Author: FE Week Reporter

A National Audit Office (NAO) probe into FE and skills finances may not go far enough in looking at how the sector has been hit by “multiple funding cuts,” National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (Niace) chief executive David Hughes has warned. Mr Hughes, a former national director of the Skills Funding Agency (SFA), told […]

Leaders of a general FE college that sponsored a local school have seen it forced to close just two years after opening having failed to attract enough pupils. Stockport Technical School, a 14 to 19 free school that opened in September 2013 and currently has 98 learners, offers vocational courses in engineering, construction and motor […]

The government has agreed to the automatic scrapping of a rule that forces apprentices to re-sit qualifications they already have after fears frameworks would have to be rewritten to accommodate the change. The five-year rule will be removed from the specification of apprenticeship standards for England (Sase), and it now appears it will be stripped […]

Barnfield College is “looking to forge new relationships” with partners in the education sector after Whitehall rubber-stamped its split from a chain of academies and studio school. Skills Minister Nick Boles officially approved the break-up of the Barnfield Federation, which means the Barnfield Academy Trust and Barnfield College, its original sponsor, are now separate entities. […]

The FE sector has to face up to low levels of literacy and numeracy among staff if it wants to improve learners’ maths and English, an Ofsted official has warned. Marina Gaze, Ofsted’s deputy director for skills and FE made the comments at the BKSB Skills Conference focussing on English and maths. Ms Gaze’s comments […]

A fraudster posing as a London college principal has been foiled in the latest in a string of attempted scams to hit the sector. Finance staff at Westminster Kingsway College received an email, purporting to be from principal Andy Wilson (pictured), instructing them to make an urgent payment. However, despite the email appearing to be […]

A University Technical College (UTC) which had to be rescued by its local FE college after a damning Ofsted report could be on its way out of special measures, inspectors have said. A monitoring visit report on Central Bedfordshire UTC came out on March 2, revealing it had made “reasonable progress” since an inspection in […]

A Hampshire sixth form college has had to go back to the drawing board in its search for a partner with Sixth Form College Commissioner Peter Mucklow having warned it could not function alone financially. Totton College principal Mike Gaston (pictured below, left) announced in December that his college would be seeking a partnership and […]

Skills Minister Nick Boles told the House of Commons the government has no intention of “promoting the establishment” of new sixth form colleges (SFCs). Labour MP Kelvin Hopkins, chair of the all-party parliamentary group for SFCs and vice-chair of governors at Luton Sixth Form College, asked Mr Boles if he supported opening more SFCs during […]