Jude Burke | FE Week

Ofsted watch: A week of contrasting fortunes for UTCs

It’s been a week of contrasting fortunes for university technical colleges, as one is rated ‘good’ and another ‘inadequate’ in their first ever inspections. Elsewhere a genuinely new apprenticeship provider has been making ‘significant progress’ in one of the areas under review, in one of four monitoring visit reports published this week. UTC Oxfordshire received […]

21 new members appointed to IfA apprentice panel

The Institute for Apprenticeships’ apprentice panel will have 21 new members when it next meets on July 4. A week ago, the former skills minister Robert Halfon said the IfA should “get its act together”, following revelations that the panel hadn’t met in nearly 10 months. “The voice of the apprentice is central to the […]

Ofsted: Bigger colleges aren’t always better

“Big is not always beautiful,” Ofsted’s main man for FE has warned, admitting he is considering the effect of mega-colleges formed through mergers on quality. Paul Joyce’s admission comes just a week after the nation’s largest college group NCG saw its rating slip to ‘requires improvement’. “We are looking at our survey programme as to […]

An eighth UTC gets the bottom Ofsted grade

Yet another university technical college has been rated ‘inadequate’, the eighth to receive Ofsted’s most dubious honour. Derby Manufacturing UTC has been placed in special measures after getting a grade four across the board – the school equivalent of FE commissioner intervention. “It is failing to give its pupils an acceptable standard of education and […]

Damian Hinds defends T-levels timetable to Education Committee

The education secretary has defended his decision not to delay the first T-levels, insisting the new qualifications are being introduced at a “good pace”. Damian Hinds appeared before the education select committee just two days after his top civil servant told the Public Accounts Committee that he still has contingency planning concerns regarding the tight […]

Bids reopen for £13m strategic college improvement fund

Colleges can bid for the remaining £13 million from the strategic college improvement fund using newly released guidance. The first round of the fund was launched last year, when 14 struggling colleges shared £2 million. Today’s announcement invites struggling colleges, supported by a stronger institution, to ask for money to help them improve in specific […]

FE commissioner reflects on six months of change

Six months ago the FE commissioner embarked on a series of new initiatives designed to support colleges before they get into too much difficulty. Using diagnostic assessments and peer-to-peer support, Richard Atkins aims to avoid a repeat of the high-profile college failures of recent months. These new measures are all the more important, given the […]

Hull College boss: How I’m taking it out of intensive care

Hull College chief executive Michelle Swithenbank probably has the toughest job in FE right now. The former nurse has been charged with taking a college which has received the largest ever government bailout to any FE institution out of intensive care and back on the road to recovery. It’s a task that would challenge the […]

ESFA apprenticeship service wins Digital Leaders Award

The Education and Skills Funding Agency’s apprenticeship service has been named as the top public service digital innovation. The service, launched in February 2017, was named ‘Digital public service innovation of the year’ at the Digital Leaders Awards 2018, last night. It beat other public sector organisations including the NHS and the DWP to the […]