Outstanding tutors, projects and employers were recognised through The Festival of Learning Awards 2016.
A notable winner, the Leicester City Football Club Community Trust, was credited for its employability program boosting the employment prospects of its home city’s hardest to reach young people through work-related training or education.
Emily Bird, from LCFC Community Trust, said: “We are delighted to be recognised with this prestigious award.
“The local community has supported us through thick and thin therefore we take tremendous pride in repaying their faith by offering them the chance to achieve their ambitions, like we have done ours [through winning the Premier League last season].
“We’d especially like to thank all the staff for their hard work and dedication to delivering such an incredible service.
“We hope each person, no matter his or her background, can secure future opportunities by enlisting on the scheme.”
More than 50 regional and national Festival of Learning winners were selected for a range of awards across four categories — individual, tutor, employer, and project/provision, with the ceremony held in Birmingham.
Another winner was Emily Hicks who is dyslexic and has been the main carer for her mother, who is bi-polar, since age 11.
This did not stop her progressing through York College and Manchester Met University to becoming an activity co-ordinator at York Carers Centre.
She said: “I am determined to make a difference. I want to continue learning, widen my skills and knowledge about the huge scale of problems faced by social care.
“I want to improve people’s lives and help other young carers.”
Also recognised was Sean Hardy, who has Down’s syndrome but was aid to demonstrate “incredible perseverance to achieve his goals”.
In 2013 he joined Project Choice, a supported internship scheme for young adults with learning difficulties, disabilities or autism, which allowed him to gain precious work experience while completing an employability qualification at college two days a week.
Sean applied for a medical records clerk vacancy and was proud to talk about his new skills and felt “tearful with happiness” when offered the role.
Stephen Evans, chief executive of the Learning and Work Institute, who led the awards, said: “Our award winners have shown the power of learning and work and how they can change help people change their lives for the better. We’re thrilled for all of the winners who deserve recognition for their hard work – they are a true example to others.”
The prime minister has said she “does not recognise” potential cuts of between 30 to 50 per cent to apprenticeship funding.
The devastating cuts, exclusively revealed by FE Week in August, were raised during prime minister’s question time in the House of Commons today by Richard Burden, Labour MP for Birmingham Northfield.
He asked Ms May to congratulate engineering firm ADI Group for its scheme to boost the interest of 14- to 16-year-olds in engineering, then said: “Her words of congratulation would mean rather more if they were not accompanied by cuts of between 30 and 50 per cent in apprenticeships funding, a programme which the Institute of the Motor Industry has described as a “car crash.””
In response, Ms May said: “I, of course, am happy to commend the company that he has referred to, and of course the West Midlands are an important driver in terms of engineering skills in this country, but I simply don’t recognise the situation he’s set out in relation to apprenticeships.”
She continued: “We’ve seen two million apprenticeships created over the last six years, we’re committed as a government to ensuring more apprenticeships are being created – that’s giving young people opportunities, like the young people I met when I went to Jaguar Landrover, to learn a skill, to get into a job, to get into the workplace and to get on where their talents will take them.”
Ms Greening was asked if she shared the “very serious concerns” about the cuts, particularly in relation to social mobility. She responded by saying she would “look really carefully” at the responses to the ongoing consultation.
The new funding rates for apprenticeships from May 1 next year were unveiled by the Skills Funding Agency in August.
Exclusive analysis by FE Week of those figures revealed that funding for 16- to 18-year-olds in some of the most deprived areas of the country would be slashed by up to 50 per cent.
Education Secretary Justine Greening was quizzed about potentially devastating apprenticeship funding cuts during an evidence session for the Education Select Committee this morning.
The proposed cuts of up to 50 per cent for 16- to 18-year-olds in the most deprived areas of the country, revealed exclusively by FE Week, are part of planned reforms to apprenticeship funding unveiled in August by the Skills Funding Agency.
Ms Greening was asked by the panel of MPs whether she shared the “very serious concerns” about the proposed funding cuts and if she has “any concerns about how that will fit into her social mobility ambitions”.
In response, Ms Greening said: “It’s a consultation. And we need to get on with the apprenticeship levy.
“It is important that business contributes to making sure that the young people our economy needs and that business needs are being properly trained.
“We’re looking very carefully to make sure that we sure that opportunities for apprenticeships across the country – this is about more apprenticeships and better apprenticeships, rather than less.”
