A puppetry show based on the experiences of Myerscough College’s foundation learners is to be made into a national safeguarding resource; Samantha King reports
Puppeteer Steve Wright has been a regular visitor to the Lancashire college, delivering the government’s Prevent training to learners with additional needs through the medium of puppetry.
The creative artist has previously appeared on BBC show Dragon’s Den with his educational puppetry business Routes, and is now creating a special resource for the Education and Training Foundation based on the experiences of Myerscough’s learners.
The foundation learners
The new resource will delve into what it’s like to be a foundation learner through a specially created puppet, and help others understand how to treat students who have additional needs, and it will soon be made available nationally for all teachers and staff working in FE.
Barry Sherriff, head of foundation learning at the college, said: “Steve has recognised the immense potential our students have. He has been collecting soundbites from the students which he’s now putting together to create these learning materials for the ETF.
Through the medium of puppetry they really do seem to pick up the messages
“There’ll be no pictures of our students – it will be anonymous – but it’s their words, and it’s strong because others will relate to it.”
In the show – which will appear in video format on the ETF website – the bespoke puppet will be portrayed as having learning needs and a strong work ethic.
Steve delivers educational presentations across the UK on topics such as Prevent, road safety, drugs, equality, sexual health and relationships and bullying, while also creating his own resources for teachers.
His visits have proven highly successful with the students, and many have even been inspired to bring their own puppets in to help them communicate during the sessions.
“The students trust him and that’s why they feel they can be so honest,” Mr Sherriff said. “It allows them to show little nuggets of themselves that you’d never really prise out of them otherwise.”
And on how the Prevent sessions have helped student learning, he added: “What does anti-radicalisation mean to somebody with limited understanding? If you break it down and dress the puppets accordingly, it makes more sense.
“Through the medium of puppetry they really do seem to pick up the messages. It’s been really powerful.”
Steve also took time out to assist one particular foundation learner who wants to become an actor, working with him to create a showreel using the learner’s voice and a puppet which will become part of his application to study drama.
Myerscough has now been working with Steve for around 12 months, and Mr Sherriff says he is now a friend of the college.
“His method of communication suits our learners greatly,” he added.
Main image: Steve Wright, left, with a puppet and student Matthew Taylor, 17
A local authority provider has leapt two grades from inadequate to good and an independent training provider has received a grade two on its first inspection in this week’s Ofsted reports.
But otherwise ‘requires improvement’ has been the main story of the week.
West Sussex County Council was praised for its progress since it was given a grade four in December 2015, in a report published on February 24 but based on an inspection in January.
“Strong” governance arrangements and “effective” safeguarding were both “significant improvements” since the last inspection.
Tutors had also “much improved their ability to help students develop mathematical skills” with the result that “students, many for the first time, improve these skills and recognise the relevance of mathematics in their daily lives”.
Independent training provider The Tess Group was given grade two across the board in a report published March 2 and based on an inspection carried out at the beginning of February.
Leaders and managers at the Northampton-based provider were praised for ensuring that courses “align well to the interests of learners and the needs of employers”.
Learners “make good progress”, and are “prepared very well for their next step” thanks to “excellent partnerships” with employers and training providers.
Ineffective self-assessment, together with inconsistent teaching and low achievement rates, were among the issues that led to it being rated as ‘requires improvement’.
Also falling to a grade three this week were Itchen College, Havering Sixth Form College and Skills for Health, all of whom had previously been rated good.
The “majority of learners” on level three academic courses at Itchen College, a sixth form college, “do not make the progress they are capable of”, inspectors found.
Their report, published March 2 and based on an inspection at the end of January, also criticised leaders and managers for failing to set “clear and aspirational” performance indicators.
A lack of improvement in “students’ achievement or in teaching and learning” were among the issues highlighted at Havering Sixth Form College.
Inspectors also found that good practice in “quality improvement and rigorous self-assessment” wasn’t consistently adopted, in a report published February 28 and based on an inspection in mid-January.
Meanwhile, “too many apprentices” at the Bristol-based Skill for Health, a not-for-profit provider which is also the sector skills council for the healthcare sector, did not “complete their qualifications” on time.
Inspectors criticised managers for not taking “appropriate action” early enough to help those who weren’t progressing, in a report published February 24 and based on an inspection in mid-January.
