Staff Stories – Empowering students to enrich their lives
Ceciel is Preston College’s Enrichment Officer working closely with students, support staff and tutors to provide a wide variety of enrichment opportunities including sport, leisure, wellbeing and creative activities.
Ceciel says: “The best part of my job is working with the students; they are so positive and enthusiastic. In my job, I get to bring people together to have fun, discover new hobbies and make friends. The College is a unique place to work with hundreds of students on campus every day.”
Preston College has over 2,000 young people on Further Education courses so the campus is always busy and vibrant. This also means that there are a lot of different hobbies and interests that the enrichment officer needs to develop and support.
Ceciel continues: “You have to provide a wide range of activities, but you have creative freedom to develop opportunities, this could be through your own talents or interests or through student requests and suggestions. Sometimes people think you have to be good at sports or a sports coach to do this job but you don’t! Those skills are useful but they are not essential to the role.”
The Enrichment Officer needs to have skills in organisation, coordination and crucially communication as building relationships with students, staff and external organisations is fundamental to the role. Ceicel adds: “Listening and talking with students and empowering them to get their ideas off the ground has been one of the most rewarding parts of my role. I recruited students to the AoC (Association of Colleges) Ambassadors programme and they have really grown into their roles. Students have set up new clubs and groups such as LGBTQ+, neurodiversity, board games, creative writing, art and wellbeing and Dungeons & Dragons.
Having such a diverse role and such a large number of students to cater for does present challenges as well as opportunities. That’s why the enrichment officer needs to be adaptable and flexible in their approach, getting students the right activities, at the right place and time. The reward of seeing students flourish and setting up their own groups is second to none.”
We’re Hiring!
Preston College has generous terms and conditions and an excellent benefits package that is intended to attract, motivate, and retain the best people to help drive the College forward. We are recognised as disability confidence employer, accredited as ‘Gold’ for Investors in People and have a range of family friendly policies. Visit our vacancies page for the latest opportunities including the Cross College Enrichment Officer role.
