Latest news from FE Week

WorldSkills UK national finals 2023

Welcome to this special souvenir supplement bringing you the full results and insights from the 2023 WorldSkills UK national finals in Greater Manchester.

The finals showcase the pinnacle of technical skills among UK students and apprentices, but there’s a lot more to skills competitions than winning medals.

Find out why Greater Manchester was the perfect host city region for this year’s finals, how learning from abroad is raising technical training standards at home, and get the very latest on how WorldSkills UK’s Centre of Excellence programme is transforming teacher CPD.

AoC 16-18 recruitment survey ‘reveals major concerns among college leaders’

Half of colleges have seen a drop in enrolment figures, with the blame partly placed on the loss of the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA).

A survey by the Association of Colleges (AoC) of 182 colleges shows 49 per cent are reporting falling numbers of 16-19-year-olds, compared to last year.

It also shows a national drop of 0.1 per cent, the first time in 15 to 20 years the figure has fallen, with 46 colleges reporting a dip between five to 15 per cent.

Colleges believe unaffordable transport, combined with the abolition of the EMA and increased competition for student numbers among school and college sixth forms, have been the main causes for a decline.

The survey is further evidence supporting the findings from two surveys – conducted by Lsect – and published in FE Week. The first showed that 105 colleges forecast an initial total shortfall of 20,319 students for this academic year.

Key AoC survey findings:

Half of the 182 colleges that responded are seeing a drop in 16-19 students, with 46 colleges reporting a significant dip of between five per cent to 15 per cent
Of those reporting a decline, colleges say the end of EMAs for students in the first year of the course, competition from other providers, lack of affordable transport and cuts in funding per student were the main factors
A decline in Level 1 courses (pre-GSCE and basic skills) was reported by 41 per cent of respondents
51 per cent of colleges said that their student numbers have increased or remained stable
60 per cent of colleges reported a drop in transport spending by their local authority
Over half of all colleges are ‘topping up’ Government bursary funding with their own contributions and the same proportion are spending more on subsidising transport this year than last
79 per cent of colleges agreeing that free meals in colleges for 16-18 year olds (currently not available, unlike in schools) would encourage participation.

Fiona McMillan, president of the AoC and principal of Bridgwater College in Somerset, said that at her own college EMA provided students with about £1,000 per year. Now, there is only £152 per year available for students.

She said: “We are all aware that funding is tight. But these young people are our future and we must consider our investment in them.

“We would all regret a situation where young people miss out and then become the so-called lost generation.”

Ms McMillan said the new 16-19 bursary, which replaced the EMA, is “better than nothing” but in terms of what it provides, “there is a big gap”. To cope, her college – like many others – has subsidised the cost.

She is also concerned colleges will miss out on vital funding, adding: “We are paid by our student numbers. So it’s an important issue for us.”

Martin Doel, chief executive of the AoC, said some of the changes could be due to demographics – with a drop of 40,000 in the 16-18 age group. He added: “It is a complex picture. The decline in college enrolment by students on Level 1 courses may be partially explained by improvements in school teaching.

“What is clear is a significant number of member colleges are concerned that financial constraints are preventing students from pursuing preferred courses at their institution of choice and there is a risk of vulnerable groups becoming disengaged from education.”

Andy Forbes, principal at Hertford Regional College, said they are “about five per cent down” on 16-18 enrolment from last year.

He said: “We’re now projecting a figure of just under 2,600 against our target of 2,719.

“We have experienced a particular decline in Level 2 enrolments and at the furthest reaches of our catchment area, which stretches quite a long way.”

Mr Forbes believes there are two factors to blame, adding: “The withdrawal of EMA and the cost of transport from the two ends of our catchment.

“We were not helped by late arrival of concrete information on what funding we had to compensate for loss of EMA and how we could use that funding, which made it difficult to put financial support in place for students and publicise them effectively.”

He also said colleges need to work harder to get the message across about the “exceptional quality of provision” they offer, in the face of “growing competition from schools” expanding sixth forms by offering vocational courses.

