Latest news from FE Week

‘Golden hello’ maths teacher recruitment drive flops

A major government scheme that aimed to recruit more than 500 specialist maths teachers at colleges has accepted just 13 participants in its first year, FE Week can reveal.

Former skills minister Matthew Hancock announced in February 2014 that up to £20 million would be made available to encourage the “brightest and the best” to teach maths in FE.

This involved two key recruitment schemes, including a golden hello – which would award a bonus of £7,500 to graduates who taught maths in FE, provided they had been working at a college for two years.

The government said at the time that this bonus could even rise to £10,000 if the teacher trained and supported learners with special educational needs.

Officials expected this incentive would draw hundreds of new specialist maths teachers into FE by September 2015.

However, just 13 teachers were recruited in its first year, with payments totalling £97,500 in 2016/17, a Freedom of Information request by FE Week has revealed.

The campaign’s measly results have been lambasted by experts, who are urging the government to stop with “short-term” monetary fixes and create long-term quality strategies to boost teacher recruitment numbers.

Geoff Barton, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said the initiative had two lessons for the government.

“First, it is a reminder of how few maths teachers are actually out there,” he told FE Week. “Secondly, it shows once again that short-term monetary fixes do little to help a burgeoning recruitment crisis.

“What college leaders are entitled to is a government recruitment and retention strategy that brings high-quality graduates into all parts of the sectors and then encourages them to stay.”

Anne Haworth, chair of the Association of Teachers of Mathematics, said it was good that the government had tried to act on the shortage of maths teachers in FE, but was disappointed that the scheme has had such little take-up.

She also questioned how well the scheme was publicised, and admitted that she had never heard of it even though she has worked closely with many FE providers for years.

David Miles of the Mathematical Association added that his organisation was “worried” by the small-scale response to the scheme since it “suggests thousands of young people still lack access to the most knowledgeable and effective teachers of mathematics”.

The other part of the drive was a recruitment incentive scheme open both to colleges and private training providers.

Participating providers would receive a bonus payment of £20,000 if they recruited a specialist graduate maths teacher, or £30,000 for those who shared their “teaching expertise” with nearby institutions.

Run by the Education and Training Foundation, this scheme proved more popular and a total of 220 financial awards were made from February 2014 to February 2016.

Of these 220, 165 were sums of £20,000, with 55 awards of £30,000.

A total of 280 teachers were recruited through this programme.

Added to the 13 from the golden hello, the government recruited 293 specialist maths teachers as a result of the two schemes – 207 short of its expected total of 500.

Ms Haworth said: “This is not the first such scheme to fail. Maybe what we need to be looking for, rather than incentives which tend to have a short life, is to make teaching more attractive generally to graduates and others.”

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “We want to encourage the best and brightest into teaching, and we are continuing to offer generous financial incentives to the best graduates who want to teach maths and English in the FE sector.”

Crisis deepens as learners drop at two thirds of UTCs

Learner numbers have dropped at around two thirds of established university technical colleges this academic year, an FE Week investigation has found.

We submitted freedom of information requests to the 26 UTCs that opened in 2014 or before, asking for their 2016/17 student numbers.

FE Week analysis of their responses (see the full breakdown in the table below) showed student numbers had fallen this academic year at 13 of the 20 UTCs that provided data. Further to this, 11 (55 per cent) revealed they are still at less than half capacity.

The findings will heap pressure on ministers to scrap the controversial project, driven by Lord Baker (pictured above), just two years after the Conservative Party pledged to establish a UTC “within reach of every English city” in its 2015 general election manifesto.

Lincoln UTC experienced the biggest drop in student numbers, falling from 302 in 2015/16 to 214 this year, a drop of 29 per cent.

Its principal Paul Batterbury said the decline was a result of the local council cutting free transport for students who attended the college – many of whom live outside the catchment area – this year.

Sir Charles Kao UTC, in Essex, experienced the second largest drop in students, from 177 to 142, a fall of 20 per cent.

In third was Leigh UTC, which saw numbers dip from 230 to 191, while Elstree UTC in Borehamwood fell from 413 to 341. Both experienced a decrease of 17 per cent.

