Senior leader apprentices ‘lacked resilience’ at ‘inadequate’ provider

A training company has been graded ‘inadequate’ after Ofsted inspectors found its senior leader apprentices lacked “resilience” to complete the course alongside the demands of their jobs.  

Hertfordshire-based London Examinations Board Limited received ‘inadequate’ for its apprenticeships, quality of education, leadership and management and overall effectiveness in a report it deemed “very inaccurate” published yesterday. 

Inspectors visiting the provider, which trained 73 apprentices at the time of the February inspection, said apprentices didn’t have access to enough planned training and “learn most of the intended curriculum on their own.”

Ofsted’s claims that learners don’t have enough access to tutors were disputed by the provider, but complaints were not upheld.

Just over half (42) of the provider’s apprentices were on the level 7 senior leader apprenticeship, which attracts up to £14,000 in funding per apprentice. The rest were on the level 4 and 5 children, young people and families standards. 

“Too many” apprentices miss lessons and drop out of the course early, the watchdog said. The inspection report points to “too few” apprentices developing “resilience to manage the challenges of studying while managing their workplace pressures.”

London Examination Board chief executive, Kevin Johns-Putra, said he felt inspectors treated his provider “like a school or college, doing sixth form or A-levels,” pointing out his senior leader apprentices “run big organisations” so can’t always attend lessons. 

But inspectors said, “Too few apprentices develop strategies and, therefore, the resilience to manage the challenges of studying while managing their workplace pressures.”  As a result, “too many apprentices leave the course within the first year of study and do not complete their final assessments” according to Ofsted. 

Controversial MBAs

Achievement rates at London Examinations Board were “hindered” because apprentices dropped out once they had achieved the MBA qualification but before the required end-point assessment, the provider claimed.

The MBA was dropped from the two-year senior leader apprenticeship for new starts from March 2021 following concern employers were using apprenticeship levy funds to subsidise Master’s degrees for their managers. 

The average achievement rate for senior leader apprenticeships in 2022/23 was 56.3 per cent, slightly higher than the national average for all apprenticeships of 54.3 per cent, but 11 percentage points lower than the government’s 67 per cent target. 

Completion volumes at London Examinations Board were too small to be published in the government’s national achievement rate tables.

The provider said “more than 67 per cent” of its apprentices achieved the MBA qualification in time but “many” refused to then go through the end-point assessment. 

The Education and Skills Funding Agency can terminate a training provider’s contract following an ‘inadequate’ Ofsted judgment. London Examinations Board said it had not been notified of a contract termination at the time of going to press.

Senior leader apprentices at London Examination Board can choose to “top-up” their senior leader apprenticeship to an MBA with University of Gloucestershire or University of South Wales “for a small additional fee.”

‘Very inaccurate’ report

Johns-Putra said he exhausted Ofsted’s complaints process to challenge the report and decided against pursuing legal action due to costs. 

In a statement to FE Week, he said he was “extremely disappointed” with the inspection outcome: 

“There were over 20 inaccurate statements and comments that we raised from the draft report, none of these factual inaccuracies were accepted by Ofsted.

“Ofsted did not recognise that our achievement rates were seriously hindered by the old Master’s degree senior leader standard where achievement of a Master’s degree was compulsory before apprentices could undertake end-point assessment.

“While we recognise that we have areas for improvement, there have been many positive areas we have implemented effectively but these were not reflected in what we feel is a very inaccurate report”.

Johns-Putra claimed Ofsted’s criticism that tutors do not provide apprentices with enough “well-planned training or support” was inaccurate because they have access to tutors “at any time.”

Inspection reports continue to be published during the pre-election period. 

Ofsted was approached for comment. 

Reviewing post-16 qualifications is a start – but it’s not enough

Introduced in 2020, T Levels are vocational qualifications aimed at 16- to 19-year-olds, which provide hands-on experience via industry placements alongside class-based learning for topics such as agriculture, manufacturing and engineering.

Badged with benefits for both students and employers, such as industry insight, real-life learning, early access to a talent pipeline, improved innovation and increased productivity, you would think – and hope – that they’d be in high demand. However, figures have shown uptake and completion of courses has been slow.

Last week saw the government announce a post-16 qualification review update and the introduction of new technical qualifications, including a new engineering qualification – but is it enough?

Parent choice

Technical education is key to ensuring students get exposure to the right skills and qualifications in preparation for them joining the workforce. It’s also an important step in raising awareness that university is not necessarily the best route for all students aspiring to become engineers.