He added: “The decline of independent careers advice isn’t helping young people make good choices at 16 and we in FE are going to have to be a lot more active in ensuring school pupils and parents are made positively aware of the alternatives to staying on at school.”

However, the Department for Education spokesman (DfE) said there are “record numbers of 16 and 17-year-olds” in education or training.

He said: “There has been a massive increase in apprenticeships for anyone over 16 to learn a specific trade – 360,000 places in all available in more than 200 careers.

“And we are strengthening vocational education so young people will have high-quality courses open to them which are valued by employers.”

The spokesman also said: “We are targeting financial support at students who need it most to get through their studies – through the new £180m a year bursary fund, with further transitional support available for those students who were already drawing the EMA.”

Gordon Marsden, Shadow FE and Skills Minister, said the “alarming figures” show the impact of the government’s policy to scrap EMA. He said: “The government has left FE colleges facing a double whammy at a time of real economic uncertainty.

“Not only are college finances jeopardised by falling enrolment numbers, but they face the strain of having to try and address the post EMA funding gap, putting extra administrative burdens on them at a time where they claim to be setting them free.

“The government needs to get a grip urgently with a strategy that will help, rather than hinder, FE colleges in addressing young people’s employment and skills needs.”

AoC said they will repeat the enrolment survey in September 2012.

Click here to download the study and here to download the AoC press release.

‘Inadequate’ care provider accuses Ofsted of ‘overlooking’ sector crisis

A care training provider has been graded ‘inadequate’ after Ofsted found apprentices being forced to work additional shifts instead of attending their training.

But the firm has hit out at the watchdog, accusing inspectors of “totally overlooking” the crisis the care sector is in.

Ofsted found that many of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne-based ACT Education’s 236 apprentices had “substantially” passed the planned end date of their programme during a visit in January this year.

They said apprentices were “frequently required” to cover additional shifts instead of attending training and leaders had insufficient oversight of whether they had catch-up sessions.

ACT Education was downgraded from ‘requires improvement’ to ‘inadequate’ in all areas except personal development, in a report published on Thursday.

Duty of care took priority over studies

The provider’s director Neil Wray hit back at Ofsted’s report, which echoes similar criticism placed on other care providers judged ‘inadequate’ since the pandemic and led to several failed legal challenges.

Wray told FE Week: “We are aware that there are other care training providers that have recently been rated as inadequate that have the exact same sector-specific issues that we do.

“We did lodge a complaint against the inspection, listing numerous contradictions and factual inaccuracies, which was obviously not upheld. As a mental health training provider, we found the attitude and conduct of the lead inspector to be very poor. The entire inspection was a very unpleasant process.”

He said learners usually miss their planned end date because “duty of care for vulnerable people” and staff shortages mean they need to cover shifts.

Wray claimed that if this happens learners receive additional training “at our own personal cost”.

ACT Education is owned and run from the same office by New Beginnings, a company providing home care services to adults with learning disabilities and autism which is rated ‘outstanding’ by the Care Quality Commission.

Overall, the companies declared a profit of just under £1 million after tax on a turnover of about £13 million.

Wray told FE Week “less than 10 per cent” of ACT Education’s apprentices are employed at New Beginnings.

Inspectors criticise low expectations

Ofsted said apprentices make “slow progress” at ACT Education due to a lack of off-the-job training, which amounts to “one or two hours” each month.

They added that trainers did not set apprentices high expectations and impeded progress by failing to give deadlines for completing assignments.

Often, apprentices and employers did not attend progress review meetings, resulting in “little joint planning” for training opportunities.

They said ACT Education had also been “too slow” to address concerns about English and maths functional skills training at an inspection in September 2022.

Trainers did not set apprentices high expectations and impeded progress by failing to give deadlines for completing assignments, they added.

Other concerns included ineffective careers information and insufficient personal development training.

Although Ofsted praised tutors’ knowledge and experience, they said managers had been “too slow” to recruit suitably qualified staff.

Wray said the inspectors’ criticisms “did not reflect the full picture”.

