Leadership issues on the agenda for FE women
Women from across the FE and skills sector were at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills conference centre in Westminster on June 17 for the WLN annual conference. Sara Mogel gives an overview of the event.
Women leaders in FE were told by Anne Doyle, journalist, author and former director at Ford Motor Company, to ‘embrace and exert our women power’ in a reflection of Michelle Obama’s recent assertion about girl power.
Anne, a renowned international speaker on women’s leadership, was addressing at this month’s annual conference of the Women’s Leadership Network entitled ‘Women mean Business’.
She compared women leaders in the UK with the rest of the world and pointed out to delegates that only 20 per cent of UK leadership positions were held by women whereas Russia has 43 per cent and China 38 per cent, which underlined the business case for having more women in leadership roles.
She outlined strategies women can use to ensure they are given a fairer chance of leadership and gave some practical advice from her own career.
At a time of great challenge in the FE sector the need for women leaders to both step forward and be given the support, especially by men, to do so was well set out by Anne as she challenged delegates to ‘dare to lead’.
At a time of great challenge in the FE sector the need for women leaders to both step forward and be given the support, especially by men, to do so was well set out
Delegates also heard from Julia Von Klonowski, director of education for Europe, Middle East and Africa at Oracle, and her daughter Lauren Best, PR manager at the Lawn Tennis Association, about the power of being a role model where they discussed their views, sometimes differing, about not just being a role model but current good and bad role models.
During the day workshops and other speakers covered a wide range of topics including confederations, growing apprenticeships in challenging time, developing an online profile, delivering organisational change through wellness, managing and developing talent, being a connected leader and meeting the challenges currently facing the sector.
There was also a chance for delegates to get a taste of coaching in the WLN’s ‘speed coaching’ sessions throughout the event.
The WLN’s Star Award for 2015 was also announced at the conference. This annual award, sponsored this year by AA Projects, went to an outstanding woman leader in the FE sector.
The recipient was Sue Middlehurst, principal and chief executive of Grimsby Institute Group. In the award citation, Sally Dicketts, WLN chair, said Sue had “come through the ranks of FE, from teacher to principal, in both the North and the South East of England”. She had also seen life from the other side of the fence as a well-respected inspector for both the FEFC and Ofsted, said Sally.
Throughout Sue’s career she has developed and demonstrated a coaching style that has seen her managers and staff succeed through empowerment and trust. She has done this while taking on some of the most challenging roles in FE and in particular has made her name in successfully managing change.
She is known for saying ‘how it is’ and not hiding difficult messages and because of this is respected and trusted both within the sector and outside of it by stakeholders. She is steadfastly unwavering in her ‘learner first’ ethos which underscores her passion for the core business of FE and the importance of the sector for people’s life chances and choices.
This was reflected in Sue’s acceptance speech where she urged delegates to be true to their values in all they do.
The conference was attended by more than 120 women leaders and future leaders, including 40 aspiring leaders who were the recipients of conference bursaries from the Education and Training Foundation.
Secret Principal
The principal of a large and well-established FE college writes about life at the top — the worries, the hopes, the people and the issues they have to deal with every day.
Wake up and smell the coffee
Professor Alison Wolf, architect of the government’s vocational education plans and labour market guru, says cuts to FE colleges and growth of universities could see the UK lose a valuable source of technicians and mechanics.
Britain’s supply of skilled workers may “vanish into history” if looming budget cuts in FE and the unchecked expansion of universities are allowed to continue.
She adds that “unstable, inefficient, untenable and unjust” funding is destroying education provision for school-leavers outside of universities. But let’s not get into the ‘University or us’ debate (we’ll lose that one) and ask the government to think long and hard about the value of FE and ‘who pays’.
FE provides the bulk of the UK’s post-secondary training and faces collapse and the loss of a valuable source of professionals and technicians.
Whither lifelong learning?
Adult education and training funding has been in freefall for some years with millions fewer learners and forced redundancies — averaging more than 100 staff per college since 2010 and climbing. A 24 per cent cut is pending for 15/16 and we’ll see another double digit cut in 16/17 unless Osborne pulls a budget rabbit out of the hat and/or the Comprehensive Spending Review throws us a lifeline in October.
