MidKent College (formerly Mid-Kent College of Higher and Further Education) is a further education college in Kent, England. It runs courses from two separate campuses in Maidstone and Medway, including a number of higher education courses.
There are approximately 8,500 students aged 16 years and upwards enrolled at the college. Courses offered range from pre-entry level to degree level and cover a wide range of vocational and academic subject areas. [1]
The college has two main campuses: the Medway Campus in Gillingham and the Maidstone Campus (formerly the Oakwood Park Centre).
In September 2009 all courses at the old sites of the Horsted Centre in Chatham and the City Way Centre in Rochester were moved to a new combined campus on Prince Arthur Road in Gillingham. The new campus, which received more than £40 million of Learning and Skills Council (LSC) funding, cost a total of £86million. It offers training facilities in a range of subject areas including construction, performing arts, music and catering. [2]
The Medway Campus was officially opened by The Princess Royal on Thursday 25 March 2010. [3]
In late 2012 work started on a £22 million refurbishment of the Maidstone Campus to bring its facilities up to the standard of the Medway Campus. [4] The wider development of the Maidstone Campus also includes a refurbishment of the University for the Creative Arts' Maidstone campus – also located at Oakwood Park – which was purchased by the College in 2011. [5]
In 2014 both City Way and Horsted centres were demolished. [6] [7]
The college has been delivering vocational education in Medway and Maidstone for nearly 100 years. Its roots lie in the technical institutes established within the Medway towns in the 1890s and Maidstone around 1918. [8]
The college first began delivering courses from the Horsted Centre in Chatham in 1954. [9] The site was opened as Medway College of Technology by the Duke of Edinburgh on 5 April the following year. [10]
Medway College of Technology and Maidstone Technical College amalgamated in 1966 to become Medway and Maidstone College of Technology. [11] The purpose-built City Way site in Rochester was subsequently opened as an additional college site in 1968. [12]
The college changed its name to Mid-Kent College of Higher and Further Education in 1978, [13] before dropping the hyphen and space and the latter part of its title to become MidKent College in October 2008.
Throughout the 1950s, 60s and 70s, the college's students were famed for their Rag Day parade. This saw them conducting a carnival procession through the Medway Towns. The parade started at Gillingham train station and ended at the esplanade in Rochester. Each year the students elected their own "Rag Day Queen" to head the procession.
The current principal of MidKent College is Simon Cook, who has held the position since July 2014 after the sad death of principal Sue McLeod.
McLeod had previously worked across the Caribbean, United States and Europe during her time in the travel industry, including a stint aboard cruise liners. She had earlier achieved a degree in Business Studies at the Dorset Institute of Higher Education – now Bournemouth University – where she returned to study Travel and Tourism prior to embarking on her teaching career with MidKent College.
In 2014 Sue McLeod was diagnosed with a brain tumour. On 24 July 2014, MidKent College informed the public via social media that she had died, the statement stated "It is with great sadness that MidKent College announces the death of its much-loved principal Sue McLeod at the age of 53." [14]
The current chief executive of MidKent College is Simon Cook, who has held the position since the retirement of previous CEO, Stephen Grix, in July 2016.
Mr Grix first joined the College in 1971 when, having left school at age 15 with no formal qualifications, he enrolled as a day-release bricklaying student at the old Horsted site in Chatham. After 13 years in the trade he returned to study an education degree, followed by a master's degree in education management.
The father-of-three eventually went on to become principal of Sir George Monoux College in Walthamstow, north-east London, and then head of Ofsted's post-compulsory education division. Next was a role as director of education for the London borough of Tower Hamlets before Mr Grix returned to MidKent College as principal and chief executive in March 2005.
Once back at the place where he launched his career, Mr Grix took on the mammoth task of closing the College's dated Horsted and City Way sites and identifying funding opportunities for the new £86 million Medway Campus, which opened in 2009. He then turned his attention to improving the Maidstone Campus, which is currently undergoing a £23m redevelopment due for completion in December 2013.
In January 2013, Mr Grix announced he would step down as principal at the end of the academic year but continue as chief executive on a part-time basis until 2015. He was succeeded as principal by his former deputy Sue McLeod.
In June 2013 Mr Grix was appointed an OBE for services to further education in The Queen's Birthday Honours List.
Mr Grix is also an executive director of MKC Training Services Ltd, which administers the College's contract to deliver training within the Royal School of Military Engineering at Brompton Barracks.
