minutes due to the gridlock through hunters bar.

Similar to the Hillsborough site, there is not enough car parking as later arrivers had to use the drive up to the carpark.
Norton site, where I attended the last 2 years was far better, in that it was a large site with a huge amount of carparking. One of my fellow students who last year used to arrive often ten minutes late after finishing his work, arrived about 90 minutes late because it had taken him 2 hours to drive from Chesterfield.

Also there is no sign at the entrance to the site. So that many people were forced to drive around the district looking for the site for ages.