Bristol’s Filton College is one of the fastest growing and most vibrant Colleges within the South West of England.

Bristol, the largest city in the South West, is an attractive, modern, cosmopolitan city, famous for its maritime heritage. Located a couple of hours away from London, Bristol is within easy reach of England’s beautiful West Country coast and countryside.

Filton College is a college of further, higher and adult education operating in the state sector of the UK’s education system. The College is a centre for local and community education as well as a provider of courses for international students.

Founded in 1960, the College is now a major centre for learning, providing education and training courses to more than 2,500 full-time and 11,000 part-time students. The College is renowned for its long and successful record in delivering English language training alongside academic and vocational subjects and welcomes approximately 250 overseas students from over 100 countries throughout the world every year.

Students from all over the world have successfully completed courses at the College and moved on to universities or returned home with brighter career prospects.

Academic strengths
Students achieve excellent exam results at Filton College, an indication of the quality of our teaching and the dedication of the students who come here. We have 100 per cent pass rates in many of our GCSE, AS- and A-level subjects. The overall achievement of students studying on one of our higher education or Access courses is also at an exceptionally high level, with a pass rate above 90 per cent in 2004.

In a full EiBAS inspection in March 2005, inspectors judged Filton College’s English as a Foreign Language provision to be strong. In particular they highlighted the responsiveness and inclusive nature of the College, the quality of teaching, accommodation and learning resources and good learner support.

Facilities
Filton College has recently invested £27.5million in redeveloping its existing facilities.

The recent investments include:

• A new £3 million A level centre
• A new library and learning resource centre with state-of-the-art IT facilities (free internet and email access)
• Dedicated Computer Software
• New science labs
• A health and beauty salon
• Student social area, restaurant and a coffee shop
• New animal care & veterinary nursing centre at Bristol Zoo Gardens
• Centres of Vocational Excellence in Aeronautical Engineering

In September 2005, the College opened a new state-of-the-art £17.5 million specialist vocational campus specialising in Sports, Visual and Performing Arts.

The new vocational campus offers the following sports facilities:

• Artificial indoor and outdoor football/rugby pitches
• A fully sprung sports hall
• Aerobics studios
• Gymnasium and altitude training unit
• Sports Bar
• 6-lane 400m running track

In addition, the new campus has a 250 seat Theatre, Music laboratory, Rehearsal rooms and Dance studios. For the creative arts it offers specialist Fashion and Textiles studios, printmaking studios, Apple Macintosh Suites and ceramics facilities.

Student life
International students automatically become members of the Students' Union which provides a variety of regular recreational and sporting activities, excursions, trips abroad and parties and gives international students the opportunity to mix with British students. The International Office also organises a varied social programme including weekend visits to places such as London and Edinburgh.