Author: Billy Camden

The deadline on the latest T-levels consultation has been extended yet again, and the Institute for Apprenticeships will now give the sector until the end of the month to submit views. The FE community was outraged last month when they were at first given just five working days to respond to the draft content of […]

The big guns of the awarding organisation world are drawing the battle lines in the imminent struggle for ownership of the first T-levels. Despite numerous concerns from across the sector, the government is ploughing ahead with its controversial plan to deploy just one AO per qualification when the first three pathways are launched in 2020. […]

The Institute for Apprenticeships has appointed yet another military person to its leadership team – and they’ve been given the unenviable task of running T-levels. Carmel Grant OBE, who had been the head of army reform at the Ministry of Defence since January 2016, has taken on the role of deputy director of technical education […]

An employer-provider has boosted its grade to ‘good’ in a mixed week for the FE sector, as Highbury College dramatically dropped two ratings from ‘outstanding’. Be Wiser Insurance Services was rated grade two across the board, up from its previous ‘requires improvement’ rating. The main reason for its achievement was put down to a reduction […]

A free school sponsored by England’s largest college group, and which is led by some of its top people, is closing down. The Discovery School in Newcastle, which cost £9 million to set up, opened in 2014. It will shut this year over “capability and capacity issues” that have concerned ministers. Last July, the school […]

Highbury College has dropped two grades from ‘outstanding’ in an Ofsted report that brands its teaching “uninspiring” and raises concern over low attendance. The verdict was a serious blow to a heavily criticised leadership team led by Stella Mbubaegbu (pictured above), who maintains that the college has “already embarked on our journey back to ‘outstanding’”. […]

Finding new work for apprentices left jobless in the wake of the collapse of Carillion cost the government around £3 million, a National Audit Office report has revealed. A total of 1,148 trainee bricklayers, carpenters and builders suddenly found themselves out of work when the outsourcing giant went into liquidation on January 15. A rescue […]

The Department for Education exceeded its own target for recruiting apprentices last year. Ever since the apprenticeship levy was launched last April, public-sector bodies have been obliged to make sure at least 2.3 per cent of their workforce start and apprenticeship every year. One year on and the DfE has met the target and then […]

London will shift its adult education budget payment model away from funding qualifications towards wider outcomes such as progression into work, its first ever skills strategy has confirmed. The mayor Sadiq Khan unveiled the final plan in the launch of his ‘Skills for Londoners’ strategy today, ahead of the Greater London Authority’s takeover of the […]