Latest news from FE Week

Ofsted watch: Week of extreme contrasts for providers

A week of extreme contrasts for FE saw the second college in two weeks scoop an ‘outstanding’ rating, while an independent learning provider was branded ‘inadequate’ in its first ever Ofsted visit.

Grimsby Institute Group* earned its grade-one report after it asked for its scheduled short inspection to be upgraded into a full one.

The college, which had 10,000 learners over the previous full contract year, received top grades in all headline fields except apprenticeships, which were considered to be ‘good’. Check out FE Week’s full analysis of its success here.

Meanwhile, Lancashire-based independent learning provider Health and Fitness Education was hit with a damning ‘inadequate’ grade across the board.

Health and Fitness Education is based in Chorley, but has training venues in Manchester, Warrington, Doncaster, York, Nottingham, Walsall, Birmingham, Dudley, Durham, Cardiff and London.

It provides training in health and fitness through government-funded advanced learner loans and had around 225 learners at the time of the inspection, mostly studying at level three with some at level four.

The scathing report from the government’s education watchdog deemed the provider inadequate in leadership and management; adult learning programmes; teaching, learning and assessment; personal development; behaviour and welfare; and outcomes for learners.

Ofsted found “almost half of learners” were not achieving their qualifications, and leaders were “too slow to recognise and respond to the poor progress”.

Arrangements for governance, self-assessment and quality improvement, and observing and improving the quality of teaching, learning and assessment were all described as “weak”.

Tutors did not “gather sufficient information on learners’ starting points” and were failing to effectively “record and monitor learners’ progress”.

Ofsted also said learners were not receiving “thorough and impartial advice and guidance” about career plans or future learning and were “unaware of the risks associated with radicalisation and extremism”.

The only strength of the provider was that learners were developing “the knowledge and practical skills they need to work in the health and fitness industry”.

Nine targets for improvement were given, with the first being to “increase significantly the proportion of learners who achieve their qualifications and ensure that they do so within the planned timescales”.

The Isle of Wight College also had a somewhat disappointing outcome form Ofsted this week, as it fell from ‘outstanding’ down to ‘good’.

The Newport-based college, which is the main FE provider on the island, was still rated ‘outstanding’ for its delivery of adult learning programme ad provision for learners with high needs, but was ‘good’ in all other categories.

The report did acknowledge that “the number of young people leaving school with a grade A* to C in GCSE maths and English is significantly below the national average”, meaning “many students attending the college arrive with very low grades”.

The college also works with “a number of home-educated young people”, to give them access to courses and help them to study further.

To bounce back to a grade one, Ofsted recommended the Isle of Wight College works to “increase the proportion of 16- to 18-year-old students who achieve their maths and English qualifications or improve their GCSE grade”, ensuring “teachers promote the benefits” of these courses to students, and “improve attendance in lessons”.

The quality of “targets set by staff for students” also needed boosting, by ensuring “assessors set targets to support apprentices in improving their written skills” and “teachers set and review clear and precise targets for all students” to develop “their wider skills”.

Contrastingly, Telford College of Arts and Technology managed to drag itself out of an ‘inadequate’ rating and back to ‘requires improvement’ this week.

Its provision for learners with high needs was found to be ‘good’ and teachers were praised for promoting safeguarding and British values well.

Leaders and managers were also said to have “responded quickly to ensure that governors and staff receive timely and accurate information about the attendance and achievement of students, enabling them to secure improvements”.

Points for improving further included setting “detailed and precise” targets for students and apprentices and making sure “teachers and assessors pay close attention to promoting high standards in spelling, punctuation and grammar and the skillful use of numeracy”.

Finally, Loughborough College hung on to its ‘good’ grade in a full inspection this week, while Newbury College, Bolton Sixth Form College and East Sussex County Council Adult Education and Family Learning all remained ‘good’ in short inspections.

