Age UK tumbles to inadequate Ofsted rating

Major charity and training provider Age UK has tumbled from a ‘good’ to ‘inadequate’ Ofsted rating.

The report out today rated Age UK as inadequate for effectiveness of leadership and management, quality of teaching, learning and assessment, outcomes for learners, adult learning programmes, apprenticeships, and traineeships.

The inspection team also returned ‘requires improvement’ verdicts on personal development, behaviour and welfare, and 16 to 19 study programmes.

The report said that “trustees do not hold senior managers sufficiently to account for the deterioration of learners’ outcomes and the inadequate quality of provision” and “trainers fail to motivate and challenge learners”.

It added that senior leaders and managers had “systematically failed to address the areas for improvement” highlighted in its previous ‘good’ across the board Oftsed report published in February 2013.

That report had recommended, for example, that Age UK should quickly identify “learners at risk of leaving early and take corrective actions to help them achieve their qualification” and “ensure that staff make better use of initial assessment to plan learning”.

The report out today was damning of apprenticeship training.

“Too many apprentices make slow progress and fail to achieve their qualifications. Learners’ performance has significantly declined since the last inspection,” it said.

The report also pointed out that more than a quarter of all learners fail to attend classes

“Too many learners do not demonstrate the employability skills that they are developing when they attend sessions at Age UK,” it added.

Of the approximately 3,500 learners with the provider, approximately 2,300 are on apprenticeships, 100 are on traineeships, 613 are full-time learners on the 16–19 study programme, and 480 are adult learners, mainly on part-time employability programmes, according to the report.

It warned that “staff do not develop learners’ English and mathematical skills effectively across all programmes of study”.

However, it identified “good pastoral support” as a strength with Age UK’s provision.

“Learners have good access to warm and welcoming learning centres complemented by a good range of training resources,” it said. “Age UK is consistently good at supporting some extremely vulnerable learners who have significant difficulties with learning, for example, care leavers, young parents, and adults with identified mental health difficulties.”

The report added that in order to improve “trainers should improve progress reviews for apprentices, and challenge individual learners to make better progress through the use of specific learning targets, which are reviewed carefully and regularly”.

It also, for example, called for managers to implement “effective strategies” to improve teaching, learning and assessment, by challenging all staff to develop their skills, and “creating a more professional approach to the observation of teaching, learning and assessment”.

Managers should also, the report said, take “decisive action” to improve the teaching of functional skills in English and mathematics to apprentices.

A spokesperson for Age UK said: “We are very disappointed with the results of the Ofsted inspection which took place in November 2015.

“We have immediately taken the decision to review our processes and put an action plan in place to ensure our processes are scrutinised effectively. We are now working extremely hard to make improvements and address the concerns raised by inspectors.

“Our priority is to make sure that our training activities deliver the highest standards. Age UK’s trustees and directors will closely supervise the actions and performance of Age UK Training to ensure that standards improve quickly and that this improvement is sustained.”

Full throttle with super Foggie

World superbike legend Carl Fogarty sped full throttle into Blackpool and the Fylde College last month to take a behind-the-scenes look at its new Advanced Technology Centre (ATC).

The most successful World Superbike racer of all time treated spectators to a lap of the college car park on his Triumph motorcycle before taking a Porsche 911 for a spin on the facility’s dynamometer equipment, clocking a top speed of 202mph.

Carl Fogarty with his Triumph motorcycle at the college
Carl Fogarty with his Triumph motorcycle at the college

He also held a question and answer session with more than 100 local schoolchildren interested in engineering and science who had been invited to see the facilities for themselves.

Mr Fogarty said: “I’ve seen a few of these technology centres over the past ten years and this is by far the biggest and best, it really is impressive. When I was at college back in the early 80s there was nothing like this. There’s more incentive for kids to learn more when they have such great facilities.”

The ATC includes advanced engineering workshops with industry-level technology and a project zone for pneumatics, robotics and electronics.

Pic: Carl Fogarty visits Blackpool and the Fylde College learners

College resorts to £700k loan from local council

A college has turned to its county council for a £700,000 loan to help address a “need for short-term cashflow support”.

A Carlisle College spokesperson told FE Week on Tuesday (January 5) that the loan from Cumbria County Council would be repaid “in May 2016”.

The announcement prompted general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders Brian Lightman to say that he was “not surprised” colleges were having to turn to alternative sources of finance, bearing in mind the precarious financial situation for the sector.

“All FE colleges are under immense financial pressure at the moment,” he added.

