Heist Awards

On the back of the College's recent success in winning two prestigious Beacon Awards from the Association of Colleges, Newham College have won two more awards from Heist, a specialist marketing services agency that encourages and rewards good practice in the marketing of universities and colleges.


Heist annual competition established since 1989, is open to all providers of further and higher education in the UK and other organisations working to promote opportunities in universities and colleges. The Heist award is the only programme of its kind to discover and highlight best practice in post-16 education marketing. The winning entry in all categories must reflect the variety of work and high standards achieved by today's education marketers.

The first Award won by the college is for our NewCAD (Newham College Access Diploma) national awareness campaign. In this category the judges were looking for an enterprising and novel solution that fitted within the overall long term strategic objectives of the institution.

In order to raise the profile locally and nationally of NewCAD, the campaign set out to raise awareness through community events and media activities that centred around NewCAD's links to Mike Tomlinson's recently announced recommendations. The judges identified the success of the campaign in significantly raising internal and external support gained by engaging students and staff in the College. Political interest generated further media coverage and significantly increased the awareness of NewCAD locally and nationally.

The college targeted various media outlets and gained positive exposure in newspapers such as, The Independent, Times, Evening Standard, Express, Guardian, Daily Star, TES, The Lecturer, The Voice, Newham Recorder and the Stratford Express. We also had articles published in trade magazines, Blues & Soul, Sneak, Music Week and TV hits and gained airtime on radio stations Radio 1, Radio 4, Five Live, Choice Fm, Capital radio and also received favourable coverage when college staff and students appeared on TV and Satellite channels BBC1, BBC2, ITV and MTV.

The second award received by the college was for engaging the East End Apparel Industry. This award is given specifically for the work carried out by its Centre for Innovation and Partnerships with the struggling east end fashion industry.

Newham College established relationships with over 750 businesses in the fashion and garment industries as a result of this project alone, 403 jobs have been safeguarded and 146 new jobs created. The project resulted in two new business advice centres being established and three new sector networks and the college being awarded its Centre of Vocational Excellence in Clothing and Textile manufacture.

The judges felt the campaign was original in it's approach, stimulating, value for money with clear messages and calls to action. They also felt that it clearly demonstrated best use of resources and to what effect they were used and highlighted the good use of market research that identified the need for this business project.

With the Asian Dreams project the CIPs team have encouraged and rejuvenated core East End industries, substantially contributing to their future success. The team are now exploring further opportunities with industry contacts, including the possibility of setting up a British Asian Fashion Council to continue the raising of the profile of the industry and to develop close links with the British Fashion Council and London Fashion Week to ensure the ongoing development of the Asian Dreams brand to the benefit of the East End community.