Three providers retained their grades following full inspections this week.
Independent provider Bellis Training held onto its grade two, while MidKent College and Oldham College both kept their grade threes.
Just one short inspection report was published this week, for South Tyneside Council, while two monitoring visit reports were published.
The report for the recently-merged Newcastle and Stafford Colleges Group is based on the second visit to Stafford following its inadequate rating in February 2016, while the report into Norman Mackie and Associates Limited was also the second to be published after the ITP was given the lowest possible grade in September.
Truro and Penwith College recently hosted a STEM networking event for educators across Cornwall.
The event was attended by primary, secondary and FE teachers, local organisations and ambassadors, and followed Theresa May’s emphasis on the need to develop STEM subjects in her industrial strategy announcement.
Alongside networking opportunities and guest speakers – including Kim Conchie from the Cornwall Chamber of Commerce – were a series of interactive sessions led by the British Science Association, Royal Society of Chemistry and Institute of Physics.
Dr Jon Grey, programme team leader for science at the college, said: “It was great to see so many passionate people from across Cornish STEM education and industry coming together to improve the opportunities for young people in Cornwall.
“We are hopeful that this is the first of a regular programme of meetings that can give all parties engaged with STEM in Cornwall a forum to build partnerships, share best practice, learn new skills and discover possibilities to enhance the future prospects for young people.”
Main photo: An interactive plasma globe at the event
A team of students spent the day constructing a chicken coop in the Yorkshire Moors to protect local poultry against avian flu.
The group of 11 from North Lindsey College spent six hours building the structure in an effort to save the resident chickens, turkeys and ducks at the Youth Hostel Association in Castleton from the devastating illness.
Lewis absolutely nails it
Poultry keepers have been advised to keep their birds inside to protect them from a highly infectious strain of avian flu which can be caught from wild birds. Chicken coops are a way of keeping them safe while still letting them outside.
It was the first time dabbling in construction for many of the students, with the majority studying media and digital subjects at the college.
Michelle Kaye, deputy Manager at YHA Castleton, said: “After being informed about the bird flu outbreak our lovely chickens had to be cooped up for weeks, only having a small run to play around in.
The students very quickly volunteered their skills in the freezing cold and the dark, and completed a perfect structure where our chickens could spread their wings and enjoy the fresh air.”
Main photo: Students Danielle and Aaron get to work on the run
The Education and Skills Funding Agencies are preparing for an imminent merger that will clear the way for their boss Peter Lauener to retire, FE Week has learned.
Mr Lauener held the role of EFA chief executive before he took on the top job at the SFA in November 2014, and has already overseen major reforms to bring the agencies closer together.
This accelerated after the DfE took over full responsibilities for skills training last July.
To add to his workload, Mr Lauener was additionally appointed as shadow chief executive of the Institute for Apprenticeships last September.
The IfA will play a key role in policing the development of new standards, as well as the quality assurance of apprenticeship assessments, once widespread reforms come into effect from May.
At some point we may come back to question of whether there should be a merged agency
While any streamlining of the agencies might ultimately improve the system, if Mr Lauener’s departure came at the same time as the biggest systematic reform to the FE system in a generation, especially in the wake of the April launch of the new apprenticeship levy, the sector could experience huge shockwaves.
He was asked about a possible merger of the SFA and EFA by FE Week editor Nick Linford in February last year, when he said he was trying to put the question “to one side”, although he accepted that “at some point we may come back to question of whether there should be a merged agency”.
The number of permanent staff at the SFA fell from 1,241 in April 2014 to 899 by October 2015, though staff numbers increased at the EFA over the same period, from 753 to 837.
During the interview, Mr Lauener suggested that the two agencies could end up sharing service teams covering finance, IT and data as soon as that April, in a move that has yet to come to pass.
Previous comings-together between the agencies have so far come via a joint area review delivery unit and intervention team.
The SFA press office effectively ceased to exist last July, when ownership for older FE learners passed from the former Department for Business
Innovation and Skills to the DfE, which already spoke for the EFA.
The centralisation of all skills responsibilities to the DfE has further diminished the case for maintaining separate agencies.
FE Week asked Mr Lauener about the merger and his retirement plans on March 1 at the AoC’s Governance Summit in London.