Sir Charles Kao, Leigh, and Elstree UTC were unable to comment before FE Week went to press.

Energy Coast UTC, which received a financial notice to improve last month for outsourcing its teaching at a cost not deemed “value for money”, had a 15 per cent drop from 306 students last year to 260.

Its principal Cherry Tingle said reasons for the fall included concerns from parents that the UTC had three interim principals last year, until she joined permanently last September.

UTC Plymouth was found to be the emptiest of the colleges, operating at just 24 per cent of capacity.

Next was Buckinghamshire UTC, which has just 148 students on roll despite a capacity of 600 (25 per cent).

Neither college would comment.

Malcolm Trobe, the deputy general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said the UTC project needed more strategic thinking.

“UTCs and the curriculum they offer need to be part of an overarching area wide strategic plan for student places,” he told FE Week.

“This would involve secondary schools, sixth form colleges, and FE colleges. The whole provision needs to be thought out strategically to ensure that youngsters within a region have access to the full range of curriculum possibilities.”

Even Michael Gove, the former education secretary and a key architect of the UTC programme, admitted earlier this year that “evidence has accumulated” that the experiment with 14-to-19 technical institutions had failed.

Seven UTCS have closed, or announced plans for closure, amid dwindling pupil numbers.

Around £10 million was spent on establishing each of them.

Sixty per cent of UTCs visited by Ofsted have meanwhile been given ‘inadequate’ or ‘requires improvement’ ratings.

A spokesperson for the Baker Dearing Educational Trust, which holds responsibility for overseeing UTCs, admitted it is “taking longer to fill UTCs than we would like”.

“Recruitment for most schools is improving steadily each year as the programme becomes more established,” she said. “It is indeed challenging for UTCs to recruit at 14, as the concept of transfer at this age is not what parents are used to.”

The six UTCs that were unable to respond to our FOIs before publication were Daventry, Liverpool Life Sciences, The Greater Manchester Sustainable Engineering, Tottenham, Lancashire, and Bolton.

Why the delay for Learndirect inspection report?

Ofsted’s eagerly awaited inspection report on the nation’s largest FE provider has been delayed by six weeks, with the “silence period” before the election given as the reason.

Learndirect was visited by the education watchdog a month ago, and speculation has been mounting over the grade it will receive.

However, in an unusual move Ofsted told FE Week on April 27 that it would be withholding the report for another six weeks until the general election is over.

“Ofsted, like other government departments, is subject to certain limitations on activity during election silence periods under guidance set out by the Cabinet Office,” said a spokesperson.

“In line with the guidance, we will not publish the inspection report at this time because of the provider’s significance as a national provider of FE training.”

He confirmed Ofsted had “inspected this learning provider in late March 2017” and planned “to publish the inspection report after the general election on June 8”.

The delay will mean around a 10-week gap between the Sheffield-based provider’s inspection and the announcement of its new Ofsted rating.

The usual time period between the end of an inspection and publication of the resulting report is generally four to six weeks, meaning the treatment of Learndirect is highly irregular.

The provider itself blamed data issues for the hold-up, apparently contradicting Ofsted’s explanation that election purdah was behind the hold-up.

A spokesperson told FE Week that the delay was to allow more time for the provider to hand over relevant data due to its size.

“We have recently been inspected and due to the scope of Learndirect’s provision we are still providing Ofsted with data,” she said.

“While this process continues, we have received notification from Ofsted that our report will not be published for at least the next six weeks.”

When FE Week challenged Ofsted to explain the contradiction between its account of the delay and that provided by Learndirect, we were told to take it up with the provider.

A spokesperson did however admit that some exchange of data was still taking place, because the average period of “26 working days” between inspection and publication had been disrupted by the Easter holidays.

Learndirect has hit the headlines a number of times in recent years, chiefly due to the size of its topslices – a process in which lead providers retain government funding as management fees, before paying a subcontractor to do the training for the remaining sum.