Ms Greening said government would “look really carefully” at all the responses to the ongoing consultation, adding: “We need to try and make sure we get it right.
“Fundamentally it’s about a significant additional investment into skills and training and apprenticeships from business and we want to make sure those benefits are experienced across the country.
“The FE college piece of course is critical within that.”
She cited Rolls Royce as an example of a “fantastic” company and said: “I think it’s important that employers can work, looking at their supply chains, for example.”
As previously reported, our exclusive analysis of government plans shows that, despite a £1000 provider incentive, the funding to deliver apprenticeship training and assessment to young people will be slashed from 1 May next year.
FE Week’s first ever campaign garnered serious attention in Parliament yesterday, with the Prime Minister, education secretary and minister for apprenticeships all fielding questions on the proposed funding cuts to 16-18 apprenticeships.
New apprenticeships minister Robert Halfon was invited to address campaigners at the launch of FE Week’s #SaveOurApprenticeships campaign, with speeches also made by shadow skills minister Gordon Marsden and Labour backbench MP David Lammy.
Earlier in the day, Education Secretary Justine Greening dodged the Education Committee’s question about how the proposed cuts might affect social mobility, to focus their attention instead on the ongoing consultation into the changes.
Halfon’s speech, the first in his new role at an FE-related event, is reproduced in full below. A full report on the campaign launch will be available in the next edition of FE Week, in which the minister for apprenticeships will also be writing an exclusive column.
Robert Halfon, MP, personally greets attendees
The success of FE Week’s campaigning efforts did not go unnoticed:
In 72 hours, @FEWeek filled a room in Parl’t, got the SoS questioned in select committee & a question in PMQs on #SaveOurApprenticeships
The packed chamber offered standing room only, as colleges, training providers and other sector bodies sent representatives to the campaign launch to demand that the government’s plans be changed.
Standing room only at #SaveOurApprenticeships campaign launch
The #SaveOurApprenticeships campaign is based on FE Week’s exclusive analysis of government plans, which shows that, despite a £1000 provider incentive, the funding to deliver apprenticeship training and assessment to young people will be slashed from 1 May next year.
The top featured image above shows (L to R): FE Week editor Nick Linford, shadow HE and FE minister Gordon Marsden, shadow education secretary Angela Rayner (in the background) and apprenticeships minister Robert Halfon
The unedited text of Halfon’s speech is reproduced in full, below:
Halfon: “It is wonderful to be here today, not just because it is one of the few rooms in the House of Commons that has air conditioning but because there are also so many providers and other people connected with apprenticeships.
“I’m really pleased to be here on behalf of FE Week, which is an incredibly important publication. I went on my honeymoon in August and I was literally reading FE Week past papers on the mountains in Brazil, and the way I think of Nick and his incredible team is that they make the social media life of a new minister intolerable but they make complacency impossible, and that is a compliment.
“I also genuinely want to thank Gordon and David Lammy because they have been doing their job. As a new minister there is no one I would like to shadow more than someone like Gordon Marsden who really knows the subject and of course David Lammy is known for being a passionate person who cares about the poor.
“I firstly want to lay out my priorities before getting onto the controversial subject.
“I have five priorities in my job. The first is to change the culture and prestige of apprenticeships. Now we are going to have big arguments about what the government is doing but I can tell you this, if the government gave a hundred billion pounds tomorrow, we will never get the apprenticeships and skills base we need in our country unless we change the language, the culture, the prestige, the narrative the way apprenticeships are taught in schools or people are encouraged to do apprenticeships and we need massively boost back up the national conversation about the value of apprenticeships and the value of skills.
“The second part of it, and this is where I understand why David is making the point he is making as well as Gordon and other MPs, to me why I am doing this is partly about economic productivity yes, but also because I believe in social justice and I believe we can provide the people who are on the lowest incomes but also for the people as the prime minster describes, just get by, and provide that opportunity through apprenticeships and skills to literally transform peoples lives and change our country. I see apprenticeships as a fundamental part of social mobility and reform and that is why I agreed to do this job and why I am very pleased to be doing it with all the social media responsibilities of social media put aside.