GFE Colleges	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
Loughborough College	23/05/2017	28/06/2017	2	2
The Isle of Wight College	23/05/2017	30/06/2017	2	1
Telford College of Arts and Technology	06/06/2017	29/06/2017	3	4
Independent Learning Providers	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
Health and Fitness Education	23/05/2017	27/06/2017	4	Not previously inspected
Short inspections (remains grade 2)	Inspected	Published
East Sussex County Council Adult Education and Family Learning	17/05/2017	27/06/2017
Newbury College	23/05/2017	28/06/2017
Bolton Sixth Form College	22/05/2017	27/06/2017

*Grimsby Institute’s Ofsted report had yet to be uploaded to the Ofsted website at the time of publication.

Let’s get FE and schools talking more

FE and schools rubbed shoulders at this year’s festivals of education and skills – wouldn’t it be interesting to get them talking more, asks Graham Taylor

It was great to see education and skills – schools and FE – combined in one festival this year, at the splendid location of Wellington College. The Festival of Skills ran alongside the Festival of Education, separated by nothing more than some hay bales and an iced coffee stand. Pimm’s on the lawn, anyone?!

It was great to meet primary, secondary and FE teachers to share thoughts, and there were many ideas, themes and challenges in common that would merit further integration at next year’s festival. I will explore some ideas below, but first, some of the highlights from this year.

Comedian Hugh Dennis, who opened the festival to an overflowing tent, was a knockout. His parents were teachers and his work on TV show ‘Outnumbered’ and some canny research threw up some great education and political gags. And like all the best jokes, there were truths that lay beneath. Indeed, three of them even turned up on ‘Mock the Week’ that evening!

Like all the best jokes, there were truths that lay beneath

Sadly I missed the Amanda Spielman interview and the fiery panel on student behaviour that both caused such a fuss. I used to make both days when it ran on Saturdays and Sundays – it was the best value CPD I’ve come across – but some of us have other things to do on weekends.

On the skills side, while there was lots of stuff on apprenticeships, I was still left with more questions than answers, as the system remains in a state of undress. May 2017 starts are “way down” – not a surprise when many levy payers aren’t ready for them and haven’t even tendered for the work.

As for the non-levy-paying market, the very late abandonment of the register of apprenticeship training providers process and the tiny funding allocations seem to have left the sector dazed and confused.

And there’s still uncertainly over standards and end-point assessments in some areas. Because of this, apprenticeships remain a difficult sell, despite the (almost) 100 per cent subsidy compared with 50 per cent for most other adult qualifications, or the loan option for level three and above.

These qualifications could well be crowded out if employers and learners go down the free apprenticeship route and levy-paying employers relabel their existing training to claw back some of the tax. I’m not sure how it adds to productivity – and I don’t think much of the sector is either.

In short, while much is specific to the FE sector, the prospect of more dialogue with schools is definitely an attractive one. So what might that look like?

Themes that spring to mind include panel debates on the challenges of providing useful careers advice, or whether schools fail adequately to inform pupils about FE pathways. This would be a fiery one, especially for those schools with their own sixth forms that won’t let us in to speak to their students about post-16 progression.

I’m sure there are other themes on which FE folk would love to work with schools and vice versa. How about panels where schools could grill FE people about the best vocational options for different types of pupil, sessions on how levy-paying MATs and LAs can deliver high-quality apprenticeships, cooperation on GCSEs – especially English and Maths and how we can help each other to improve outcomes?

And there’s so much to share that is relevant across the years and settings, on curriculum development, transition, motivating learners, behavioural strategies, or nudge techniques.

And finally: Mother Theresa’s hung parliament. Grammar schools are now off the agenda. Is there a better chance of maintaining learner funds? Will schools get their usual preferential treatment? Note the funding reductions for schools proposed in the Tory manifesto – seven per cent real-terms cuts over five years – were tiny compared to how FE has been decimated.

So at next year’s Festival, as Mrs Merton would say: Let’s have a heated debate and get schools and colleges working together. We have much to learn from each other.