It retained almost £20 million in management fees from its 64 subcontractors in 2015/16 – amounting to 36 per cent of the £55.3 million it received in funding from the Skills Funding Agency.

Learndirect was awarded the largest adult education budget in the country from the SFA for 2016/17 (£60,199,994), and had the second largest allocations for both adult apprenticeships and advanced learning loans (£30,868,330 and £5,116,184).

It also came out on top this February in the race to win European Social Fund contracts, securing 26 deals worth almost £49.5 million, according to FE Week analysis.

Ofsted watch: Concern over weak governance at Manchester provider

Concerns over governance were raised in the first ever Ofsted report on Manchester-based Impact College, an independent training provider given a ‘requires improvement’ rating.

That report, published April 26 and based on an inspection in mid-March, found that governance was “weak” and the “self-assessment process is not rigorous enough”.

It noted that learners’ starting points were not “clearly identified and used to plan individual learning”, nor did tutors “routinely set targets” to develop learners’ skills.

“Too much assignment work is not written in the learners’ own words; when learners use their own words, the standard is much lower,” it also found.

A mostly quiet week for FE, also included a damning report into Bolton University Technical College, which has finally seen the official light of day more than three weeks after the 14 to 19 technical institution published it on its own website.

No full inspection reports for general FE colleges were published, and just one for a sixth form college.

Christ the King SFC in south London held onto its grade two rating, in a report published April 26, based on an inspection in early March.

A “very high proportion” of A-level learners achieved their qualifications and progressed onto higher education, thanks to the “teachers’ passion for their subject” which “motivates learners to work hard and succeed”.

Leaders and staff were praised for having “high ambitions” for learners, and for preparing them “exceptionally well for life in a cosmopolitan society”.

“High-quality careers guidance ensures that learners make well-informed decisions about their future careers,” the report noted.

Adult and community learning provider Roots and Shoots also retained its grade two, in a report published today (April 28) and based on an early March inspection.

Leaders at the London-based provider, which specialises in vocational training for disadvantaged young people, were praised for having “high aspirations” for learners and for creating a “positive and caring culture where learning takes place in a respectful, safe and purposeful environment”.

The “majority” of learners make “good progress”, thanks to the support they receive to “help them to overcome the significant barriers to learning that they face”.

In addition: “All learners benefit from good opportunities to extend the skills and knowledge needed for employment through a good range of work experience placements.”

As previously reported by FE Week, Bolton UTC was awarded the lowest possible grade in all areas, following an inspection at the end of February.

The report, which was published on the UTC’s website on April 4 and by Ofsted on April 25, slammed the 14 to 19 technical institution for “poor teaching” and placing pupils on “inappropriate courses”.

As a result the original cohort of pupils “express considerable disappointment with the promises that the college made to them and the reality of what they received”.

The report also noted that: “The relationship between leaders at the highest level in the college began to break down early last year, causing them to be distracted from their core role of college improvement.”

Askham Bryan College, independent training provider Consortia Training Limited and adult and community learning provider Kirkdale Industrial Training Services Limited all kept their ‘good’ ratings following short inspections.

Sixth Form Colleges	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
Christ the King Sixth Form College	07/03/2017	26/04/2017	2	2

Independent Learning Providers	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
Impact College	15/03/2017	26/04/2017	3	–

Adult and Community Learning	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
Roots and Shoots	07/03/2017	28/04/2017	2	2

Other (including UTCs)	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
Bolton UTC	28/02/2017	25/04/2017	4	–

Short inspections (remains grade 2)	Inspected	Published
Askham Bryan College	15/03/2017	25/04/2017
Consortia Training Limited	30/03/2017	27/04/2017
Kirkdale Industrial Training Services Limited	16/03/2017	24/04/2017

South-east triumphant at AoC sport championships

There was a shock result at last weekend’s 39th AoC Sport National Championships after the south-east claimed the coveted Wilkinson Sword for the first time in seven years.

The team (pictured above) – who were runners-up in 2016 – wrestled the title off their local rivals the south-west, reigning champions for three years in a row, finishing a whopping 22 points clear.