When asked by FE Week why Carlisle College did not ask the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) for a loan, which a number of colleges have done to tide over their finances, he said it had “followed Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) guidance published in October 2015.

“It states that ‘exceptional financial support (EFS) will only be considered when it is clear that the college, following full consideration by its Governing body, has exhausted all other options’.

“The college, having identified a need for short-term cashflow support and in line with the guidance approached an alternative lender, in this case the County Council, for consideration of such support on a commercial basis. The college kept the SFA informed of its actions.”

He added that the college’s financial health remained “satisfactory”.

“The loan fulfils a cash flow requirement until May 2016, given that the revenue funding payment profile restricts the cash paid to colleges between January and March then makes it up between April and June,” he said.

It comes after college’s principal, Moira Tattersall, reportedly told the Cumbria-based News and Star: “Normally in a situation like this we’d would just go and get an overdraft, but banks are nervous nationally because there is a lot of uncertainty in the sector at the moment.”

“This is also happening elsewhere in the country and other colleges are being encouraged to go to their local authorities and ask for loans.”

Cumbria County Council declined to comment to FE Week on the loan.

However, draft minutes from its cabinet meeting on December 18 showed the council agreed to provide a “short term secured loan at commercial rates” in response to the college’s request for financial support.

A spokesperson for the Local Government Association said it did not collate data on the number of councils that have given loans to colleges.

A spokesperson for the SFA said it was unable to comment on specifically on the council loan to Carlisle College.

However, she added: “We work with colleges to seek assurance, that as independent institutions they are taking responsibility for their own financial health and developing robust recovery plans.”

The Association of Colleges declined to comment.

Positive message from new principal of ‘inadequate’ college

The new interim principal of troubled City College Coventry said lessons would be learned from its second inadequate Ofsted rating in less than three years — but insisted it didn’t “feel or look like a failing college”.

Dr Elaine McMahon was drafted in from January 4 as an interim replacement for Steve Logan, who had spent just 18 months as principal. He arrived just as the college was graded as ‘requires improvement’ — having received a disastrous grade four result the previous year that resulted in the departure of the then-principal Paul Taylor.

John Hogg was subsequently appointed interim principal to turn around college fortunes in July 2013, and Dr McMahon (pictured) now faces the same task.

Dr-Elaine-McMahon

She faces ‘inadequate’ ratings for effectiveness of leadership and management, quality of teaching, learning and assessment, personal development, behaviour and welfare, outcomes for learners, 16 to 19 study programmes, and apprenticeships.

The report on the college, which was allocated £4.8m by the Skills Funding Agency for 2015/16 as of August, said that “much teaching is inadequate, too few learners complete their qualification successfully and too few current learners make good progress in their learning”, although it recognised that the leadership team had “secured successfully college finances”.

But Dr McMahon told FE Week: “When I walked in my first impression was that this doesn’t feel or look like a failing college.”

However, she added: “We acknowledge the findings of the Ofsted report and will most certainly learn from it. To do so, we’ll need to work hard to help ourselves, but there are many reasons to be optimistic.”

Such optimism will come in the face of inspectors’ comments that “performance management of managers and staff is weak and has not raised the quality of provision to good across much of the college’s work.”

They added: “Managers continue to overgrade the quality of teaching, learning and assessment, and do not use a wide enough range of measures to judge fully and reliably the quality of learning”.

Dr McMahon, who introduced herself to students in the college’s main foyer at 8:30am on Wednesday (January 6) and had spent the previous two days meeting with staff, said: “Importantly, our courses match the needs of local business in a city that is seeing high levels of investment and growth.

“Our facilities can support excellent learning and I‘ve already met many staff who are experts in their fields and passionate about student outcomes. These are the people who can lead the changes we need to see and I look forward to working with them in the coming months.”

Dr McMahon led Hull College for nearly nine years until early 2013, during which time it received an ‘outstanding’ rating by Ofsted. She subsequently had stints as interim principal at Harlow College, Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College and Edinburgh College.

Loss of UKCES standards proves an occupational hazard

Reforms to apprenticeships could be leaving behind the lessons learned by the UKCES in the development of NOS, government adviser Nigel Whitehead warned in the last edition of FE Week. Simon Perryman picks up on the issue.

As we enter 2016, I remain an optimist for the UK skills system. Much of what we do is excellent, the budget settlement wasn’t as dreadful as some had predicted, the idea of a new style levy will certainly energise apprenticeship uptake and the area-based review process, together with greater devolution, is a sensible policy response in a challenging world.