MidKent College became an associate college of the University of Kent in 2001. The University of Kent validates the college’s higher education programmes. [15]
Kent is a county in the South East England region, the closest county to continental Europe. It borders Essex across the entire estuary of the River Thames to the north; the French department of Pas-de-Calais across the Strait of Dover to the south-east; East Sussex to the south-west; Surrey to the west and Greater London to the north-west. The county town is Maidstone.
Chatham is a town within the Medway unitary authority in the ceremonial county of Kent, England. The town forms a conurbation with neighbouring towns Gillingham, Rochester, Strood and Rainham. In 2020 it had a population of 80,596.
Rochester is a town in the unitary authority of Medway, in Kent, England. It is at the lowest bridging point of the River Medway, about 30 miles (50 km) from London. The town forms a conurbation with neighbouring towns Chatham, Rainham, Strood and Gillingham. Rochester was a city until losing its status as one in 1998 following the forming of Medway and failing to protect its status as a city, the first city to do so in the history of the United Kingdom. There have been ongoing campaigns to reinstate the city status for Rochester. In 2011 it had a population of 62,982.
Medway is a unitary authority area with borough status in the ceremonial county of Kent in South East England. It was formed in 1998 by merging the boroughs of Rochester-upon-Medway and Gillingham, and is administered by Medway Council, which is independent from Kent County Council. The borough had a population of 278,016 in 2019. The borough contains the towns of Chatham, Gillingham, Rainham, Rochester and Strood, which are collectively known as the Medway Towns.
The River Medway is a river in South East England. It rises in the High Weald, West Sussex and flows through Tonbridge, Maidstone and the Medway conurbation in Kent, before emptying into the Thames Estuary near Sheerness, a total distance of 70 miles (113 km). About 13 miles (21 km) of the river lies in East Sussex, with the remainder being in Kent.
Gillingham is a town in the unitary authority area of Medway, in the ceremonial county of Kent, England. The town forms a conurbation with neighbouring towns Chatham, Rochester, Strood and Rainham. It is also the largest town in the borough of Medway. In 2020 it had a population of 108,785.
Strood is a town in the unitary authority of Medway in Kent, South East England. The town forms a conurbation with neighbouring towns Chatham, Rochester, Gillingham and Rainham. It lies on the northwest bank of the River Medway at its lowest bridging point.
The Kent Institute of Art & Design was an art school based across three campuses in the county of Kent, in the United Kingdom. It was formed by the amalgamation of three independent colleges: Canterbury College of Art, Maidstone College of Art and Medway (Rochester) College of Design. In turn KIAD merged with the Surrey Institute of Art & Design, University College on 1 August 2005 to form the University College for the Creative Arts at Canterbury, Epsom, Farnham, Maidstone and Rochester. In 2008, this gained full university status and became the University for the Creative Arts.
Chatham and Aylesford is a constituency in Kent represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2024 by Tris Osborne of the Labour Party.
Medway was a county constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom between 1983 and 2010. A previous constituency of the same name existed from 1885 to 1918.
Walderslade is a large suburb in Kent in Chatham split between the unitary authority of Medway and the boroughs of Maidstone and Tonbridge & Malling in South East England. It was, until 1998, fully part of Kent and is still ceremonially associated via the Lieutenancies Act. It encompasses almost all the ME5 postcode district.
The University for the Creative Arts is a specialist art and design university in Southern England.
The Medway School of Pharmacy is a school of pharmacy in South East England. Established in 2004, the school is the result of a collaboration between the University of Greenwich and the University of Kent. Its campus is part of a shared facility on Chatham Dockyard in Medway, Kent.
Mid Kent was a county constituency in the county of Kent, which returned one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
Prior to its uniform adoption of proportional representation in 1999, the United Kingdom used first-past-the-post for the European elections in England, Scotland and Wales. The European Parliament constituencies used under that system were smaller than the later regional constituencies and only had one Member of the European Parliament each. The constituency of Kent West was one of them.
St John Fisher Catholic Comprehensive School is an 11–18 mixed, Roman Catholic, voluntary aided secondary school and sixth form in Chatham, Kent, England. It was established in 1964 and is located in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Southwark.
The Chatham and District Light Railways Company was the originator and first operator of the electric tramway system that served Chatham and Gillingham, and was later extended into Rochester, Strood and Rainham. The system was in operation from 17 June 1902 to 30 September 1930, when it was superseded by the motorbuses of the Chatham and District Traction Company.
