Newcastle College - Newcastle upon Tyne

Hello T.

Attended the collage to study in a Healthcare course. Me & one of my mates got told we look disinterested even though we were just writing down what they told us to do. Got told to smile more because we look disinterested, and my mate got told to switch courses or leave the course because he looked disinterested. Just because the way he looked he got told to leave. Even though he was never not on time with anything and got mostly A*

Picking people out if they look different or don’t smile constantly, if you got piercings, tattoos, different hair colour they’ll pick you out. Even if you’re one of the few people in the classes that didn’t use CHATGPT blatantly in front of them.

• G. ?.

Didn’t send bursary on 23rd May due to system error. When I asked about it I was told it would be sent ASAP, I called back on 27th May and got told the payment was processing and would arrive by the 30th May. I didn’t receive my payment on the 30th May so I called back again and was told the payment wasn’t processed or on its way and I would now need to wait another week for payment. When pointing out that I had been lied to on previous calls I was told someone called Lauren would call and email me about my bursary, but I had to call back to find out she’s on annual leave until next week. Lauren is apparently the only person within the Newcastle College Group that can approve bursary payments which is odd for such a large organisation

There’s nothing I can do about this. The best the college has offered is £100 cash next week or payment into my bank next Friday completely ignoring that this money is already a week late. There is no sense of urgency or understanding that £100 is a lot of money to some people and to not know if it’ll ever actually arrive is just unnecessary extra stress at the end of the year

Update: Got my bursary 2 weeks late with no apology. Had to make a trip into college to receive it as cash otherwise it would have been 3 weeks late by the time it was processed and paid into my bank. Lauren seemed more bothered that I was told there was a system error as apparently this was a lie - she claimed my bursary wasn’t paid out due to my attendance despite four people confirming my attendance was 100%. It’s also strange that she claimed the bursary wasn’t paid to me due to my attendance being too low, yet paid me my bursary anyway.

I feel quite confident there was an internal issue and I was due an apology but Lauren wasn’t willing to admit any fault so all blame was passed to me.

Update 2:
Sent bursary for October 2025 late, blamed my bank when questioned on it. Bank confirmed payment was sent too late to be processed for the payment date and issue lay with NCG. I don’t know what’s so hard about just admitting to their mistakes instead of wasting time and passing blame.

Suzanne H.

I would strongly discourage adult learners from studying counselling skills (or health and social care) courses at Newcastle College and find a better establishment or local college.

Staff do not challenge discriminatory views or behaviour from students and will actively victimise any student who complains. I was victimised for complaining about very sexist comments from two male students in my Level 3 course. Both course and curriculum leads (female) dismissed my concerns and tried to convince me that adult men saying "women aren't suitable for certain jobs" wasn't even a sexist comment. Seriously?

Following this, Newcastle College victimised me by attempting to withdraw any support, my access to online course materials and tried to prevent me from finishing my Level 3 qualification. Staff refused to answer my emails or communicate with me for months, leaving me to research it all independently.

Eventually, I cited the Equality Act 2010 (which, ironically, they were teaching in class) and threatened legal action. Staff then posted an NCFE certificate dated two days after I fully handed in my coursework. Given there are strict educational internal and external verification practices for NCFE qualifications (which can take up to three months), I suspect this is educational fraud.

Course tutors had no significant experience of counselling or dealing with clients and had only recently passed their qualifications at Newcastle College. Therefore, they lacked real-life counselling experience as a tutor, which is pretty important. In several lessons the tutor couldn't pronounce common three-syllable words (as a native English speaker). However, the Curriculum Lead had found it totally acceptable to make fun of my accent when she taught on my Level 2 qualification.

I have encountered other former students who had similar poor experiences studying their Level 2 Counselling Skills courses and the Adult GCSE Biology qualification too (with terrible organisation and teaching). It's unsurprisingly that these courses are all run and overseen by the same department staff. Newcastle College, you can do much better!

Ellie H.