He declined to comment on “speculation”, as did the DfE.
Lord Baker hit the headlines last week after he won a major concession in the House of Lords, to force schools to give FE providers access to their pupils. Speaking exclusively with FE Week’s Billy Camden, the former education secretary this week sets out his vision
Incredibly, Lord Baker, the architect of the UTC programme, originally only introduced his amendment “thinking it should be just for University Technical Colleges and Studio Schools”, he reveals.
“But then I said: ‘no, it should also apply to FE and apprenticeship providers’. This way it creates a level playing field.”
So how will the Baker Clause, as it has become known, work in practice?
“It is quite complicated legislation but the government is going to require each school to produce a policy themselves as to how they intend to implement this,” he tells me.
Schools will need to produce the policy “pretty promptly – certainly by June or July”, in the time for when the clause comes into play, which is expected to be by around September 2017.
The policy will have to include the likes of “timing basis, location and all those sorts of things”, he says.
“As your cartoon [in FE Week edition 200] shows, you have a line of cars coming in, so it is only reasonable that schools should be given a chance to decide how it should be done.”
They can direct exactly who should appear and where they should be. It is very draconian from that point of view
He doesn’t think visits would come as often as once a week, saying instead: “I think they’ll be able to do it once a year during the key times in September, October and November, which is very important.
This yearly session could involve “a careers day with a host of colleges and UTCs and providers coming in at once”.
It’ll be up to the government to decide, he says, which providers get the chance to visit which schools. “I can’t decide every bit of the policy,” he says with a chuckle.
Lord Baker told the House of Lords last week that “every word” of the proposed changes was needed because the amendment was going to be “met with great hostility in every school in the country”.
So what does he think would happen if a school turned round and refused visits from FE providers?
“The bill that is going through provides powers to the secretary of state to intervene if any school refuses to let colleges in to talk to pupils,” he states, firmly.
“They can direct exactly who should appear and where they should be. It is very draconian from that point of view because the government is quite determined not to make these refuse this obligation, it is a real obligation for them.”
He’s seen as an antagonistic figure by many in the sector, through his promotion of UTCs as an alternative to FE colleges, but what does he really think of his critics?
“I have high respect for some FE colleges,” he said, though the ones he thinks will be given a chance to promote themselves to schools under his clause will be those “who create proper age-14 level courses”.
“I am in favour of 14-level courses, and that is why we established career colleges, which are like UTCs but not doing the same subjects,” he told me.
“I think that is part of the way forward for the FE world, frankly, because if they want to get into 14-year-old education they need to recognise that for two years it is at a school – and that is quite demanding.
“Some of the bigger colleges can cope with that, but some of the smaller ones have difficulty.
“Those that do it should be given the chance to put it over at school level.”
The government is refusing to say whether more funding will be given to two “pioneering” FE research centres after their start-up grants end shortly.
The Behavioural Research Centre for Adult Skills and Knowledge was given £2.9 million by the former Department for Business Innovation and Skills back in 2014, to carry out randomised control trails to apply behavioural science to adult learning.
Under the auspices of its director Zhi Soon (pictured), the centre has completed four trials at colleges, aiming to improve attendance and attainment in maths and English.
The tests were conducted by “some of the world’s best educational minds”, involving academics from Harvard and Stanford.
The results, it was claimed, increased both attainment and attendance for students, and were described as “pioneering” in the government’s industrial strategy green paper in January.
Meanwhile, the Centre for Vocational Education Research is beginning to publish its own projects after being given a £3 million government grant in May 2015.
Being involved in research of this nature is really important for FE
Dr Sandra McNally leads the centre, and said that in the two years it has been running, her team has focused on “huge administrative data”, such as individual learner records, the national pupil database and longitudinal education outcomes data, in an attempt to process, code and apply it to their research.
Three completed pieces of research have since been published, with a paper on post-16 choices awakening the most interest, though many more are expected over the coming year.
But the future funding for both centres remains uncertain, and the government has stayed quiet on whether it will make a second round of investment in them.
ASK’s grant comes to an end this month, while CVER’s funding wraps up next May.
FE Week asked the Department for Education whether it was planning on extending the funding for the two centres.