Hands-on vocational courses such as apprenticeships, degree apprenticeships as well as post GCSE T Levels are just as strong qualifications when entering the engineering workforce.

We need to make sure they receive the same respect and prestige as academic routes and are presented as a worthwhile option leading to good jobs when young people make crucial decisions about their futures.

The vocational route holds no lesser value than other traditional academic routes and should be considered as equal. We need schools, parents and businesses to collectively push this message to encourage uptake.

Employer demand

While progress on vocational learning has been made, our latest International Green Skills Survey (2023) revealed a different story.

Near two-thirds (63 per cent) of engineering employers stated that the UK education system does not prepare graduates well for industry – falling substantially behind other nations.

To combat this, nearly half of UK employers suggest more industry placement years and over one-third think more industry-targeted projects will better prepare graduates.

Therefore, more needs to be done to address the current issues in the T Level curriculum and bridge the gap between industry and providers.

More work is also needed to ensure T Level education across the UK is equitable regardless of location. As raised in Ofsted’s thematic review last July, they have varied levels of success across the UK and the quality of industry placements varies considerably across providers.

This is partly due to the location of providers and a lack of overall strategy to engage industry with the skills and education agenda. As referenced by the education committee’s report The future of post-16 qualification “regional variations in economic activity are limiting factors in students’ access to T Level courses and placements, as many industries, such as engineering or media and creative arts, are concentrated in larger cities”.

This remains a real issue and has not been addressed in this latest announcement. It risks undermining the government’s levelling up agenda. Again, this links back to raising the profile of T Levels and the benefits that they can have on regional skill demands in local areas.

Too little too late

The current government skills education starts too late and more needs to be done to introduce skills and particularly engineering education at an earlier stage.

The IET’s Engineering Kids’ Futures report calls for much-needed curriculum reform and to introduce engineering at primary level. Teaching children vital skills in engineering from an early age allows students to understand the real-world applications of subjects like science, maths, and design & technology.

This valuable context is often missing in the current curriculum which is content-heavy and allows very little time for in-depth learning or investigation into topics.

We know more needs to be done to empower more young people to think about what a possible career in engineering and technology could be. Without this there will be no way to future-proof the next generation of engineers and technologists and the UK’s skills gap will continue.

The model that could make CPD greater than it is

In 2022, Milton Keynes College Group won a government contract to run a professional development programme for post-16 English and maths teachers and called it the Greater Than Network.

It was a new model of continuing professional development (CPD), so a few months were spent setting up and recruiting a network lead. They then built up a membership of colleges across four different regions, delivered some well-received CPD including a sold-out face-to-face conference, and hit their engagement targets.

Sadly, the network closed this February, but the model has great potential and should be considered as a way to run a professional development programme in future.

My colleague at Sheffield Hallam, Sarah Boodt and I were commissioned to conduct the evaluation of the Greater Than Network. We worked on it from March 2023 until the programme closed. (In fact, I was a governor at Milton Keynes College Group from 2016 to 2023, so I was involved in the evaluation from the bidding stage.)

The Greater Than Network was one of a series of programmes commissioned by the Department for Education and intended to provide CPD to teachers and leaders of post-16 GCSE English and maths resits.

The funding was due to run from autumn 2022 until March 2025, but DfE took the decision to end the contract in February 2024 and the network closed when funding ceased.

The Greater Than Network was a different kind of CPD. It was neither a content-heavy traditional programme nor a fully informal teacher-led network. It was designed to create a space where English and maths GCSE resit and functional skills teachers and managers felt they belonged.

The intention was that some of the CPD would be driven by Milton Keynes College Group, that the network lead would encourage staff across the network to share, and that an individual at each college responsible for the link to the network (typically a manager) would encourage their staff to engage, either by sharing their good practice or asking for support from others.

All the indicators we accessed showed that the programme was working effectively

The network would facilitate the development of communities of practice and would be sufficiently flexible to adapt to new information, while also having a structured programme of CPD. The intention was a regular learning and discussion forum with some in-person events.

All the indicators we were able to access (mostly feedback surveys and some interviews with college, but also some session observations), showed that the programme was working effectively.

There were some regular attendees, teachers and managers were beginning to plan their college contributions, and the only full-day conference was sold out. It achieved its first-year targets around numbers of participating colleges (32 against a target of 30) and engaged individuals (690 against a target of 500).

