Justine Greening is the new secretary of state for education, replacing Nicky Morgan who has served in the role for two years.
Ms Greening (pictured) was tipped for the role by several news outlets after prime minister Theresa May was said to be seeking more women for top cabinet positions.
She moves to the role from the Department for International Development, where she has been secretary of state for nearly four years. Prior to that she was transport secretary for one year.
Ms Greening is the first education secretary to attend a comprehensive secondary school, Oakwood Comprehensive School in Rotherham, currently rated as good by Ofsted. David Blunkett, education secretary from 1998 to 2001, attended an all-ability school for the blind, categorised as a special needs school.
She studied economics at the University of Southampton and has an MBA from London School of Economics, according to the biography on her personal website.
In 2014, during an interview with The Spectator, Ms Greening talked at length about the importance of social mobility, referring to her father’s unemployment and her experience of “not starting in the best place”.
Adding: “The experience I had growing up, going to my local comprehensive, my family going through difficult times … it’s about understanding what it’s like to start from scratch”.
Her first job was in supermarket Morrisons; after university she trained as an accountant and worked for Price Waterhouse Coopers, GlaxoSmithKline and Centrica.
The majority of her comments in parliaments regarding schools have been about international schools, where she supported the development of low-cost private schools, but she has also talked about the need to make opportunities available for all young people in the UK.
She told the The Spectator: “My biggest concern is that we are ending up with a country where you have not one ladder to climb up but people are on different ladders. You might start at the bottom of a short ladder that will only get you so high. What we need to recreate is one ladder that everyone can climb up”.
We were delighted to host the inaugural Festival of Skills at Capel Manor College over two sunny days in July.
This new event is a sister to The Telegraph Festival of Education which in its seventh year attracted over 5,000 festival-goers to Wellington College in June.
Our ambition over the coming years is to nurture the Festival of Skills to the magnitude of the Festival of Education and we think you will agree this souvenir supplement shows a fantastic launch to achieve that ambition.
The Festival of Skills was an inspiring CPD extravaganza bringing together the best of the sector’s most forward thinking advocates, practitioners of change, policy makers and educators.
Without the support of all of our sponsors and exhibitors, the festival would be a less rich and rewarding experience. The festival is a huge team effort and we couldn’t produce it without our fabulous team both at Summerhouse Events, City and Guilds, The Education and Training Foundation and Capel Manor College who’ve worked tirelessly throughout the year to make the event the very best it can be.
City and Guilds, The Education and Training Foundation and the Society for Education and Training, provided some of the very best-in-class workshop sessions and it is this rich diversity of content that will become the hallmark of the Festival of Skills.
Thank you to everyone that supported us during the festival’s first year. Tell us what you think; what we did well, what we could do better, what new topics you’d like to see on the agenda for 2017, and of course tell us if you want to speak next year. Please do engage with us via Twitter (@skillsfest) and email (festival@feweek.co.uk).
Nicky Morgan has expressed her disappointment after being sacked from the Department for Education after two years as its secretary of state.
She confirmed her departure on Twitter this morning.
Ms Morgan tweeted: “Disappointed not to be continuing as Education Secretary & Min for Women & Equalities – two wonderful roles it’s been a privilege to hold.”
The former lawyer was initially tipped as “Gove-light”, a bridge-builder, and someone to pacify the teaching profession following alienation by her predecessor.
Since then, Morgan, who has represented the Loughborough constituency since 2010, has presided over significant changes to curriculum, assessment and school structures, many of which were set in motion during Michael Gove’s time in office.
Morgan leaves her role with a slightly improved relationship with the teaching unions.
In April, she was the first Conservative education secretary to address the NASUWT’s annual conference since 1997, but used her platform to accuse critics of government policy of talking down the profession.
She was also heckled by school leaders at the NAHT headteachers’ conference in Birmingham in May, after telling teachers to “step up” and help the government with reforms otherwise young people would be left behind.
