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DfE unveils guidance for sixth form college academy applications

The government has spelled out what sixth form colleges (SFCs) need to do to convert to academies, in a document published this morning.

The guidance, which comes after Chancellor George Osborne announced in the government’s autumn statement that SFCs could become academies “so they no longer have to pay VAT”, was welcomed by the Sixth Form Colleges’ Association (SFCA).

Conversion to academy status will be available as part of the area review process, the guidance says, and applications will be judged “alongside other recommendations arising from the review” so that all recommendations “are considered as a coherent package”.

“The opportunity does not exist at the moment” to convert outside of the area review process.

The key assessment criteria for conversion is the development of “stronger partnership and collaboration between the college and schools with which they will work”.

Colleges that propose to “establish or join a multi-academy trust (MATs) should be well-placed to meet the partnership criteria”, the guidance states.

Only SFCs that are “financially and educationally strong [assessed by the department and Ofsted as good or outstanding for both]” will have the option of converting to become a standalone academy.

Funding will be available to support SFCs converting to academies from the £560m restructuring facility, details of which were revealed by FE Week today.

James Kewin, deputy chief executive of the SFCA, said they had “pressed for, and we are pleased to see, the inclusion of an option for SFCs to establish a single, standalone academy trust”.

“We continue to make the case for SFCs in waves one and two [of area reviews] to have a greater degree of flexibility in developing proposals for academy status. Some SFCs in wave one have been given a matter of weeks to provide information (identifying potential partner schools for example) that colleges in wave five will have almost a year to prepare,” he said.

“More detail is still required on the financial implications of conversion,” he added.

All applications for conversion will need to be approved by the relevant area review steering group, then by the Sixth Form College Commissioner and the relevant Regional Schools Commissioner, on behalf of the Education Secretary. In some cases, a decision may need to be made by a minister.

Leaked government guidance for the area review advisory group, seen by FE Week, makes it clear that MATs are the government’s preferred choice for SFCs converting.

“Decisions will be taken in the context of wider post-16 provision in the area. Proposals involving formal partnership within a multi-academy trust will be particularly well-placed in this respect,” it says.

Investing in maths and English

Sam Parrett explains how her college met the challenge of a 300 per cent increase in the number of English and maths GCSE students by investing £500,000 in improving provision. She advises other providers to adopt a similar a “whole college” approach.

The recent Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report, Building Skills for All: A Review of England, painted a worrying picture regarding maths and English skills of young people in this country.

The majority of
the spending has been on resourcing and facilities — including a dramatic expansion of staff in our maths and English department to almost 20 per cent of the college’s total staff

Around a third of 16-19 year olds were deemed to have low levels of literacy and numeracy.

There is no doubt that lack of core skills leads to unemployment. Effective teaching and learning of English and maths is fundamental to both our education system and UK industry as a whole.

Responding to this issue in 2014, the Government made it a condition of funding that all full time 16-18 year olds who do not hold a maths and/or English GCSE grade A*-C must enrol on these courses.

Then, in 2015, a further condition was introduced that all students with a grade D in maths and/or English must enrol “on a GCSE course, rather than an equivalent ‘stepping stone” qualification.

This has had, and continues to have, a major impact on FE.

At Bromley College, the number of 16-18 year old students studying maths GCSE has risen from 115 in 2013/14 to 636 in 2015/16.

For English GCSE, students numbers have rocketed by 525 (from 179 to 704) in this two-year period.

The number of students doing both English and maths GCSE has increased by over 300 per cent, with 1,340 currently studying for both qualifications.

These huge figures have seen no matching increase in study programme funding.

We opted to tackle this challenge issue head-on with a £500,000 investment to ensure our maths and English provision is of the highest possible quality.

The majority of the spending has been on resourcing and facilities — including a dramatic, threefold expansion of staff in our maths and English department to around 120, almost 20 per cent of the college’s total staff.

We have changed the management structure, employing separate maths and English heads rather than just one overseeing both areas.

