Yasemin Craggs Mersinoglu | FE Week

First college to delay reopening after coronavirus R rate rise

A college in Tameside is delaying its wider reopening after being “strongly advised” to do so by its local authority in light of new Covid-19 infection rate data. Tameside College told FE Week today it is planning to follow recommendations from Tameside Metropolitan Borough to postpone face-to-face contact with more students until at least June […]

MOVERS AND SHAKERS: EDITION 319

Your weekly guide to who’s new and who’s leaving. Anne Vickers, Board member, Education Training Collective Start date: May 2020 Concurrent job: Sport England and the Youth Sport Trust’s Schools Games Organiser for Middlesbrough Interesting fact: Anne played for Redcar Ladies hockey team for 30 years, joining when she was at school Matthew Smith, Director […]

‘A very different September’ debated by roundtable of experts

The Covid-19 pandemic has caused a great deal of disruption across education, including cancelled exams and campus closures to most learners, the impact of which is expected to be felt into the next academic year and likely beyond. Education leaders and policy experts discussed the anticipated ongoing impact on 16-to-24- year-olds, adult learners and apprenticeships […]

FE has a pivotal role over the next two years (and there is no time to lose)

The sector must be allowed to respond to demands from existing and new students, many of them disadvantaged, says Justine Greening. It must also be ready to help hundreds of thousands of people to reskill Education transformed my life – and my time in further education at Thomas Rotherham College in south Yorkshire was a […]

The prime minister’s ‘apprenticeship guarantee’: over-optimistic or visionary?

Two regular commentators on vocational education policy who now work at the same consultancy firm take opposing sides over whether it is in the government’s gift to guarantee a young person an apprenticeship… Possible? No Jonathan Simons, Director of education, Public First An apprenticeship is a protected term in law. It means that someone […]

FE’s fight to tackle hate crime

Hate crimes in colleges have almost tripled in four years as leaders seek to raise awareness in light of a national spike since the coronavirus outbreak. The data obtained via Freedom of Information requests by FE Week from 23 of the 39 police forces in England reveal that 460 offences were recorded in colleges between […]

Winners of the AoC Beacon Awards 2020 announced

Top colleges across the country are celebrating receiving honours in the Association of Colleges’ Beacon Awards 2019-20. The winners and runners up are being announced via a virtual awards ceremony today after the scheduled Parliamentary reception in July had to be cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic. This page will be updated throughout the day […]

National student photography exhibition captures life of sixth form college learners during lockdown

An online photography exhibition to showcase the life of sixth form college students during lockdown has been launched by the apprenticeships and skills minister today. More than 140 students from 46 colleges submitted contributions to “At home”, which is being co-ordinated by the Sixth Form Colleges Association (SFCA). Department for Education minister Gillian Keegan said: […]

Ofsted watch: Nearly a clean sweep of positive results for FE providers throughout May

Almost nine in ten full Ofsted inspection reports for FE providers returned either ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ grades in May. And all but one of the 13 monitoring reports published this month produced ‘reasonable’ or ‘significant’ progress ratings. The education watchdog originally paused the publication of all further education and skills reports on the 20 March […]