The company now faces seeing its contract with the Department for Education terminated, in line with its policy for independent training providers who receive an ‘inadequate’ rating.

However, Wray said: “We are continuing to offer apprenticeships as we have received no instruction otherwise.”

He added that the training provider will focus on improving ahead of an Ofsted monitoring visit due in six months.

Recognise young carers on the ILR to better support their needs, DfE urged

Young carers should be recognised on the government’s individualised learner record (ILR) to better identify and support their needs in further education, sector leaders have said.

Making this “simple change” would also help address the “gaping hole” in data that is recorded between FE learners and school and higher education students who have caring responsibilities.

The Department for Education added young carers to the annual school census in 2023 for the first time, while UCAS also added the group to its university application forms last year.

DfE minister Baroness Barran recently told parliament that making this amendment to the school census led to the identification of 38,983 young carers, “raising their visibility in the school system and allowing schools to better identify and support their young carers”.

She said this is providing the department with “strong evidence on both the numbers of young carers and their educational outcomes” as well as an annual data collection to establish long-term trends.

Yet the DfE has made no such amendment to the ILR, which records and tracks individual students in FE.

Andy McGowan, the policy and practice manager at charity Carers Trust, said the new data on young carers in schools through the census and universities through UCAS application is “vital” to understanding the educational challenges and employment routes young carers face compared to their peers.

“We are now left with a gaping hole in the data in further education,” McGowan told FE Week.

“This simple change [adding young carers to the ILR] would help the government to see the huge pressures young carers in education face. Only then can they truly understand how their policies affect young carers as they approach a key stage of their lives and transition into adulthood.”

A DfE spokesperson told FE Week that “further recording requirements will be considered in due course” for young carers. They added: “At the moment we are considering what the data tells us and what additional measures we need to consider going forward.”

Young adult carers are described as people aged between 16 to 25, who look after a friend or relative with a disability, illness, mental health condition, or a substance problem and cannot cope without help.

Data from Learning and Work Institute suggests that young carers are three times more likely to become not in education, employment or training (NEET) and four times more likely to drop out of college than their peers.

Latest statistics of the annual school census found young carers in schools were nearly twice as likely to be persistently absent as their peers, and nearly one in four of young carers missed 10 per cent or more of their education last year.

The Carers Trust estimates that 10 per cent of all students are likely to be young adult carers – at least 370,000 in the UK.

A separate data field on the ILR would help evaluate what employment routes young adult carers are taking, experts told FE Week.

Eileen Darby, director of safeguarding and wellbeing at Chichester College Group, said: “We hear that young carers won’t do certain careers like police uniform services because they have to leave their parents. Anything that involves unsociable hours, or nursing as they’re already doing that at home.”

Nicola Aylward, head of learning for young people at Learning and Work Institute, said adding young carers to the ILR would give a “better evidence base for tailoring support” that could look at how the means-tested 16 to 19 bursary fund impacts young carers.

Former skills minister Robert Halfon stated in a parliamentary question last month, that DfE allocated over £160 million of bursary funding in 2023/24 to help disadvantaged 16 to 19 year olds meet costs.

Young carers ‘put off’ T Levels

It is unclear how many young adult carers received 16 to 19 bursary funding due to the data collection gap.

Awareness training ‘practically doubled’ numbers

Colleges have their own ways of recording young carers, through asking students during the interview and enrolment process, and through lecturers and feeder schools, if they have caring responsibilities.

Greenhead College in Huddersfield “practically doubled” the number of carers it recorded this year, just by emphasising types of caring responsibilities via social media and parent/carer updates.

“I still think that students don’t know they are carers, so we will be doing more of that early on next year,” said Claire Parr, director of SEND and inclusion at the college.

Leaders fear that hundreds of young carers go under the radar every year. They claim that recognising young carers through the ILR would help address this.

DWP slammed for keeping revived training scheme outcomes a secret

The government is refusing to publish evidence that a revived training scheme for unemployed people is succeeding in getting them into work, despite pouring tens of millions into it since the pandemic.

