South Thames College, Carshalton College, Kingston College are pleased to announce that they formally merged today, 1, August 2017.

The three Colleges will form the South Thames Colleges Group – with Carshalton College, Kingston College and South Thames College all continuing with their existing names. This will allow the colleges to continue to build on their successful reputations.

South Thames College’s Merton Campus will formally become Merton College, meaning the new group has four distinct member colleges.

The merger will bring together the strengths of all the colleges, enhancing opportunities for current and future students and safeguarding the provision of further education to local businesses and across south west London.

Carshalton College is recognised for its strong local presence and its thriving vocational curriculum, especially in construction, media and engineering. Kingston will continue to deliver some of the best Further Education provision in the country across a very wide range of high-profile subjects, sending around 1000 students a year to university. South Thames College’s modern Wandsworth Campus is recognised for providing an industry-standard learning environment, whilst Merton College is home to the highly regarded Hospitality and Catering Academy.

Peter Mayhew-Smith, the current principal of Carshalton College and Kingston College, has been appointed as CEO and Group Principal. South Thames College’s Principal Sue Rimmer OBE, retired at the end of this academic year.

Mr Mayhew-Smith, said: “This merger provides a unique opportunity to enhance local provision by combining the expertise and world-class facilities of all organisations – creating a stronger, more resilient college group, which is better placed to serve our students.”

The merger will cause minimal disruption to current students and those who have applied to study at the colleges from this coming September.

As part of South Thames College's 'Skills for Employment, Training and Personal Development’ course, our Level 1 Progression Pathways students attended The National Archives in Kew on an academic research day course. The students had the opportunity to read a number of unique and original documents including: Henry VIII’s will, Henry VI original documentation and Alan Turing’s war time secret document with regards to the Enigma machine.

The students were taught how to handle, decipher and understand ancient documents. In addition, they were vetted and are now registered readers at the archives and can handle these document and millions of others unsupervised.

Neil Grigg, Curriculum Manager for Progression Pathways, said: “The visit was a great success and the students thoroughly enjoyed looking at the different documents of national significance”.

South Thames College together with Business Launch Pad hosted a husting with the local MP candidates for Tooting, Wandsworth and Battersea a few weeks before the General Election. It was a great opportunity for our students to find out more information about how the political parties and the General Election will affect young people.

Members of the audience including students and staff questioned the Labour, Conservative, UKIP and Liberal Democrat candidates on their recent manifestos, topics surrounding Brexit, university fees, housing, employment and their thoughts on the upcoming General Election.

Kevin Grindley, Head of Student Experience at South Thames College said: “It was great to see a packed lecture theatre full of students, many voting for the first time. The husting was an ideal conclusion to round off the hard work that staff put into encouraging young people to go and vote.”