St David’s Catholic College has been awarded £225,000 from Medr, as part of its Post-16 Strategic Development Fund, to lead the development of the National Catholic College — a new Wales-wide collaborative network designed to widen access to high-quality post-16 education.
The funding forms part of Medr’s wider investment of almost £5 million across 12 collaborative projects, aimed at strengthening partnership working, improving learner outcomes, and creating a more coherent tertiary education system across Wales.
Led by St David’s Catholic College in partnership with the Catholic Archdiocese of Cardiff-Menevia and the Catholic Education Service, the project will formalise a national collaboration of Catholic post-16 providers with the ambition to extending access to non-Catholic and rural institutions that currently face limited A-level choice or delivery capacity.
The National Catholic College will:
The project builds on St David’s Catholic College’s successful pilot delivery of online A-levels in subjects such as Modern Foreign Languages, Law, Politics, Economics, and Welsh Second Language, enabling smaller sixth forms to remain viable while offering learners genuine curriculum choice.
Geraint Williams, Principal and Chief Executive of St David’s Catholic College, said:
“This funding is a significant endorsement of a model rooted in collaboration, equity, and excellence. As Wales’s only publicly funded sixth-form college, and one of the largest providers of A-level qualifications in Wales, St David’s has developed a depth of expertise in curriculum breadth, quality assurance, and post-16 pedagogy that places it in a unique position to lead this work.
The National Catholic College will ensure that young people across Wales, particularly those in rural or disadvantaged communities, are not limited in their aspirations by geography or institutional capacity. This project aligns closely with our mission as a Catholic college serving the common good, and with Medr’s vision for a more joined-up, learner-centred tertiary system.
We are grateful to Medr and our strategic partners at the Catholic Education Service and Archdiocese of Cardiff-Menevia for their confidence in this work and for their continued support in strengthening collaboration and opportunity across post-16 education in Wales.”
Archbishop of the Catholic Archdiocese Cardiff-Menevia, Mark O’Toole said:
I am delighted to see the development of the National Catholic College at St David’s and this partnership between the Church and the Welsh Government, strengthening high-quality post-16 education across the whole of Wales. The Church wants many more young people to have the opportunity for an aspirational and inspiring education during these vital years of their development and formation.
The project will run through to the end of the 2025–26 academic year and our ambition is develop a sustainable national framework for collaborative post-16 provision, with plans for long-term continuation beyond the funding period.