FE colleges — already under budget pressures — face a further threat if the government takes resources from the FE budget to fund its plans to expand apprenticeships. The last remaining vestiges of the Adult Single budget (other) will be raided to feed apprenticeships, moving money away from where there’s abundant demand to where money has to be spent on marketing and advisers to boost demand.
Some solutions
FE colleges are the best place for technical and professional training that is business-facing and rooted in the local economy.
The FE sector has taken more than its share of the austerity cuts. Many colleges are in deficit and selling off the family silver just to survive. Please support us.
And consolidation (aka merger) doesn’t necessarily solve anything — witness the financial blackholes in some of the bigger colleges.
And I don’t sense any pressure to make schools more effective and efficient. Why are there more than 1,100 schools in this country with fewer than 100 learners in their sixth forms? Where’s the value for money and what’s the quality and learner experience like?! Wouldn’t these learners be better served in FE and sixth form colleges which offer a wider range of courses which relate to UK PLC? This would save money and reduce over-supply.
Less money more freedom
Reduce hypothecated funding which leads to underspend or rushed work. We want freedom to follow demand, let the customer decide. They know best not ministers (or principals).
If the taxpayer won’t pay then we’ve got to get the customer (or their bosses) to, so extend FE loans to level two and adults 19+ and above uncapped.
You do it for higher education so do it for FE
Let us charge for maths and English — if they are that important, learners should pay. We have discretion to waive fees for those who can’t afford to.
Don’t give the money to employers — there’s a conflict of interest, let them use their own training budgets; and scrap nonsense schemes like the Employer Ownership pilots and put them into FE budgets.
Governments should also switch other training budgets for example those at the Department for Work and Pensions to education and skills to avoid waste and duplication.
Liam Byrne, Shadow Skills Minister, said Wolf’s report is a wake-up call for the “brutal neglect” of the UK’s FE sector. He also famously left the ‘there’s no money left’ note for the incoming Coalition government in 2010. That’s still the problem. Everyone says they love FE, but no one wants to pay for it.
Skills Minister’s questions run deep
Skills Minister Nick Boles has posed a series of hard questions for the future of FE and skills. But for Lynne Sedgmore they raise just as many issues about the minister and the government as they do of the sector.
It is unusual for a Minister to be as clear as Nick Boles has been about his priorities for discussion with the sector.
At the Association of Employment and Learning Providers conference, he set out the same four questions that he first mentioned in Westminster Hall just over a fortnight ago.
They are a good guide to the areas where government is focusing attention in relation to FE and each indicates the possible direction of change.
They also reveal some policy confusion and unhelpful assumptions.
The first question concerns the age at which vocational education should start — should it be 14 or 16?
It raises issues about the role of university technical colleges (and their half-brothers about which ministers rarely speak — studio schools and career colleges) as well as the role of FE colleges themselves.
The fact that most FE colleges currently undertake a richer and more complex set of missions, which inter-relate and can be mutually supportive, is routinely ignored
It is odd however because one might have thought that the question had been answered definitively by his colleague [Schools Minister] Nick Gibb who has only recently insisted that all pupils follow the academic path prescribed by the EBacc until age 16.
The insistence that all pupils study English, maths, science, a modern foreign language and history or geography, as well as moves to make GCSEs harder effectively squeezes out time for any serious engagement with vocational education. Is the question really still open or do ministers just not talk to each other?
The second question should quash any thoughts that the ‘Dual Mandate’ consultation was closely aligned with Vince Cable and might fall from the agenda when he fell from power.
Mr Boles asks exactly the same question. ‘Should colleges specialise?’ and to avoid any doubt asks whether some should focus more on ‘higher level skills’ and some on ‘training’ for those who have not had an ‘adequate education’.
Far from being novel, the Dual Mandate proposals reflect what appears to be the default option in Whitehall when considering FE — separate out higher level work into a limited set of high status institutions which are allowed to prosper: and retain a set of post-16 secondary moderns subject to ever more detailed central prescription.
The fact that most FE colleges currently undertake a richer and more complex set of missions, which inter-relate and can be mutually supportive, is routinely ignored.
The third question asks who should make decisions about any re-organisation; ministers, local enterprises or combined authorities. The answer ‘none of the above’, though perfectly reasonable, doesn’t appear to be contemplated. The question moreover is ominously silent about whether ‘making decisions’ is limited to approval of college proposals or prefigures a much more active set of interventions as seen in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland where there has been sector wide rationalisation.