The sought-after Wilkinson Sword is awarded to the region that accumulates the most points across individual sports over the national championships weekend.

Around 1,650 college students from 10 regions across England and Wales competed in this year’s event in Nottingham, which is described as the “pinnacle of the college sporting calendar”.

FE Week reported live on all of the drama from the 13 sports on show, including football, table tennis, netball, basketball, rugby and hockey.

Helping the south-east to top spot was the men’s team captain Mahamed Mahamed,from Itchen Sixth Form College, who won gold in the men’s cross-country for the third successive year.

He then claimed a second gold as he led the way for his region in the cross-country team event, again pipping the south-west into second place.

The Itchen SFC women’s basketball team also claimed gold for the south-east, while the region’s men’s golf and tennis teams also won their competitions.

On claiming the Wilkinson Sword, southeast men’s hockey player Conor Baverstock from Peter Symonds College, who won a silver medal, told FE Week: “We didn’t expect it, it’s always the south-west.

“We came here pretty confident, but the standard is so much better than last year.”

The bronze medal position was contested by another set of local rivals, the west midlands and the east midlands.

The west came out on top, with outstanding performances from Newcastle-under-Lyme College in the men’s volleyball, who snatched and-grabbed a last-second winning point against Middlesbrough College, representing the north-east, to claim gold.

Daniel Wells, from Lincoln College, also impressed by emphatically taking gold for the east midlands in the men’s squash.

But his victory didn’t come easily, as the north-east’s Oliver Walls, from Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College, put up a fierce fight in the final.

Being played in one of only four all-glass squash courts in the country at the University of Nottingham’s David Ross Sports Village, Oliver took the first set of the match much to the frustration of Daniel, who furiously smashed and broke his racket on the floor in anger at his early performance.

After clearing his head Daniel approached the second set with much more grace and eventually came out on top. The south-east won the Wilkinson Sword for the first time in 2008 – 27 years after the national championships launched in 1979.

But the region went on to win it for four years in a row after, until 2012, when the south-west claimed dominance.

Pip Stewart, a south-east women’s hockey player from Peter Symonds College, who won a bronze medal, said winning the Wilkinson Sword back from their neighbours was an achievement she will “never forget”.

Following tradition, a lively opening ceremony kicked the national championships weekend off on April 21.

Jordan Jarrett-Bryan, a former Paralympic basketball player who is now a TV sports reporter, was the evening’s compere and got the competitors hyped up for the competitions with tales of his sporting experience and competitions to see which region could make the loudest noise.

Loughborough Gymnastics Club then had spectators on the edge of their seats with a daring but perfectly executed routine.

Each of the 10 competing regions then presented their personalised flags, followed by the reading of the AoC Sport National Championships oaths, before AoC Sport chair Mark White officially declared the games open.

Three fierce days of competitive sport then got underway across the University of Nottingham’s brand new £40 million David Ross Sports Village, as well as at Trent Bridge, Nottingham Wildcats Arena, Morley Hayes Golf Club, and Nottingham Tennis Centre.

A closing ceremony, with presentation of the Wilkinson Sword, finished proceedings off on the Sunday.

Mr White told FE Week afterwards: “We’ve had a marvellous weekend. I’ve spent three days watching real enthusiasm and excellence in the students from colleges, who have competed with such passion and such talent. I’ve enjoyed every minute of it.”

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Team UK selected for WorldSkills 2017 in Abu Dhabi

Apprentices from Toyota, Airbus and Topshop are among 32 of the country’s elite learners who have been selected to represent the UK and go for gold at WorldSkills Abu Dhabi later this year.

The team [see below] will fly to the Middle East in October to compete against young people from 76 countries, in more than 50 different skills, ranging from aircraft maintenance and mechanical engineering, through to restaurant service and cyber security.

Those chosen for Team UK – and those who haven’t – have gone through a two-year qualification battle with the best this country has to offer in each discipline, giving up most of their weekends and evenings to hone their skills.

They’ve excelled at regional heats, a national final, the European finals, and last month jumped the final hurdle, facing the most testing international standards at a team selection showdown in Manchester.