However, she has sometimes been praised by union leaders particularly for her attempts to tackle funding inequalities in schools and develop a national funding formula – a policy which now hangs in the balance.
In time, it is likely her biggest legacy will be the expansion of academies under tenure. Although its key architect was Gove, it continued increasing during her time at the department, and she oversaw the introduction of eight regional schools commissioners designed to further speed up the process.
As she leaves office, almost 65 per cent of secondary schools are academies, and the proportion of primaries with academy status has almost doubled since 2014 – from 10.7 per cent to just shy of 20 per cent.
But Morgan’s recent ill-judged proposal to force every school in England to become an academy by 2022 may be her enduring legacy.
The policy was so unpopular it risked mutiny among Conservative MPs after council after council registered their objection.
The move was swiftly shelved, and although new plans to target schools in “underperforming” or “financially unviable” council areas will probably bring about the same endgame, Morgan’s embarrassing and public u-turn – made the day after the local elections – is what much of the public will remember most vividly.
Beyond the schools community, Morgan has also felt the vitriol of parents after presiding over chaotic primary school tests, which were said to leave pupils in tears, and after continued enforcement of fines for families who remove their children form school in term time for holidays.
It is now unclear what Morgan’s next challenge will be, but for now she appears to be returning to the back benches with Gove and the likes of David Cameron and George Osborne.
FE Week understands that a long-awaited update to the apprenticeship levy guidance was due to be released tomorrow morning (July 14).
However, skills minister Nick Boles resigned this afternoon, which makes it likely the government will delay any policy announcement before appointing and briefing a replacement.
Mr Boles announced at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers annual conference in June that there would be a “little delay” to the anticipated additional detail about the reforms, which was expected within the month.
He put the extended wait down to the British public’s decision to leave the European Union – but told delegates that the information could be expected before the summer recess.
The government had said in April that the additional guidance would cover on a number of critical areas, including provisional funding bands, which will set the maximum amount of funding that is available for each apprenticeship, and the provisional level of government support available towards the cost of apprenticeship training if you aren’t a levy paying employer.
Other expected details include the provisional level of the extra payment you can get for hiring 16- to 18-year old apprentices, and the provisional amount that will be paid to deliver English and maths training for apprentices who need it.
The sector is also waiting for the specifics of the eligibility rules that set who you are able to spend apprenticeship funding on and where.
Finally, the latest announcement should bring more information on who can provide apprenticeship training and how to set up an organisation to deliver apprenticeship training.
Mr Boles said this afternoon in a post on his Facebook page: “As David Cameron prepares to visit HM the Queen and tender his resignation I want to add my voice to those praising his remarkable service as Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party.
“It was a huge privilege to be part of his Government.
“I want to thank him for offering me the opportunity to serve my country.
“I believe that this is the right time for me to return to the back benches.
“I have greatly enjoyed my time as minister for skills and minister for planning.”
When asked this afternoon about the overdue levy guidance, a spokesperson from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills told FE Week: “There has been no update on the timings for when it will go out.”
Nick Boles MP has resigned from his role as skills minister.
In a post on his Facebook page, posted at 3.40pm today, Mr Boles said that it was the “right time for me to return to the back benches”.
His resignation, which he confirmed on Twitter, comes almost exactly two years to the day that he was first appointed to the role.
His Facebook statement said: “As David Cameron prepares to visit HM the Queen and tender his resignation I want to add my voice to those praising his remarkable service as Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party.
“It was a huge privilege to be part of his government.
“I want to thank him for offering me the opportunity to serve my country.
“I believe that this is the right time for me to return to the backbenches.
“I have greatly enjoyed my time as minister for skills and minister for planning.”
Mr Boles said two skills-related achievements were among the things he was most proud of from his time in office.
One, he explained, was the “introduction of the apprenticeship levy which will encourage more employers to offer apprenticeships and increase spending on apprenticeship training by £1 billion a year by 2020”.
