College Principal Mike Kilbride awarded MBE in New Year Honours

Birkenhead Sixth Form College Principal, Mike Kilbride, has been awarded an MBE for services to education in the King’s New Year Honours.

Mike is being honoured in recognition of his role of spearheading the College’s rise to being a national leader in the post-16 sector and becoming first choice destination after GCSEs for Wirral and the surrounding area.

Mike was entrusted with the task of turning around the College’s status when he arrived in 2008, with the institution at that point performing weakly and being in special measures. Subsequently, the College has firmly established its position as the benchmark for success, as Ofsted has consistently rated it as Outstanding in all areas since 2016.

More than 1500 students each year choose to study at Birkenhead Sixth Form College from over 60 different high schools. National and regional education award wins act as further proof that the College is leading the way in terms of results and progress that its students make, as they thrive in the calm yet ambitious environment no matter which school they arrive from.

Mike’s definitive vision that each and every young person can succeed at A Level or Level 3 BTEC given their own purposeful hard work and the College’s expert teaching is informed by his own journey of transformation after secondary school.

From humble origins, having been born in Scotland and raised on a council estate in Burnley, Mike found his calling in Psychology and teaching after a sixth form experience laden with inspiration from his own teachers.

The College Principal refers to the fact that there was no history or tradition of academic success in his family, but his educational fortunes reversed thanks to the dedication and encouragement of his own teachers at college. He has taken the ethos he acquired at the time to implement an approach that has influenced countless young people to achieve far beyond the limits of where their individual aspirations originally aimed.

Mike’s values have been made intrinsic to Birkenhead Sixth Form College’s existence. He established the ‘BePART educational ethos’, named after the four values of Positivity, Ambition, Resilience and Thoughtfulness. These attributes are the foundations that teachers and students across the College are encouraged to embody, and the guidance from Mike’s leadership has had proven effect.

More students than any other sixth form in the area move onto university education each year - nearly 700 final year students every August - and the vast majority of those are the first generation in their families to do so.

Social mobility is at the heart of Mike’s processes and systems, as he leads College teachers and support staff to enable students from all backgrounds and starting points to embrace all of the opportunities from which their counterparts benefit. Birkenhead Sixth Form College students from some of the most socio-economically deprived areas in the UK have had belief embedded within them that no life or career goal is out of reach. Nearly a quarter of students gain places at the prestigious and traditionally exclusive Russell Group universities each year: a rate of achievement that has been described by independent authorities as ‘remarkable’.

On receiving an MBE for services to education at Birkenhead Sixth Form College, Mike Kilbride said: “No educator enters into the career with the aim of personal recognition. However, this is an enormous honour because it’s another milestone and benchmark of what we can achieve if we have a vision for the future and the drive to get there.

“Given my own beginnings in life, this can stand as a mirror for those many young people across the college, past, present and future. It is recognition of their successes as much as mine, just as it is a tribute to the wonderful teachers and support staff whose exemplary attitudes and unrivalled expertise have allowed this vision to come to fruition. This does not belong to me alone. You can achieve little or nothing in life without the help of others, so everyone here at the college deserves to be proud.”

Mike explained: “I owe my own teachers everything from my time as a young man studying to further myself. They inspired, challenged and encouraged me to be curious, to be hard working, to be ambitious. After a few years in the private sector, I was drawn back to education, and since my first day of teaching in September 1989, I have worked tirelessly to payback what I was so lucky to have been given.”

“This award is also a time for me to take a moment to reflect on my own journey and remember how I came to this point in life. These last 16 years at Birkenhead Sixth Form College have been extraordinarily fulfilling. I have been blessed to work with a truly great body of staff and together we have been able to bring high quality academic education to the whole Wirral community.”

He concluded: “Every day, I am motivated by my desire to do for others what my teachers did for me. This is not a job: it is a vocation, a way of life, a mindset. I have a good few years left in me yet and this recognition will put a little hop into the many steps I have left to take.”

Mike Kilbride will receive his MBE for services to education at Birkenhead Sixth Form College from King Charles at a ceremony to take place at Buckingham Palace.

To apply for a place at Birkenhead Sixth Form College in September 2025 and benefit from Mike Kilbride’s visionary approach to inclusive education, click here.