Students at Canterbury College’s Sheppey campus have joined the construction team on the flagship BBC show, ‘DIY SOS: The Big Build’.
The popular TV show – fronted by Nick Knowles – relies on volunteers from the construction trade to help transform the homes of needy families, and has been going since 1999.
After producers put out an SOS of their own, calling for more volunteers for project in Sheppey, the college decided to get involved, and has agreed to provide a range of students who will be directly involved in the show, while also getting valuable experience of working on a real site.
The college’s beauty department has also offered its students to give presenter Mr Knowles, and the family whose home is being transformed, a range of pampering treatments during their downtime away from the site.
DIY SOS’ build manager Mark Millar said: “This Isle of Sheppey DIY SOS build is the biggest this year, so we are grateful for all the wonderful local support.”
Picture: Canterbury College construction students in action (Inset) presenter Nick Knowles
Industry insiders fear that new apprenticeship college training groups could unfairly distort the market and divert government cash away from frontline education services.
Groups of colleges banding together to set up bodies to help broker joint deals with local employers to encourage them to take on apprentices, prompted Mark Dawe (pictured), the boss of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, to call for more “fairness in the system”.
One such body, the London Apprenticeship Training Group, a collaboration between Barnet and Southgate College, the College of Haringey, Enfield and North East London, Hertford Regional College, and Waltham Forest College, was officially launched on Friday (September 30).
It’s a semi-independent shared brokerage service designed to persuade north London firms to take on apprentices from member colleges – but each college will also continue to deliver its own separate Skills Funding Agency contracts.
FE Week understands a number of other colleges have submitted area review transition grant applications in an effort to launch similar apprenticeship brokerage companies.
But Mr Dawe has raised concern about public cash being spent on these college groups.
Where there is additional government money, it should not used to distort an already competitive landscape
He said: “Our only concern is that there is transparency and fairness in the system,” adding “where there is additional government money, it should not used to distort an already competitive landscape between providers.
“Such funding should be made available to all government funded providers, not just a small subset.”
The LATG promises to “identify the right training provider, the right course and the right candidate”, effectively acting as a broker between the employer and the Digital Apprenticeship Service, which will be fully operational by April 2017.
Andy Forbes, principal of the College of Haringey, Enfield and North East London, argued that partnerships like LATG were beneficial.
“Colleges working together will be able to offer an even bigger range of options while at the same time making things much simpler for employers and young people looking for apprenticeships,” he said.
The topic of brokerage last came under scrutiny six months ago, when an FE Week investigation found huge sums of public cash meant for frontline learning was being hived off to brokers.
Brokers typically charge subcontractors up to five per cent commission for matching them to a prime provider.
At the time, a government spokesperson said: “The SFA is reviewing to strengthen their funding agreements to limit the use of brokers.”
In September, FE Week followed up on this comment, but the SFA denied that a formal review of brokers was being carried out.
He said: “We are proposing to stop brokerage organisations being able to apply to the Register [of Apprenticeship Training Providers] and focusing on measures to ensure public funds cannot be used for the costs of intermediaries.”
FE Week approached the SFA to provide a list of institutions to have received funding so far, but it refused to name names.
“We are currently progressing applications for funds from the restructuring facility and the transition grant,” said a spokesperson.
“We intend to publish a full list of allocations after the programme completes.”
Dozens of the nation’s most talented FE students found their zen as they prepared for the psychological strains of competing on the international stage, at a special training session attended by FE Week ahead of EuroSkills 2016.
The 85-strong Team UK squad visited Loughborough University last weekend to take part in sessions, one of which involved Yoga Nidra, a deep meditation which works on the subconscious using correct breathing practice.
They were also put in situations in which they felt uncomfortable – to boost their ability to handle the kind of pressure that 20 of the team will experience at EuroSkills Gothenburg in November.
This included timed team-building tasks in which competitors tried their hand at different skills not associated with their particular discipline.
Hairdressers were turned into mechanics and asked to assemble self-made wheelbarrows to transport water around an obstacle course, while bricklayers became visual merchandisers, and were made to draw and create what they thought made a successful competitor using various different art materials.
