FE Week Reporter | FE Week

Leadership thinktank launches £50K future-gazing fellowships

A new FE leadership thinktank set up by former Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS) chair Dame Ruth Silver has launched its first initiative with £50,000 fellowships to gaze into the future of the sector. The Further Education Trust for Leadership (FETL), which launched over the summer with a budget of up to £5.5m left […]

Riding Giants

Download your free copy of the FE Week 16-page supplement on Riding Giants ~ ALT Annual Conference 2014 in partnership with Tribal. Click here to download (10mb) Hello, and welcome to this FE Week supplement covering the 21st annual Association of Learning Technology (ALT) conference. Since last year’s conference the Further Education Learning Technology Action Group (Feltag) report […]

Could a learner have committed militant hacking?

Police investigating the hacking of a college website which resulted in it “supporting” the militant group Islamic State (ISIS) have not ruled out learner involvement in the cyber attack. Carlisle College disabled its website on Saturday, August 30, after various elements were changed, including the main description which appears next to the site in internet […]

No tracking of traineeship job outcomes

The government has admitted it did not ask providers to keep a record of whether traineeships resulted in learners moving into a job or apprenticeship last year. An FE Week freedom of information request to the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) has uncovered that it was not tracking learner progression for the first year of the […]

FE Week and Me 2014 – COMPETITION NOW OPEN

Our annual FE Week and Me photography competition is back and once again FE Week has teamed up with NCFE and the Royal Photographic Society to hunt for stunning pictures that depict student life in the FE and skills sector, through the eyes of students. In 2014, after over 500 submissions, FE Week and competition sponsors NCFE and supporters […]

Math teacher training fund divides opinion after colleges with notice of financial concern are barred

A new maths teacher training fund which will exclude the most cash-strapped colleges doesn’t add up, according to the Association of Colleges (AoC). The £1.5m ‘funding in-service maths teacher training in FE’ scheme, which will hand out training funds for maths lecturers teaching at GCSE level and above, has been criticised by AoC after it emerged […]

Police investigate after college website hacked to promote Islamic militants

A college website inadvertently gave its support to the militant group Islamic State (ISIS) after it was hacked, prompting a police investigation. Carlisle College has disabled its website after various elements were changed, including the main description which appears next to the site in internet search engine results. For several hours late last week, the […]

Teen apprenticeship numbers could be hit by making employers pay, National Audit Office warns

Government plans to make employers pay for up to a third of the training for 16 to 18 apprenticeships could hit the age group’s already-falling uptake, the National Audit Office (NAO) has warned. It said the number of apprenticeship starts among 16 to 18-year-olds, which fell from 129,900 in 2011/12 to 114,500 in 2012/13, could fall further […]

The north continues to dominate as DfE release names of colleges that can recruit full-time 14 to 15-year-olds

A further nine colleges have been given permission to recruit full-time 14 to 15-year-olds this September, the second year in which this has been possible. The Department for Education (DfE) announcement this afternoon revealed the list of 14 colleges that have permission to directly recruit, and be funded for, students from 14 years of age. In addition to […]