Royal Recognition
Head of Curriculum and part-time Ofsted Inspector Biddy Lall was delighted to be awarded an MBE in the Jubilee Queen’s Birthday Honours List. Biddy’s award for service to apprenticeships and vocational training reflects a career starting in 1978 ago as a Lab Tech apprentice at Beecham Pharmaceutical before a career in financial services and finally coming into education.
Biddy came to The JGA Group for a small amount of freelance work (making Powerpoint slides for a business administration apprenticeship course) and now, 7 years later, as Head of Curriculum, sits in the Senior Management Team. She is the person most responsible for making our apprenticeship provision what it is today, starting with a single template and working with experts to deliver the 16 standards we teach today. For several of these we were the first in the country so there was absolutely no guidance for Biddy to use.
Biddy has received warm congratulations from, amongst others, the Secretary of State for Education, Rt Hon Nadhim Zahwani, Interim CEO of the Education & Training Foundation ETF Jenny Jarvis and Richard Alberg well-known in the sector as founder of Aptem and Corndel and attended the Association of Employability and Learning Providers as a guest of the Chair.
Talking to the City Sikhs blog Biddy commented
“I am absolutely delighted, humbled and honoured to be recognised for this award. I am thankful for the opportunities and interactions with the communities of practice that have shared interests in developing a values-based curriculum through the apprenticeships-education and skills training, shaping the mutual growth of our future leaders at every level, in every sector, and our economy.”
We were also delighted that our Apprenticeships Ambassador to the Voluntary Sector Laura Thurlow was awarded a BEM in the 2022 New Year Honours List. We can claim no credit for Laura’s honour as it was for “services to the community in Surrey, particularly during Covid-19” before she came to work for us. For JGA Laura champions apprenticeships within the voluntary sector, showcasing our range of fundraiser, communications, policy, marketing and content creation apprenticeships to charities and other not-for-profit organisations.