The intended model had to shift to accommodate changing priorities. More CPD than had originally been planned was directly delivered by staff at Milton Keynes College Group. The stipend that had been intended to be shared equally among members of the network to make participation as easy as possible had instead become claimable only against specific receipts and expenses.

In addition, a planned autumn conference was cancelled at short notice, and there was a perception that there was too great a focus on digital which is unsurprisingly integral to the Milton Keynes College Group way, given it is the home of the Microsoft-backed South Central Institute of Technology.

Although the programme took time to get going, it is our feeling as evaluators that it showed promise. It was an interesting contribution to the range of CPD currently available to FE staff, one which aimed to empower teachers and managers in member colleges to present their own good practice, experiments and challenges in a supportive environment.

It was certainly an innovative addition to the FE CPD landscape, and a successful one. Future CPD programme developers and commissioners should consider developing the model further.

More information can be found in the evaluation report here

Sir Ian Bauckham is Keegan’s pick for permanent Ofqual chief

Sir Ian Bauckham, the interim head of exams regulator Ofqual, is Gillian Keegan’s preferred candidate to take on the role full-time.

But his confirmation will be left up to whoever forms the next government.

Gillian Keegan

The government chose to appoint a chief regulator on an interim basis for a year after Dr Jo Saxton stepped down to head up the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS).

Bauckham, the regulator’s former chair, stepped up to the role in January.

Now education secretary Keegan has put him forward for the full-time role “following approval by the prime minister”.

But Bauckham’s pre-appointment hearing with the Parliamentary education committee will not take place until after the election on July 4.

Confirmation won’t come until after election

It leaves a potential incoming Labour government facing the decision on whether to keep the Conservatives’ pick for chief regulator or find their own.

The government said Bauckham had been selected for the role “following an open recruitment competition and assessment process led by a panel, conducted in accordance with the governance code on public appointments”.

Bauckham served on the Ofqual board since 2018 and was its chair from January 2021 to December 2023. 

He was also chief executive of the Tenax Schools Academy Trust but stepped down to take the interim Ofqual role in January. He has also chaired the Oak National Academy since 2020.

Bauckham has strong links to the Department for Education and has chaired a number of reviews for Conservative governments, including one on modern foreign languages and another on initial teacher training.

All parties must commit to keeping the GCSE resit policy

I have an unhealthy relationship with the GCSE resit policy.

I was head of English in a large college in the early years of the Condition of Funding, leading a steep trajectory of improvement. This ultimately led to me helming both the policy and its major workforce programme for the Department for Education. For most of a decade, it has been a mania.

I’ve tried to go cold turkey and I’ve tried resits-free policy cordial. But I can’t help myself. Because the policy is the most important moral and pedagogical battleground in any phase of education.

Resits are the crucible in which we show that great teaching can genuinely make a life-changing difference at a scale of 300,000 young people per year, with externally-assessed exams that at least help to level the playing field a little, and outcomes that quite literally correlate with life expectancy.

The moral case is unassailable.

We know that the disadvantage gap at 16 is an injustice. Outcomes are influenced far too much by privilege, with those achieving below a GCSE grade 4 being disproportionately from economically-disadvantaged backgrounds.

Unless anyone is a subscriber to a nasty form of eugenics, we need to understand that “these students” (as they are too-often termed) have just as much potential as their better-off peers, only less opportunity.

It’s not a distant leap from there to see that whether or not we provide the equity of classroom time, extra tuition and expert training for teachers is a measure of our commitment to social justice.

The Guardian’s Polly Toynbee recently described this safety net as ‘ritual sacrifice’, calling for a future Labour government to end “tormenting so many-16 year-olds” and advocating for a “basic” qualification instead. A reminder; we are talking about a group of young people who are disproportionately likely to have been on free school meals.

These young people simply have more unrealised potential

There is a danger, when the daughter of a literary critic advocates for something not-quite-the-same-as-the-English-and-maths-all-the-middle-class-children-will-be-getting, that it can sound a little bit like class prejudice. Especially when you can’t help imagining the dinner-party conversation that probably spat this idea out, far removed from classrooms of hard-working teachers and their students.

“Can’t they just do Duolingo? That worked wonders for my eco tour of Micronesia.”

Days after Toynbee’s column, the DfE published remarkable data (facts, if you will) which the Guardian has not so far covered, although perhaps nobody is shouting loudly enough about the incredible and inspiring job FE colleges are doing.

