Yasemin Craggs Mersinoglu | FE Week

Nine key findings from new DfE employer and apprentice surveys

The Department for Education released new data into the views and experiences of apprenticeships today. A survey of more than 5,000 apprentices was carried out while around 4,000 employers were also surveyed. FE Week has pulled out the key findings. Apprentices 1. Awareness is on the rise Understanding that their course or training […]

College funding support confirmed, and 4 other key points from latest DfE Covid-19 guidance

The government confirmed it will honour all payments to grant funded providers for the remainder of the 2019/20 funding year, in new guidance published today. The operational guidance for general FE colleges, sixth form colleges and other post-16 FE providers listed a number of measures enacted as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. FE Week […]

£1m rap collaboration sends apprenticeship site visits soaring

The government has celebrated nearly tripling the interest in apprenticeships after spending more than £1 million on the release of a grime song as part of its Fire It Up campaign. FE Week can reveal the unusual partnership between a YouTube entrepreneur, rapper and the Department for Education (DfE) cost £542,009.65 to deliver, with an […]

MOVERS AND SHAKERS: EDITION 311

Your weekly guide to who’s new and who’s leaving. Di Gowland, Interim principal, Waltham Forest College Start date: March 2020 Previous job: Educational Consultant Interesting fact: She enjoys long distance walking and has recently completed the South Downs Way. David Phillips, Managing Director, City & Guilds and ILM Start date: March 2020 Previous job: Executive […]

Introducing… John Clarke

FE Week meets a principal whose career has been defined by quiet consistency, and who has a few parting words for the sector’s leaders It was a college principal who suggested I go and interview John Clarke, the retiring boss at Southport College in Merseyside and FE career veteran of 35 years. I’d asked for […]

Apprentice assessment organisation hit by ‘significant cancellations’

A leading apprentice assessment organisation has told FE Week they are already experiencing “significant cancellations” following the coronavirus outbreak. A spokesperson for Highfield Group, one of the busiest end-point assessment organisations (EPAO) that is approved for 38 apprenticeship standards, said the cancellations were mainly as a result of employers restricting site access to visitors, as […]

A principal’s day of shock, some relief and a poignant note to end on

The need to act on government’s decision is tempered by concern for our students, writes college principal and the chair of the Sixth Form Colleges Association, Nick Burnham On Wednesday night I watched the secretary of state announce the closure of schools and colleges and then emailed staff to say that Thursday would be our […]

Shrewsbury college loses grade 4 battle with Ofsted

A college accused of serious safeguarding failures has failed to overturn an ‘inadequate’ judgment following a second visit from Ofsted inspectors. FE Week understands that Shrewsbury Colleges Group will have a grade four report published imminently after its complaint to the education watchdog was not upheld. Leaders at the college, which teaches more than 9,000 […]

ESFA warns college over finances after bank covenant breach

A college has been moved into FE Commissioner intervention after it breached a bank covenant and had to reclassify a near £10 million loan. Coventry College, which teaches around 6,000 learners, had a financial notice to improve published today after the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) assessed its finances as ‘inadequate’. The college’s accounts […]