A spokesperson for the DfE would only confirmed that it hadn’t announced any further funding decisions yet for the two centres, adding: “CVER has helped the department better understand the value of apprenticeships, how young people enter FE and the role of leadership in improving the quality of provision.
“ASK is helping us test and disseminate best practice in teaching and learning.”
FE Week spoke with colleges and FE bodies who have used or taken part in the research of the two centres.
Dr Darrell DeSouza, vice-principal at Uxbridge College, said his pupils had benefitted “hugely” from the “innovative and low-cost” approaches that his college was part of during trials by ASK.
Sandra McNally
“We wanted something that was simple, workable and that we could carry on without researchers once we was shown the way,” he said.
“The text messaging system that ASK taught us gave us an advantage in engaging learners in the very challenging arena of post-16 GCSE English and maths.”
Fiona Morey, deputy principal ay Aylesbury College, also took part in trials by ASK.
“Being involved in research of this nature is really important for FE,” she said.
“We get the policies and it is therefore about looking at different ways of developing and improving things instead of just being passive.”
A spokesperson for the AELP said CVER had done “some useful quantitative analysis on skills provision, including the returns on investment in apprenticeships”.
The Education and Training Foundation, which also produces research about FE, said the existence of “different bodies each with a different research focus can be beneficial”.
Mr Soon said his centre has “provided great value” for its £3 million investment, and claimed that he is “hopeful” of securing extra funding.
Dr McNally said her body is preparing its bid for a further two years on funding.
Behavioural science in FE
Since receiving nearly £3 million in grant money in 2014, the Behavioural Research Centre for Adult Skills and Knowledge has completed four trials, using a behavioural science approach to try and increase attendance and attainment outcomes for students in maths and English in colleges.
The first was a text-messaging study involving three colleges.
Half of the students involved were sent texts, which encouraged them to continue with their studies, every Sunday evening during term throughout 2014/15, and more frequently during the holidays.
The experiment, conducted by Professor Michael Luca from Harvard University, increased the number of learners passing all their exams by 12 per cent, while their attendance went up by 21 per cent.
The study also found the dropout rate was 36 per cent higher among learners who did not receive the texts.
ASK then ran a “grit” intervention, conducted with Professor Angela Duckworth from the University of Pennsylvania, to see if they could build and develop resilience in students.
This trial involved 20 colleges where maths students were given four online modules to complete four times throughout the academic year.
Final attainment results are still being collected but the mid-year attendance results showed a 10 per cent increase for all learners in that intervention.
Next was a “value affirmation” study, conducted with Professor Geoffrey Cohen from Stanford University, which got learners to think about what are the most important values and write about them.
The trial showed to have a “substantial impact” on functional skills learners, whose attendance went up by 20 per cent.
The fourth trial was a “study supporter Intervention” conducted with Professor Todd Rogers from Harvard University which focused on how supportive networks can improve educational attainment.
The result was an 11 per cent increase in attendance.
Vocational research
The Centre for Vocational Education Research has published three pieces of research and has over 20 ongoing projects to show for the £3 million government grant it received in May 2015.
The centre’s paper on post-16 choices gained the most interest after being published in July last year, according to its director Dr Sandra McNally.
Researchers found that the majority of students “do not undertake academic qualifications in the post-compulsory phase of their education”, but that there was no single vocational pathway that is “as well-trodden” as A-levels.
Another paper by CVER was on labour market returns to vocational qualifications, published in October last year.
Returns are typically highest for BTEC qualifications, and lowest for NVQ qualifications
The base results showed that the estimated returns differ by type of qualification, and by level.
The report said: “Not surprisingly, the estimated returns are higher for higher-level qualifications.
“Within levels, the returns are typically highest for BTEC qualifications, and lowest for NVQ qualifications.”
Its most recent report was published last month and was an analysis of the evolution of the number of learners in FE from 2004 to 2014.
It showed that the sector has lost more than 1.5 million learners over the last 10 years, with most of this decline occurring between 2005 and 2007.
More than 20 other projects are currently in the pipeline at CVER, with a literature review of evaluation studies about post-16 remedial education, and “detailed descriptive analysis” of young people in vocational education “below level two” and their later trajectory in education, waiting in the wings for the coming months.
Dr McNally said it was too early to “expect our academic research centre to have a big impact on policy within the time we have been up and running, but we hope to do so once all reports are published”.