Whichever it is, it is curious that a minister who believes passionately in the efficacy of markets should limit the choice to one of which public sector bureaucracy should dictate the re-organisation of independent colleges.
It also seems risky to contemplate wholesale structural change at a time of destabilising cuts in funding.
The final question asks whether we have the right set of qualifications and whether the government has ‘been prescriptive enough’.
It is hard to know where to start. Someone should take Mr Boles aside and point out the long and sorry history of failed government reforms to the curriculum — GNVQs, AVCEs, the Diploma, the QCF.
They should point out the slowly unfolding disaster of compulsory resits in GCSE English and maths; they should show him the massive degree of prescription embodied in the funding and eligibility rules set out in ever expanding documentation from the Skills Funding Agency.
Like FE college specialization, the reform of vocational qualifications has long been seen in Whitehall as magic bullet, but a true reforming minister should ask himself whether he really wants to see any more of this.
Richard Spencer, head of science, Middlesbrough College
It all started with coffee for globe-trotting college tutor Dr Richard Spencer, whose acclaimed classroom approach has seen him meet Pope Francis and former US President Bill Clinton.
The Middlesbrough College head of science has been to The Vatican, in Rome, and Dubai having been listed as the only European teacher named in February’s 10-strong shortlist for the $1m (£636k) Varkey Foundation Global Teacher Prize, widely considered the Nobel Prize for teaching.
The father-of-three lost out to American-based English teacher Nancie Atwell, who was named overall winner, but his biology-related dances, poems and music have already earned plenty of acclaim.
Bede College, a sixth form college in his home town of Billingham, County Durham, won an excellence in teaching biology Beacon Award during his 22-year spell there.
And 51-year-old Spencer, who plays piano and violin, has won a number of other awards, including two national STAR awards (FE teacher of the year and outstanding subject learning coach).
He was also awarded an MBE in 2010 for services to science communication and has involved his students with projects which have been presented at conferences and festivals across Europe.
But it all started with coffee back at Bede not long after he started.
“For most of my time there, my principal was Miriam Stanton, who was just brilliant at nurturing the staff,” explains Spencer, who started at Bede having completed a PGCE at Durham University.
Some students can be a bit shy at first with the dances, but they usually come round pretty quickly and 99 times out of 100 will get involved
“She encouraged me and all the other teachers to try different things out.
“I taught chemistry and biology A-level at first but switched 100 per cent to biology in 1997 and that’s when I really started to get into creative teaching.
“The one that started it off is something called the Mitosis Mamba —a dance that explains what chromosomes do in cell division.
“I remember I taught a very bright lad called Ben, but after trying to explain mitosis to him through practical work, a video and simulation using pipe-cleaners, he still told me ‘I don’t get it’.
“I started explaining how cells divide using my hands and fingers and told him: ‘It’s a bit like a dance’. Then I thought: ‘It could be a dance’.
“I remembered a Maxwell House coffee advert from when I was a child that featured a woman shaking a fist of coffee beans. It matched my actions well, so I found an old 1920s song called ‘There’s an awful lot of coffee in Brazil’, to do the dance to.
“I still do it with students today and you can see them shuffling around in exams remembering how it goes.”
Spencer, known by his learners as Doc, has since created include the DNA Boogie, to the Jackson Five song Blame it on the Boogie, and The Heart Song, which explains the structure of the heart to the tune of Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.
He has also developed the Gram Stain Rap, which explains staining techniques to distinguish between different bacteria, the Meiosis Square Dance, which explains how sex cells are produced, and an animated pantomime video that loosely uses the story of Jack and the Beanstalk to explain different modes of nutrition.
“Some students can be a bit shy at first with the dances, but they usually come round pretty quickly and 99 times out of 100 will get involved,” says Spencer.
“Traditional teaching methods are still very important, but I find that it helps to think of other ways of helping students to learn.
“I bump into students 12 or 13 years down the line who can recall all the words and actions, which is nice, including my dentist.”
Spencer’s own interest in science is rooted in the same personal style of connection he adopts with his learners.
It came from his great uncle Eddie, who “lived around the corner” during his childhood and he “loved nature”.
“He used to take me out to a place called Saltburn [in North Yorkshire], which was a beach by a wood where you would see all sorts of animals,” recalls Spencer affectionately.
“He also bought me a book called ‘Animals of East Africa’ which fired my imagination.