Levels of achievement in English and maths by age 19 are the highest they have ever been, with 16-19 progression significantly higher than before the policy.

But more importantly, among those resitting while in 16-19, the proportion of disadvantaged students attaining was higher than for non-disadvantaged.

The same counter-intuitive effect was observed in the randomised controlled trial of mastery teaching conducted as part of the DfE’s Centres for Excellence in Maths (CfEM, and for transparency, I was the project director in its latter years): Students taught with the mastery lessons averaged higher scores in their GCSE mark, but the effect for disadvantaged students was greater.

Professor Geoff Wake at University of Nottingham, DfE’s partner on CfEM, has written on this. He poses the question to himself as to why the disadvantaged students perform better. His answer: “Well, we don’t know.”

But he goes on to speculate about it being the effect of what sounds like ‘discovery’ learning; “without teacher instructions and assistance”. That would seem in tension with the mastery pedagogy I assume the Department thought it was paying for, and doesn’t explain why it would have more impact on disadvantaged students.

I am not a university professor, but I have had hands-on experience raising disadvantaged measures above the national average for non-disadvantaged, so perhaps that’s why it seems obvious to me. These young people simply have more unrealised potential than their advantaged peers.

I hope that, in this election, all political parties will commit to protecting, and continuing to support, a policy that is unpopular at middle-class dinner parties, but which is vital for other people’s children.

Skills Bootcamp results missing in action

More than a third of the money allocated to the government’s flagship Skills Bootcamps programme has gone unspent, despite learner number targets being exceeded.

The figures, published following a Freedom of Information request, suggest high numbers of participants fail to complete their course or gain employment.

Skills Bootcamps are intensive and “flexible” Department for Education-funded training programmes lasting up to three months and ending with a “guaranteed” job interview that aims to improve adults’ careers in areas of national skills priorities.

Despite their significant budget – £584 million up to 2025 – the scheme had received little coverage in the national media until Tuesday, when work and pensions secretary Mel Stride claimed they would be “targeted” at sectors facing staff shortages due to tightened immigration rules.

Unexplained underspend

The government aims to train at least 150,000 people through Skills Bootcamps by next year.

Figures show that for each of the three financial years between 2020 and 2023, starts targets were surpassed. Most recently in 2022-23, enrolments totalled 40,400 against a target of 36,000.

However, just £130 million of a total £206 million allocated over the 2020 to 2023 period was spent. In 2022-23 the government allocated £150 million but only spent £85 million.

Training providers who deliver the majority of bootcamps are paid 40 per cent of the total course fee at the first “milestone” of 15 hours’ guided learning hours, followed by a further 30 per cent when a participant has a job interview that is “guaranteed” as part of the course.

Providers who can show evidence their learners have found a job or moved to a more senior role at the same employer can claim the final 30 per cent payment.

The programme’s underspend suggests providers are unable to claim payments for their learners completing the bootcamp or moving into a new or better job, which account for 60 per cent of the total fee.

No proof to claim of ‘great success’

Former skills minister Robert Halfon told Parliament late last year that bootcamps were a “great success” and resulted in “good” outcomes for many learners.

But the DfE does not publish outcomes data for the programme – officials only release numbers of participants.

The government has published initial research reports about bootcamp participation which included partial data on outcomes for a few thousand learners.

It revealed half didn’t achieve a positive employment outcome.

A follow-up report found participants were being given “inappropriate interviews”, while a separate Ofsted thematic review in 2022 warned of inconsistent training quality and poor oversight from the government.

The Department for Education refused to explain the large underspend figures.

A spokesperson insisted that Skills Bootcamps provide learners with opportunities for “higher-paid, future-proofed careers”.

They added that course completion and outcome data for 2021-22 was “due” to be published this summer, with further evaluation reports expected “later this year”.

Delay in performance data ‘unacceptable’

Stephen Evans, chief executive of the Learning and Work Institute, said that while bootcamps are a good idea “in principle”, early evaluations have suggested they do not reach people who “needed the most help” such as those with lower qualification levels.

He added: “The government needs to be much more open and timely about on programme performance; it’s unacceptable that we don’t have timely information on how many people complete bootcamps and find jobs.”

Director of policy at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) Simon Ashworth said bootcamps have an “important role” to play in solving the country’s skills shortages.