Other countries look to the UK as an exemplar of effective and pragmatic employer engagement. They admire our labour market information (LMI), copy our occupational standards and competence-based approach to vocational education and try, but rarely have the courage to develop, employer-owned institutions like the UKCES and sector skills councils (SSCs). In particular, they envy our apprenticeships as the glue that binds employers and education together to support the proper introduction of young people into the world of work. They admire our system for its pragmatism and adaptability.

The Government was right that apprenticeships and standards needed to be adapted and refreshed. The challenge as ever will be whether we can effectively execute this raft of new policy. It worries me when I hear Nigel Whitehead from BAE Systems and a UKCES Commissioner, raising concerns on a public platform about occupational standards.

It is particularly disappointing that the Government in England seems to place so little value on NOS, when internationally they are held in the highest regard along with the rest of our competence-based approach to technical and vocational education.
Trailblazer work has added new energy to the standards debate and has been effective at engaging employers. Managed sensibly, Trailblazer standards can provide a valuable ‘front end’ to NOS, testing their relevance and enhancing their value. But, it seems curious that the Government continues to deny the importance of having UK-wide standards and fails to acknowledge the importance of SSCs in doing the ‘leg work’ of turning Trailblazer standards into apprenticeships that can be assessed.

Might it also have been better if we had started with a ‘road map’ of the occupations that needed to be covered rather than the ‘making-it-up-as-we-go-along’ approach to policy making that has led to proliferation and has been so frustrating for employers?
Shouldn’t we now be actively supporting SSCs in reaching out to their employers to co-ordinate Trailblazer work and its integration with NOS to retain our UK-wide system and make sure the new apprenticeships are ready for 2017?

Then there is the wider issue of delivering apprenticeships effectively. Is the Skills Funding Agency capable of delivering the new online Digital Apprenticeship Service? Its track record on IT and data collection hardly gives room for confidence.

Are colleges going to be able to step up quickly enough to take on the challenge of direct delivery. We are ready at Barnsley, with one of the best apprenticeship records in the country, but it would be good to have levy policy nailed down so we know what we are aiming at.

Just who is going to supply the energy to bring the new apprenticeship and levy system to life without totally confusing the business community? I hope Government creates an Institute for Apprenticeships that has employer leadership, the vision, the LMI and the partnership skills to continue to build a quality apprenticeship system for the UK. A system based on UK-wide consensus over a set of coherent occupational pathways, incorporating the best of Trailblazer standards and NOS for each part of the economy, supported by effective local brokerage to help bring education and business together.

I do remain optimistic for skills in the UK, but there is much we need to do together in 2016 to turn policy intent into practical reality if we want to continue to have an apprenticeship system that delivers quality as well as volume.

Framework for a ‘turbulent’ year ahead

Having spent the last four weeks in the Americas, primarily the Caribbean and Brazil, it was interesting to compare the impact of vocational education on the growth of their economies.

What struck me as interesting was developing countries, including China, India and most of South America, don’t have the hang-ups we have in the UK, and also the USA, between vocational and academic learning.

Despite overwhelming evidence we learn more at the workplace than school, college and university put together, when it comes to developing skills policy this seems to be forgotten and academia rules, unless of course you need a plumber, hairdresser or carer for your own mum.

This looks like being another turbulent year for apprenticeship providers with so many unanswered questions about Trailblazers, end assessments and the levy.

The timetable for moving from Specification of Apprenticeship Standards for England (SASE) frameworks to Trailblazer standards seems to have stalled, delayed or even been abandoned. The minister has told some employers they can retain their framework if they want to.

All participating employers knew what a SASE framework entailed, whereas each Trailblazer standard is unique with very different delivery and content requirements.

So employers who operate over several skill areas, even if their main occupation is ,say, manufacturing, will have clerical, or warehousing, or sales, or accounts, or maintenance apprentices all undertaking a very different type of apprenticeship not just with different vocational skills, but different delivery, assessment and end-testing requirements.

This will create difficulties for providers who operate over several sectors and for Ofsted inspectors to understand the vagaries of each standard. At least there now seems to be a glimmer of hope for standardisation with the realisation, led by Nigel Whitehead, that the National Occupational Standards (NOS) should still have a role. The NOS are the only common language we have to define vocational skills across all sectors.

There now seems to be a glimmer of hope for standardisation

Ironically, Trailblazer standards do not require formal qualifications, unless employers’ want them, resulting in the demise of awarding organisations (AOs) from apprenticeships.

However with the complex end assessment testing being devised by the various employer groups, AOs see themselves as the only party in town to undertake this, and in the hospitality sector have secured the monopoly.