Although the concept of the Department for Work and Pensions programme – known as sector-based work academy programmes (SWAPs) – is viewed positively by training providers and sector bodies, officials have been criticised by MPs for a lack of transparency over its results.

SWAPs aim to give unemployed people the skills they need to work in a specific sector, such as construction or care, through a short-term combination of training, work placement and a guaranteed job interview.

The DWP recently celebrated “smashing” its 80,000 target for the number of jobseekers that start SWAPs each year since the pandemic, with about 330,000 participating since it was renewed as part of the government’s Plan for Jobs in mid-2020.

But despite spending an estimated £35 million, with a further £25 million due to be spent this year, there is limited evidence of the scheme’s success since Plan for Jobs was launched.

A lack of transparency

The DWP is understood to collect data on SWAPs that includes how many participants complete SWAPs and whether they remain in sustained employment for at least 13 weeks.

But the department refused to tell FE Week what data it collects when asked through a freedom of information request, claiming that most statistics are held “clerically at a local level”.

Last year, an inquiry into Plan for Jobs and other employment programmes by MPs on the Work and Pensions Committee said the DWP “lacks transparency” around the performance of work schemes including SWAPs, making evaluation of their success “unfeasible”.

The inquiry published a report in July added that the department fails to consistently “set clear targets” for its programmes and makes “unsubstantiated” claims about their success.

The government published basic figures showing the age, region and sector of SWAP starts for the first time in February this year.

While preparing a reply to FE Week‘s questions, the DWP also announced that it will begin publishing data showing how many people are starting SWAPs on a quarterly basis.

However, the department’s spokesperson did not respond when asked whether they could prove SWAPs are a success or when an evaluation of Plan for Jobs, understood to have been carried out in 2022-23, will be published.

Work and Pensions Committee chair Stephen Timms told FE Week that the DWP is failing to follow its own protocol – introduced under David Cameron – that government should publish research it has commissioned.

He added: “[Outcomes of SWAPs] strikes me as exactly the kind of information that the government should be publishing – but unfortunately it isn’t on this programme or many others.

“But actually, if they are open about it and there’s public debate, then that is a powerful lever to improve the programme and would be helpful for the department to do a better job.

“David Cameron used to say sunlight is the best disinfectant and under him we saw a genuine openness that unfortunately has been lost – I very much hope it improves.”

Does the scheme work?

Training providers and sector bodies told FE Week they believe the SWAPs are “effective” at getting people into sustained employment.

The DWP also pointed towards two studies, carried out in the mid-2010s, that suggested SWAPs increased the time young unemployed people spend in employment, but failed to provide older participants with work experience or a job interview.

Deputy director at Learning and Work Institute, Sam Avanzo-Windett, said helping people who are economically inactive into employment through work experience in a sector “feels like a good thing”.

But she added: “Without data, it’s quite hard to know how many of those people are getting into jobs.

“It’d be important to know if there are sanctions that sit alongside the SWAPs programme as well as any information on those job outcomes.”

The Association of Learning Providers (AELP), which represents hundreds of training providers, is supportive of the scheme as a “quick and intensive” way of getting people work-ready.

Simon Ashworth, AELP’s director of policy told FE Week: “We have seen them used particularly effectively in sectors with big skills shortages such as hospitality and retail.”

Ashworth added that the “short, sharp, high impact intervention” of SWAPs complements skills bootcamps, which are longer and higher-skilled training programmes lasting up to 12 weeks.

How did SWAPs start?

SWAPs were first launched under a different name in 2011 as part of David Cameron’s ‘Get Britain Working’ initiative, with 330,000 people starting the scheme in the next seven years.

But Jobcentre Plus’ failure to tell participants they faced benefits sanctions if they refused to work resulted in a successful legal challenge known as the ‘Poundland case’.

SWAPs were revived alongside other work training schemes in mid-2020.

Participation is voluntary, but benefit claimants still face financial sanctions for dropping out before completing the course or refusing a job offer for good reason.