He added some providers have “struggled to deliver Skills Bootcamps at the agreed funding levels and when funding is realised, and there is a lack of certainty about future investment post-election”.

Sue Pember, policy director of adult education body HOLEX, told FE Week that while her organisation supported the concept of bootcamps, it had long been “concerned” about the quality of training from unproven providers.

She added that many learners who drop out are likely to struggle because they lack level 2 qualifications or English and maths skills when they start.

Warwickshire College Group names new principal and CEO

Warwickshire College Group has hired a new principal and chief executive nearly 12 months after announcing the departure of the last one.

Sara-Jane Watkins will leave South Gloucestershire and Stroud College (SGS) after nine years as college principal and deputy chief executive of SGS Group, which contains an academy trust and a commercial operation. 

WCG has been led by interim principal and CEO Peter Husband since January. It was announced last June that then-group CEO Angela Joyce will leave WCG to lead Capital City College Group.

The search for a permanent successor to Joyce closed at the end of February. FE Week understands the college has to date been unable to announce Watkins’ appointment as it was waiting for government approval of her salary. Colleges paying leaders more than £150,000 need Department for Education and Treasury approval before confirming appointments. 

The Department for Education did promise to speed up the process after colleges complained it was causing delays in the recruitment of principals. 

Watkins said: “I am honoured and excited to be stepping into this role. My dedication to education has always been driven by the belief that every student deserves access to high-quality learning experiences, and I am eager to continue this mission at WCG.”

Her college career began at Hartpury College where she progressed to the role of communications director before joining SGS as director of corporate planning in 2002. 

SGS retained its ‘good’ Ofsted inspection outcome in a report published earlier this year. 

WCG oversees six colleges; Royal Leamington Spa College, Warwick Trident College, Rugby College, Moreton Morrell College, Pershore College and Evesham New College.

It won a long-running High Court battle last year allowing it to sell a disused college building for non-educational purposes in the face of heavy local opposition, including local MP Harriet Baldwin. 

“Collaboration will be key as we work to secure investment and necessary support to provide the best possible resources and opportunities for our learning community. I am eager to contribute to the ongoing success of the college and to make a positive impact on the lives of our students and ensure we remain a vital resource for the communities and businesses we serve,” Watkins said.

Gill Clipson, chair of WCG, said: “We are looking forward to maintaining the high quality of our provision and the strong reputation which we have established as Sara-Jane leads us through the next stage of development for WCG, focused on excellence in all we do and serving the needs of our local communities.”

Microcreds can turn volunteering activities into recognised skills

Micro-credentials are increasingly being recognised as an effective way to meet employers’ skills needs. But they offer much more than that, not least in terms of social value.

The idea that learners can build up sets of industry-relevant specialist skills through accredited ‘bitesize’ modules is pioneering. It provides the flexibility and agility needed in fast-moving sectors where technology is changing all the time and employers need adaptive training models.

But micro-credentials themselves have lots of scope to be adaptable, including in the social impact and enrichment space.

As partners in Good for Me Good for FE, our organisations are committed to generating social value. We know how deeply embedded colleges are in their local communities and the positive impact they have.

Through its social value ‘calculator’, Good for Me Good For FE has encouraged volunteering and fundraising activity at colleges across the country. Crucially, it has also helped demonstrate the monetary as well as social value of the additional support FE provides.

The value of volunteering is clear, not only for the people being supported but for those who give their time and effort. Research shows that helping others is good for mental health and wellbeing; indeed, this was a key driver in the development of Good for Me Good for FE.

But as educationalists, we also know volunteering provides immense value in the development of people’s key skills, behaviours and attitudes. These are all key to ensuring people are prepared for the world of work and successful careers.

The question is how we can better recognise and attach value to the skills developed through such activity so that volunteers can take them forward into the workplace.

We think the answer lies in micro-credentials. A first for the sector, this will involve exploring the creation of a suite of credentials linked to the skills that come from volunteering activity such as teamwork, collaboration and communication.

Formal recognition for volunteering could be hugely valuable

The potential benefits are far-reaching, not least because it could give us something tangible to measure alongside social value. We know that ‘what gets measured gets done’, so additional quantitative indicators strengthen our evidence base as to the impact this work is having.

Enrichment is a fundamental aspect of FE provision. Providing opportunities for students to gain recognition for their contributions and the skills they have developed while undertaking activities to support others is a natural extension of this.

