South Downs College

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The College occupies a single site, purpose built campus on Portsdown Hill, within the Borough of Havant.

The majority of the College's students are drawn from Havant and Portsmouth, an area with a combined population of over 300,000.Fact|date=March 2008

It currently offers 45 A-Level subjects and 40 vocational subjects to full time students as well as over 600 courses for part time students.Fact|date=March 2008

Some of the College's part-time provision is based off-campus mostly within schools and community centres to meet more localised needs. The College actively supports lifelong learning within the community and aims to expand its provision in local centres. In support of this the Leigh Park Learning Centre in the Greywell shopping precinct in Leigh Park was opened in October 2000.Fact|date=March 2008

South Downs College is continually improving its facilities with twelve new building programmes in as many years. Major developments include: new teaching areas, theatre and allied performing arts provision; a large modern training salon in the Hair and Beauty Department; a Fitness Centre containing state of the art facilities and equipment, including a large area with both CV machines and free weights; a new purpose built music building, featuring recital room, practice rooms and a recording studio; a refurbished fully licensed restaurant; enhanced laboratories; media studio; networked information technology facilities and a new purpose built animal building for handling and care courses.Fact|date=March 2008

As a result the college has become increasingly popular and currently has around 5,000 full time students and 7,000 part time students.Fact|date=March 2008

The College's exam results are consistently above the national average. In 2007, 36 subjects achieved a 100% pass rate. The overall pass rate for summer 2007 was 99%.Fact|date=March 2008

In 2005 the South Downs College was judged to be an 'outstanding college' by Ofsted. In October 2007 Ofsted again judged the College as 'outstanding'. [cite web
url=http://www.southdowns.ac.uk/downloads/inspection_summary.pdf
title=Summary of Ofsted Report October 2007]

References

External links

* [http://www.southdowns.ac.uk Official Website]
* [http://education.independent.co.uk/higher/az_uni_colleges/article1213502.ece "Independent" news article]
* [http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/reports/index.cfm?fuseaction=summary&id=130695 Ofsted inspection report (2004)]
* [http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/viewarticle.aspx?sectionid=2009&ArticleID=1322842 Portsmouth Today, article on college restaurant]