Nick Linford | FE Week

Apprenticeship levy funding pot predictions cut by £100m a year

The amount of money the apprenticeship levy is expected to raise has already fallen by £100m for each year up to 2020/21, FE Week can reveal. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) predicted in November that the levy would raise £2.8bn in 2017/18, £2.9bn in 2018/19 and £3bn in 2019/20. The latest OBR figures (pictured), […]

More understanding needed for career ambitions, report says

Better understanding is needed of why young people choose oversubscribed career paths, a new report states. The study, ‘Routes into Work … it’s Alright for Some’, published by The Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP), Pearson, with research from the Learning and Work Institute, is intended to explain why youth unemployment has remained stubbornly […]

Jean Corston, chair, House of Lords Social Mobility Committee

Jean Corston’s journey from council estate to the first female chair of the parliamentary Labour Party and a life peer is living proof that social mobility in the UK is not just a pipe dream. It left her perfectly suited to leading efforts in the House of Lords to help the next generation of working […]

We’re going on a bear hunt

The government’s programme of post-16 area reviews has been likened to Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory on survival of the fittest. Stuart Rimmer develops on this theme, comparing providers to different types of bears. With the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills’ publication of the amplified guidance for area reviews and the Secretary of State Sajid […]

Big hit with Olympic champion

A student from South Gloucestershire and Stroud College (SGS) met Olympic super heavyweight champion boxer Anthony Joshua during an England training camp. Seventeen-year-old Natalie Craig attended the event at the English Institute of Sport (EIS), in Sheffield, with other members of the national female boxing team. A highlight was meeting 2012 Olympic super heavyweight champion and […]

Orchard Hill’s dash for cash

Orchard Hill College kicked off its first ever fundraising week with a dash, literally. Members of staff and students at the special needs college used their team work skills to compete in a ‘Centre to Centre Race’ — a dart across all five of their campuses sited in London and Surrey. With some kitted out […]

Core problem with transparency

The SFA’s refusal to publish or share a list of over 400 level two and three qualifications, which for 2016/17 lose their 19-23 core entitlement funding, is hard to understand. From my perspective as a former curriculum planner at a college, I have a great deal of sympathy for providers over this. Yes, we are […]

College drills for disaster

Uniformed public services students from Barking & Dagenham College got the chance to take part in Europe’s biggest disaster drill. The four-day event, ‘Exercise Unified Response’, simulated a tower block collapsing into Waterloo Underground station, packed with passengers. Organised by London Fire Brigade and involving more than 70 organisations, the event was staged at Littlebrook […]

Jamal hits right notes at Radio1Xtra showcase

A Carshalton College student has received a major boost in his bid to hit the music big-time, after he was chosen through BBC Radio1Xtra to perform at a major international festival. Jamal Woon, aged 17, who is studying level two music technology at the London college, took to the stage as part of a BBC Radio1Xtra […]