“I got really into animals and nature and was lucky that my parents let me keep my own pets, mostly tortoises and budgies. I also bred butterflies and moths in a cage at my dad’s allotment — I think I was a bit strange.”
He moved briefly to Cardiff to study applied biology at the University of Wales Institute of Science and Technology after his Billingham school days
“I had an offer to do a DPhil at Oxford University after graduating, but I don’t think I realised how prestigious it was, so turned it down,” he says.
“It’s crazy looking back, but I decided instead to do my PhD at the North East Biotechnology Centre instead, which was part of Sunderland Polytechnic.”
He lived in Sunderland in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but returned to Billingham in 1994 after marrying Elaine, now aged 52.
“We went to St Michael’s Roman Catholic Comprehensive School, in Billingham, but didn’t know each other very well as children. We got married within six weeks of properly meeting each other,” says Spencer.
He progressed from the PhD to post-doctoral research in Salmonella genetics at Sunderland University, where he was given the chance to lecture for the first time.
“That was how I got into teaching, because I realised that I enjoyed teaching more than research,” he says.
More than two decades at Bede followed before Spencer moved to Middlesbrough College in 2014, the same year he was named as one of the UK’s Leading 100 Practising Scientists.
Spencer learned in February that he had been shortlisted for the Varkey Foundation Global Teacher Prize and was particularly excited to meet Pope Francis as a result.
He said: “It was an amazing experience, as I am religious. To me it comes down to a simple question of whether you believe or not. Religion can co-exist with science, as in my view you can never prove or disprove that God exists.”
Spencer was interviewed ahead of the award ceremony in Dubai on the BBC Breakfast television show, Good Morning Britain, Saturday Live on radio four and radio Five Live.
“I’m pleased if that helped generate some recognition for the FE sector, as I don’t think it gets the credit it deserves,” he said.
“Winning these awards has been great, but the most important thing to me has always been teaching and inspiring young people,” he added. “I didn’t think up the songs and dances for public recognition — the priority behind them all was always to find new ways of explaining complicated processes and making learning fun.”
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It’s a personal thing
What’s your favourite book?
The Go-Between by LP Hartley
What do you do to switch off from work?
Research my family history
What’s your pet hate?
Discourtesy
If you could invite anyone, living or dead, to a dinner party who would it be?
Sir Anthony Carlisle, my distant cousin who was possibly the inspiration behind Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
A farmer
Long-time lecturer Anne sets sail for new life
A long-serving lecturer is setting sail for a new life after bidding students and colleagues farewell, writes Billy Camden.
After two decades of loyal service at Suffolk New College, Anne Kidd is cruising into retirement by swapping the classroom for the deep blue sea.
The 60-year-old joined the Ipswich college in August 1995 and was programme leader for English and initial teacher education.
She is preparing to set sail around the world with her husband, Mark, on their yacht Erica after saying her goodbyes to students and colleagues.
“The beauty about an around the world trip is that it can last as long as you want it to. We had some friends do it, taking them nine years,” said the mum-of-two.
“Once you are retired you have the freedom to stay and go to different places whenever you want. It is absolutely wonderful.
“We are still planning our route. We are doing a trip around the Canary Islands soon so when we do go we will go to different places. The beauty is that we can stay in certain places at different times and move on when we want. The freedom is great.
“I’m somewhat nervous, the longest time I’ve ever been out as sea in one go for is 24 hours and I’ll certainly be out there for a lot longer than that during this adventure.”
She added: “I will miss the people the most, for their support, hard work and ability to keep smiling even under extreme pressure.
“I will also miss being in a classroom teaching as that always remained the part of the job I loved best — it kept me sane when all the paperwork seemed overwhelming.”
Anne, who also worked for Tower Hamlets College, London, for a decade before joining Suffolk New College, said she would miss teaching, but that changes to the profession had not always been for the better.
“There is less time to prepare lessons, a lot more focus on data and analysing data and making interventions, which makes the job less enjoyable because it impacts on what you want to be doing, and that is physically teaching in the classroom.”
She added: “When I started teaching there were no computers, we were still using Banda machines, which makes me sound a bit like a dinosaur.
And because of this “evolution in technology”, says the way students learn has changed “enormously”.
“If they [the learners] want to research something then they just do it at a click of a button — students don’t have to go away and spend hours, even days, researching,” she said.
“It has definitely sped their learning up.”
