Fraser Whieldon | FE Week

MOVERS AND SHAKERS: EDITION 303

Your weekly guide to who’s new and who’s leaving. Louise Turner, Director of inclusive provision, and SEND, Leeds City College Start date: September 2019 Previous job: Director of academic support, Leeds City College Interesting fact: She has climbed Mount Snowden. Jo Simovic, Chief operating officer, Umbrella Training Start date: January 2020 Previous job: Director of excellence, […]

Skills advisory panels set to influence which FE courses receive funding

Skills advisory panels (SAPs) could be given a role in influencing which courses will be prioritised and funded in their area. Little is known about the 36 SAPs, but FE Week understands that the government is working on secondary legislation, an FE Bill, which would change that. The panels were heralded in the Conservatives’ 2017 […]

Ofsted watch: Troubled college and Williamson’s alma mater among swathe of positive results

A college in financial trouble and the education secretary’s old sixth form are among a host of positive Ofsted results for FE providers. The week was somewhat overshadowed, however, after independent provider EQV (UK) was handed a grade four because apprentices and their bosses did not know they were on an apprenticeship programme. Brooklands College […]

Most learners don’t know they’re apprentices at management provider, Ofsted finds

A provider of management courses has been declared ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted after it was found learners and their bosses did not know they were on the apprenticeship programme. EQV (UK) has been handed a grade four for its provision to nearly 80 apprentices, who are either on the level 3 team leader or level 5 […]

London college pulls out of T-levels plans 19 months before launch

A financially troubled college subject to FE Commissioner intervention has decided to withdraw from delivering T-levels, the Department for Education has revealed. Richmond-upon-Thames College had been selected to deliver all the routes being rolled out as part of the second wave of T-levels in September 2021: digital, construction, education and childcare, and health and science. […]

Young carers’ bursaries plummet, as union blames complexity in claiming

Take-up of bursaries that support young parents while they study has tumbled by over three-fifths in five years – a drop which one union has blamed on a “complex” claiming process. According to Education and Skills Funding Agency data published yesterday, 64 per cent fewer people are using Care to Learn, which is intended to […]

Illegal apprenticeship wages on the rise

Almost a fifth of level 2 and 3 apprentices are being paid below the national minimum wage – as the new Apprenticeship Pay Survey has revealed a 1 per cent rise in “non-compliance”. Published this afternoon, the survey for 2018/19 says 19 per cent have reported being paid below that level; which is a slight […]

MOVERS AND SHAKERS: EDITION 302

Your weekly guide to who’s new and who’s leaving. Lindsey Johnson, Principal, Craven College Start date: February 2020 Previous job: Vice principal, The Manchester College Interesting fact: Lindsey sings tenor in a choir, and has sung with pop stars including Lulu and Alexandra Burke Emma Hardy, Shadow HE and FE minister, Labour Start date: January 2020 […]

DfE plans for all ‘outstanding’ providers to be inspected over next five years

Gavin Williamson has vowed to send Ofsted inspectors into every ‘outstanding’ training provider in England within five years, as he confirmed an earlier pledge to lift their inspection exemption. The education secretary announced last September that the exemption, introduced by Michael Gove in 2012, would finally be abandoned. It followed repeated warnings from Ofsted that […]