Author: Fraser Whieldon

The Federation of Small Businesses has chosen GCSE results day to call on the new Secretary of State, Gavin Williamson, to take urgent action to increase apprenticeship funding. Their chief executive, Mike Cherry, points out that some students picking up their results today will now want to start an apprenticeship. But, he claims, their choices […]

France has won the right to host WorldSkills 2023 by a landslide after receiving more than double the votes for rival Japan. The biennial competition will be heading to Lyon following Shanghai in 2021, after France won by 44 votes to 20. All 82 countries are entitled to vote in the secret ballot. Speaking at […]

Team UK got the chance to see the WorldSkills flag relay, leave a permanent sign of their skills, and visit Kazan’s very own Kremlin today, a few days before WorldSkills 2019 begins. Proving it’s not all floristry, painting and metalwork with WorldSkills UK, the 41-strong party of 37 competitors and four team leaders took in […]

The Chartered Institution for Further Education looks to have broken its bye-laws set by the Privy Council after failing to publish its 2017-18 accounts. FE Week has been repeatedly asking for their financial statements, which should have been signed off in December, since March. The institution’s own bye-laws state that the ruling council “shall ensure […]

Today, Team UK fly out to WorldSkills 2019 in Russia.  Here’s our short, but handy explainer about the competition, competitors and what chance Team UK has of topping the medal tables at the closing ceremony in 10 days time. What is WorldSkills? WorldSkills is a biennial competition that will this year take place (from Friday […]

Nearly half of the new providers which have had Ofsted reports published this week have made ‘insufficient progress’ in at least one area. YMCA George Williams College and London School of Commerce & IT Limited are among those to receive the rating for Ofsted’s objectives of ‘successful apprenticeship provision’ and ‘positive outcomes for apprentices’. The […]

West Kent and Ashford College will apply to enter education administration tomorrow. The embattled college is expected to follow its sister college Hadlow into insolvency, after the former fell in May, in order to streamline the sale of their various campuses. It follows on from the FE Commissioner Richard Atkins recommending in July that Hadlow […]

FE Week talks medal hopes and teamwork with WorldSkills UK mechatronics competitors Jack Dakin and Danny Slater as the final countdown to Kazan begins. Reporter Fraser Whieldon travelled to Toyota UK in Derby yesterday to meet the mechatronics duo; both of whom are 24, from Derby, and work at the automotive manufacturer. The two are […]

The education secretary, Gavin Williamson, has met Team UK representatives during his first visit to a further education college in his new role. On what the Department for Education described as a unofficial private visit, Westminster Kingsway College hosted a meeting between Williamson and representatives of WorldSkills UK, including chief executive Dr Neil Bentley-Gockmann. The […]