The other, he added, was the “development of the government’s Skills Plan which heralds a transformation in the status and quality of technical education in England”.
In the past six months Mr Boles has repeatedly refused interviews with FE Week (see table below). In fact, his lack of engagement with the media over FE and skills reforms, particularly apprenticeships, proved to be very frustrating for us and our readers.
Despite the lack of engagement in recent months, Mr Boles has featured regularly in FE Week during his time as skills minister, often in cartoons. Here’s a selection of our favourites:
Edition 132 – On taking over from Matthew Hancock as skills minister, Nick Boles relaxed the rules set by his predecessor that limited new apprenticeship guidelines to two sides of A4. The official government guidance for employers developing Trailblazer apprenticeship standards, published in October 2014, stated that they “should be short and clear, taking up no more than two sides of A4”.Edition 138 – In May last year, Nick Boles was praised by FE sector leaders for his first stint as Skills Minister. Association of Colleges (AoC) chief executive Martin Doel said at the time that Mr Boles had “quickly grasped the importance of FE and training, particularly apprenticeships”.Edition 158 – In December 2015, Government adviser Nigel Whitehead warned the Trailblazer apprenticeship process was “out of control” and national occupational standards (NOS) were in “danger” of being bypassed. Mr Whitehead said he had raised his concerns with Mr Boles, who acknowledged there was “some work to do”.Edition 162 – At the end of January, the National Union of Students launched its #FEunplugged campaign, to force the government to recognise the impact that post-16 area reviews are having on learners. Shakira Martin, NUS vice president for FE, told FE Week that “it’s not news to say area reviews are the product of funding cuts, but there’s definitely a story in the way the FE sector’s very own Dr Frankenstein, [Skills Minister] Nick Boles, is cutting up the sector [through the area reviews] and trying to sew it back together – badly”.Edition 166 – In March, FE Week reported that Lewisham Southwark College had approached Newcastle College Group (NCG) in the autumn of 2015 with a view to “closer working”, despite the providers being based almost 300 miles away from each other. The move came ahead of the first meeting of the London (central) area review, which LSC is part of, scheduled for March 17.Edition 169 – In March, the Treasury published a budget report, revealing government plans for a 10 per cent top-up to large businesses’’ monthly apprenticeship levy contributions. However, the Confederation of British Industry director for employment and skills, Neil Carberry, warned: “Extra investment for apprenticeships will only help the small minority for firms who will be able to spend their whole levy.”Edition 173 – An FE Week parliamentary debate in May heard speakers protest that the apprenticeship levy was drawn up in “a darkened room”, leading FE organisations to feel they were left “outside the tent” during the drafting process. At the event, which was hosted by shadow skills minister Gordon Marsden and sponsored by OCR, Gemma Gathercole, head of policy at OCR, insisted that examining bodies had been shut out of the reforms.Edition 176 – On June 4, FE Week reported that Citroën UK had become the second employer branded ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted under the common inspector framework. This raised questions about the government’s move to encourage more employers to run their own training, with the average Ofsted rating across all eight employer-providers inspected since September months being just three.Edition 180 – At the end of June, the skills minister, along with secretary of state for education Nicky Morgan, and schools minister Nick Gibb, all backed Michael Gove’s now-abandoned bid to become the next Prime Minister. The apparent decision by Nick Boles to support former education secretary Gove in the Conservative Party leadership race came after he defected from the campaign of Boris Johnson, who announced he was out of the running on June 30.
As broken by FE Week this afternoon — Nick Boles has quit as skills minister, so we’ve gathered immediate reaction from sector leaders.
Martin Doel, chief executive of the Association of Colleges (AoC), said: “Mr Boles has set an ambitious agenda and, though he did not redress the cuts in funding over the preceding five years, the spending settlement and the inception of an apprenticeship levy, offered the prospect of adequate resources to fulfil the ambitious agenda.