This includes work experience, which we know is hugely beneficial. With high-quality placements so hard to come by, volunteering could play a much greater role – particularly if universally recognised credentials were attached.

For college students (and indeed staff), demonstrating skills beyond academic qualifications is essential in today’s competitive world. For those from disadvantaged backgrounds, this can be difficult to achieve – as so many activities come at a cost.

Gaining formal recognition for volunteering activities could be hugely valuable, reflecting a much wider skill set as well as commitment and passion for a cause.

Together, we are committed to driving the development of microcredentials. This includes a pilot project involving our two organisations, with plans to deliver 1000 accreditations.

But to do this effectively, we need to create a robust and credible framework for these bitesize credentials.

Volunteering activities are extremely varied. They comprise a broad range of learning outcomes, and ensuring consistency and validity will be a key challenge.

We want to work in partnership with colleges to help us build an innovative framework. This must accurately assess and demonstrate achievement in relation to essential skills like teamwork and communication, which are at the heart of volunteering.

We are excited about this work, which is the next step in our Good for Me Good for FE journey. It will harness the social impact and value that is already being generated in communities while strengthening the skills and qualifications of the people working hard to support others.

If your college is interested in contributing to the development work, we would love to hear from you.

AI should stand Assessment Intelligence – but we need to adapt

You don’t need me to tell you that AI represents a watershed moment, a pivotal point in education, or a revolution on a par with the last one. And it genuinely is, by the way. AI has made designing lesson resources, pitching for jobs, authoring drafts of technical documents, and, well, anything that you’ve put off, quicker, easier, and more possible. Just make sure you check its output first.

Teachers are, of course, the real creatives when it comes to finding the use cases for our digital friends of ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and the others. A mystery in English, done. A business marketing strategy, bam. A case study of your choice, well there it is.

While there is some debate on how to get the best out of these bots, the core teaching skills of defining objectives, precise instructions on what you are looking for, and giving it feedback and asking for improvements are conveniently essential to it.

In its advice on ‘prompt crafting’ in Copilot, Microsoft even use the acronym of GCSE, this time meaning Goal, Context, Source and Expectation. A goal giving it precise instructions on what you want (an essay plan), the context of who will be using it (for A Level Sociology students), a source such as material to include (on crime and deviance), and then giving clear expectations (500 words, include headings) will help ensure the bot keeps on track.

But just as we need practice to develop our ‘AI literacy’, talking about what works with chatbots and AI with students is a conversation that needs to keep happening.

AI, as it currently stands, is very good at developing frameworks, models and providing feedback. Used to refine ideas and suggest a plan of action, it can be an excellent guide for students to start to structure their work. However, pasting student text into the bot will mean it’s swallowed for its training data in most cases. So don’t do it.

But it often falls into an ‘uncanny valley’ where it is used to write an assignment, especially when used by those looking to solve the problem of a pressing deadline. It looks close to the ‘real’ thing but fails to hit the mark. This is changing by the day as the technology grows and even now no one can pinpoint AI-generated text with certainty all the time. Not you, not me, not any of the AI detectors.

Reforming our assessment strategies is becoming essential

This is where AI literacy, clear guidelines for student use and reforming our formative and summative assessment strategies are becoming essential.

For continuously assessed courses, that might mean presentations or research tasks that are more focused and require a level of practicality. For written exam-based subjects, seeing what it generates and improving upon them or critiquing them can be convenient source of ‘synthetic’ examples. And as far as maths goes, there are better tools out there to answer questions with, but generating long-form functional questions is something AI tackles with enthusiasm.

Teachers are already moving in these directions, but if you haven’t asked one of the bots a question from your course, try it. As first step in assessing your assessments, it can be quite a sobering moment seeing words flow with fury from the page.

The most popular chatbot currently defaults to a list style and an over-use of ‘furthermores’, ‘moreovers’, and ‘in conclusions’ if asked to write an essay, but those markers will change as it adapts to what its users want.

Combining theoretical assignments with the skills we want students to develop for their professions has always been the mission of further education. This will make it more so.

These assessment reforms will need not only to ensure student work remains authentic, but also start to respond to how AI is being incorporated into the workplace.

This will look different in each vocation. Whether that’s using the bots to develop presentation materials, incorporating these technologies to super-charge office and editing packages, or deploying them image recognition that diagnose problems in engineering, gaining familiarity with what is already happening in our industries and authentically mirroring that in college will be the challenge of the decade.