Graham Taylor is principal and chief executive of New College Swindon

What providers need to know about health and care apprenticeships

Demand for health and care apprenticeships is set to soar, yet providers seem unprepared to grasp these business opportunities, says Sally Garbett

The 2013 Cavendish Review identified significant weaknesses in induction training for 1.3 million healthcare workers delivering the bulk of hands-on care. This led to the introduction of the Care Certificate, which now forms a crucial first stage of the trailblazer health apprenticeships.

Demand for these apprenticeships is set to increase significantly, given that 23 per cent of all new jobs (that’s almost 320,000) are expected to be in health or adult care by 2022 – according to the City and Guilds Great Expectations report. But are providers ready to meet this demand?

The new health standards have been available for implementation since February 2017 and although the funding allocations to colleges and providers were lower than expected, money started thumping into levy accounts in May. So why are several of the colleges I have spoken with lately not going to be ready to deliver these health apprenticeships until September?

We need providers who can deliver what we need in the way we need it

Is it possible that problems in provider understanding might be delaying implementation of these standards?

The health apprenticeship standards are central to the new Health Education England career pathway from health care assistant to registered nurse (see the HEE report ‘Raising the bar: Shape of Caring’) and will include new nursing associate and registered nurse apprenticeships by September 2017.

The healthcare apprenticeships at levels two, three and five are part of this career pathway and the future healthcare workforce depends in part on their availability.

The apprenticeship must be delivered in the way we need, not the way the college or provider prefers. This requires a partnership with us, with the employer delivering some of the teaching and assessment and being paid for that as a subcontractor.

But provider understanding is patchy: in recent weeks in my work across England I have spoken with a provider who told me that the level three senior healthcare support worker apprenticeship took 15 months – but the standard suggests 18 to 24. I met with a college that suggested part-time apprenticeships were not allowed; another who insisted the employer could not choose the qualification they wanted in the level two healthcare support worker standard, which they can, as none is specified. One provider made no mention of the Care Certificate, a key component of the health apprenticeships.

As the vocational programmes manager for St Christopher’s Hospice, a levy-paying employer-provider, apprenticeship delivery partnerships are of paramount importance.

The primary function of St Christopher’s Hospice is of course to provide skilled, compassionate end-of-life care but we, like many other hospices, also deliver education and as charitable organisations we have a heightened responsibility to use our levy wisely. To do so, we need providers that are able to work with us.

We need providers who can deliver what we need in the way we need it. We need providers who are flexible and able to work with us to develop meaningful delivery models that include off and near-the-job learning.

We need quality approaches that cover the entire apprenticeship standard, not just the qualification within it, so that those who achieve the apprenticeship can carry out the job role it was developed to support.

St Christopher’s has an established relationship with our local college; we co-deliver apprenticeships. Our clinical staff are dual professionals – healthcare professionals with teaching and assessment qualifications, so there is no problem with due diligence or contractual arrangements.

The partnership is not without challenge but we work together to resolve problems. If our college can do this, so can many more.

Let’s start a dialogue to open channels of communication and work better together. Our future nursing workforce may depend on it.

Sally welcomes your comments and can be reached here.

Sally Garbett is vocational programmes manager at St Christopher’s Hospice

Pair of Buddhist monks teach staff and students the history of Buddhism

A pair of Buddhist monks paid a visit to the College of Haringey, Enfield and North East London to teach students about their religion.

Venerable Konwewe Ariyarathana and Venerable Ragama Sugathananda spoke for an hour to an audience of 70 staff and students about the Theravada Buddhist tradition, which is marked by its strict adherence to the original teachings expounded by the Buddha.

During their talk, the pair covered the history of Buddhism, their lifestyles, the robes they wear and how they serve and support their communities.

The visit came about after the college’s director, Marcia Summers, met Mr Sugathananda – who is the chief incumbent of a Sri Lankan charity run by Buddhists – on a charity trip to Sri Lanka in 2014.

“They gave a captivating and informative talk on Buddhism that gave a real insight into the religion, which sparked a lot of interest among their audience,” she said.

“It was great to see so many learners from different backgrounds and college courses attend the enrichment activity, which promoted tolerance and peace in currently challenging times.”

Following the talk, the college is now planning a visit to a Theravada temple in Chiswick, the London Buddhist Vihara, following an invitation from Mr Ariyarathana.