End-testing with exams, interviews, projects, practical skills tests, etc, are estimated to cost on average a third of the total apprenticeship funding. So one of the unintended consequences of the Hancock/Richard reforms is AOs, instead of earning less than £100 per apprentice, will now be earning thousands. All this, without any pilots or cost analysis as to whether this will actually improve apprenticeship quality and provide better results than the current system, or any ‘value for money’ evaluation.

Without formal qualifications in place, there will be no government regulator to oversee the AOs’ role in end-testing, at least until the first scandal.

This calendar year will be full of changes for providers, nearly all of them of government’s making, to be ready for the levy in 15 months’ time and Trailblazer standards — if and when frameworks are withdrawn.

For leaders in the sector it will require some second-guessing and smart moves to keep ahead of the game when so many policy decisions, especially regarding the levy and small and medium-sized enterprise contributions have to be made. At the same time we have to ensure our staff are prepared for the changes, our clients informed and our learners motivated as we continue to grow to play our part in the 3m starts target.

Cynics might suggest the reason the levy was introduced was to allow apprenticeships to continue to be funded without Brussels monies, if the referendum takes us out of the EU.

Getting to a higher quality apprentice system

The quality of apprenticeships is an issue never far from the FE headlines. Nida Broughton outlines her view of the possible effect of reforms.

Apprenticeships are an important part of the Government’s productivity plan — a high quality apprenticeship system is seen as vital to help meet the need for new technical and professional skills over the coming years.

While the apprenticeship programme has grown substantially over the past decade, its shortcomings in terms of the quality of training provided have been well-documented. With a new funding system to be put in place, the big question for policymakers in 2016 is how to solve the quality problem.

Research by Professor Alison Wolf has highlighted the low and falling levels of spending over the past decade. By 2013-14, spending per apprenticeship start came to £2,500, down from around £3,000 in 2002-03 before taking into account inflation. In this situation, it is unsurprising that there has been so much concern about the quality of some apprenticeship programmes and the value of the skills that they provide.

With a target for 3m apprenticeship starts this Parliament, the funding question was an urgent one. The new apprenticeships levy promises to bring in the kind of cash that is needed to pay for higher quality schemes. According to the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement, the levy is expected to bring in £3bn a-year by 2019-20, allowing a cash terms doubling in spending compared to 2010-11.

Problem solved? Not yet. In fact, on quality, there is a danger of slipping into complacency. Just as important as how much funding is available is how that money is spent.

A restrictive approach that only looked at how apprenticeships are delivered, and not the results that they produce, would be unlikely to result in value for money

This is an important question because the problem with the last decade of apprenticeships wasn’t simply poor overall quality. Some types of apprenticeships were very good indeed, providing good quality training that improved career prospects. Research by the Social Market Foundation, and others, show that level three apprenticeships generally provide a greater boost to earnings than level two apprenticeships. And there are substantial differences by occupation and sector, as might be expected given the differing patterns of skill demand across the economy. One apprenticeship is quite definitely not just as good as another. We need to make sure that money is directed towards the areas that make the biggest difference to productivity and good employment opportunities.

Putting employers in charge has been a much trumpeted change under the new system. A new Institute of Apprenticeships, independent and led by employers, is to regulate the quality of apprenticeships. But how is it to deal with the fact that some employers’ apprenticeship programmes will be much better than those of others — both in terms of boosting productivity and improving the career prospects of those enrolled on them? How the new Institute’s remit is drafted and how the Institute chooses to meet its remit will make a big difference to the future success of the apprenticeships programme.

Quality can mean many different things. A limited interpretation could mean the Institute sets some baseline criteria to ensure all apprenticeships meet a required standard, for example, number of training days, programme length and types of qualification that are included. These sorts of requirements may be relatively easy to set and monitor, but such a restrictive approach that only looked at how apprenticeships are delivered, and not the results that they produce, would be unlikely to result in value for money.

A more difficult approach, but one that is vital, is to build in greater rewards and funding for training that genuinely contributes to improved productivity and wage growth. Encouraging progression from level two to level three apprenticeships would be a positive step. Capturing information on how well former apprentices from different programmes go on to do, and publishing that data to help both prospective apprentices and the Institute to decide how funding can best be used would be even better.
It would be a great shame now, if having found a way to make the funds available, we do not invest them wisely in training that will make a genuine contribution to improving skills, pay and productivity.

Ramadan set to affect exam dates

Summer exams will be affected by the timing of Ramadan for the next four years, with GCSE re-sits compounding the issue for colleges, a senior exams officer has warned.

