Black Mountains College offers a distinctive mixture of higher education, further education, and public education courses. We are committed to providing a high-quality education on all of our courses, informed by the principles in BMC’s educational vision of experimentation, diversity, justice and transformation. We are developing a Teaching and Learning strategy, which will be available at a later date.

Our undergraduate programme is validated and awarded by Prifysgol Metropolitan Caerdydd / Cardiff Metropolitan University, while our further education courses are accredited by Grŵp Colegau / NPTC Group of Colleges.

We are pleased to be working in a Welsh context that recognises the interconnectedness of tertiary education: we report to Medr, the new Commission for Tertiary Education and Research / Y Comisiwn Addysg Drydyddol ac Ymchwil, which has oversight of both further and higher education courses in Wales.

Our undergraduate programme will, in due course, be reviewed by the Higher Education Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) as part of the Quality Enhancement Review of Cardiff Metropolitan University. The QAA is an independent body entrusted with monitoring and advising on standards and quality in UK higher education. Any reports, and our responses to them, will be posted here.

Our approach

Our Education Committee meets four times per year and its purpose is:

• To maintain strategic oversight of the educational vision of the college and ensure its coherence and fidelity to the founding mission of the organization: to educate for the well-being of future generations
• To provide strategic oversight of educational quality
• To approve new courses, suspension of courses and educational partnerships

The Committee is chaired by the Chief Academic Officer and its membership includes representatives of our FE, HE, and public education programmes; our accrediting partners; our board of trustees; student representation; and external critical friends. It provides an important forum for student feedback to be addressed strategically across the College.

Reviewing the first year of the degree

Our undergraduate degree, the BA in Sustainable Futures: Arts, Ecology, and Systems Change, recruited its first cohort in September 2023. As it is a new programme, we utilised internal moderation processes (so the majority of assessed work was reviewed by more than one marker) and appointed an external examiner, although this is not a requirement for first-year work (at Level 4).

The external examiner for 2023/24 noted:

“I was particularly impressed by the innovative curriculum design. The curriculum is extremely interdisciplinary and well equipped to support students to learn the skills that they will need to thrive in an environmentally uncertain future.

I was also impressed by the assessment practices. Assessments were creative and innovative and gave students ample opportunity to focus on topics that they are passionate about. There was an exceptionally diverse array of assignments including: presentations, essays, creative practice, portfolios, report analysis, reflective exercises, visual maps, webpages, podcasts, source analysis, and videos.

This is the first year of the BA Sustainable Futures at Black Mountains College. Having been an external advisor during the development of the BA, it is wonderful to see the programme become a reality.  It was a pleasure to look at the variety of work that the students had produced, some of which was of an extremely impressive standard.

I am confident that the programme team are taking quality assessment processes seriously, as demonstrated by their decision to institute moderation processes at Level 4 and engage an external examiner to review the first year of the programme – which I believe goes above and beyond Cardiff Met’s formal requirements.“

Higher Education Governance Summary

Black Mountains College is committed to governance practices that allow the College to effectively and efficiently meet its objectives and goals, to remain a challenging, relevant and creative leader in the education sector and to continue to meet its regulatory and financial obligations and responsibilities.

BMC governance framework is defined by the core roles and responsibilities of the three principal bodies for institutional governance:

Board of Trustees is the corporate governing body which sets overall strategic directions and the policies and processes necessary to achieve institutional objectives and performance targets and to sustain the quality of higher education that is offered. It is ultimately responsible to stakeholders for organization and academic outcomes. The Board of Trustees assures itself that the organisation is financially viable and has the capacity to continue to apply sufficient financial and other resources to maintain viability of the entity and its model, to meet and continue to meet the requirements of the Higher Education Standards Framework. It is accountable for all of the operations, including accountability for the award of higher education qualifications in partnership with the BMC strategic HEI partner and the accuracy and integrity of its representation directly or through agents and other parties.

Academic Board is the academic governing body which sets and oversees the policies and processes necessary to achieve intended academic outcomes consistent with BMC’s overall strategic directions. The Academic Board is constituted with independent members who provide independent academic advice for informed and competent decision making and direction setting.  Academic Board sets academic standards and monitors academic outcomes. It is delegated responsibility by the Board of Trustees and is accountable to the Board of Trustees for academic outcomes. The meetings of the Academic Board will be attended by elected student representative(s) to ensure that the student body has a voice and participates in the deliberative and decision-making process of the College.

Executive Management includes the Chief Executive Officer and other senior executives and managers, and the Principal. The Executive Management is responsible for implementing policies, programmes and processes, including the making of decisions about staffing, budgets, infrastructure, etc. It is delegated responsibility by the Board of Trustees and is accountable to the Board of Trustees for effective implementation of both corporate and academic objectives. The Chief Executive Officer is ultimately responsible for the staffing in the organisation and may delegate decision making on staffing and budgeting to other members of the Executive Management.