My good friend and former colleague Dame Patricia Morgan-Webb, who has died aged 79, was the principal of New School Nottingham from 1998 till 2003, and a key determine within the additional training sector in Britain.
In 1992, she was one of many first ladies to be appointed as a university principal, at Clarendon School, Nottingham, with earlier expertise that meant she was nicely positioned to face the adjustments implicit within the shift from native training authority management to incorporation.
Small schools had been unlikely to outlive the rigours of the brand new funding regime, and Pat determined to prioritise cooperation above competitors. With the help of the Additional Training Funding Council for England and the native authority, she created a partnership of faculties that resulted in a four-college merger to create New School, with Pat as its principal.
There was additionally a world dimension to her work, and he or she was invited by the post-apartheid South African authorities to assist develop a contemporary FE system within the nation. However, whilst her popularity grew, Pat by no means misplaced her deal with serving the folks of Nottingham – her creation in 1999 of a brand new campus for New School in Nottingham Lace Market, with a listed mid-Victorian lace manufacturing facility, the Adams Constructing, at its core is one such instance.
She was made a dame in 2000, the primary FE faculty principal to be so honoured. After her retirement in 2003, New School continued to thrive and is now a part of Nottingham School, one of many largest FE schools within the UK.
The daughter of Evelyn (nee Osland), a store assistant, and Hector Morgan, a miner, Pat was born in Oakdale, Monmouthshire, a “mannequin” mining village. She attended her native grammar college earlier than graduating from Swansea College with a level in historical past and a instructing diploma.
Arriving within the West Midlands in 1965, Pat spent the following few years honing her expertise, instructing liberal research and historical past at Wulfrun School (now Metropolis of Wolverhampton School), and Dudley School, earlier than elevating a household. She returned to full-time instructing at Wulfrun School in 1979, when the collapse of conventional industries within the West Midlands meant the time was ripe for modern and artistic management.
Pat’s ardour, dedication and expertise led to a speedy development via the FE administration grades. She took on the position of workers coaching coordinator then principal lecturer on the Accredited Coaching Centre in Telford (1983-85), principal lecturer at Bilston School (1985-88), and vice-principal at Corridor Inexperienced School, Birmingham (1988-92).
In Birmingham, in 1988, Pat met Chris Webb, a university principal, they usually married in 1992. In later years they loved widespread journey collectively, together with to a house in Florida that supplied the bottom for additional exploration of the US.
Pat is survived by Chris, and by her youngsters, David and Catherine, and granddaughter Grace, from a earlier marriage which led to divorce, and by Chris’s two youngsters and 4 grandchildren.