“I said I wouldn’t cry if I made Team UK but I couldn’t help it,” said Jordan Charters, after he was told he had been chosen to represent the UK in painting and decorating. “All the hard work that I put in has paid off. It has made it worthwhile.”

While 32 members of Team UK have already been announced, two more will join them in June when the cooking and car painting competitors are selected.

All 34 will then undergo a rigorous regime of Olympic-style training in preparation for the most intense week of competition imaginable, at an event dubbed the “Olympics of skills”.

Of the team going to compete in Abu Dhabi, 13 represented the UK at EuroSkills Gothenburg in December last year, where the team brought home two golds, one silver, two bronzes and eight medallions of excellence.

Among them was plumbing and heating competitor Daniel Martins. He said he was “over the moon” to be chosen to fly to Abu Dhabi, an experience which he expects to be “unbelievable”.

At the last WorldSkills in Sao Paulo in 2015, Team UK finished overall seventh in the medal table, ahead of favourites France and Germany – bringing home three golds, four silvers, two bronzes and 23 medallions of excellence.

Skills and apprenticeships minister Robert Halfon told FE Week: “It is an absolute delight to have a great WorldSkills Team UK heading out to Abu Dhabi. I am also thrilled that that we have all of the nations from the UK represented in the team, and I have no doubt they will do tremendously well and I wish them every possible good luck. This is a wonderful day for skills in our country.”

Abu Dhabi: The Olympics of skills

This year’s global event will be the first time that a Middle Eastern country will host WorldSkills, although Abu Dhabi itself is no stranger to skills competitions.

The 44th WorldSkills will be held in the Adnec, the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre, a venue that has hosted both the Emirates skills competition and the Gulf Cooperation Council regional skills competition.

It is one of the largest exhibition centres in the Middle East, at 133,000 square metres, or the size of around 20 football pitches.

The event will take place between October 14 and 19, when temperatures can hit 43 degrees centigrade (in England the temperature will be a milder 12 degrees).

But the heat isn’t going to be a problem for any competitors from colder countries, according to Simon Bartley, the president of WorldSkills International.

Mr Bartley previously told FE Week: “I’ve visited the venue in the middle of summer, winter, spring and autumn and I can tell you that the centre where the competition is being held is fully air conditioned. It will be perfectly fit for running a competition.”

Levy launch ‘horror’ story predicted following apprenticeship funding allocations

Apprenticeship providers are facing up to a “horror story” of bankruptcy and failure after receiving funding allocations that amount to a fraction of their current delivery, sector leaders are warning.

The amount of cash colleges and providers will receive in order to deliver apprenticeships to small employers between May and December was revealed by the Education and Skills Funding Agency on Tuesday (April 25) – leaving many of them fearing for their futures.

The ESFA announced earlier in April that it would be pausing the £440 million procurement process for the 98 per cent of employers not subject to the levy, after it was massively oversubscribed – news that was welcomed by many at the time.

However, many providers are dismayed by the “derisory” allocations they have received for the next eight months – with some facing cuts of more than 80 per cent compared with the previous year.

The situation is so dire that AELP boss Mark Dawe labelled it a “horror story” and the “the bonfire of the providers”.

Writing exclusively for FE Week Mark Dawe, (click here), warned that “some providers will be running out of money within weeks” and that “closures and redundancies will start next week”.

“Without immediate action and additional money allocated, the government will have managed to destroy capacity and the consequences for non-levy businesses, employees and learners will be dire,” he said.

He urged the government to “act today” if it “genuinely cares” about delivery to SMEs and “robust apprenticeship and skills policy”.

David Hughes, the AoC’s chief executive, echoed Mr Dawe’s concerns, describing the allocations as “less than colleges expected, and hoped for, and need, to meet the needs of apprentices and SMEs”.

“I have always been very worried about the emphasis on the levy, and the seeming reduction that it implies for SME delivery – particularly given that the programme has relied heavily on SMEs being the backbone of offering apprenticeships,” he said.