We have also put expert senior managers in place to develop staff, implement training and encourage very best teaching practice.

Our new maths and English Hub provides a centre for students of all ages and abilities to develop their knowledge.

Lecturers refer learners here as well as drop-in sessions being available for anyone wanting or needing extra support.

Ensuring the Hub is fully staffed all the time has not been easy. To help address this particular challenge, I have even managed to persuade my stay-at-home husband (with his three maths A-levels) to come and pitch in.

We are also developing our volunteer service — encouraging members of the community to come and assist with additional learning support can take the pressure off staff while giving learners encouragement.

Embedding maths and English into a vocational curriculum and making learning relevant is widely referred to in FE.

We have turned this approach on its head and embed the vocational elements into the maths and English scheme of work, rather than the other way around.

I would urge FE colleges to take a “whole college” approach to maths and English provision rather than simply having a “department”.

Running activities such as cross-college maths and English weeks not only increases student engagement, but really reinforces the message as to the importance of these skills.

Students’ needs vary hugely — what works for one person will not work for another. The expansion of our teaching resources is enabling us to offer each and every student a personalised learning experience.

There is no doubt that FE colleges have a tough jobs. We are trying to turn around many years of under-achievement in maths and English, often in just eight or nine months.

However, the year-on-year improvements in both GCSE maths/English and functional skills that we are seeing at Bromley College provide early evidence that our head-on approach is working.

Good core skills are key to career progression and success, which means that high-quality maths and English provision simply must be a priority in FE.

Sam Parrett OBE is principal of Bromley College

Linking learners with employers

Brian Lightman, who stood down from his role at the ASCL last month, is now a board member helping develop the employer-led, government-backed Careers & Enterprise Company. He explains here how it can help colleges link-up better with employers for the benefit of their learners.

Improving destinations for young people continues to be a key concern for all FE institutions.

Of course, this isn’t a simple task. However, research has found at least one factor that can have a huge impact.

Our aim is for
every college to have its own adviser to galvanise local programmes and employers and make it simpler for them to engage

Young people who have multiple encounters with businesses before they leave education are significantly less likely to become NEET (not in education, employment or training) and earn, on average, 18 per cent more than their peers who have not.

While this is encouraging, and some colleges, as well as schools, do have strong links with business, it’s clear that this is not happening consistently across England.

This is the primary reason for the launch of The Careers & Enterprise Company, to simplify the process for local businesses and education providers to work together.

The difficulty in establishing relationships with local business is made worse by the lack of consistency of experiences across England.

As you may have found, some colleges are inundated with offers from careers and enterprise services and employers, while others have none.

But this doesn’t stem from a lack of commitment.

The many conversations the Careers & Enterprise Company’s board and staff have had, have highlighted employers’ commitment to working to address the skills gaps, and we’ve had a really excellent response from businesses of all sizes since we launched.

The company’s role, therefore, is to improve the interface between education and businesses to allow pupils to progress to worthwhile and meaningful routes that lead, at the right time, to employment.

To do this, the company created the Enterprise Adviser network.

This brings together senior business volunteers and education providers and is being co-led with local enterprise partnerships (LEPs).

Our aim is for every college to have its own adviser to galvanise local programmes and employers and make it simpler for them to engage.

The network also has no cost, making the tremendous resource totally accessible to colleges.

High quality mentoring is another important part of delivering the full scope of the careers provision and in the spring we’ll be announcing our strategy around mentoring.

One of the very exciting aspects of the Enterprise Adviser network is that it has real potential to improve the outlook for young people by giving them better access to employers.

These encounters both inspire them and help them make better and more informed choices about their next steps.

We’ve seen this in action across the country already and it is expanding.

The Enterprise Adviser network is up and running in more than 30 LEP areas, and the company will be in Leeds on
23 February to celebrate their official launch of the partnership.

It will increase information available to education leaders and students about the local labour market and how the curriculum links to careers.

This information is hugely valuable in a number of ways, not least in tackling the myth that vocational routes are in some way inferior to university.

