Newbold Revel Prison Training College, Rugby: Address & Stay

In shortThe address is verified as CV23 0TH, Stretton under Fosse, Rugby, but your own joining instructions say where you actually report.

Newbold Revel is a large country house at Stretton under Fosse, a few miles from Rugby in Warwickshire. Ofsted, which publishes the only independent inspection reports we found for the site, records the address as Newbold Revel, Stretton under Fosse, Rugby, Warwickshire, CV23 0TH.

It describes the occupier as the HMPPS Learning Centre, an employer provider that is part of the Ministry of Justice. For directions and parking on the day, rely on your joining instructions rather than a satnav guess, because large sites often have separate arrival points.

For years new officers were told they would 'go to Newbold Revel', and our site data shows people still searching for it in large numbers. That is why you should not assume it is where your own course will be. Our wider POELT training guide explains how the whole programme fits together.

Building history (secondary source)

Wikipedia records a Grade II* listed house built in 1716 for Sir Fulwar Skipwith. It was later a missionary training college, a wartime RAF site, a Catholic teacher training college and a British Telecom site, before HM Prison Service took it over in 1985 as the Prison Service College.

How we treat it

As background colour, not an official statement. We have not verified the dates against a primary record. The point for a candidate is that the site has been a staff training centre for roughly four decades.

In shortOfsted rated the centre 'requires improvement' in March 2024, then found reasonable progress in December 2024.

• Full inspection5 to 8 March 2024Published 17 April 2024
• Overall judgementRequires improvementBehaviour and attitudes rated good
• Apprentices (March 2024)2,284All on the level 3 custody and detention officer apprenticeship
• Apprentices (December 2024)578No apprentices recruited since the March 2024 inspection

Ofsted records that the centre is an employer provider based in Rugby that trains apprentices for HMPPS, including those based in the North East, West Midlands and South West. Quality of education, personal development, leadership and management and apprenticeships were each rated requires improvement.

A monitoring visit on 18 and 19 December 2024 (published 27 January 2025) found reasonable progress on each weakness. For a candidate this is useful context: the college is a working training provider with real quality scrutiny, not a mystery.

In shortBest reading: Newbold Revel is one of several learning centres serving certain regions, but which centre you attend is not published.

HMPPS's current training page says that after a 10-day induction at your home prison you start a seven-week foundation programme at a designated learning centre, which will usually be close to your home prison. It does not name any centre.

The Ofsted record fits that picture: the Rugby centre trains people for particular regions, and the March 2024 report names the North East, West Midlands and South West. So the best-supported reading is that Newbold Revel is one of the learning centres, rather than the single national college it once was in popular memory.

• We cannot verify the current list of centres, how many there are, how allocation works or how it changes.
• A 2018 HMPPS blog said HMPPS does not disclose which centre you will attend until allocation; we have found nothing more recent that contradicts it.
• Our dossier research could not locate a current official map of learning centres.
• A parliamentary answer on 4 March 2026 described foundation training as seven to nine weeks 'in specific estate settings' (male, female or Youth Custody), which suggests separate streams.
• HMPPS has also said it is upgrading prison learning centres as part of acting on the Timpson review of prison officer training.

In shortHMPPS names Newbold Revel today only as one of six medical and fitness assessment sites, which is a separate event from training.

The how-to-apply page lists six assessment locations. The medical is carried out by a trained occupational health professional, and the fitness test follows. HMPPS says travel expenses of up to £100 are available for UK travel.

If you are invited to Rugby for this, treat it as a separate event from training. You will normally go for a day, you are not yet an employee and the outcome decides whether your offer proceeds.

Medical

Includes an eye test, a hearing test, a blood pressure check and basic health screening.

Fitness test

Includes the bleep test and the upper-body strength elements.

• Swindon
• Cambridge
• South London (Croydon)
• Rugby (Newbold Revel)
• Leeds
• Manchester

In shortTraining moved from an eight-to-ten-week course with no qualifications to apprenticeships in 2019, then the mandatory apprenticeship was removed, and a 12-month redesign is under way.

Ofsted's 2021 monitoring report says leaders recognised the need to extend and professionalise training for people starting a career as a prison officer.

That is why a modern candidate should not expect a qualification at the end of training by default. HMPPS's current officer pages do not describe one; our guide to prison officer apprenticeships covers where that leaves apprenticeships.

We explain what the redesign could mean for your course in our week by week guide. For the Newbold Revel question it means the college's role may keep changing, which is another reason to rely on your own joining instructions.

In shortHMPPS says only that you stay Monday to Friday on full pay and expenses if the centre is not within commuting distance; room details are not published.

HMPPS's published position is short. If the learning centre is not within commuting distance of your home, you will stay at the centre from Monday to Friday and can go home at weekends, and you receive full pay and expenses throughout.

That is all that is stated on the current training page. It does not say what the rooms are like, whether they are single or shared, what is provided, what the rules are or what it costs, and it does not name Newbold Revel in connection with accommodation.

In shortThere is no current official packing list, so use your joining instructions and ask the right questions instead.

There is no current official 'what to bring' list that we could find, and we are not going to invent one. A packing list copied from a forum could be wrong on something important, for example about medication, documents or uniform, and it could be out of date within a year.

The reliable list is the one in your joining instructions, and a short email or call to the training team usually settles anything it does not cover.

1. Read your joining instructions line by line and underline everything that requires an action before you travel, such as documents, forms, payments or declarations.
2. Ask your home-prison mentor in the induction fortnight what current trainees found useful, since the induction comes before the residential block and the mentor has seen recent cohorts.
3. Ask the training team three specific questions: what is provided in the accommodation, what is not, and what the rules are on visitors, alcohol, vehicles and leaving the site.
4. Plan for the weekend routine, since you will be home at weekends and can fetch things you missed.

In shortWe publish no photos or reviews because none could be verified from an official source; Ofsted reports are the closest thing to an independent review.

Many searches are for photos and reviews. We do not publish them because we could not verify any from an official source.

The building has a public heritage record, but the working parts of the college are not a tourist site, and an image of an exterior says nothing about the accommodation you will be given.

The Ofsted reports are the closest thing to an independent review, and they are about teaching quality rather than rooms.

• Quality of the group you are placed with
• Consistency of the instructors
• Your own preparation: physical conditioning, a calm week before you go and a clear plan for home

In shortWomen's prisons, youth custody, Scotland, Northern Ireland and private prisons each follow different training routes, so Newbold Revel is not relevant to everyone.

Our guides to women's prisons and youth custody officers cover those routes.

To plan the whole journey, use the free recruitment timeline planner to turn the published stages into dates, then ask the recruitment team to confirm your start and training dates in writing.

Women's prisons

HMPPS says they use an extended eight-week foundation course.

Youth justice workers

In the Youth Custody Service: nine weeks' initial training at a site usually away from home, with expenses paid and a full wage from day one. They use Managing and Minimising Physical Restraint rather than the adult approach.

Estate settings

A parliamentary answer in March 2026 also referred to estate-specific settings for male, female and Youth Custody staff.

Scotland and Northern Ireland

Officers are trained by the Scottish Prison Service at its own college and by the Northern Ireland Prison Service, so Newbold Revel is not relevant.

Private prisons

They train their own staff to their own schedules. Check each operator.