How to get more women into FE leadership

Getting more women into leadership positions is a multifaceted challenge, but there are some practical steps leaders in FE can take, writes Pauline Odulinski

We are all familiar with the concept of the glass ceiling and know that women advance less far at work. They also continue to be paid less than men for doing the same job. In 2017 this is simply unacceptable.

The evidence shows women in FE are less likely to be in leadership positions: 40 per cent of senior posts are filled by women, which is far from representative considering women make up 60 per cent of the workforce.

So it seems that despite policies and promises both on the macro and micro levels, we are still a long way from equality.

At a recent conference hosted by the Women’s Leadership Network – of which I am a founding member – we heard from several experts and female leaders about their perspectives.

Tom Schuller, the author of ‘The Paula Principle: How women work below their level of competence’, explained that despite women overtaking men at A-level, degree and post-graduate level in the UK, data from over 30 OECD countries shows the gender pay gap is still wide at the top and worse, that there is a slowdown in convergence.

READ MORE: Why doesn’t FE Week have more diverse representation?

Dan Godsall, a former MD of Barclays UK and the founder of a coaching business, has a positive outlook: he believes that socio-economic drivers of equality will ultimately prevail, that the workplace and employers will have to change.

“Today with women being the principle breadwinners for over 40 per cent of families, the businesses that will win the war for talent will be those who are the most responsive to the changing roles and needs of their employees,” he said.

Dan works with international organisations including Tesco to retain their talented employees as they experience the transition of parenthood.

Clearly this is a complicated challenge relevant at individual and organisational level; but there are some practical steps women and leaders in FE can take.

First, women in FE: this advice came from Sarah Maskell MBE FCMI, who was speaking at the conference:

Understand how to frame your strengths in a variety of ways.

Communicate your achievements.

Don’t underestimate the support you can gain from and offer to others: find women at work to mirror or follow.

Leadership can be lonely – move from comfort of a peer group to developing and maintaining a broad support network

Keep healthy, emotionally and physically

And most significantly, leave a legacy and share your learning. If you’re coming to the end of a post, look back and think about how others could follow your lead and share this information.

Further education as a sector should be leading the way for equality

From my experience as a college principal, and latterly working as a facilitator, mentor and coach, I believe other actions can be taken by leaders throughout the sector to move the agenda forward:

Apply progressive childcare, family care and parental policies. This is not about just women; it’s about supporting men to take up these opportunities as well, in a shared strategy.

Offer development opportunities to those you perceive to be talented, but will not necessarily put themselves forward to take up a new challenge.

Establish mentoring and coaching for junior staff – not only succession planning but also inclusion and inspiration.

Share success – use your internal communication channels, email, magazines and intranet to share success stories, particularly with regard to positive successful (internal and external) role models.

Engage with your teams and ask for their input to co-design your development programme. This may also include shadowing or secondments in businesses.

Further education as a sector should be leading the way for equality. As parents, friends, teachers, managers and leaders in all walks of life, we are responsible for educating future generations and ensuring that everyone has equal access and opportunities.

We cannot do this unless we set the example.

Pauline Odulinski OBE is a co-founder of the Women’s Leadership Network

Replica Viking boat is restored by boat-building apprentices

Apprentice boat-builders and engineers from Southampton City College have helped to restore a replica 14th century medieval cargo ship.

The level three apprentices, who are currently studying for City & Guilds qualifications, refurbished the waterfront feature under the supervision of Darren Patten, a learning manager and expert boat builder.

The boat, located in Southampton’s Western Esplanade, has deteriorated since it was first built around 20 years ago by a former manager of the college’s Marine Skills Centre, and the local council decided it was time for restoration.

The replica was built using traditional Viking techniques, which students recreated during the refurbishment.

Danielle Thomas, a boat-building advanced apprentice, said: “This project has enabled me to understand and learn some unique traditional boat building skills such as clinker planking and scarfing planks.”

