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Queen's Anniversary Prize

In 2007, City and Islington College was awarded the Queen’s Anniversary Prize for exceptional achievement, becoming the first general further education college to win the prestigious award twice.

Her Majesty The Queen presented medals to Principal Frank McLoughlin, Director of Applied Sciences Derek Puddick and Chair of Governors Jack Morris for “Creating Pathways to Employment and Higher Education in the Sciences”, celebrating the performance of its science provision which was described as outstanding by Ofsted in its most recent inspection.

The citation for the award stated that the College “Currently offers one of the widest selections of innovative science courses of any college of further education”. It hailed the College’s foresight in creating a Centre for Applied Sciences in 2003, focusing on the delivery of courses leading to science-based professions, “at a time when there was a national decline in applications for the study of science”.

It also said: “The College’s determined implementation of its vision has successfully bucked the national trend, seeing a dramatic increase in the enrolment of students studying science – numbers have more than doubled over the last three years.”

City and Islington first won the Queen’s Anniversary Prize in 1994 in recognition of its role in “widening access and progression to higher education”.

The award, presented every two years, was established in 1993 to mark the 40th anniversary of the Queen’s coronation. Of the 129 awards presented, most have been awarded to universities. Only 17 have been won by general FE colleges in England.