As we continue to grow, we’ll build on what works, facilitate the scaling-up of the best programmes and work nationally while tailoring locally.

I know, from first-hand experience, just how inspiring encounters with employers can be for young people in bringing the curriculum to life and galvanising their ambition.

I strongly recommend that college leaders embrace this opportunity and give us feedback about what more we can do to improve the life chances of the young people in your care.

Brian Lightman is a board member of the Careers & Enterprise Company, and former general secretary of the ASCL

Freeing-up prison education could benefit more providers

The Prime Minister has spoken this month about plans to give governors more freedom over prisoner education budgets, as part of a keynote speech on wider prison reform. Alexandra Marks looks at how this could affect the FE sector.

It’s great to see the Government supporting prison education from the very top, as it has been a neglected aspect of FE for too long.

But what are the opportunities and risks for the FE sector through the reform plans identified by David Cameron in his speech (made on 8 February)? If we were marking the Prime Minister’s work, what would he get?

The Prisoner Learning Alliance (PLA), a coalition of 23 expert organisations, has called for the end to meaningless “output” measures.

This reflects wider FE thinking, following the Wolf Report, that mechanisms focused on drawing down funds for individual accredited qualifications can result in perverse outcomes.

If satellite
tracking is increased, as suggested by the Prime Minister, more prisoners could spend their weekdays learning in the community and come back to prison at the weekend

We, therefore, welcome the announcement by the Prime Minister to develop meaningful outcome-based metrics such as re-offending levels, employment outcomes after release and educational progression during a sentence.

The PLA has been critical of the fact that governors’ lack control over education in their prisons and that the current education contract lacks sufficient flexibility to enable providers to deliver what they would ideally like.

We have also highlighted the difficulties caused by the lack of officers to unlock and escort prisoners to classrooms and workshops, not to mention the other limitations a severely overcrowded system imposes on the creation of a learning culture across the whole prison.

That is why we called for greater autonomy for governors and are pleased the Prime Minister intends to do this backed by a promise to protect prison education budgets in cash terms of £130m per year.

Of particular interest was the announcement of a pilot of six “reform prisons” giving governors total discretion over the budget, the ability to opt-out of national contracts and to choose their own suppliers.

But what does this mean for the current providers and the wider FE sector?

Although the details of Dame Sally Coates’s review have not yet been published, it would appear from Cameron’s speech that the Government may be moving towards a more fragmented and diverse market place for prison education provision.

This would create opportunities for a wider range of local FE colleges, voluntary sector organisations, private companies, academy chains, universities and other experts.

If satellite tracking is increased, as suggested by the Prime Minister, more prisoners could spend their weekdays learning in the community and come back to prison at the weekend.

This would also allow them to access apprenticeships which are not available in prisons.

The risk for the current education providers is that rather than bidding for large regional contract areas, they may need to make their case to individual governors, or smaller clusters of governors, with increased competition.

The PLA’s members know that engaging prisoners in learning so they can transform their lives takes skill, enthusiasm and creativity.

The PLA have called for a focus on excellence in prison teaching, so is delighted to hear the Prime Minister will develop a new social enterprise, led by David Laws, to recruit high quality graduates to teach in prisons, similar to the Teach first initiative in schools.

However we continue to call for more professional development opportunities for current teaching staff and officers, support to recruit and retain experienced teachers and vocational instructors, and greater access to resources, including technology, that you would find in mainstream FE provision.

The Prime Minister cannot cover everything in a speech of a few hundred words, but it marks a significant step in re-framing the purpose of our prisons, putting rehabilitation and learning at the heart.

It offers both risks and opportunities for the FE sector and we wait to hear more details from Dame Sally Coates in due course.

Muddled implementation against the background of limited resources and prisons under pressure could undermine the Prime Minister’s ambitions.

But as a statement of purpose and direction, the Prime Minister’s speech is heading to the top of the class.