Hairdressers were turned into mechanics, while bricklayers became visual merchandisers
They also received guidance during the three-day event on how to deal with anxiety and fear – which, according to WorldSkills UK director Ben Blackledge, are all “as important in terms of competing as the technical skills”.
He said: “Our competitors need to know how to overcome their fears and anxieties, and to do that you need to slowly push them out of their comfort zone.”
Psychological sessions included a seminar on the concept of concentration, and competitors were taught how to block out distractions while delivering practical tasks.
If they were having a low point in their competition, the team were told to stop what they are doing, stand up straight with their feet slightly apart, and put their hands on their hips – striking a pose which “immediately builds confidence”.
Wall and floor tiling competitor Kieran Magee aged 19 crosses to new found relaxation
Competitors were also told to shut their eyes and “visualise success” when things weren’t going to plan.
“In your mind work back from the finished project to the start; this will help you visualise key steps and show what you need to do next to accomplish the task you are struggling with,” the team was told.
Hairdressing competitor Lucy Knight, 21, who trained at City of Bristol College, said the workshops taught her to “block everyone out when competing” and how to “not get distracted and keep focused”.
Plastering and drywall competitor Harrison Moy, a 20-year-old apprentice with H&R Property Development in East Sussex, said the event opened his eyes to how much pressure he will have to deal with in Gothenburg.
“I didn’t really expect to need mental training but after seeing what we’re going into and learning how to deal with it, you do need it,” he said.
Peter Bakare, a former Team GB volleyball Olympian who competed at London 2012, was also on hand during the day in his role as one of WorldSkills UK’s performance coaches.
He said his experience of competing in the Olympics was “similar” to what Team UK will find at EuroSkills and Abu Dhabi, “so it is good for me to bring that experience across”.
“They need the mindset of a medal-winning champion if they are to succeed.”
One council’s controversial decision to make families of students with disabilities or special needs to pay for college transport costs has come under fire from an autism charity and the National Union of Students.
Sunderland City Council started charging families £600 per academic year to transport each post-16 student with educational needs or disabilities (SEND) at the beginning of September to college – prompting heavy criticism from the National Autistic Society.
“This news will be really worrying for many local young autistic people and their families who rely on support from the council to get to college,” said Tim Nicholls (pictured), policy manager at the charity.
“It’s essential that councils understand the hidden needs of autistic people and the challenges they can face when travelling – and take these into account when planning their budgets”.
It’s essential that councils understand the hidden needs of autistic people
Previously, the council had paid the full costs for all SEND students’ transport to post-16 courses, but now it will only pay out any costs incurred by families beyond that initial £600.
However, FE Week found in February that a number of councils in the north-east were planning to start asking for a financial contribution.
Sunderland was the first council to go through with the charge, but Newcastle City Council also confirmed this week that its own plans to introduce similar charges have been approved by councillors, but not yet implemented.
A spokesperson for Sunderland City Council told FE Week: “Following consultation, the city council’s cabinet agreed that a means tested funding contribution of £651.
“However, the council is continuing to support students with SEND and families with increased choice and flexibility in how they travel from school or college.
“This includes putting extra resources towards encouraging independent travel (by public transport), where appropriate.”
According to Mr Nicholls, many of these students’ needs “are not immediately obvious”.
Autistic people can find it hard to plan and carry out a journey
“For instance,” he said, “autistic people can find it hard to plan and carry out a journey, be extremely sensitive to sound or become highly anxious when faced with unexpected changes.
“This can make travelling on a busy or loud bus filled with people they don’t know really challenging, if not impossible. In such cases, travelling by a mini-bus or taxi may be the only way they can get to school.”
David Hughes, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, was also highly critical of the charge.
“Transport costs for many students can be a true barrier to their successful participation and achievement in post-16 learning,” he said.
“It is particularly disappointing to see a local council introduce means testing for the transport costs.”
James Elliott, the NUS disabled students’ officer, said he was “very disappointed” about the new charge.
“The government should stop local council funding cuts, so they can provide vital services such as this,” he added.
