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14 April 2026

Author: Alix Robertson

£35k-a-year private school seeks £3.50-an-hour apprentice

A private school with annual fees of £35,000 has been branded “a disgrace” by one of the UK’s largest trade unions for offering a rate of just £3.50 an hour for an apprentice to tend its grounds. Cheltenham College, an independent coeducational boarding school in Gloucestershire, advertised for an ‘apprentice groundsperson’ on the gov.uk ‘Find […]

‘Patchy’ progress with work training for special needs

A government drive to help young people with learning difficulties and disabilities prepare for the world of work is making “patchy” progress, despite plans to make it universal. So-called ‘supported internships’ were first introduced through a pilot in autumn 2012 with 15 FE colleges. They are unpaid study programmes for 16- to 24-year-olds lasting around […]

Ofsted watch: Traineeships silver lining for provider stuck on grade three

Independent training provider Nottinghamshire Training Network found itself stuck at a grade three this week, with all its provision deemed to ‘require improvement’ except traineeships, which were rated ‘good’. Problems with leadership and management were identified at the provider, such as leaders failing “to ensure that subcontractors meet the additional learning needs of all learners and […]

College pays learners to complete online courses

A college in the north-east has used public funds to pay its students cash bonuses for completing online short courses. Middlesbrough College advertised a £50 “cash bonus” on its website for anyone who took up free distance learning courses in the health and care, business and customer service industries – in a move that’s previously […]

Merger of two London colleges agreed

Two London colleges have finally agreed to merge, more than 18 months after the link between them was first proposed. The College of North West London and City of Westminster College will join forces this summer to become United Colleges Group. The decision was taken at their individual corporation meetings on May 17 and 24 […]

Tendering for external quality assurance finally launched

Tendering for the external quality assurance of apprenticeships has finally been launched by the Institute for Apprenticeships – three months after it was originally supposed to go live. The opportunity to apply to deliver EQA services on behalf of the IfA was posted on the gov.uk contracts finder website last night, with a closing date of […]

NOCN expanding through new acquisition

Expansion is on the cards this summer for awarding organisation NOCN, with a new acquisition from the Construction Industry Training Board, which it claims will transform it into one of the biggest AOs in the UK. Cskills Awards, currently a division of the CITB, will officially move to NOCN on August 1 and will bring […]

National provider enters redundancy consultation with staff

Staff at the nation’s largest FE provider are on tenterhooks, as they wait to find out whether they will still have a job at the end of a 30 day consultancy period enforced this week. Learndirect informed employees that they were being placed in the month-long consultancy period via a “script” delivered in a conference […]