Alexandra Marks is chair of the Prisoner Learning Alliance

Area reviews won’t be cheap

Setting aside £560m until April 2019 for restructuring and mergers is a bold move at a time when many will question whether it could be better spent on frontline provision.

Slashed budgets for non-apprenticeship courses have caused huge distress and anger, which came to a head recently with protests over English for Speakers of Other Languages cuts.

And the announcement coming in the same month as disappointment over 16-18 growth requests won’t go unnoticed.

But the long game here is to stabilise colleges’ financial footing which for many is looking ropey at best — as this edition’s investigation into the dramatic increase in financial notices of concern has exposed.

And the Treasury is right to keep a close hold on the purse strings, making sure the money is spent as intended.

However, mergers and restructures can prove expensive and repeat few immediate rewards.

So the Government may not get its ‘loan’ back, but if it serves to incentivise the college leadership team to implement difficult but necessary decisions then so be it.

Nick Linford is editor of FE Week

Movers and Shakers: Edition 164

Alice Barnard has started in her position as the new chief executive of the Edge Foundation.

She takes over from David Harbourne, Edge’s director of policy and research, who has been acting chief executive since Jan Hodges’ retirement last April.

Ms Barnard moves from her position as leader of the Peter Jones Foundation, which she has held for the last four years.

Commenting on her new role, Ms Barnard said: “I am incredibly excited to be joining Edge at a time when how we shape young people’s education, their training and their futures, is so high on the political agenda.

“I feel passionately about the value of practical, technical and professional learning which can lead not only to successful and fulfilling careers, but are essential if we are to be equipped with the skills we need for a 21st century global economy.”

Before she was at the Peter Jones Foundation, Ms Barnard was the chief executive of the Countryside Alliance for five years. She read history at Cambridge University.

The RNN Group, a new education and training organisation created by a merger of Rotherham College of Arts and Technology with North Nottinghamshire College this month, has announced four key appointments.

John Connolly takes the reins as chief executive of the group, after serving as principal at North Nottinghamshire College since 2007.

Prior to that appointment, he was director of finance at the college, joining after a career in the private sector.

Mr Connolly said: “Our merged organisation will give us greater resilience, greater scope to invest and greater influence for the benefit of our local areas and businesses.

“I’m delighted and proud to lead over a thousand talented and dedicated staff who are working towards these ends.”

The chair of governors is Ken Barrass, formerly chair of Rotherham College from 2011 until the merger, who has been involved with the college since 1998, and a governor from 2000 onwards.

Prior to this, Mr Barrass was director of finance for several firms in South Yorkshire.

Phil Sayles, deputy principal at Rotherham College for the past four years, becomes deputy principal of RNN Group.

Mr Sayles previously worked at Lincoln College as director of school, and before that at the Grimsby Institute, working his way up from a part-time teaching role to divisional director, after an early career in the retail and construction sectors.

He said as a larger organisation, the RNN Group will be able to play a stronger role supporting employers through providing apprenticeships, higher-level skills and training solutions, which will “enable students and the existing workforce to develop into the roles organisations need to succeed”.

Paul Baylis has also been appointed vice principal of the group, after serving as assistant principal at North Nottinghamshire College and before that working at Leicester College.

He said merging the two colleges would give the group the clout to promote vocational education more widely.

Meanwhile, Nigel Evans has been selected by the Weymouth College board of governors to lead the college full time, after serving as interim principal since November 2014.

Weymouth College jumped from an inadequate to a good Ofsted rating in November 2015, under Mr Evans’s direction as interim principal.

He guided the college through a structure and prospects appraisal process and out of administered status, following visits from the FE commissioner Dr David Collins, who withdrew his involvement with the improved institution in October.

Mr Evans said he was absolutely delighted to accept the appointment.

He added: “I have thoroughly enjoyed the challenges over the last 15 months and feel privileged to be able to lead the college into its bright new future.

“It is my strong view that although we are Weymouth College, we are Weymouth’s college, Portland’s college and actually Dorset’s college, and we are committed to meeting the needs of students, parents, employers and all local stakeholders to strengthen the future of the Dorset economy.”