In February, the AoC called on the government to review how councils fund travel to colleges for post-16 learners with special needs, but this did not happen.
Asked by FE Week if there would now be a change of heart, a Department for Education spokesperson said that providing transport to for young people with SEND was “a matter for councils”.
“However, we expect them to put appropriate arrangements in place and make decisions that are best suited to local circumstances,” they said.
Learning Curve Group has raised £16,000 for the Butterwick Hospice through a year of fundraising activities, including charity runs and a parachute jump.
The education and training provider supports the needs of FE providers, employers and learners, and hosts an annual fundraising scheme which raises money for a local charity throughout the year, voted for by staff.
The 2016 nomination was Butterwick Hospice, which provides palliative home care and outreach day-hospices and services to people suffering from progressive neurological illnesses.
In September, Learning Curve Group held its second annual charity ball, which by itself raised nearly £6,000 for the hospice.
The Bollywood-themed event included attendees from Yorkshire Bank, commercial caterers CH&Co – and even FE Week’s very own Shane Mann.
Brenda McLeish, CEO of the Learning Curve Group, said: “The choice of Butterwick as our chosen charity partner was unanimous, and the ball was a fantastic celebration for a wonderful cause.”
Picture: Jon Cummins (L) and FE Week’s Shane Mann (R) commit to the dress code at the Bollywood ball
The UCU has blasted the “woeful” lack of transparency in the area review process, after it emerged that key guidance waiting for ministerial sign-off has been circulating in draft form for months.
The Department for Education has still not officially published a crucial set of implementation guidance that was originally due in July, because final clearance from the new apprenticeships and skills minister Robert Halfon (pictured) has not been forthcoming.
However a draft version has been shared among colleges for up to three months, FE Week has learned.
The document has been so widely shared, FE Week even found it available for download from the Association of South East Colleges’ website – although it was removed this week after we asked them about it.
This revelation prompted Sally Hunt, the general secretary of the University and College Union, to call for immediate action from Mr Halfon.
“For any process to have the confidence of those involved, transparency and engagement is crucial,” she said, adding that there had been a “woeful lack of meaningful consultation with unions on outcomes and implementation” throughout the area review process.
“The minister needs to urgently intervene to ensure much better consultation at a local and national level,” she said.
The draft guidance lists the different phases involved in implementing area review recommendations, as well as key issues that colleges will have to consider.
Pamela Lumsden, AOSEC’s chief executive, told FE Week that the document had been “intended to be shared with members”.
Her organisation represents local college interests and is, according to its website, affiliated to the Association of Colleges.
But when asked to explain AOSEC’s actions, an AoC spokesperson said it was “a separate organisation from AoC, so you’d need to get in touch with them directly about what’s on their website”.
The guidance has been delayed for nearly three months; Bobbie McClelland, the deputy director of the DfE’s reforming FE provision unit, told FE Week’s area review summit on July 7 that a final version would be released before parliament’s summer recess, which began on July 21.
FE Week has lodged repeated requests with the DfE asking to see the guidance, but we’ve been told each time that it would be available “in due course”.
In the meantime, the DfE appears to be side-stepping ministerial sign-off.
Officials will make two presentations this week, one on the implementation guidance and another on a separate document also awaiting publication, the due diligence framework.
The event is billed as “a key opportunity to understand and discuss the due diligence and implementation guidance documents”.
Ms McClelland will also give the keynote address on Thursday at a Westminster Briefing event, entitled ‘Implementation of area-based reviews: understanding the outcomes for post-16 education and training’.
FE Week asked the DfE why its officials were giving presentations on guidance that had not yet received ministerial sign-off.
A spokesperson said that these events were “not dependent on the guidance being published”.
Others due in July – but which have yet to appear – include separate guidance for local authorities and local enterprise partnerships, and final reports into the reviews to have completed so far.
Details of the colleges involved in the fourth wave of reviews are also yet to be publicly announced, even though a number of the reviews have already held their first steering group meetings.
FE Week has uncovered yet more evidence of area review delays, with all four London reviews running up to four months behind schedule.
Two of the reviews should have completed by July and the remaining two should have finished by September, according to the timetable originally planned.