Martin Doel
“It’s a pity he has not been able to see the changes through; the last thing that colleges now need is yet another abrupt change of direction from a new minister or a renewed attack on their funding.”
He added: “Mr Boles recognised the importance of high-quality technical and professional education and training, particularly apprenticeships.
“During his time in office he has initiated a wide-ranging programme of change in colleges through the apprenticeship reform, area based reviews and the Sainsbury panel report.
“He also secured a more favourable spending settlement than most expected in the last Spending Review.”
Mark Dawe, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP), told FE Week: “Nick Boles proved to be a real listener when it came to taking forward the apprenticeship funding reforms that he inherited.
“He understood that smaller businesses had to stay engaged in the programme and we hope that the next set of levy announcements will confirm this.
“Training providers also welcomed his strong backing for traineeships.
“As a reformer, AELP hopes that he will retain an interest in FE and skills from the backbenches.
“We appreciate everything he has done when government finances elsewhere have been so tight.”
Ann Limb
Dr Ann Limb OBE, chair of the South East Midlands Local Enterprise Partnership, said: “I hope his replacement keeps the foot on the pedal on reform of FE, in particular with regard to the introduction of the apprenticeship levy and keeping the local devolution agenda for skills alive.
“We actually now need someone who is going to take Mr Boles’ work further and work closely with the Department for Education to ensure that all of post-16 education is reformed.”
Current Learning and Work Institute chief executive David Hughes, who will take charge of the Association of Colleges from September, said: “I am not surprised given who he was supporting in the leadership race [he backed Theresa May rival Michael Gove for Prime Minister], but I am a bit sad because whenever a minister you get on with leaves you feel like you have lost an ally.
“I think he always tried to make a fair judgement after considering the evidence, and made some good calls.
“The best of those for me was the decision to retain, back and invest in functional skills.”
David Hughes
Looking ahead to his as yet unconfirmed successor, Bill Watkin, chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges Association, said: “With sixth form colleges addressing area reviews and the implications of academisation, it’s very important that ministerial changes do not add to the difficulties with which colleges are wrestling, and it’s our hope that the incoming minister will recognise the vital contribution that SFCs make.”
Janet Clark, Association of Teachers and Lecturers post-16 policy specialist, told FE Week: “We would like Nick Boles’ successor to introduce adequate funding for the FE sector which has been cut severely over the last six years and concentrate on the quality of apprenticeships rather than the 3m target the government has set.
“A rethink on area reviews, which are causing chaos would also be appreciated.”
Malcolm Trobe, interim general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “He was effectively campaign manager for Michael Gove, so it’s not surprising he has made this decision.
“It will be interesting to see the approach which is taken by an incoming minister, because it’s a difficult time for apprenticeships and the large target, and the levy, with following those policies through. Whoever comes in will have to be able to hit the ground running.”
Unison head of education Jon Richards commented: “Skills minister Nick Boles was working on issues like area reviews and apprentices, both of which were giving huge headaches to employers and staff in further education.
“In the interests of everyone in the sector, we hope that whoever replaces him takes a deep breath, pauses and then puts the brakes on several of the policies he was pursuing so enthusiastically. The new minister must look seriously at what is possible given the limited resources and time available.”
A spokesperson for the University and College Union said: “We are living through a turbulent time in politics at the moment and the FE sector will not be alone in hoping for some stability.
“With serious questions surrounding the implementation of the skills plan, apprenticeship levy and area reviews we hope a new minister will be appointed swiftly.
“We hope the new minister will listen to the sector and engage with us in developing a coherent workforce strategy.”
Please leave your comments below, expressing your views on Mr Boles’ time in office and who you think his successor will be.
Thirty of West Nottinghamshire College’s top apprentices have been honoured in a special event at the House of Lords today.
The worthy winners, chosen from among the college’s 13,000 apprentices, each received an award in the fifth annual West Nottinghamshire College Celebration of Apprentices.
