NEW College Pontefract
Created | Updated Mar 15, 2005
NEW College was founded back in 1911, it was originally a Girls high school, and is now a mixed 6th Form college.('NEW' acctually stands for North East Wakefield). Pontefract is located south of Leeds, near Castleford. The area is famous for it's 'Pontefract cakes' some days you can smell the liquorish been made in the Haribo factory all over the town. Just behind the college are the golf course and the racetrack, during the summer there are horse races every few weeks. It’s a good place to be as a student, for lunch there’s several pubs in town (10 min walk away) or numerous bakeries, or (if your really desperate) there’s a McDonalds just down the road from the college.
Most of the factual information can be found on the official website http://www.newcollpont.ac.uk, but I am telling this from a 2nd year students point of view.
The college has excellent computer facilities with over a hundred PC, all fully networked and running windows XP available to students.
The IT facilities are probably better than you would expect, as well as all the in college equipment, it has its own servers and mail exchange server meaning you can access your college folder, and college emails from home. Unfortunately this means you don’t have as many excuses for not doing homework, computing teachers in particular use a web based program called ‘blackboard’ to set online assignments.
Although I don’t venture into the common room often, I’ve been told is a great place to go when you have free time. There’s a jukebox, pool table, arcade game(s?) of course, lots of sofas and a canteen. And the great thing is, teachers seem to avoid going in there for some reason.
Students do have a big influence on how the college is run. We have a student council with representatives from each tutor group that meet once a month to discuss issues with the staff, this has led to new seats in the common room, ‘FCUK’ shirts been allowed again, then banned again and many other changes that I’m sure they had a part in.
As I’m sure their website will tell you, the test results are great every year, getting in the top 6 colleges of the country. Academically it’s clearly the best choice for local students, and in my opinion it’s the best place to be.
There’s plenty of parking available for any student vehicle, and the college has several buses hired to get students to college and back everyday. There’s also a train station nearby as well as an Arriva bus station that’s just been rebuilt.
Evidently all these factors are working well together to make the place, well, work.
(I am now at University, so I dont know if this information is correct anymore. Theres a slim chance a current student may stumble accross this page, if so, I would like to hear from you.)
Most of the factual information can be found on the official website http://www.newcollpont.ac.uk, but I am telling this from a 2nd year students point of view.
The college has excellent computer facilities with over a hundred PC, all fully networked and running windows XP available to students.
The IT facilities are probably better than you would expect, as well as all the in college equipment, it has its own servers and mail exchange server meaning you can access your college folder, and college emails from home. Unfortunately this means you don’t have as many excuses for not doing homework, computing teachers in particular use a web based program called ‘blackboard’ to set online assignments.
Although I don’t venture into the common room often, I’ve been told is a great place to go when you have free time. There’s a jukebox, pool table, arcade game(s?) of course, lots of sofas and a canteen. And the great thing is, teachers seem to avoid going in there for some reason.
Students do have a big influence on how the college is run. We have a student council with representatives from each tutor group that meet once a month to discuss issues with the staff, this has led to new seats in the common room, ‘FCUK’ shirts been allowed again, then banned again and many other changes that I’m sure they had a part in.
As I’m sure their website will tell you, the test results are great every year, getting in the top 6 colleges of the country. Academically it’s clearly the best choice for local students, and in my opinion it’s the best place to be.
There’s plenty of parking available for any student vehicle, and the college has several buses hired to get students to college and back everyday. There’s also a train station nearby as well as an Arriva bus station that’s just been rebuilt.
Evidently all these factors are working well together to make the place, well, work.
(I am now at University, so I dont know if this information is correct anymore. Theres a slim chance a current student may stumble accross this page, if so, I would like to hear from you.)
