Jessica Fino | FE Week

Mystery surrounds second delay to Havering College merger plans

A cash-strapped college’s future has been thrown into doubt after a merger it was depending on to sort out its finances was delayed for a second time in mysterious circumstances. A formal merger between Havering College of Further and Higher Education, Havering Sixth Form College and New City College – which are currently part joined […]

Love Our Colleges Week re-convenes ahead of the comprehensive spending review

Following the first national Colleges Week last October, the Association of Colleges has held a further week of activities to raise awareness of funding cuts and cost increases in the sector. This smaller-scale campaign was boosted most visibly on Twitter, with many principles and senior leaders using the social media platform to share their passion […]

DfE launches consultation on fully-funded digital functional skills qualifications

The Department for Education is calling for views on the content for new digital functional skills qualifications that will become available for first teaching and free of charge from August 2021. They will replace the existing functional skills qualifications (FSQs) in ICT, which will stop being available from July 2021. The legacy ICT qualifications are […]

DfE consults on extending teacher pension survivor rights to civil and same-sex partners

The Department for Education has launched a consultation into plans to extend survivor benefits under the teachers’ pension scheme to civil and same-sex partners. The change, one of three proposed to the scheme, comes after the Supreme Court ruled in 2017 that the husband of former cavalry officer John Walker was entitled to the same […]

A culture of inclusion can drive more women into STEM apprenticeships

UK business needs to create a virtuous circle of positive change, says Ben Farmer, with successful women becoming inspirational role models for the next generation of builders, innovators and inventors The UK’s ongoing STEM skills shortage is a key issue for employers such as Amazon. Vacancies for highly skilled technical roles will double over the […]

Five principles that should underpin quality assessment

It has never been more crucial that we ensure that we have the best regime possible to assess quality, says Sir Gerry Berragan, chief executive of the Institute for Apprenticeships & Technical Education Our mission at the Institute for Apprenticeships & Technical Education is to develop high-quality apprenticeships and technical qualifications in order to transform […]

Despite the extra bureaucracy, ESFA right to require more data on every apprentice

This week the ESFA announced that, from August, apprenticeship providers would need to report the planned off-the-job hours for all new starts. With bureaucracy a constant bugbear in FE, it is rare that a new field is added to the Individualised Learner Record (particularly a late change) but this is an attempt to address stinging […]

Ofsted watch: Two providers straight in with ‘good’ in uneventful week for FE

One specialist college and a private provider received a grade two rating in their first ever Ofsted inspections, in what was otherwise an average week in the FE sector. The only critical report came in for an NHS trust, after inspectors found it was making ‘insufficient progress’ in an early monitoring visit of its apprenticeship […]

Final Team UK line-up for WorldSkills 2019 revealed

With the last seven competitors selected, Team UK is now complete and ready to compete in this year’s WorldSkills competition in Kazan, Russia, later this summer. The first 32 members were announced in March. However, the autotech, cloud computing, cyber ,security, chemical lab technician, floristry, plumbing and heating competitors had to wait to find out […]