WCG (college)

WCG (formerly Warwickshire College Group and Warwickshire College) is the managing body that administers several colleges of further education in the English West Midlands, namely in the counties of Warwickshire and Worcestershire. Its most recent acquisition concerned its August 2016 merger with South Worcestershire College of which the two campuses then reverted to their historical names of Evesham College in Evesham and Malvern Hills College in Great Malvern. The merger makes it the largest group of further and adult education institutions in the country, and one of the five colleges in the UK empowered by the Privy Council with the authority to award foundation degrees.

As of June 2018 the group manages seven colleges with a faculty of around 1,500 staff for approximately 15,000 students. The group offers more than 1,000 courses over 20 areas of discipline with an A-Level pass rate of 98%.

The group provides National Curriculum courses and vocational education in a broad range of subjects to students aged 16 and over. It was formed in 1996 with the merger of Mid-Warwickshire College in Leamington Spa and Warwickshire College for Agriculture, Horticulture, Equine & Related Studies (formerly Warwickshire College of Agriculture) in Moreton Morrell and became Warwickshire College. In a further expansion, the college merged with Rugby College in 2003, followed shortly by a new campus opening in Warwick called the Trident Centre. It then merged with a fifth site at Henley-in-Arden. In August 2007, WCG merged with Pershore College, Centre of Horticultural Excellence, in Worcestershire, spreading Warwickshire College across the two counties. In 2014, each college was given an individual identity in that Warwickshire College Royal Leamington Spa Centre became Royal Leamington Spa College, part of Warwickshire College Group.

In 2016 a merger between WCG and South Worcestershire College took place, adding two further campus' in Worcestershire at Evesham and Malvern. At this point, it was decided that the college would trade as WCG to avoid conflicts between Warwickshire in the name, and three campus being in Worcestershire.

The college has Centre of Vocational Excellence (CoVE) awards in engineering, equine, farriery, maintenance and construction, and leadership and management. Following a March 2015 inspection, an Ofsted report accorded the college an overall Grade 2 (Good) for its performance. The college is a member of the Collab Group of high performing schools.

The Henley-in-Arden centre focused on sports-related studies, health and beauty, fashion and textiles and offered courses from further education right through to postgraduate qualifications. After a reassessment of the college's resources and the students demographic and locality, Henley-in-Arden College courses are now run at Moreton Morrell College and Royal Leamington Spa College in 2016, but gymnasium facilities still exist. On 23 October 2019 both WCG and Wasps RFC jointly announced that the centre would be sold to Wasps for use as a new training ground as it did not own one since moving into the region in December 2014."Wasps Rugby to purchase Henley-in-Arden Sport Centre - WCG". wcg.ac.uk. Retrieved 23 October 2019.

The main campus for WCG is located in Leamington Spa. It lies to the west of the town centre, in the Milverton area of town. It offers courses including A Levels, business, health care, hair and beauty, construction, travel and tourism and supported learning programmes. The centre has a range of facilities, including a learning centre and library, a lecture theatre, hair and beauty salon, sports hall and gym, a travel centre, college shop and a children's nursery. The Leamington Spa centre is also the current home to Warwickshire School of Arts. The school of arts offers foundation diploma in art and design and extended/national diploma in fashion and clothing.

Located in the Warwickshire countryside, the Moreton Morrell centre offers courses in equine, farriery and blacksmithing, agriculture, countryside, arboriculture, environment, horticulture, construction, floristry, animal welfare and veterinary nursing. The resources include a 345-hectare commercial farm with a large dairy herd, beef and sheep, wildlife habitats including woodlands, grasslands and wetlands. The college also has equine facilities, with stabling for over 100 horses, an indoor school, a covered school and large outdoor riding arenas. There are three forges, purpose-built centres for horticulture and veterinary nursing, as well as a large animal welfare centre housing a wide range of animals and facilities.