In the 2021 spring budget the government set aside £10 million per year for SWAPs, which has jumped to £25 million this financial year.

MOVERS AND SHAKERS: EDITION 457

Andy Sparks

Chair of Governors, Writtle College

Start date: March 2024

Concurrent Job: LSIP Executive Director, Essex Chamber of Commerce and Industry

Interesting fact: Following a 27 year career in further and higher education, Andy moved to the Chamber to develop and maintain the Essex, Southend-on-Sea and Thurrock Local Skills Improvement Plan (LSIP)

David Gallagher

Vice Chair, Federation of Awarding Bodies

Start date: March 2024

Concurrent Job: Chief Executive, NCFE

Interesting fact: Growing up, David wanted to be either an architect or an archaeologist (somewhat Indiana Jones inspired). He think an architect is still in there somewhere as he’s very interested and involved in how our skills system is designed

North Yorkshire college downgraded following leadership ‘turbulence’

A north Yorkshire college has been downgraded by Ofsted following “significant turbulence” in its leadership.

The previously ‘good’ Craven College was handed a ‘requires improvement’ judgment this week. Inspectors said “too many” study programme learners do not attend lessons and teacher workloads “may not be sustainable.”

While the college was judged ‘good’ for the quality of education, personal development, adult learning and apprenticeships, the watchdog found its leadership and management to ‘require improvement’.

“Over the last five years, there has been significant turbulence in the leadership of the college. The current senior leadership team, appointed within the last 18 months, has established stability and identified a clear path to make necessary improvements,” according to the inspection report.

However, “strategic and cultural changes have not fully permeated throughout the organisation”.

The college is currently led by interim principal Anita Lall, who took over following the sudden and mysterious absence of its previous leader, Lindsey Johnson, last year.

Johnson was last seen at the college in January, reportedly being escorted into the college to collect their belongings. According to LinkedIn, Johnson left their role at the college in January 2023, but had not been at college since the preceding October. They had been principal at Craven for three years and have since moved into a role as head of education, skills and work at the Ministry of Justice.

The college told local reporters at the time: “We are confident that Lindsey’s absence has not impacted negatively on the college’s ability to meet its obligation to its students and the communities it serves.”

As well as an interim principal, Craven College is also led by an interim assistant principal for quality and two interim assistant principals for curriculum. Just one of the five senior managers, the vice principal for finance, is not an interim.

FE Week understands interviews for a permanent principal of the college have been taking place this week.

A college spokesperson said: “Whilst the overall grades are not what we wanted or hoped for, the report acknowledges the journey the college has been on recently and highlights the steps we are already taking to address the challenges identified.”

Student attendance “doesn’t reach the high standards we have” the college admitted, adding, “our attendance is in line with the national average, but we will continue to focus on implementing specific actions” to improve.

Students that do attend learn in high-quality facilities, often in “environments in which they aspire to be employed”, Ofsted reported.

The college added: “We would like to take this opportunity to thank our wonderful staff and students for all their hard work and commitment and to extend our thanks to our community partners and stakeholders, who supported the college during the inspection and continue to do so.”

MoJ’s prison service U-turns on mandatory apprenticeships

The government’s prison service has pulled out of apprenticeships after forcing thousands of custody officers onto the programme before realising there wasn’t the capacity to train them and run prisons safely.  

His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) experienced a rapid rise in apprenticeship delivery after deciding, in 2021, to make it mandatory for all new prison officers to take the level 3 custody and detention officer apprenticeship.  

Starts shot up from just 20 in its first year of delivery in 2018/19 to 2,387 in 2021/22 and then 3,320 in 2022/23 – making it the 14th largest apprenticeship provider in England last year.  

But HMPPS, part of the Ministry of Justice, recently found that releasing apprentices from operational duties for around 200 hours over the period of the apprenticeship to complete off-the-job training was “putting strain on staffing levels and the safe running of prison regimes”, according to its recent annual report.  

More than 1,200 prison officers, who were put onto the apprenticeship dropped out of their training last year, leaving HMPPS with a retention and apprenticeship achievement rate of just 21 per cent in 2022/23.  