But minutes from a number of the colleges involved reveal that the four reviews are now not expected to complete until November.
A spokesperson for the London mayor acknowledged that the timing for the first two reviews had changed to coordinate with the second two reviews, but denied that the overall schedule was delayed.
More than 10 per cent of university technical colleges are now expected to close, just six years since they were first introduced.
The latest to close its doors will be Royal Greenwich UTC in London, on which Greenwich Council is forking out £13m in order to convert it into a secondary school.
Royal Greenwich UTC will become Greenwich Trust School from next September, just two years after it opened as a 14-to-19 institute.
FE Week analysis in February showed that the college, which has a capacity of 600, had just 257 students during the last academic year – representing a 35 per cent drop from the 397 who attended in 2014-15.
Its closure makes it the fifth UTC out of 48 to shut up shop since they were launched in 2010.
Greenwich Council now needs to pay hefty conversion costs so that it can meet its statutory obligation to provide enough school places.
A council spokesperson said: “The Greenwich UTC sadly did not attract the expected numbers; as seen with colleges nationally, some students were hesitant at switching to a technical course at the age of 14.”
The college, which according to its website cost £10m to set up, will instead cater for 11- to 18-year-olds.
The government has already agreed to the expansion, with most of the £13.7m bill to be paid by the council, but £200,000 will come from its Section 106 payments – money that a developer pays to a council to reduce the impact of a development.
The council said the conversion cost will involve adapting the existing building, as well as a new extension to cater for the extra pupils (see box-out).
Greenwich UTC did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Low pupil numbers are common at UTCs, which has often left them financially unviable.
Our February investigation discovered that student numbers had fallen at 40 per cent of UTCs that opened between 2010 and 2013.
Four other UTCs: UTC Lancashire, Central Bedfordshire UTC, Hackney UTC and Black Country UTC have all closed citing low student numbers.
The Department for Education meanwhile confirmed last month that a proposed UTC developed in partnership with Burton and South Derbyshire College would not now open, despite the £8m the government had already spent setting it up.
The UTC, which opened in north London in September 2014, has a 600-pupil capacity, but just 231 on roll as of January. It was found not have failed to balance its budget and has suffered cashflow problems since 2015, the Education Funding Agency said.
The college must now get approval from the EFA for all its transactions, and launch an external governance review.
Barry Hersom, the college’s principal, said: “The board and senior team take this matter very seriously and we are working with the EFA to bring the UTC’s finances into order as quickly as possible. We have already taken measures to reduce expenditure and are confident that the situation is improving.”
Former education secretary Nicky Morgan has since voiced concerns about the UTC model, suggesting that they should look to admit pupils from the age of 11.
At a fringe event on educational inequality at the Conservative Party Conference this week, she said: “I would, in order to avoid this change at 14, like to see them admitting pupils from the age of 11, because I think that would mean they would have a stronger, more sustainable pipeline of students.”
FE Week pressed the government on its struggles with the UTC model, but the DfE refused to be drawn on whether an independent review would be needed to re-evaluate them.
Instead, a spokesperson said: “The best UTCs do a great job in helping pupils get the knowledge and skills they need for successful future careers. We are continuing to look at the performance of the UTC model and learn lessons from those that are open to ensure they offer great education for young people who want to follow a technical or vocational path.”
Charles Parker, chief executive of the Baker Dearing Trust, an organisation established to develop and promote the concept of UTCs, said: “Four UTCs have closed, and Greenwich is becoming a normal 11-18 secondary school, reflecting the changing local demographic since it opened.
“There are 48 UTCs open across the country successfully matching young people aged 14 to 19 who want a high-quality technical education with employers who face a serious skills shortage.”
A firm commitment to “transform” technical education was made by education secretary Justine Greening, in a Conservative Party Conference speech that stressed the government’s Skills Plan will be a “big focus” for her.
She told delegates yesterday (Tuesday) there had been a “renaissance in apprenticeships” over the last six-and-a-half years, and she was now determined to put technical education “on a par” with academic-based study.
“For too long the technical education they want hasn’t been good enough,” said Ms Greening.
