The Government has published its long-awaited guidance for sixth form colleges (SFCs) becoming academies. David Igoe considers what this means for SFCs.

On the face of it there are headline advantages and disadvantages for converting to academies.

On the plus side, there is the extra money from the VAT rebate (available to academies but not SFCs that don’t convert) — about £350,000 per annum for each college on average.

There may be other financial gains like insurance concessions that academies benefit from.

On the downside, there is some loss of autonomy that comes with moving into the public sector.

They have strong pastoral systems and an approach to the curriculum much closer to schools rather than FE colleges

Academy status also means SFCs lose the ability to borrow on the commercial market and there are current legal and statutory difficulties over recruiting foreign and HE students.

There might be a way around the latter two difficulties and it may be possible for SFCs to continue these entrepreneurial activities.

However the real prize here, in my view, is the opportunity academy status brings to SFCs to be able to re-join the mainstream flow of education policy.

By becoming academies we get back into the Department for Education/schools/academies tent and have to be taken seriously as part of the 16-19, sixth form landscape.

SFCs have deep roots in the school system. They employ teachers not lecturers, with pay, terms and conditions almost identical to teachers in schools.

They have strong pastoral systems and an approach to the curriculum and organisation which is much closer, even after 25 years, to schools rather than FE colleges. Culturally, that is where they belong.

Incorporation, in 1993, wrenched SFCs from local authorities and placed them in the newly independent world of FE.

There were some gains from this. Most SFCs thrived with their newly gained autonomy and most have more than doubled in size in terms of student numbers.

Many have achieved wonders with their estates and now run super-efficient organisations that outperform the competition on all the accepted accountability measures.

In many ways SFCs were the trailblazers for the academy concept. They were schools released from local authority control and proved they could create autonomous self-improving, highly efficient institutions. They became the often-quoted “jewel in the crown” of state funded education.

The problem for SFCs since Incorporation has invariably been financial.

They suffered from the Government-imposed FE efficiency drive in the 90s and from the need to converge with FE funding levels.

This equated to nearly a 50 per cent cut for some and this led many colleges to have little option but to merge with other GFE institutions.

Since 1993, 30 have been lost through this process. Since 2010, we have experienced another funding onslaught with most SFCs now struggling to manage on 20 per cent less funding in real terms.

The current area based review process was predicated on “solving” this problem through creating fewer, larger and more robust institutions. We have been there before.

The autumn statement announcement (about possible SFC academy conversions) changed the focus of the area based review process.

SFCs no longer have to consider how they fit into the “fewer, larger” world of FE but now have the option to leave the FE world and become an academy.

As an academy, they come under the jurisdiction of the regional schools commissioner and can take their place on local head-teacher panels, which advise the RSC on all post-16 reorganisations.

They can foster closer links with schools and be part of the schools and academies improvement system. This makes far more sense than being part of an FE world driven by economies of scale and the need to deliver 3m apprenticeships.

This will not be an easy decision for SFCs. Change is never easy and always involves risk. But I believe this is the right way for our colleges to go and their best chance of continuing to prosper and grow.

David Igoe is chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges Association

Bea Groves hits back at links made between immigrants who struggle to speak English and terrorism.

f anyone thinks that being a person coming to the UK from abroad is a simple task of just a task of “integrating” and learning English, then you’re wrong.

My experience as an FE teacher of adults new to the UK has strongly impacted upon me over the past year.

I have, since spring 2015 been the course leader for the Certificate in Education and Training (CET) course, run by Bridge, a small not-for-profit independent learning provider located in Gateshead. What has been unusual about the experience is not so much what is being taught (teacher education) but the students I have encountered.

What unites them is an extraordinary optimism about the power of education to change lives

On my first day as tutor, I met an extraordinarily varied group of individuals from a host of national backgrounds.

These included adults from Poland, Romania, South Korea, Thailand, France, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Italy, etc.

I have students who are refugees, others who came here with their partners to work, some who could be termed economic migrants, those who have relatives already established in the UK.

What unites them is an extraordinary optimism about the power of education to change lives, something that I seem to encounter less and less in the indigenous population.

This, of course, is contrary to the media scaremongering about the role of migrants and their intractable reluctance to
integrate.

Certainly, there are individuals who operate under the exigencies of cultural and religious pressures that make attendance at courses a fairly complex matter.

Power over English gives a gateway to other learning: something they are all very aware of. But is our Prime Minister aware of the very high priority that English has in migrant lives?

The focus that is applied by government and parts of the media alike is of a “bunch of migrants” who are incapable of managing to integrate into British society without the stick of government coercion. Terrorist activity in the news has diverted the public gaze towards the issue of how confident we each feel about the motivations of the stranger in our midst.