A Department for Education spokesperson however refused to clarify the situation, saying: “We cannot make any commitment to what will happen until after the election”.

The scale of the cuts is revealed in a letter from one angry provider, Birmingham-based Crackerjack, to apprenticeships and skills minister Robert Halfon.

The provider, which has an ‘outstanding’ Ofsted rating and achievement rates of well over 90%, claimed its funding had been slashed by more than 80 per cent.

Its allocation for 16- to 18-year-olds for the eight months between May and December is just £79,466 – a massive 81 per cent drop compared with the £420,624 it received for the equivalent period this year.

And it has been allocated a paltry £22,770 for 19+ apprenticeships – a whopping 89 per cent drop compared with its pro-rata amount for this year.

“I wish to advise you that the allocation given to our organisation is derisory and in no way reflects our delivery record to date for 2016/17,” Chris Baker, Crackerjack’s finance director, wrote (read the letter in full here).

In a letter sent to providers this week, the ESFA said it had “worked out your allocation by calculating your share of provider earnings to non-levy paying employers” and detailed the methodology it had used.

“Within the available budget, we have cushioned your allocation in recognition of the fact that we have had to approximate your delivery to non-levy paying employers,” it added.

The letter also confirmed that “the current approach to subcontracting” would be maintained for new starts to non-levy paying employers until the end of December.

However, FE Week has been shown several emails from providers cutting ties with their subcontractor owing to a smaller than anticipated non-levy allocation.

But only providers on the new register of apprenticeship training providers would have their contracts extended.

FE Week asked the DfE for the total non-levy funding figure that has been allocated until December, and after repeated requests we were refused an answer and told they do not routinely publish total allocations, something which obviously not true.

The non-levy procurement pause will be “a slaughter of providers”

Mark Dawe, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, calls for immediate government action to alleviate the pending “horror story” facing providers of apprenticeships with non-levy employers

The day the non-levy procurement pause was announced, I remarked to colleagues how appropriate it was that it was Maundy Thursday – the day of the Last Supper, when Peter was told of his three acts of denial.

No, the pause isn’t aimed at stopping subcontractors getting a contract; no (after a lot of lobbying,) the new subcontracting rules won’t apply during the pause; and no, this allocation is not designed to destroy the subcontracting market. Three denials, it’s but starting to get a little suspicious.

As things stand, over the next week we will witness something equivalent to a horror movie: “the slaughter of providers, part one”.

It wasn’t me who lit the bonfire of the providers

I have been accused of inappropriately fanning the flames, but it wasn’t me who lit the bonfire of the providers. As I explained, I am just reflecting the heat I am feeling from AELP members. That’s my job.

So what is the problem? As levy business starts next week, there are many positive aspects about the apprenticeship policy and levy-paying employers, and many providers are very excited.

But let’s be very clear, it’s only the few thousand-odd levy-paying employers we are talking about here. They make up, as the government keeps reminding us, just two per cent of the employer market.

The horror story emerges in the non-levy world. For those involved, it feels like we are stumbling towards the edge of a precipice, and if the government doesn’t act in the next few days, there will be no return this time.

The allocations announced this week to prime providers, with a handful of exceptions, appear to be a fraction of what providers require to maintain their current run rate, i.e. apprenticeship starts and apprentices already on a programme.

Some providers will run out of money within weeks.

Closures and redundancies will start next week

When the government paused the process, it said it wanted to “achieve the right balance between stability of supply and promoting competition and choice for employers”. This latest decision has tipped the scales towards total instability.

The funding agency might argue that it has given opportunities to the primes to put in a business case for more money and tat they will receive results in July.

However the current reduction in allocation makes it impossible for providers to plan working on the basis of no guarantee of future funding and limited trust in the system.

But worse, subcontractors are being contacted by their primes, often with great regret, hour by hour, and told that there isn’t enough money to support them, so they won’t have any funded starts from May 1.

Closures and redundancies will start next week; come July many of these providers won’t exist anymore and the RoATP will shrink rapidly.

I really don’t think the government understands the seriousness of the situation. I have provided officials some examples, and have many, many more that underline the dire position we are in.