The prison service has now stopped enrolling new apprentices and chosen to focus on other training schemes. It has also just been judged as ‘requires improvement’ by Ofsted.  

The case echoes a situation at HMRC two years ago, when the government’s tax office put thousands of employees onto apprenticeships before realising it did not have capacity to train them – leading to the majority withdrawing from their programme.  

A prison service spokesperson said: “We launched this scheme [mandatory apprenticeships] prior to our surge in prison officer recruitment and have since changed the way we train our hardworking staff.”  

Despite HMPPS’ rapid rise in apprenticeship delivery, Ofsted waited almost seven years before conducting a full inspection of the government agency.  

The prison service received an early monitoring visit from Ofsted in May 2021 when the employer provider had just 182 apprentices, in which it was judged to be making ‘reasonable progress’.  

Ofsted rules state new apprenticeship providers will normally receive their first full inspection within 24 months of their early monitoring visit – a timeline that was recently reduced to 18 months. But the watchdog didn’t fully inspect HMPPS until March 2024 – 34 months after its early monitoring visit.  

FE Week understands Ofsted had planned to fully inspect HMPPS in November 2023, but deferred the inspection due to a staffing incident. A November inspection would have still been six months later than the window for fully inspecting new providers after a monitoring visit.  

HMPPS’ learning centre is based in Rugby, Warwickshire, but trains apprentices working in prisons across the country. The employer provider only offers the level 3 custody and detention officer apprenticeship and had 2,284 apprentices in learning at the time of Ofsted’s full inspection last month.  

Ofsted published HMPPS’ grade three report this week, in which the watchdog praised HMMPS’s “highly experienced” coaches for creating a “positive and calm learning environment” with high standards.  

But the inspectorate called out the service’s low completion rates and its lack of capacity to teach functional skills English and maths, which most of its apprentices are required to complete.   

The report said: “Leaders have developed a curriculum in response to the significant skills needs of the prison service. The service recruits large numbers of new staff every year and has a constant need for initial officer training.  

“Following a detailed review, leaders identified that they did not have the capacity to support the high number of prison officers entering the service to complete an apprenticeship.   

“Leaders have changed their training offer to stop the high numbers of apprentices withdrawing from their apprenticeship early. Leaders have removed the mandatory requirement for all new prison officers to study the apprenticeship. As a result, the number of officers completing their apprenticeship is beginning to increase.”

HMPPS is still on the government’s apprenticeship provider and assessment register, but it has not yet decided whether to put any prison officers through apprenticeships in the future.

First Holex CEO revealed

Adult education body Holex has appointed Caroline McDonald as its first chief executive officer.

Birmingham-born McDonald arrives from Birkbeck, University of London, where she has worked as director of access and engagement for the past six years.

Up until now, Holex has been run by policy director Sue Pember and a board of governors. But Pember announced in February the organisation had created the CEO position amid an “increased demand” for its services.

Holex was looking for a “dynamic and experienced” person with a “deep understanding” of the adult community education landscape, according to the job description.

McDonald was hired by the membership organisation after building up more than two decades of expertise in adult education and community engagement, according to Holex chair Dipa Ganguli.

Pember will remain in her role as policy director under McDonald’s leadership which begins in August. She told FE Week that the appointment will allow her more time to advocate and lobby on behalf of members.

In her previous role at Birkbeck, McDonald worked closely with several adult education providers and served as head of access and engagement and head of outreach.

The position will pay between £70,000 to £90,000 and McDonald will report to the board, chaired by Ganguli.

She will now be responsible for advocating for positive change and influencing policy discussions, possibly in time for a general election.

“I am delighted to announce the appointment of our new chief executive officer, Caroline McDonald. With over two decades of expertise in adult education and community engagement, Caroline brings a wealth of experience and a commitment to our mission,” said Ganguli.

Holex is now 31 years old and has more than 140 members, including local authorities, adult education institutes and further education colleges, that provide adult and community education in England.