The event, held at Westminster overlooking the River Thames, was intended to recognise and celebrate the apprentices’ achievements.
For the first time, employers of apprentices were also included in the honours for their commitment to apprenticeships.
West Nottinghamshire College principal Dame Asha Khemka told FE Week that the celebration was intended to “showcase what people achieve”.
She said: “I felt that by bringing apprentices, their employers, their parents to the House of Lords it’s raising the status – it’s almost putting apprenticeships on the map.”
In doing so, it sent out the message “that you are important, your achievements are significant, and let’s celebrate in style in a place where we all want to be,” she added.
West Nottinghamshire College is one of the largest apprenticeship providers in the country, with a Skills Funding Agency allocation of more than £5m for 16 to 18 apprenticeships in 2015/16.
Dame Asha said the college had “embraced” the apprenticeship agenda in order to “give people the opportunity to achieve their best”.
Apprenticeships, she said, give people “that exposure, that opportunity, to ready for the world of work”.
Among those who received an award today was 61-year-old Carol Hall, who works for Bluesky Care and completed a Level three apprenticeship in health and social care.
She said doing her apprenticeship was “daunting when I first started” particularly as it involved English and maths – which she said it had been a “long time” since she’d studied.
But with support she was able to complete the “whole level 3 in 11 months not two years”.
She added: “It’s not only been something I’ve enjoyed to do, it’s given me the computer skills to do it all on the computer rather than doing it all by hand.”
Jonathon Miller, 28, who works for DB Cargo and completed a level two apprenticeship in rail services shunting, said it was a “great achievement” to be at today’s celebration.
“To beat 13,000 people is a good feeling,” he added.
Andrew Burbidge said he chose his level three apprenticeship in IT, software, web and telecoms, because “it offers everything”.
The 25-year-old, who works for PKF Cooper Parry, said: “For me, you choose an apprenticeship because of the career, it’s the industry you want to be in, and that’s pretty much what persuaded me.”
Other speakers at the event included the Confederation of British Industry director general Carolyn Fairbairn, who spoke about the importance of apprentices to business.
She said: “The businesses I speak to really get it. They know that hiring an apprentice is not a cost – it’s an investment in their company’s future that they can’t afford not to make.”
A college has been hit with an ‘inadequate’ Ofsted rating in a report that raised grave questions about leadership and management, just a few weeks after its chair and vice-chair resigned without explanation.
FE Week reported on June 18 that Amersham and Wycombe College’s chair and vice-chair of governors, Jenese Joseph and Andrew Walker, had stepped down – but no explanation of their reasons for leaving was given.
Jenese Joseph
Ofsted published its latest report on the college today — which returned an ‘inadequate’-overall result, down from the ‘requires improve’ grade it received in December 2014.
The latest report rated Amersham and Wycombe as ‘requires improvement’ for quality of teaching, learning and assessment; personal development behaviour and welfare; outcomes for learners; 16 to 19 study programmes; adult learning programmes; and apprenticeships.
But it was a grade four in effectiveness of leadership and management that dragged the result down to ‘inadequate’ overall.
The Ofsted report asserted that the college’s “governance is not fit for purpose”.
It said that in order to improve, it needs “a new governing body”, which can then “establish a stable senior leadership team that steers the college towards its next steps”.
It added “tensions between governors and college leaders” had “led to a long period of unstable leadership”.
In addition, leaders and managers were said to have been “slow to review the appropriateness of the curriculum for adult learners”, and Ofsted requested that the college “evaluate rigorously” the curriculum to “ensure provision meets local demand from employers and the community”.
On top of these failures, the college was said to be “in significant financial difficulties”, with frequent instances of “poor financial management and unwise spending of public funds”.
Ofsted recommended that Amersham and Wycombe improved the quality of teaching, learning and assessment by “ensuring all managers, staff and learners have consistently high expectations of learners’ attendance, punctuality and attitudes to learning”.