“We’ve already set about changing that with our Skills Plan and this will be a big focus for me as secretary of state.”
It will see 20,000 post-16 vocational courses replaced by 15 ‘pathfinder’ routes – covering college-based and employment-based training.
This reflected the recommendations of an independent panel, led by Lord Sainsbury, which was set up by the government in November 2015 to look into reforms to technical and professional education.
Ms Greening also singled out three areas that “we really need to pull together” to boost technical education – FE colleges, “the huge extra investment in apprenticeships from our biggest companies” and university technical colleges.
The inclusion in this list of UTCs for 14 to 19-year-olds will have come as a surprise to many in the sector, given their well-documented struggles to recruit enough students.
The education secretary added: “Last year 48 per cent of our young people went to university, but 52 per cent didn’t.
“It’s also about skills – creative skills, problem solving, team-working – the skills that employers, that British business, needs.”
Following on from Mrs May’s widely expressed desire to improve social mobility, since she became prime minister in July, Ms Greening told delegates technical education would be at the heart of a reformed system of learning that would break down social “barriers”.
“We are transforming our academic route, now we must do the same for technical education and skills,” she said.
“We need a world class education system that works for everyone… all of our young people.
“All of this has at its heart, a mission to make ours a country where we’ve removed the barriers.”
Ms Greening’s speech was her first at party conference since she was appointed education secretary on July 14 this year – and also the first since the Department of Education took over responsibility for FE and skills from the former Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.
A strike by Hull College staff has been set for next Thursday (October 13), after staff voted to walk-out over planned redundancies.
It comes after FE Week reported last week that former shadow attorney general and MP for Kingston upon Hull, Karl Turner, had renewed his war of words with the college bosses over the job losses on the eve of the ballot for industrial action on Friday (September 30).
Almost nine in ten UCU members (86 per cent) who voted backed strike action, while 96 per cent backed action short of a strike, with the walk-out now set for next week.
The dispute follows the college’s announcement that it would make around 70 redundancies and close its three nurseries before the end of the year.
UCU regional official, Julie Kelley, said: “Strike action is always a last resort, but after several years of redundancies, staff have said enough is enough.
“These plans are damaging for the college, staff and its students, as well as members of the local community who stand to lose out on vital learning opportunities.
“We hope to meet with college governors in the coming days. It remains possible that the college could avoid being hit by industrial action if it is willing to engage positively with UCU to find an alternative to the current plans. The ball is now in the employer’s court.”
Mr Turner told FE Week the college’s actions would “hit students the hardest”.
He previously joined college workers on strike in May, supporting their dispute over pay and a controversial new lesson observation system.
He ended up calling for an investigation into the college’s chief executive Gary Warke, after he was allegedly sent a “threatening and derogatory” letter.
The MP uploaded a copy of the letter to his blog, in which Mr Warke allegedly wrote to “express my sincere disappointment that you chose to address striking UCU members without the courtesy of informing me”, adding: “We find your actions, two days before local elections, highly inappropriate and disrespectful to the Hull College Group.”
Speaking ahead of Friday’s ballot, Mr Turner told FE Week that “redundancies have become a yearly exercise at Hull College, which will not help staff morale”.
He said: “It is deplorable that many staff found out about redundancies during the summer holidays, reducing their ability to organise effectively, and have an input in the consultation period.”
In a statement issued today, the college said: “Hull College Group has been informed that members of UCU intend to join in industrial action at some of our sites on Thursday.
“This follows a vote by approximately 8 per cent of the Group’s workforce to participate in strike action as a result of the proposed restructuring programme.
“The proposed redundancy programme equates to approximately 70 full time equivalent posts, around 32 of which are in academic areas. This has been communicated to trade unions and staff as part of the on-going consultation.
“The group is also in the process of recruiting up to 45 potential new jobs through the delivery of commissioned areas of work as part of our highly successful HCUK Training commercial arm. We received confirmation this week that it has successfully secured the Humber Skills Support for the Workforce and Redundancy contract valued at £6m.
“The group continues to meet with the UCU to resolve the dispute and all campuses will remain open as normal on October 13.”