Mr Evans brings more than 35 years of FE sector experience to the post, including around 20 years of teaching A-level biology and chemistry and 15 years in a variety of senior management positions.

Michael Davis, chief executive of the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES), has been appointed managing director of consultancy firm Ecorys UK.

He will take up the role with the company, which specialises in economic and public policy, on 1 March, after more than five years at the helm of UKCES. Manon Janssen, the chief executive of Ecorys, said Mr Davis’s management expertise, leadership qualities and client focus would be great assets in leading the organisation.

Frustration over ‘misleading’ Libor answer

The Shadow Skills Minister has been left frustrated with a “misleading” answer to a parliamentary question he lodged over what happened to Libor fine cash for apprenticeships promised by the Prime Minister.

David Cameron announced last April that if he won the general election, his government would fund 50,000 apprenticeships and traineeships for unemployed 22 to 24-year-olds using a £200m pot from fines paid by bankers in the wake of the Libor scandal.

The Government has refused to answer a string of questions lodged by FE Week, asking what happened to the key election promise widely reported in The Sun, the Financial Times and BBC.

Shadow Skills Minister Gordon Marsden also tabled a parliamentary enquiry on the issue on February 5.

He has now received an answer, but complained to FE Week that it “didn’t answer the question”.

Mr Marsden had asked Chancellor George Osborne what progress his department had made “on incorporating the proceeds of the £227m fine imposed on Deutsche Bank, in relation to their Libor activities into a new three-year fund to create 50,000 apprenticeships”.

The response said that the Government would “be spending twice as much in cash terms on apprenticeships by 2020 compared to 2010. Spending on apprenticeships in England will be £2.5bn in 2019-20.

“The BIS spending review settlement for apprenticeships reflects the government’s commitment regarding the proceeds of the Libor fine the FCA announced in April 2015.”

After reading this, Mr Marsden told FE Week on Monday: “They [Treasury officials] didn’t answer the question, which was really quite simple. There has been a vague allusion to it [what happened to the Libor fines money], but little more which is misleading.

“We will press further on this, with further parliamentary questions if necessary, when we return to parliament next week.

“If the money really has been spent on apprenticeships and traineeships, why can’t the Government show us the figures?”

It comes after Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn told FE Week on 7 February he was confident Mr Marsden would get to the bottom of what had happened to the Libor pot, adding he “has indefatigable skills at following things through”.

FE Week also went back to the Treasury to point out that the only settlement announced in the spending review specifically for apprenticeships related to the planned new levy on large firms — which had nothing to do with Libor.

We added that Mr Cameron said in April that a specific sum (£200m from Libor fines) would be allocated to fund training for a set number (50,000) of older learners, not that it would be incorporated into wider skills funding.

But a Treasury spokesperson declined to say whether the £200m had already been spent, or if Mr Cameron’s plan to reserve it specifically for apprenticeships and traineeships for 22 to 24-year-olds had been scrapped.

Principal blamed as college sent into administered status

The FE Commissioner has singled-out former principal Jacqui Mace (pictured) for failings at a London college that has been placed into administered status.

Dr David Collins said this in a report published on Thursday (February 18) on Stanmore College, which was led by Ms Mace until December.

A letter published on the same day, from Skills Minister Nick Boles to college chair John Howard, confirmed that he had accepted Dr Collins’ recommendation that it should be placed into administered status.

Dr Collins said his team, which inspected the college in December, had found “at all levels, [a] lack of confidence in the [former] principal’s ability to lead the college going forward”.

His report added staff and managers had been “highly critical of her [Ms Mace]”.

It also said Dr Collins’ team advised Mr Howard that Ms Mace “should not continue with an active role in the college and should not return after term ends [last December]”.

The visit by Dr Collins’ team to the 3,500-learner college, which has a current SFA allocation of £2.1m, was prompted by an inadequate Ofsted rating in November.

