Billy Camden | FE Week

AoC Sport National Championships: The south-east triumphs again

The south-east took the glory for the second year running at last weekend’s AoC Sport National Championships, retaining the coveted Wilkinson Sword Trophy. It was a close-fought battle with their local rivals the south-west, but in the end, the winners finished nine points clear of the 40th annual championships after three days of fierce competition […]

Ofsted Watch: Royal Navy apprenticeships are ‘outstanding’

Everything about skills training at the Royal Navy is shipshape and Bristol fashion, after Ofsted judged the employer provider to be ‘outstanding’ across the board. In a glowing report published on April 26, the education watchdog said nearly all of the Navy’s 5,000 apprentices make “exceptional progress towards becoming experts in their job roles”. They […]

Mucklow tackles AEB devolution as director roles change at ESFA

The director of Young People and former sixth-form college commissioner has been given the mammoth task of devolving the adult education budget, as part of a reshuffle at the top of the ESFA. In an extensive new brief, Peter Mucklow has become the agency’s director of further education, which as well as implementing devolution includes […]

Fresh round of redundancies at Learndirect as funding dries up

Learndirect Ltd appears to be on the brink of collapse, after a fresh round of redundancies belied the fact that its efforts to generate new business have proved “impossible”. FE Week understands that the UK’s largest FE provider told the vast majority of its staff on April 23 that they are likely to lose their […]

UCU blasts 10% pay rises for ‘greedy’ college principals

College principals have been lambasted as “greedy and hopelessly out of touch” by the University and College Union, after new analysis showed a third enjoyed a pay rise of more than 10 per cent in 2016/17. Data on last year’s college accounts was released this morning by the Department for Education. It revealed that 17 […]

Traineeships expose the need for T-level collaboration

In 2015 the government criticised colleges for losing out to training providers by only making up a third of the apprenticeship market. And the figure is even lower for traineeships, at just 24 per cent and falling, as FE Week discovered with a Freedom of Information request to the Department for Education. What connects these […]

Hull College Group backs embattled chief executive in bitter redundancy row

UPDATE: UCU members at the Hull College Group will walk out on strike tomorrow (May 9) over plans to slash jobs. Hull College Group has “absolute confidence” in its under-fire chief executive and will not bow to staff and union pressure to fire her, it has announced. Staff who are members of the University and […]

Isle of Wight studio school on the brink of closure

Another studio school that has severely struggled with recruitment has agreed to close “in principle”. Plans to shut the Isle of Wight Studio School in August 2019 were announced today, but the final decision will be subject to a four-week consultation. The school said in a statement that the decision has come about because “too […]

Ofsted Watch: Tough week for providers inspected for first time

It has been a difficult week for first-time private providers, as one was rated ‘requires improvement’ and another was handed the dreaded grade four. Millennium Academy, based in Barking, was deemed ‘inadequate’ across the board. This was its first ever inspection and despite Ofsted only judging the provider’s adult learning provision, Millennium now faces being […]