Robert Halfon, MP, speaking to #SaveOurApprenticeships campaigners in the Commons
“The third part of course is to deliver the apprenticeship levy and then the manifesto commitment of reaching 3m apprenticeships and then of course it is no good just having 3m apprentices it is important to have apprenticeship quality and a state of the art apprenticeship policy.
“The first thing I need to set on the table to you is that there is going to be no delay to the apprenticeship levy. Where we can work together from both sides is looking at the consultation which we have been doing very carefully over the summer, we have nearly 1,000 responses and huge engagement before the official consultation and since by myself and other officials as well as organisations on a regular basis. Having said that, and I know that will not please everyone although some do agree.
“I need to discuss the big issue of frameworks. First thing we also have to mention is the number of money spent on apprenticeships which was always going to be down to roughly two and a half billion as you know. The second thing is of course that Nick and the MPs have highlighted areas of concern, and we need to be challenged on this, but there are also frameworks going up. Separate to that STEM subjects are going up substantially so not everything is going down.
“The next thing I would say is that what we have to understand is that we are in a new world and the new world is going to happen when the apprenticeship levy comes in.
“In my view, the criticism we get is based on an old world view, the new world is going to be we are moving from frameworks to standards and the employers are designing the apprenticeship and the new world is very difficult. If you are looking at everything in the old way yes you have a complete case but in the new world who is to say businesses will choose the same frameworks or standards and who is to say that would be apprentices would choose the same apprenticeships.
“The way things are with behaviour of both businesses and employers because they are designing the new standards this is going to change. When we look at what is happening to funding we need to look at that, but let us remember as I said, not all frameworks are going up and down, in order to encourage employers to employ 16 to 18 year old apprenticeships and they get a significant contribution of £1,000 to them and £1,000 to the provider and on top of that if it is a smaller company with less than 50 people they don’t pay any costs at all.
“We need to look at all of those figures and we are, that is the purpose of the consultation, I expect that there will be some people who are concerned but again as I say that is the purpose of the consultation.
“In terms of the issue that David rightly raises, I would not be in this job if I thought that the most disadvantaged in our society would be hurt, what is the point of me doing it? It is worth remembering also that again the contribution significantly lessens from the employer if they are people with a local authority care plan or from a care home and I am looking at that issue as I speak but also it is not always the case that the most vulnerable are protected, even that system has flaws.
“If you lived in wealthy street but don’t happen to have any income you will not necessarily get the uplift you need.
“The final thing I would say to you is that as I say, this is a consultation, I am not annoyed by what Gordon and David are doing, I actually welcome it because it helps us with our thinking, if I was them I would be doing exactly the same thing.
“I hope we become and apprentice nation and I hope the levy will be the change maker we think it will be.”
Nick Linford: “One thing I would say in terms of the consultation is do you have a response on the construction sector from CITB – they have come out publicly and said the new world isn’t ready for them, they are still designing standards that are 2 years away, if we cut funding by 30 per cent, those employers won’t be there in two years when these new standards develop. Do you have a response to that sector in particular and how ready they are for the ‘new world’?”
Halfon: “It will be no surprise to you that it is not just the CITB who are campaigning for construction, both Gordon and David have been doing it. At the end of the day when the standards come the standards are going to have more money spent on them than others in the current system, the issue is how you transition from frameworks to standards and the speed in which we do this.”
Last week saw David Hughes become the fifth chief executive of the Association of Colleges in its 20 year history.
Many readers will know that he’s been close to the action ever since joining the Further Education Funding Council in 2000 and more recently as chief executive at the Institute for Learning and Work.
I’ve known David for over ten years, first clashing over his approach to the distribution of ESOL funding to colleges in London, when I was a Director at Lewisham College and he was the LSC Regional Director.
Since then our paths have regularly crossed, such as when he speaks at events and in the pages of FE Week, where he has regularly featured as both a commentator and in the cartoons.
David is a well-respected FE leader with plenty of experience and his policy views are well documented.
But now he is at the helm of the AoC, this was the first opportunity to quiz him about his approach to representing colleges.
With a new minister appointed for apprenticeships and skills likely to be wanting to stamp their mark, I started by asking which policies are working and which should be left alone.
It’s a tough question because as a sector we tend to focus on the negative impact policies have on further education.
David ducked identifying a policy and instead said: “Not sure that’s the issue. The issue is scale and breadth of change, lack of systemic approach to change process. You’ve got area reviews, devolution, apprenticeship reforms, Sainsbury review, maths and English, curriculum changes, higher education changes and the list goes on.