Along with the Association of Colleges and the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, Holex is also a founding member of the Education and Training Foundation.

DfE mistakenly gives university intervention powers to FE Commissioner

The government has said it will retract a new policy document after mistakenly giving the FE commissioner powers to intervene in universities.

A fresh “post-16 intervention and accountability” guide was released by the Department for Education today to show the ways officials tackle poor performance in different types of education providers.

For higher education institutions, the guidance made clear that the department does not undertake financial assessments of those that also provide further education provision, like apprenticeships, as this is a job for HE regulator the Office for Students.

But in a surprising addition, the document said that if a higher education provider receives an ‘inadequate’ judgment from Ofsted for any further education provision it delivers, then the “FE Commissioner may undertake an assessment of the capacity and capability of current leadership and management”.

The FE Commissioner “would then make recommendations to the minister about appropriate intervention action”.

This would mark a remarkable expansion of the FE Commissioner’s remit, which has to date only included further education colleges and local authorities.

The FE Commissioner, an independent adviser post currently held by Shelagh Legrave, leads the DfE’s oversight of struggling colleges and publishes reports on leadership capacity and capability for those in formal intervention.

However, the DfE has since backtracked on the guidance and claimed it was published in error when approached for further information by FE Week.

The department said the FE Commissioner does not have a role in higher education institutions and the page concerned is being withdrawn.

The page was still live at the time of going to press.

Ofsted downgrades large Birmingham college to ‘requires improvement’

A large college in Birmingham has been hit with a first ‘requires improvement’ Ofsted judgment, as it reveals plans to close a troubled academy for 14- to 16-year-olds.

The inspectorate downgraded South and City College Birmingham (SCCB) from a long-held ‘good’ rating in a report published today which revealed low qualification achievement rates, particularly in English and maths, and attendance concerns.

Ofsted also flagged poor teaching and bad behaviour in the college’s 14 to 16 provision, including homophobic name-calling which made a minority of students “feel vulnerable”.

The academy, which offers pathways in engineering and technical crafts, health sciences, physical education, animal care and art and design, opened in 2019 and currently teaches 123 young people.

Ofsted said teachers in the 14 to 16 academy “do not check learning and challenge misconceptions effectively”, and it lacks a “clearly designed curriculum for English or maths that supports the needs of learners”. The students also use “some poor language” which undermines a “considerate culture” found in the wider college.

SCCB told FE Week the viability of the academy has been under consideration for “some time” due to staffing resource challenges. It has now decided to shut the academy for new applicants as of September 2024.

SCCB has eight campuses across Birmingham, with the majority of its 10,000 students being adults.

The college was judged to be ‘good’ by Ofsted for its delivery of adult education and apprenticeships but was downgraded overall due to the quality of education for young people and leadership and management.

Ofsted reported that most learners and apprentices “greatly value the relationships they have with their teachers” and become “respectful and active citizens”.

But inspectors found that “many” learners do not routinely attend lessons and therefore miss “valuable learning opportunities”.

Leaders were criticised for being “too slow to resolve the significant underperformance in the quality of education”.

SCCB leaders told inspectors that in the previous few years, they have been “greatly affected” by Covid-19, the cost-of-living crisis, a cyber-attack and a failure in their data systems.

Ofsted reported that there are poor levels of retention and pass rates across all age groups and provision types. The watchdog’s report said: “Consequently, too few learners and apprentices achieved the qualifications they had trained for.”

Inspectors noted that leaders have recently taken action to improve the quality of education by restructuring management posts and invested in new management data systems.

They also refocused staff on attendance, assessments and improving teaching.

Principal Mike Hopkins said: “Whilst the outcome of the recent inspection wasn’t as we’d hoped it would be, we’re confident that the improvements we’d started to implement in advance of Ofsted’s recent visit, are already paying dividends.

“The past three years have been amongst the most challenging that the college has experienced and the impact that Covid had on our learners cannot be underestimated, but we must learn from this and look to the future.

“I have every confidence that we will deliver a tangible turnaround by the time we’re monitored and then fully re-inspected.”