Many officials have voiced their concern about the capacity and readiness of the system and particularly providers.

Have they ever tried to develop a business which only has funding for six weeks? It’s not as if the funding can be claimed without an apprenticeship being delivered – we are not talking grant funding – and I thought the government wanted more apprenticeships, not less.

Without immediate action and additional money allocated, the government will have managed to destroy capacity and the consequences for non-levy businesses, employees and learners will be dire.

Our concerns of “apprenticeship deserts” will become a reality across the nation’s constituencies.

While AELP continues the fight at the centre, for many of their members and local provider networks, the only option is to talk to local MPs and prospective parliamentary candidates about the consequences of this approach.

If the government genuinely cares about delivery to SMEs and social mobility, it will act today. If the government genuinely cares about robust apprenticeships and skills policy to underpin its industrial strategy, it will act today. If this isn’t just an underhand way of wiping out subcontracting, the government will enhance allocations today.

Principals’ remuneration: What benchmarks should we be using?

Dr Sue, director of policy and external relations at Holex, answers your questions, backed by her experience as principal of Canterbury College and in senior civil service posts in education and skills.

Question One: GCSE resits

I don’t understand why the issue of GCSE resits is so divisive. At the college where I am a governor some senior staff use words like ‘failed policy’ and ‘not appropriate for college students’. However, my son benefited from this policy and is now successfully doing A-Levels at our local secondary school. Why does FE see it in such disdainful terms?

Answer: Like you, I can see the benefits of this policy. It gives a clear and forceful message to young people about the importance of English and maths. I hope it sends a signal down through schools to the younger pupils that you can’t “drop” English and maths and it is best if you take it seriously right now.

It is right that the state will pay for retakes and the data shows that around 27 per cent of those who resit get the equivalent of a grade C pass. However, for 70% of the young people who resit, it does not lead to an improvement in grade and it is these young people the sector is worried about.

Most colleges undertake some form of initial assessment and can identify those students likely to get a grade C pass and those who couldn’t. Likewise, they will know if students are very far away from getting a grade C and can’t do it in one year on the hours the government is willing to fund.

In many cases, students haven’t progressed all the way through secondary school and so are unlikely to do so with the same style of teaching that is expected on a GCSE programme. These young people need re-motivating, intensive support and different content, based on applied English or maths. Merely forcing such students to resit GCSEs is not appropriate and that is why there is such an outcry.

Question Two: Principals’ remuneration

My college has asked me to chair their new remuneration committee, which will set the salaries for senior post holders (including the principal and clerk). Previously this was done by the chair of governors but it was not very transparent and we want to move to a more structured format. What advice can you give on setting up, monitoring and benchmarks?

Answer:

It is excellent the governing body has adopted this approach, which is increasingly seen as good practice.

The first thing is to familiarise yourselves with the relevant college documents including: instrument and articles of governance; conditions of services for senior post holders; any existing performance policies; and past appraisals and salaries.

You will also need access to the national senior staff benchmarking exercise to review salary levels against other colleges of similar size and performance. For year one, you will use what were set as performance criteria for that reporting year but you should start to decide your performance goals for the next year – to be set out and agreed at least two months before that reporting year begins.

If the college’s largest student cohort is 16-19, you may want to consider the new DfE performance data. This is the information on which DfE will monitor schools, sixth form colleges and GFE colleges. DfE is requiring benchmark data under five headline measures which are: progress; attainment; English and maths progress; retention; and destinations.

You will also need to consider financial performance and student and employer satisfaction. Plus, you may want to add new performance targets such as the college’s share of the apprenticeship market.

The full governing body will need to sign off any recommendations.

Be sensitive to whether college staff are receiving any pay rises and also public views regarding public sector CEO pay rises. The rule of thumb is there must be a very good reason if your principal is to be paid a salary more than the prime minister’s £143,462.

Remember the amount paid to a CEO will get into the public domain and the number quoted will be pay plus pension contributions and any other benefits. So ensure you see the full package and not just the base salary – and as chair be ready to justify it.