Green skills, Long read

GSAP: FE’s secret weapon for net zero training

Former fisherman Mike Blakeley tells how he’s building the Green Skills Advisory Panel so FE and industry can make...

Jessica Hill
Jessica Hill
industrial strategy

Questions remain over industrial strategy skills pledge

Skills are mentioned 140 times in the industrial strategy – proof of their pivotal role in UK competitiveness. But...

Jessica Hill
Fiona Aldridge
Apprenticeships

Ofqual’s apprenticeship assessment reforms: A bold shift with big implications

While greater flexibility and innovation are welcome, challenges around cost, consistency, and transition remain

Jessica Hill
Daniel Green
Skills reform

Skills excellence is the missing ingredient in the UK’s industrial strategy

Skills excellence – not just skills – will drive the UK’s economic future, so don’t overlook it

Jessica Hill
Ben Blackledge
Adult education

It’s wrong that nobody knows if the adult skills fund actually works

Unlike apprenticeships, adult skills funding operates in a data black hole. Should the grant-allocated system in adult education be...

Jessica Hill
Aidan Relf
Colleges

Why FE colleges must lead the fight against coercive control

When our students took the stage to perform scenes of coercive control, their raw performances revealed an uncomfortable truth:...

Jessica Hill
John Revill and Tanya Schottlander
Ofsted

The unseen impact of Ofsted: What one grade can really cost

How a single Ofsted grade for a small part of overall provision triggered contract losses, staff redundancies and even...

Jessica Hill
Ian Ross
The Staffroom - opinion

Colleges should be civil society guardians in a more uncivil world

As populism rises and trust in institutions crumbles, FE colleges are quietly doing the vital work of rebuilding civil...

Jessica Hill
Henry Taylor-Toone
Access to HE

For Access to HE students, bills now matter more than books

Data shows economic pressures are the biggest barriers to learning but the tools we developed during Covid offer a...

Jessica Hill
Ken Duckett