I would rate 0 stars if i could! I decided to do a fine art degree here after having an excellent experience at Newcastle Sixth Form, i naively thought it would be the same. Over the course of 3 years I received virtually no support from certain tutors. The favouritism was blatant and they never even attempted to hide it. I went through some serious personal issues that did impact my studies. i'm not someone who likes to bring my issues into work/education, so for me to actually go to my tutor and ask for help and support was a big deal to me. i received absolutely no support.

i'm not sure whether this is an art specific issue or is college wide, but my course was severely underfunded. I ended up paying for ALL of my own materials - I would like to know where my £12000 per year went because it certainly wasn't put towards my course. There was never any trips or guest speakers - save for the occasional walk to a local gallery. This didn't bother me until i found out other HE classes were going to London and Berlin FUNDED.

I managed to get my degree, didn't attend graduation as i simply didn't want to. I made the college aware that if they were going to post my degree to me, I was moving house so i provided them with my new address. It has taken until January 2025 to get my degree certificate when i graduated in July 2024. They sent it to my old flat & when i tried to get in touch with someone regarding what to do about this i was met with absolutely no help and eventually they just stopped responding to my emails. I managed to get in touch with the people who now live in my old flat and got them to post my degree cert to me!

in summary, don't waste your time or money here!

nina W.

did my decorating level 1 here from september 2022- June 2023. I had a great time, felt thoroughly supported and felt so comfortable being a female in a male dominated environment. I think the negative view on this college is outdated personally i could not fault it, was genuinely gutted to leave.

Ruby A.

My time on level 3 Foundation Art and Design was a nightmare. Tutor Adelin Clarke's inability to remember names, blatant favouritism, and bad attitude created a toxic environment. Treat me differently from other students, and her indifference made me feel isolated and unsupported. She dismissed any complaints made and the course was poorly run and draining. I wouldn't recommend to anyone. 0 Stars if I could.

Teagan C.

Wouldnt recommended this college to anyone, would rather go back to high school then go here again. I studied art for my first year and got 0 support and didnt even get my grades back at the end of the year, was bullied and complained to student support multiple times and nothing was done about it. My second year i studied hospitality and catering also had no support especially with my autism, i couldnt work in the bistro front of house because of my social anxiety and sensory issues and when i had breakdowns they told me to have 5 mins outside and then come back, i spoke to many different staff to see if i could be placed somewhere else when i had foh and they told me id be kicked iff the course if i didnt attend. At the end of the year our tutor told us we would be going to flamingo land, he told me if i done a powerpoint for him i could go on the trip which i completed and got my consent forms. The night before the trip he put out a message saying that me and 6 other students would not be attending the trip and instead would be working in kitchens or front of house. The reason i wasnt allowed to go was because of my attendance (my attendance was bad because of bus strikes that happened for 3-4 months) even though a boy in my course who has bullied multiple people and has been taken out of lessons was allowed to go and my attitude towards college, maybe if they were more accommodating i would be more positive towards college. Not only this but in the lifestyle building they have an older man allowed in the building after multiple young girls have complained about him making them uncomfortable including a young staff member. Absolutely disgusting will not be going back next year.

arif R.

My final year here was horrendous all my teachers left the person in charge locked himself in his office refusing to speak to anybody. We tried complaining to the college and they sent someone over to investigate but the guy just hired agency teachers who where awful and barly spoke English and the college investigater even admitted they where awful but they where just there to see if we had teachers or not so they couldn't do anything about it. As time went on we weren't learning anything and assignments kept on piling on and I just gave up it was obvious what they where doing they where just going to blame covid for everything. My mental health was also being affected the thought of me walking 8 miles a day for my education for no reason was very emotionally and mentally draining and I just needed to stop coming in but I still got reports from my mates and near the end of the year one guy in my group managed to teacher himself and get all the assignments done and he shared his answers with the group so I started coming in again but unfortunately by the time I got the answers it was too late I didn't have enough time to get the work done I did have a meeting with the assistant of the head of rail and she did exactly what I said they would do blame covid and apologise I was also told I wasn't allowed in education again without paying this place stole 4 years of my life for nothing I should have gone with my gut and moved couse when I had the chance this happened in 2022 Rail Academy and the fact the teachers in charge Dan hasn't faced any consequences and still works there to this day is disgusting and insulting at the very most. The agency staff who ended up getting permanent jobs in my opinion Dan's sick way to spite us allegedly got sacked the very next year.