FE has lost something primary schools get right

In primary school, every student has a person.

A teacher who knows them, their moods, their friendships, their worries, the way they walk in when something isn’t right. There is consistency, familiarity, and a clear sense of belonging.

By the time students reach further education, that person has disappeared.

Instead, they are passed between subject specialists, registers and reporting systems. Known in fragments. Tracked in spreadsheets. Measured in attendance percentages and submission dates.

And yet, we expect more from them than ever before.

As a college teacher, I teach around 90 to 100 students across multiple levels. I might see each group once or twice a week, often for a limited number of hours. In that time, I am expected to track attendance, monitor wellbeing, understand who has an education, health and care plan (EHCP) and everything about it, notice friendship dynamics, support academic progress, chase coursework, and produce meaningful reports multiple times a year.

All while delivering lessons, meeting targets, and feeding data into systems that suggest I “know” my students.

The truth is, I know parts of them.

But not enough to be their person.

Further education sits in a strange, often overlooked space. Students are no longer children, but they are not yet fully independent adults. This period is marked by significant personal changes, identity development, fluctuating confidence, increasing mental health challenges, and growing external pressures.

This is not just anecdotal, it is ecological. Urie Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory reminds us that development does not happen in isolation. It is shaped by the systems around a young person, relationships, environments, and daily interactions. When those systems become fragmented, so too can a student’s sense of stability and belonging.

And yet, this is the stage where we remove consistency.

We assume independence means distance.

It doesn’t.

What if FE borrowed something simple from primary education?

A “college class teacher” model.

Each group would have a consistent, central teacher, someone who sees them regularly, not just to deliver content, but to know them. A person responsible not just for data, but for connection. Someone who notices when attendance dips before it becomes a statistic. Someone who understands the quieter students, not just the loudest voices.

This is not about adding another layer of administration. It is about refocusing what already exists.

Belonging is not a soft outcome. It is a predictor of engagement.

Abraham Maslow reminds us that belonging sits at the core of human motivation. Without it, progress in learning becomes harder to sustain.

Students who feel known are more likely to attend, more likely to participate, more likely to ask for help, and more likely to stay.

We talk endlessly about retention, attendance, and outcomes, but rarely address the simplest question:

Do students feel like they belong to someone – and somewhere?

From a teacher’s perspective, this is not about reducing workload. It is about restoring purpose.

Most of us did not enter further education to become data managers. We came to teach, to guide, and to support. But when relationships are fragmented, so is our impact. We are left trying to piece together a full picture of a student from limited snapshots, while being held accountable for outcomes that depend on connection.

Give us the space to know our students properly, and we will do what teachers have always done best: show up, notice, care, and make it count.

Because spreadsheets do not change lives.

People do.