“Colleges in particular are dealing with all of that at a time they have been crushed financially over the last eight years.
The issue is scale and breadth of change, lack of systemic approach to change process
He continues: “I think one of the things the minister needs to do is step back from it and say ‘what are the most important changes to be done and over what period’, and put in a proper change management process”.
We move on to talk about the role of the AoC and I ask him about Martin Doel’s reflections article, in which he said he regretted not focussing more on creating a sense of identity for colleges. This, said the outgoing chief executive of the AoC, allowed ministers to push colleges around.
David was quick to defend Martin, saying: “It has always been an issue ever since I’ve been in the sector. I’ve always thought that part of the reason why FE is overlooked is the simple one, that most of the people in Whitehall didn’t participate in FE, in a college.
“Therefore they don’t have a good understanding. There have been multiple attempts – groups and organisations that tried to make the change.
“I’m mildly optimistic that the Sainsbury review could provide a new platform for colleges to have a unique place in the education system… we need a college in every community that can deliver most, if not all 15 areas: high quality, good relationships with employers, so on. That will become the signature of what the FE sector is about.”
Another challenge for any AoC chief executive is clearly representing members when they might disagree with each other.
I put this to David and ask if it is reasonable to expect the AoC to represent the views of large multi-site, multi-age vocational colleges with £100million turnover, whilst also representing small sixth form colleges?
“Yes.” he shoots straight back. So I press him further and he admits: “It is challenging.
The dynamic of it is not that I sit here and work out what to say in Whitehall, disconnected. Membership organisations are difficult because you have lots of people with different opinions. The focus Martin has achieved over the years is about the key issues common to all or most colleges.
“That’s what you do; go to the 80 per cent and support different interest groups around rural, urban, big, small, and agricultural. It’s a constant job, communicating, working with and supporting people who have made their own submissions. That’s why it’s exciting. Diversity is fun.”
But what about the annual cost of AoC membership, which for some colleges is nearly £50,000? What is his elevator pitch to encourage colleges to remain?
Nick regularly ribs David for not wearing a tie, so a welcome gift seemed appropriate
He tells me colleges need to stick together as members because “collectively they’ve got a lot of clout, collectively they [colleges] deliver to millions of people in this country, and collectively they’ve got a lot in common. The impact of all of that has shown over the years to be really powerful in Whitehall, with the Treasury, with the Department.
“Despite devolution there’s still going to be a strong need to represent the interest of colleges, in Whitehall, regionally and locally, and the AoC does that with colleges, for colleges, by colleges. If we don’t hold onto that collective it’s much easier for colleges to be ignored.”
I acknowledge that it was only David’s second day at the helm but go ahead anyway and ask him if there is anything he wanted to say about how he thinks the membership body might now change.
To my surprise, although doing my best poker face to hide it, he talks candidly about the AoC board calling for an immediate review that might change the AoC services and regional structure.
Despite devolution there’s still going to be a strong need to represent the interest of colleges
“Part of my first two months before our annual conference in November is to go around every region and see as many members as I can and ask what they want.” he tells me.
“The last proper review of the AoC was eight or nine years ago, just before Martin started and a lot has changed since then. It’s a really good time for me starting, the board have said ‘let’s do a review’.
“The first part is informally asking the members to say what they think. Then to use the annual conference [in November] to formalise it a bit more to come up with some proposals.
“What do you want and what are you willing to pay for? We’ve got a regional structure which was based on old government office regions, is that the right geography, should we change it?
“What are the services that need to be local, need to be central, what do people most preciously want to keep, want to do differently? It’s a great opportunity for me. If you look at what has changed since then, institutions, politics, governments have changed, new prime minister.
“The policy landscape looks completely different than it did eight or nine years ago. It’s a fantastic time to ask people what should we do and how should we do it.”
With the sector reeling from proposed rate cuts to 16-18 apprenticeships, the government needs to heed the findings of the consultation, says Mark Dawe
All the signals under Theresa May’s new administration are that the government is sticking with its 3 million manifesto target for apprenticeships and that it is determined the levy will start next April. AELP is comfortable with this position although we are aware that other organisations are not.