Richard Atkins has had a very busy four months since he was confirmed as the new FE Commissioner. FE Week’s Jude Burke caught up with him this week, for an exclusive interview on his progress in the demanding role, at the AoC’s Governors Summit
With the area review process and college interventions occupying so much of his time, it’s perhaps unsurprising that the FE commissioner’s speech at the AoC summit was just his second public address to the sector since taking on the role.
Richard Atkins told the audience of college governors that he expected there to be “50-ish” mergers as a result of the area reviews – a substantially lower figure than the 80 predicted by his predecessor Sir David Collins last summer.
But when I caught up with the former Exeter College principal after the event, he insisted that the reviews – which are due to finish at the end of March – had still been a “big success”.
“I think area reviews have changed the landscape,” he told me.
“Before this, local authorities, colleges and local enterprise partnerships were not sitting round the same table and now nearly every area has agreed to a strategic group to do that,” he said.
I think area reviews have changed the landscape
The “deeper understanding” that local authorities and LEPs now have of “the scale of the college sector and the contribution it makes to their communities” is another key benefit to have emerged from the process, he said.
Colleges have also learnt a “huge amount” about what their neighbours are doing, he said, and are now more willing to collaborate with each other.
“Before the area review what other colleges in your area were doing was all rumour and speculation, and sometimes malicious rumour,” he said.
“This has put real numbers on the table, confidentially, and they’ve all shared them.”
Nonetheless, it’s hard to ignore the fact that a process that was intended to create “fewer, often larger, more resilient” providers has resulted in a smaller-than-predicted number of mergers.
But he insisted he wasn’t disappointed about this lack of change; from his own experience of being a principal, he said appreciated “autonomy”.
He did sound a note of caution about those colleges that have opted to remain standalone on the basis of “over-optimistic forecasts”, particularly around student numbers.
Some colleges were “too optimistic on 16-to18, some apprenticeships, some HE numbers,” he said.
“I don’t believe those colleges will achieve those targets, and in some cases I was clear in the steering group and told them that I did not think everybody in the room would achieve those targets,” Mr Atkins told me.
Those that don’t “will find their finances sorely stressed”, he warned.
I want to be held accountable
Consequently there were likely to be further mergers announced in the future “for some years to come”, although at a slower pace than currently.
On the subject of his intervention work with failing colleges, and the lack of published reports, Mr Atkins told delegates that there had been 60 interventions so far, with 28 providers currently in intervention and 32 having come out the other side of the process.
He told me that since he took over the job, there had been “four or five – maybe half a dozen” new interventions.
For all of those, “there will be a report published”, he told me.
He also acknowledged that there had been “a gap” in publishing reports for a while, which he suggested had been due to “the change in government department”.
The same governmental processes were also responsible for the delay in publishing the 2015/16 FE commissioner’s annual report, and also a letter Mr Atkins had written to all colleges in January – neither of which have so far seen the light of day, he said.
“But I think we’ve put four intervention reports out in the past two weeks, and I think there are two or three more at least in the pipeline quite soon, and we will keep a regular supply,” he said, adding: “I want to be held accountable.”
Colleges and training providers are hiding banned subcontracting through the use of so-called ‘associate partnerships’, FE Week can reveal – potentially allowing millions of pounds-worth of public funds to change hands without proper scrutiny.
A recent Ofsted report has for the first time listed “training provided by an associate partner” as an arrangement not “sanctioned by the Skills Funding Agency”.
Now, an FE Week investigation exposes that this practice is in widespread use across the sector.
Under it, a college or training provider with an SFA contract can invoice a partner for the use of their training staff as ‘associates’, as if they were from a recruitment agency.
Learners, however, are still recruited by this partner as usual, and taught on its premises, just as a subcontractor would do, but it’s all done in such a way as to evade government oversight.
These hidden deals are increasingly being used as a way to avoid SFA rules that explicitly ban loans. They can also circumvent strict rules on second-level subcontracting for apprenticeship, adult education budget and ESF funding.
Simply by giving the same old arrangements a new label, they are freed from the government’s checks, according to Rob George, a funding consultant and broker in SFA contracts.