Andrew Harland, chief executive of the Exam Officers’ Association (pictured above), said the summer exam period was expected to clash every year between now and 2019 with the Muslim period of fasting, prayer, and charitable giving.

Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, and falls at a different time on the Gregorian calendar each year.

This year, it falls between June 6 and July 5, which is traditionally when many of the summer GCSE, A-level and vocational exams take place in colleges in England.

Mr Harland said that the length of the Islamic calendar meant Ramadan would fall in May or June in 2017, 2018 and 2019 as well as this year, but added that changes as a result of religious or other events were not uncommon.

He added that the sharp increase in the number of pupils re-taking GCSEs as part of new study programmes which require post-16 study of maths and English for those who fail to achieve a C grade in year 11, would create a particular problem for colleges.

He said: “With the retakes there are going to be thousands and thousands more pupils taking exams, which will be an issue for FE colleges.”

Mr Harland said a recent change in the way GCSE exams are sat would also have an impact.

He said: “The reason why these things are perhaps more critical now is because under the linear system all exams now happen in the summer.”

Under the previous modular system pupils could re-take modules in November.

The Joint Council for Qualifications has announced changes to timetables to bring forward some tests in subjects taken by large numbers of pupils such as English, maths and science, so they do not coincide with Ramadan.

But timetables released by AQA, Edexcel and OCR show a significant number of exams in those subjects are still scheduled to take place in June.

The Association of School and College Leaders has planned to meet Muslim leaders to discuss plans and issue guidance to colleges.

Malcolm Trobe, the organisation’s deputy general secretary, said the guidance would be non-prescriptive and would not “advise families or students on how they should address the question of fasting during Ramadan”.

It comes after children’s commissioner Anne Longfield told the Education Select Committee on Wednesday (January 6) that discussions were taking place around “delaying the exam timetable” this summer to fit with the Muslim tradition.

She had been pressed on the issue of how Muslims could be accommodated by Conservative MP for Fareham Suella Fernandes.

The Muslim Council of Britain was unable to comment as FE Week went to press.

Minister to visit centre proposed as new FE college

Skills minister Nick Boles has agreed to visit a Kent skills centre following an invitation from the local MP who proposed the site as a potential new FE college.

Mr Boles accepted an invitation to visit the Swale Skills Centre in response to a parliamentary question from Gordon Henderson, Conservative MP for Sittingbourne and Sheppey, on December 15.

Mr Henderson told Mr Boles in the House of Commons that “Sittingbourne is the largest town in Kent without its own FE college”.

He added: “However, we have a unique opportunity to change that. May I invite the Minister to visit the Swale Skills Centre in my constituency to learn about how, with the right help, it could easily and cheaply be extended into a small college?”

Mr Boles replied: “I would be delighted to visit my honourable friend’s constituency. We do not hear the opposition celebrating when new institutions open, including the Swale Skills Centre.”

Clayton Laker, head of the Swales Skills Centre, declined to comment on current funding arrangements for the centre.

A DfE spokesperson said: “Swale Skills Centre is funded by the EFA [Education Funding Agency], but as it is part of Sittingbourne Community College it’s funding allocation isn’t reported separately.”

Sittingbourne Community College was allocated £1.18m 16 to 19 funding for 2015/16 by the EFA as of October.

Other local FE providers include MidKent College’s Maidstone campus and Canterbury College, which are 14.6 miles and 16.6 miles from the skills centre respectively.

A Kent County Council spokesperson confirmed that the local authority had agreed to attend a meeting where the possibility of the centre becoming a general FE college could be discussed.

When questioned on the visit, a Department for Business, Innovation and Skills spokesperson told FE Week that full details of the visit “have not yet been confirmed”.

She added: “The Kent area review is scheduled to commence in November and will consider how the current post-16 institutions can best meet the needs of learners and employers in the local area.

“It will include a consideration of the location of institutions, the curriculum they offer and the travel to learn patterns for students in the Sittingbourne area.”

Mr Boles visited Essex in August 2014 to mark the “milestone” transformation of Prospects Learning Foundation in to the first new FE college in more than 20 years.

Former Skills Minister Matthew Hancock had confirmed five months earlier that Basildon-based charity Prospects Learning Foundation was to become an FE college. The move was exclusively revealed by FE Week in July last year.

The former independent learning provider was renamed Prospects College of Advanced Technology (PROCAT) and Mr Boles, who was appointed as Minister that July, spoke at the opening ceremony.