Sarah Stannard, principal of Southampton City College, added: “We were delighted to support this unusual community project and to contribute to making more people aware of Southampton’s long history as a trading port.

“Renovating this replica historic ship has been an exciting way for our marine students to learn more about our marine heritage, work as a team, and develop some very specialist and traditional boat-building skills.”

IT students represent the UK at global coding competition

Three IT students travelled to China with their lecturer to represent the UK in an international coding competition. Samantha King reports.

The trio from Central Bedfordshire College were one of 103 teams in the 2017 China International Vocational Skills Competition, with 100 of the teams hailing from various locations across China, and the other two from Thailand and Germany.

The four-hour competition tested students from college to university level on their abilities in four key Android application coding areas: debugging, programming, usability and user interface.

The college was the only UK institution to be invited to enter the annual competition, hosted at the Nanjing Institute of Industry Technology, which opened up to international entrants for the first time this year.

The invitation to take part came from contacts of the college’s HE and international development manager, Dr Richard Harrison, who visited NIIT during a two-week leadership development programme in 2016, organised by the British Council in China in partnership with the Association of Colleges.

Accompanying the students on the trip was IT lecturer Adam Godfrey. He said “I gave the students some videos to watch on the plane to revise, but the night we were actually going to do all the revision, we were really hit by jetlag. We were just like, let’s just go to bed and be awake for tomorrow.

“The actual competition looked like an airport security gate. Students were searched before going in, and there were two people watching the teams with a security camera pointed at their desk. It was as much security as you could possibly get.”

Team members James Green, Ricky Lanouette and Jason Morsley placed 24th and were presented with a certificate by the principal of NIIT, with the winners of the overall contest – three Chinese teams – offered jobs at tech giant Lenovo, the competition sponsors.

Following their success at the event, A-level student Jason Morsley hopes to spend a year studying Mandarin at NIIT before returning to the UK to take up a university place.

“I got all five of my university places, but it was a life-changing trip and I’m very, very, tempted – and am most likely going – to study Mandarin at NIIT for a year,” he said.

Ali Hadawi, principal of the Central Bedfordshire College, added: “It is great to see the skills of our level 3 students being put to the test in such a high-profile industry-led international competition and to achieve so well. It goes to show that the skills of UK FE are amongst the best in the world.”

Student films helps local hospital recruit therapy staff

A team of media students have created a series of short films for a local hospital to promote the roles of therapy staff.

The nine students from Craven College in North Yorkshire shot the films to help their local Airedale Hospital attract new employees to roles such as occupational therapists, physiotherapists and speech and language therapists.

The series of films feature interviews with staff and trainee therapists explaining their day-to-day roles, and what attracted them to their chosen careers.

The films premiered at Airedale for an audience of college and hospital staff.

Ian Hargreaves from the Medical Directors Unit at the Airedale NHS Foundation Trust said: “We had always traditionally thought of supporting the college’s health care students, but this time we needed some professional help from the media students.

“We gave them free rein to use all their creative skills to design and produce some videos that would appeal to a younger audience of newly qualified therapists. We are delighted with the end result.”

Tutor makes giant millionaire’s shortbread to celebrate the end of term

Hospitality and catering students celebrated the end of the college year by indulging in a giant millionaire’s shortbread.

The huge biscuit was made for the Kirklees College students by curriculum team leader, Gary Schofield, for the culmination of an end-of-year prize-giving ceremony.

The creation was just under a metre wide, and contained 6kg of shortbread, 10kg of fudge and caramel and 5kg of chocolate.

In order to make the enormous treat, a cake tin was created especially by the engineering department of the West Yorkshire college.

“It’s nice to be able to celebrate our students’ fantastic achievements,” Mr Schofield said. “They work hard all year, so it is great to be able to round off the year with something fun.

“The millionaire’s shortbread only took two hours to make. The real challenges were steaming the condensed milk in the tins for four hours, and getting the finished shortbread out of its tin due to its size, but I had help from a learner to do that.”

It’s not the first time Mr Schofield has made an oversized dessert: he baked a massive chocolate teacake last year, and a gigantic jaffa cake the year before.