He told FE Week that he was aware of several organisations which still effectively subcontracted their advance learner loan delivery, even though the SFA clearly banned the practice by August, just by “calling it an associate’s agreement” which, he said, is clearly “breaking the rules”.
He admitted that in his job, he “helps people manage their SFA contracts” and that he sees the SFA’s rules as “an opportunity document rather than an audit document”.
He said: “I help people find business strategies to remain compliant within the rules”.
Associate contracts are used by various colleges and providers, which “pay the training provider as a recruitment agency”, which “in theory” means “they are paying the trainers as associates”.
However, he said, “the only way you can properly, legally, within the rules do that is if [providers] have a separate arrangement with each individual trainer”.
In either case, FE Week understands that staff at prime providers generally never either recruit or meet with learners.
FE Week approached three colleges which we learned had been running associate partnerships, but all three declined to comment.
Tyne and Wear-based Expedient Training received an ‘inadequate’ rating in an Ofsted report published in January, and was subsequently put on the SFA’s list for early contract termination.
Expedient Training Ofsted report
Inspectors took the unheard-of step of stating in their report that the “vast majority” of the provider’s remaining apprenticeships and advanced learner loans personal training was “provided by an associate partner”.
FE Week checked with Ofsted and was told that the associate partner in question was Hampshire-based Personal Track Safety Limited.
PTSL claimed that Expedient Training retained between 20 and 28 per cent in management fees for apprenticeships in health and social care and engineering, and advanced learner loan-funded personal training courses it ran on the lead provider’s behalf between September 2014 and October last year.
It also said it was new to the training industry, so did not realise that the associate partnership arrangement for contracts worth over £100,000 was anything out of the ordinary.
Ofsted’s report said the arrangement between Personal Track Safety Limited and Expedient Training had not been sanctioned by the SFA.
Expedient’s managing director Malcolm Atkinson said it would be “inappropriate” for his organisation to make any comment whilst it was “working with the SFA on this matter”.
The company was allocated £500,500 in advanced learner loans by the SFA as of September, but it passed the delivery of at least some of its training onto at least three other providers – NVQ Nail & Beauty Specialists Academy, JB Training Academy and ABC Training London.
The three providers claimed they were originally asked to be subcontractors by Edudo, which denies any wrongdoing, to deliver level three qualifications in nail services, barbering and hairdressing, as well as childcare and health and social care.
When it came to signing the agreements, each of the providers alleged that associate contracts were used instead. These were it was claimed for an “uncapped amount” and based on performance and achievement.
Vimmi Virk, the director of ABC Taining London, said: “I was sent an initial contract for uncapped amount. The contract was performance, achievement-based over and above the 66 starts payable at a fixed rate of 70 per cent of the funding drawn down by Edudo.”
The SFA, which has put an official halt on subcontracting arrangements for advance learner loans from August last year, told FE Week that Edudo was a loans-only provider and as such was not allowed to subcontract any of its provision.
The agency added that as part of the contract termination process of Edudo, it would look carefully at any irregularities.
Following our discovery, Edudo’s director Ronan Smith defended the practice of associate partnerships for this type of work, claiming it was common in FE and that “hundreds” of providers were already doing it.
When FE Week presented our findings to the Department for Education, a spokesperson clearly condemned the practice.
“Any agreement terms of an ‘associate partnership’ would fall under the same strict regulation that is currently in place for subcontractors,” they said.
“We are strengthening the regulation of subcontractors and will not hesitate to take firm action in any case where we find our rules are not being complied with.”
What Edudo said in full:
The following statement was released to FE Week on behalf of the former board of directors of Edudo.
They said: “Edudo Limited, as per many providers in the industry, regularly and continually entered into associate delivery agreements for the provision of teaching and learning services to be delivered and managed under the Edudo centre and its quality and compliance processes alone, in line with well-established practise within the sector for the commissioning of freelance delivery services.
“Edudo limited was, over the years, itself approached by many primes directly and brokers offering various associate contract opportunities for work.
“Sectoral experience shows that a very significant proportion of provision across the sector relies entirely upon subcontract whether it is within apprenticeships, AEB and other provision forms.
“In just the same way, associate working, where relevant, makes equally as valuable a contribution to the sector’s need for timely learner and employer responsiveness, specialist competencies and targeted outcomes.”