At one time, our view was that the 3 million target was achievable without the levy or any of the proposed reforms to the apprenticeship programme at all. After all, 2.7 million starts happened in the last Parliament so – providing the SFA was prepared to fund our members’ growth requests – it would not have been a tall order to deliver an extra 300,000.
The situation has changed though, with the government saying that the programme will soon become funded entirely by the levy. This means we can’t afford any delay on the levy’s start if the target is going to be reached by 2020.
The totally unviable funding rates for many apprenticeship choices came as a big surprise
The other change under Mrs May is the new emphasis on the social mobility agenda. AELP and others, including new skills minister Robert Halfon, have always argued that apprenticeships can play a major role in advancing this. It came as a big surprise, therefore, when we opened the latest apprenticeship consultation documents on 12 August to find that a large cohort of 16 to 18-year-olds potentially faced a block on their career prospects because of a proposed set of totally unviable funding rates for many of their apprenticeship choices. Almost equally alarming was that the picture for 19 to 23-year-olds didn’t look much better.
Messages from training providers immediately poured into my inbox, which prompted AELP to commission an expert analysis of the proposed rate changes. It was very clear that we were not just talking about private providers’ margins or charitable providers’ surpluses taking a hit. Having crunched the numbers, we were looking at the real possibility of providers and their employers withdrawing from 16-18 apprenticeships altogether.
The independent analysis of FE Week supported our conclusions by identifying rate cuts in many key sectors, of around 30 per cent to over 50 per cent. These are in sectors where, unless a generous work permit scheme is in place, employers will need to replace EU migrants with home-developed talent once Brexit has taken place.
The issue is made worse by the government encouraging employers to negotiate with providers on the price of delivering the training. As AELP said in its consultation response, we are already seeing employers asking providers to pay them to have access to their levy. Not only is this wrong, but the whole practice of negotiating on funding will have a negative impact on quality, so it’s good that FE Week has picked up on this aspect of the reforms in its campaign.
The government really needs to reconsider its proposals
To be fair, the government has conducted a proper consultation and given the weight of feedback and employer and provider agreement on the key issues, we expect that the evidence will be reflected in changes to the proposals and a manageable transition. AELP is now heavily engaged in discussions with officials and the DfE’s Permanent Secretary has been among those to visit our members in London, where the proposed removal of the inner-city funding and disadvantage uplifts would be devastating for the programme.
The funding rates will hopefully be sorted soon but two major concerns remain. Firstly, why are 16-18 apprenticeships the only part of DfE 16-18 provision not to be fully state-funded? It is simply discriminatory, especially when young people are being encouraged by ministers to choose apprenticeships as a high-quality alternative to traditional academic learning.
The other big worry is whether all of the levy proceeds will be used by the levy payers themselves, leaving little or no funding for non-levy paying employers who currently account for at least half of the apprenticeships on offer. We shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that with levy funding eventually at £2.5 billion, the programme will be a billion pounds larger than now. But the social mobility agenda will be ill-served if swathes of the country are left with little apprenticeship provision because large employers are located elsewhere and the funding rates make provision unviable. The government really needs to reconsider its proposals.
Mark Dawe is chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers
This week, in response to the planned funding rate cuts, FE Week launched its first official campaign, and will host a Save our Apprenticeships event in parliament tomorrow.
The event will be hosted by Mr Marsden and chaired by Nick Linford, author of the Complete Guide to Funding Apprenticeships and FE Week editor.
A panel of MPs, including former HE minister David Lammy and the Education Select Committee chair Neil Carmichael, will hear directly from colleges and training providers about the impact these rate cuts will have on young people.
Three apprenticeship reform advisory groups, set up by the government, were never told of plans to cut 16- to 18-year-old framework rates by up to 50 percent, FE Week can exclusively reveal.
As previously reported, our exclusive analysis of government plans shows that, despite a £1000 provider incentive, the funding to deliver apprenticeship training and assessment to young people will be slashed from 1 May next year.
And incredibly, members of three government advisory boards: the Apprenticeship Delivery Board, Apprenticeship Stakeholder Board and the Apprenticeship Provider Reference Group, were left in the dark about the new rates and their impact, despite the groups being set-up specifically to be consulted on plans as they developed.
FE Week spoke to the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, who have a seat on both the Stakeholder Board and the Provider Reference Group.
