New College, Swindon in United Kingdom 

There is a long history of providing education to adults in the local Swindon area. This began with the provision of educational classes for Great Western Railway employees in 1843. Eventually, the Victoria Road Technical College was established in 1896 and heralded the start of the School of Art which was the first purpose built School of Art in the South West.

The old Swindon College main campus in Regent Circus was opened in 1961, with North Star campus opening in 1975. The School of Art moved to Euclid Street premises in the 1990’s, but by 2006 all the Swindon College provision from the Regents Circus campus was rehoused at North Star campus, following expansion of the existing campus premises there.

Since 1902 there has been an offer of Higher Education at Swindon College, and over the years, although Swindon has no University, a variety of partnerships with Universities, have brought degree level studies to Swindon, as well as offering HNC and HND as qualifications recognised by industry in many subject areas.

In 1983 New College was founded in Swindon, and began offering further education including a range of A-level qualifications. The College went on to develop partnerships to deliver Higher Education with Universities and awarding bodies, and in 2020, the two Swindon colleges came together to form New College Swindon. This has brought together all of the Higher Education provision within Swindon, making our Higher Education offer broader and increasing the number of students, with the potential to expand and develop the offer of HE in Swindon further.

We have an established relationship with Oxford Brookes University which awards many of our Foundation Degree and Bachelor’s Degrees, and we also have Foundation Degrees and a Level 6 Honours year programme with the University of Gloucestershire, and are developing further programmes as part of the development of the Institute of Technology, due to open in September 2021, at our North Star site.