Consequently the simplistic diagnosis is that those who have the poorest English skills must also be those who are most likely to foster hostility to the British way of life.

But anyone who has ever taught refugee or migrant students knows this is clearly not the case.

It is right only in the sense that anyone who travels to live in any country should learn the local language, both as a matter of pragmatism and out of necessity.

The same rule applies equally well (for example) to non-Muslim English women living in Spain or France for example.

Teaching English to migrants is just one part of what should be a European issue, part of a generalised concept of learning as a means for newcomers to embed themselves in local culture and practice.

Such things do not occur spontaneously, and the current FE/adult education system is far too stretched financially to make an impact.

We have the teachers, we have the initiative, and we have the enthusiastic students, but currently we are being told to make bricks without straw.

The “straw” we need is much better and more consistent funding for ESOL and other language-development courses.

These are absolutely vital as an access point for all kinds of learners who are finding their feet in the UK.

It is socially detrimental (even destructive) to assume that language ability can simply emerge out of thin air.

Without the necessary support, individuals will remain linguistically exiled from the interactions that make a thriving and varied community possible.

In addition, FE providers need to extend the presence of their language tuition out of the walls of their colleges and centres.

Fragile learners, unused to the UK educational system, want to access language provision at venues that accommodate them and in which they feel secure.

Old fashioned community-based adult education? Yes, we need it for its flexibility, not just in the UK but across the entire European Union.

Beatrix Groves is president of Tutor Voices: National Network for Further Adult Community and Skills Educators

Graham Taylor casts a weary eye over the evolution of study programmes.

The study programme is now in its third year, but what have we learned?

Firstly it’s a misnomer. It doesn’t all have to involve “study” — just work experience or enrichment activities.

Is the marked increase in full-time learners attributable to padding out programmes with non-qualification aims to make up the 540 hours (450 for 18 year olds)?

If so, this is a poor use of public money, and it may be a reason that the Department for Education (DfE) is short of funds for 16-18 apprenticeships.

It’s bizarre that up to half of the time can be spent on activities that don’t lead to qualifications

It’s bizarre that up to half of the time can be spent on activities that don’t lead to qualifications, especially when the last government cut enrichment time from 114 to 30 hours.

What they didn’t like (thanks to Alison Wolf) is “mickey mouse” qualifications. So outlaw them, or raise their standards, they say.

But while enrichment, including work experience, may be good for the soul, the quality performance indicators are tenuous at best. Ofsted struggles to assess this.

With regards to “meaningful” work experience, departmental guidance is littered with references to this.

However, they forgot to take into account that many 16-18s have paid jobs (85 per cent in my college).

Surely paid work trumps unpaid work experience. Ofsted was dismissive of this — shelf stacking in Tesco, for example.

But we encourage the employability skills this sort of work encourages — punctuality, customer care, communications and trying to build relevant qualifications around the paid jobs.

Traineeships require a minimum of 100 hours of work experience. We struggle to run any because learners can pick up paid work around here.

But, in theory a “try before you buy” apprentice might work.

However, I cannot see why trainees are exempt from the grade D English and maths rule. If employers prefer GCSEs (and Ofqual say they do) then the rule should apply to all learners.

With regards to core aims, I can’t see why these have to be designated and they are meaningless when it comes to A-level programmes. How can work experience be a core aim in itself? They should drop the notion.

The perceived divide between academic, applied and technical qualifications is also largely artificial — although this is not the fault of the study programme concept. It has more to do with wanting to stream learners.

The differences are usually in the way things are measured (exam versus assessment) rather than content. Which category does an A-level in accounting fall into? All three in my view. We have many young learners taking ‘hybrid’ combinations.

With regards to measuring success, it’s always made sense to measure quality of learning by success rates at course level comparing with national averages and internal progress over the years.

This can be built up to team and sector skills areas and college level using weighted averages (a concept Ofsted struggle with).

The trouble with the school and college performance tables is that they only show 16-18 level threes who complete and do not account for drop-outs (by institution or subject) or level one and two learners — big business in many colleges.

So you could be top of this particular league, but with very high in-year drop-out rates, not good quality.

That’s why we all need to keep our eyes on success rates.

On another note, one interesting outcome of area reviews for FE Colleges might be demerger.

Float off your 14-18 provision and become an academy — benefitting from 100 per cent taxpayer funding for new builds (useful if you have ageing and dilapidated assets) and the ability to reclaim VAT.

It makes more sense than merging with a failing entity, although the poor old 19+ bit would be left to battle in the new world of apprenticeship levies and loans.

Graham Taylor is principal and chief executive of New College Swindon