Mark Dawe, AELP’s chief executive, said he was only given a verbal “general briefing” on 11 August, so it came as a surprise when the rates were published the following day. He has subsequently described the dire impact they would have.
Mr Dawe went on to say: “The government has said that the funding rates and provider register are a genuine consultation and therefore we trust them to listen to us and our members where there is almost unanimous agreement as to the changes required.
“These changes are based on the desire for a high quality apprenticeship system delivering social mobility. This is particularly true around funding rates, uplifts, quality providers and suitable transition arrangements – all of which we and our members have been calling for or requested maintaining before the consultation was even formally launched.”
The Apprenticeship Provider Reference Group, although never publicly announced, was set up by the Skills Funding Agency to consult colleges and training providers and has been meeting for some time. The SFA told FE Week the group’s next meeting is at their head office in Coventry tomorrow, and the rate cuts are likely to discussed at length.
The existence of the Apprenticeship Stakeholder Board has also never publicly been announced, although it is widely known that it is chaired by Jason Holt, the government’s small business apprenticeship ambassador.
The third government group, the Apprenticeship Delivery Board (ADB), does have published terms of reference, membership and minutes.
The SFA provides secretariat support and told FE Week that when the ADB meet last Thursday it was chaired by David Mellor, a non-executive board member at the DfE. Prior to this the ADB had not met since 26 May.
The lack of consultation comes despite the rates announcement being delayed more than a month, as new ministers grappled with their responsibilities and a back-log of decisions.
FE Week asked the new Apprenticeships and Skills Minister whether civil servants had made him aware of rate cuts before the announcement, and were told in a response from the DfE that “we do not provide a running commentary on internal policy developments.”
However, Robert Halfon did say in a that he had “a lot of apprenticeship casework to do” and had just met “two former ministers for apprentices to understand what they do and what I need to learn from them” (pictured). At the time of publication the DfE had not confirmed if it was the two most recent ministers reponsible for apprenticeship that he had met with, Matthew Hancock and Nick Boles.
Last Friday the Permanent Secretary, Jonathan Slater, who is the most senior civil servant at the DfE, as well as the their Director of Apprenticeships, David Hill, visited an AELP member.
David Hill and Jonathan Slater with two apprentices at Jobwise Training
And we understand these two top civil servants took the opportunity to ask about managers at the training provider Jobwise Training about the rate cut implications (pictured).
This week, in response to the planned funding rate cuts, FE Week launched its first official campaign, and will host a Save our Apprenticeships event in parliament tomorrow.
The event will be hosted by Mr Marsden and chaired by Nick Linford, author of the Complete Guide to Funding Apprenticeships and FE Week editor.
A panel of MPs, including former HE minister David Lammy and the Education Select Committee chair Neil Carmichael, will hear directly from colleges and training providers about the impact these rate cuts will have on young people.
David Vasse has been appointed as the new principal of Sir George Monoux Sixth Form College.
He joins the college with a wealth of experience working in the FE sector, having worked at five sixth form colleges over the past two decades.
During his career, Mr Vasse has worked for Ofsted, and was principal of John Leggott Sixth Form College from 2010. For six years he served as vice principal of Alton College, and was also a teacher of modern foreign languages.
He holds an MSc in organisational development from the University of Sussex, and specialises in organisation design and people development.
Mr Vasse says he “can’t wait to get started” and is looking forward to providing young people with a “compelling post-16 study choice”.
He added: “Monoux is an exceptionally valuable place of learning, with a very bright future. The college has seen an important and positive improvement in student success and must now be led confidently and swiftly to a higher level of achievement.”
Mr Vasse will take over from current principal Nic Dakin on 1st October.
Meanwhile, Mark Wardle has been appointed the first ever principal of the new Callywith College in Bodmin.
For the past six years, Mr Wardle has acted as Truro and Penwith College’s director of curriculum, and previously worked in a number of post-16 institutions, including sixth forms in Leeds, Eastbourne and Hastings.
After studying law at Reading University, he realised it wasn’t the career path he wanted to pursue and, seeing how much his mum enjoyed her job as a teacher, decided to undertake a PGCE focused on further education.
Mr Wardle says he wants to ensure that students who come to Callywith “get the experience they expect and deserve” and “enjoy their post-16 education as much as do the students who come to Truro and Penwith.”