Following publication of the Ofsted report, the college governors took “decisive action” to replace Ms Mace “in terms of the day-to-day running of the college by an externally appointed interim principal”, Dr Collins said.

The board had agreed that Ms Mace should move to an “externally-focused” role, developing the college’s planned merger with neighbouring Harrow College, until Ms Mace’s planned retirement at the end of March, the FE Commissioner added.

But this was considered “inappropriate” by Dr Collins.

Interim principal Sarbdip Noonan told FE Week on Thursday that Ms Mace was no longer employed “in any capacity by the college”.

However, she declined to confirm if she had been sacked.

“All staff are now working in a focused and urgent way to improve the college’s quality of provision and ensure our learners are successful,” she added.

“We have every confidence that the strengths of the college will be consolidated further and the areas for improvement will be transformed to strengths.”

Lead providers step in after subcontractor ‘collapses’

Four lead providers based in the north east have said they are taking steps to ensure more than 160 apprentices get qualifications after their subcontractor was said to have ceased trading.

Learning Curve Group (LCG) chief executive Brenda McLeish (pictured) told FE Week on Tuesday that her company had been informed by Sunderland-based Xiscad Training Ltd it was going into liquidation.

It means, FE Week understands, that alternative training arrangements need to be made for 164 level three and four IT professional apprentices that were with Xiscad, through subcontracting with LCG, Sunderland College, Stockton Council, and South Tyneside Council.

LCG, which employed Xiscad as a subcontractor for 97 level three and four IT professional apprentices through an SFA contract worth £1.8m as of last December, is setting up a new training centre in Sunderland next Monday, specifically for affected learners.

Ms McLeish told FE Week: “We have been working with Xiscad since 2011 with no problems. They were with us for our ‘good’ Ofsted rating [in March 2014].

“Unfortunately, on 10 February, they told us they had taken the decision to liquidate.

“We have retrieved all our apprentices’ files and record of work they have done attempted to contact every single one of them via phone, text, emails or social media.

“We are opening a brand new IT training facility in Sunderland on Monday so we can continue with their training directly.”

Nigel Harrett (pictured), the deputy principal of Sunderland College, which had an SFA contract worth £253,566 with Xiscad, said: “We are aware that Xiscad ceased trading last week.

“As a result, we have been in contact with the 35 [level three] apprentices and six on traineeships who are funded through Sunderland College, and we have also held an information, advice and guidance event for them.

“In addition, our business development team is currently working with employers to establish opportunities for the 41 people affected to be able to complete their apprenticeships and traineeships.”

Councillor John Anglin, lead member for regeneration and economy at South Tyneside Council, which had an SFA contract worth £265,216 with Xiscad, said the local authority was “doing everything we can to support those affected [21 level three apprentices]”.

“We have opened dialogue with all of our apprentices and are currently reviewing their files,” she added.

“Moving forward, we will look to appoint a new supplier to support the apprentices in completing their qualifications as well as identifying potential new employment opportunities.”

Councillor Jim Beall, cabinet member for adult services and health at Stockton Council, which had a contract worth £88,325 with Xiscad, said: “We are doing everything we can to support the 11 [level three] apprentices affected.

“Three of them have recently completed their apprenticeships and we are seeking urgent clarification as to the status of their qualifications. The remaining eight are nearing the end of their training and we are supporting them so they can complete their qualifications.”

An SFA spokesperson said: “Where our providers decide to use subcontractors, we expect these arrangements to add value to the provision and for public funding to be used to directly support learners.

“Xiscad is a subcontractor to a number of lead providers and we are working with these organisations to ensure there is minimum disruption to learners and employers and ensure continuity of training.”

The homepage of the Xiscad website was down and there was no answer on the main company phone number up to Thursday (January 18).

But when FE Week called company director Steven Carr’s mobile number, a man who answered, but refused to confirm his name, said: “I can’t comment [on the trading status of Xiscad]. It is in the hands of the insolvency people.”

However, an Insolvency Service spokesperson told FE Week before publication that it and Companies House had not yet been made aware Xiscad had folded.