It also advised “reviewing quality assurance arrangements” so they are “less cumbersome and focused more on helping teachers to reflect on and improve their practice”.
The report proposed that teachers need to “use a variety of assessment techniques more purposefully” to ensure learners and apprentices “are clear about their current progress”.
In spite of this criticism, Amersham and Wycombe received a ‘good’ grade for its provision for learners with high needs.
Teachers and specialist staff were said to provide “very good personal support to learners, especially those at risk of not completing their courses and those with high needs”.
Other strengths were that the “current managers and staff have shown considerable resilience in the face of the turbulence that surrounds them”.
In sports, public services, and the creative industries there was also said to be “good practical skills development, high standards of work, and successful progression into higher education or employment”.
When invited to respond to the report, a college spokesperson said: “We have taken immediate action to appoint a new chair and vice chair of governors.
“We believe these appointments will be a positive step towards restoring the overall wellbeing and financial health of the college.
“We are working quickly towards solutions to answer the issues raised by Ofsted and our focus, as always, is on ensuring that we continue to provide education and training for current and future students.”
The government has agreed to implement all 14 recommendations from a taskforce commissioned to explore how access to apprenticeships can be improved for people with learning difficulties or disabilities (LDD).
The taskforce was jointly commissioned by skills minister Nick Boles and minister for the disabled Justin Tomlinson (both pictured above), and both of their departments are now working to put the suggestions into practice.
Chaired by Paul Maynard MP for Blackpool North and Cleveleys, the group included disability organisations, learning providers, employers, and senior officials from both the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
In response to their 14 recommendations, a BIS and DWP spokesperson said: “The Minister for Skills and the Minister for Disabled People have accepted all of the taskforce’s recommendations.
“Officials are now working to implement the recommendations, recognising that some will be more difficult to put into practice than others, and that all recommendations should be completed alongside existing priorities to ensure a cohesive result.”
The taskforce met three times to look at what barriers affect people with learning disabilities in accessing and completing an apprenticeship.
BIS and DWP confirmed that the first point to be implemented will be updating the Access to Work eligibility letter, which disabled people should take to their employer or a job interview if they think they can get help from the government’s Access to Work scheme.
The idea will be to better “sell the support available” for such apprentices.
This will be followed by work on a joint communications strategy to encourage employers and providers to take them on.
The next recommendations to receive attention will be using the existing Disability Confident campaign “to encourage employers to drive demand and increase supply”, and consider “the use of technology to support user-led strategies for apprentices with LDD”.
BIS and DWP will be expected to “lead by example” with their own apprenticeship programmes, and “encourage wider civil service and public sector commitment to [these] apprenticeships”.
They will also “investigate and raise awareness around non-traditional recruitment practices”, the report said, such as working interviews, where an applicant demonstrates their job skills, or electronic portfolios to display their achievements.
Three of the taskforce recommendations focused on English and maths, and these will be worked on over the summer.
They involve adjusting the minimum standards and methods of assessment for English and maths for LDD apprentices, and ensuring support available is “understood and consistently applied by providers”.
In the autumn, the government will turn to ensuring that the right information is gathered about severe, mild or moderate learning difficulties for Individualised Learner Records.
BIS will also revisit recommendations from the 2012 Little report on ‘Creating an Inclusive Apprenticeship Offer’.
Both departments will further consider “what good [performance of apprentices] looks like” for specific impairment groups and age brackets, and “set appropriate targets for increasing the number of apprentices with LDD”.
From April 2017, after a new funding model has been developed, a pilot will be conducted to explore how this could work most effectively alongside the apprenticeship levy to “incentivise employers to recruit apprentices with learning disabilities”.
Sue Pember, director of policy for adult and community learning provider membership body Holex, which supported the taskforce, told FE Week that she “welcomes these recommendations and hopes that they are fully implemented and feature in the apprenticeship plan”.