He added: “The right post-16 education, the best colleges, can set you up for the rest of your life, providing the opportunity to study courses that interest you and giving you the control over your future ambitions, whatever they may be.”
Mr Wardle is also experiencing life at the other end of the education system as his five-year-old twins are getting ready for year one of primary school in Cornwall. He also brings to the role experience as a school governor and his recent Ofsted inspectorate training.
In other news, Chris Jones has been announced as chair of the corporation at Activate Learning.
He takes up the voluntary position alongside his current role as group chief executive of the City & Guilds Group.
Mr Jones has been involved with Activate Learning since 2011, where he acted as a governor before taking up his new position as chair. He replaces Graham Blackburn, who steps down after four years in the role.
Before joining the City & Guilds Group in 2008, Mr Jones held several senior management positions in publishing and education. He is also a member of Business in the Community’s Talent and Skills Leadership Group.
He says he is looking forward to working with staff, students and the senior team in order to “transform lives through learning”.
Speaking about his new role, Mr Jones said: “I am excited to be taking up this new role with an organisation that is leading such innovative approaches to teaching and learning”.
Activate Learning operates across Oxfordshire, the Thames Valley and overseas, and now comprises three further education colleges, four schools and two apprenticeship and training providers in the UK, as well as four colleges in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Staff from Weston College have gone the extra mile to raise money for a two-year-old boy who needs £75,000 surgery in the US to help him walk, writes Samantha King.
It was through a fundraiser for Jacob held at Weston College that member of staff Marcus Tyler, first heard Jacob’s story. With a ten-year background in fundraising, he decided he would go one step further – 60 miles in fact – to raise as much as possible for Jacob’s cause… while dressed as a superhero.
Marcus, who is residential coordinator at Weston College, said: “Myself and a friend went to Twickenham to watch the rugby and made these cardboard superman and batman costumes. They were getting a lot of attention and I thought they would be fantastic for fundraising.
Cardboard and laundry baskets make the perfect superhero
“We didn’t have anything to fundraise for at the time, so when this came through it just sort of clicked into place that it would be brilliant, and as I was talking about it, my colleagues overheard and said they wanted to be involved in the walk.”
Marcus was joined by colleagues Leigh Murray and Emma Rosewel, both specialist tutors at the college, as well as numerous supporters throughout the 60-mile walk, which began at Blackpool Pleasure Beach and reached its conclusion at the aptly-named landmark, Jacob’s Ladder, in Cheddar Gorge.
Marcus said: “A lot of the walk was going to different cities and towns, doing collections and taking photos. The reception from people was fantastic. Jacob and his family joined us in Blackpool when we started, and so we did collecting up there. He and his sisters walked with us along the seafront and then rejoined us when we got back to Weston.”
Marcus Tyler
Jacob Baird was diagnosed at just 18 months old. After missing major movement milestones like crawling, sitting and pulling himself up, it became apparent that something wasn’t quite right. The diagnosis? Spastic diplegic cerebral palsy.
The condition causes spasticity and permanent stiffness in the lower limbs, and has rendered Jacob unable to walk. Whereas most 2-year-olds are up on their feet, Jacob can only go so far before his legs cross over and he falls.
In January 2016 Jacob’s mum, Nicola Baird set up the ‘Jacob’s Journey’ fundraising page in an attempt to raise £75,000 for a life-changing operation that could release the tension in Jacob’s legs and give him the chance to walk. The operation, called selective dorsal rhizotomy, is currently available only in the US, and requires two years of intensive physiotherapy following the procedure, which naturally doesn’t come cheap.
Jacob Baird
The superhero walk raised a total of £1,500 for the ‘Jacob’s Journey’ campaign, which has now almost reached its £75,000 target.
Nicola Baird, Jacob’s mum, said: “We’re getting very close to our target. Marcus and the staff at Weston College have given it a mighty push to get us that little bit closer.”
Marcus added: “We came in at the end of Jacob’s fundraising, so it’s really nice because they’ve almost hit the target to take him to have the operation.
It’s really rewarding knowing that’s now going to happen.
“Unfortunately the superhero costumes have been retired for now; they’re a little bit worse for wear, but they may return.”
At the time of publication the DfE had not confirmed if it was the two most recent ministers reponsible for apprenticeship that he had met with, Matthew Hancock and Nick Boles.
