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Edition 150: Movers and Shakers

Former student Samantha Harvey has returned to Derby College as the first head gardener at its Broomfield Hall land-based studies campus. Ms Harvey’s role will involve supporting students in work experience programmes and leading work to open the grounds to more visitors. She studied horticulture at the college 15 years ago, before training and working […]

David Cragg, deputy chair, Find a Future

When Find a Future deputy chair David Cragg is asked how long he has been working in FE he cracks a smile and says “110 years.” It’s an exaggeration, of course, as he was born in 1946 and became involved in FE in the late 1960s with a general studies teacher post at Warley College […]

Catching the imagination of tomorrow’s teachers and learners

A host of new learning technology projects have been funded to the total tune of £750k. Rebecca Garrod-Waters explains some of the projects and what she hopes they might achieve. In a bold move to help stimulate the take-up of digital learning in vocational education, Ufi Charitable Trust has funded 16 demonstrator stage projects — […]

Ten ways for colleges to forge a successful relationship with sub-contractors

The relationship between lead and sub-contractor may be one defined by tension for some, and tranquility for others. Matthew Lord outlines how to help make these relationships fall into the latter camp. With the final push to sign off contracts and the last-minute dash for recruitment dominating our lives, I’ve been thinking about exactly what […]

Outline of a two-grade college leap to outstanding — with an ‘employment edge’

Judith Doyle inherited a grade three Ofsted-rated college in August 2013 and within eight months of her appointment inspectors dished out the same result again. But, picking up the gauntlet, she instigated a raft of changes that in July saw the college rated as outstanding. I was proud and delighted to be made principal at […]

Party conference 2015

If conference season has shown us anything, it’s that one wing of the political establishment has changed its tune on education policy while the other remains steadfastly on the same track. Given the fervour surrounding the election of new leader Jeremy Corbyn after a heavy defeat at the polls under Ed Miliband, Labour could be […]

Large employers’ apprenticeship levy cash should go into one pot to benefit firms of all sizes, AELP tells government

Cash raised by the proposed new large employers’ apprenticeship levy should be combined with government funding in a central pot available to all employers of all sizes under a “simple” new system, the government has been told. The Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) made the proposal in its submission to the government consultation […]

‘Soviet-style’ apprenticeship quality question

The government’s record on improving the quality of the apprenticeships programme has come in for questioning. Falling success rates, exemptions from minimum standards and publicly-aired doubts from the education watchdog’s chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw (pictured below right) have cast a shadow over the government’s 3m apprenticeship starts target for this Parliament. It’s a situation […]

The Indy Scene: Edition 150

Chancellor George Osborne’s decision to impose a levy on employers to fund apprenticeships is a positive move if carefully and fairly implemented and if the unintended consequences and opportunities for fraud are thought through in advance. Training prescribed by industrial training boards was funded by a statutory levy until abandoned by Margaret Thatcher in the […]