Marianne Flack, director of English, maths and student support at New Suffolk College, paid tribute to Anne.
She said: “Anne’s passion for and extensive experience in teaching has been an asset to the college.
“During her time, she has supported many new and existing teachers develop their practice so that they can give the students the best possible learning experience while at college.”
Main pic: Anne Kidd sailingon her yacht Eric, inset: Marianne Flack
Trailblazer apprenticeship figures revealed for first time
Official figures for the government’s Trailblazer apprenticeship scheme have been published for the first time — and they show around 300 starts in the first nine months.
And it looks like the programme, in which new apprenticeship standards are being drawn up in consultation with employer groups, has also stalled with just 100 of these starts having come since November.
The provisional figures are contained in today’s Statistical First Release (SFR) and show the number of apprenticeships started in each of the first three quarters of 2014/15.
The exact number of apprenticeship starts remains unknown as in the SFR “volumes are rounded to the nearest 100,” but data reveals just 300 people started Trailblazer apprenticeships since they became available in August — and 200 of those were in the first three months of the academic year.
As of March this year there were 24 standards ready for delivery, according to the Skills Funding Agency website.
The figures also show resurgence in the number of traditional apprenticeships started by those aged 25 and over — 150,300 since the beginning of the year, up 50,000 on the same time last year.
In total, 374,200 apprenticeships have started this year, the provisional figures show, an increase of 59,600 on the provisional data for the same period last year.
This means that 25+ apprenticeships now provisionally represent 40 per cent of all apprenticeship starts — up from 32 per cent last year.
The number of apprenticeships started by 16 to 19-year-olds has crossed the 100,000 mark, with 101,700 started since the beginning of the year, a 6,500 increase from last year.
The SFR further revealed there had been 15,100 traineeships starts for the first three quarters of 2014/15. This time last year there had been 7,400.
Skills Minister Nick Boles said: “These figures show we are on course to create a modern and competitive workforce that boosts the country’s productivity and prosperity.”
However, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is yet to comment on the Trailblazer figures.
Edition 143: Nick Juba, Laraine Moody & Alexis Smith
Former European Commission consultant Nick Juba is to become the new chief executive of cash-strapped City College Brighton and Hove.
He takes over at the 6,000-learner college from interim chief executive Monica Box, who is also interim principal, on September 21.
His appointment comes after FE Commissioner Dr David Collins was sent in with the college, rated by Ofsted as good in 2011, having been issued Skills Funding Agency notice of concern about finances.
Dr Collins pointed out in February, following the departure of Lynn Thackway as Ms Box’s predecessor, how “financial difficulties have coincided with a period of extensive instability in its executive team”.
Mr Juba is currently a director of the University of the Arts London, where he oversees the university’s awarding body responsible for strategic direction and improving the quality of pre-degree education in the arts.
He has previously worked at the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, an agency of the Department for Education, as senior adviser, as well as the European Commission.
“I am enormously excited to be given the opportunity to lead the college and work with students, staff, partners and the wider community to build on its past successes to ensure its future success,” said University of Brighton graduate Mr Juba, who has served as governors’ board chair at Worthing’s Northbrook College.
Julie Nerney, governors’ board chair, said: “We are immensely impressed by Nick’s long experience of working within the educational sector, his expertise of educational standards and qualifications, and work-related FE.”
A college spokesperson said the principal appointment process was underway and expected to be concluded by the end of the month.
Meanwhile, former Cambridge Regional College assistant principal for employer engagement Laraine Moody is the new vice principal for employer engagement at West Suffolk College.
“I am absolutely delighted to have taken up the new role and am looking forward to working closely with employers in the region,” she said.
“West Suffolk College is a forward-looking college which prides itself on the quality of experience for its learners and employers and I am very excited to be part of taking this forward.”
Principal Dr Nikos Savvas said: “We are delighted to welcome Laraine on board. She has extensive and relevant experience in this area and I know will be a dynamic leader to our already highly proficient employer responsive and apprenticeship department.
“We see ourselves as an engine in this region’s economy and this can only be achieved by excellent collaborations with businesses and local employers and the provision of skilled future workforces.”
And Basingstoke College of Technology has a new director of student experience in Alexis Smith. She joins from Richmond Upon Thames College, where she was head of student services.
“My role here is to support the learner journey and provide the highest quality student experience,” she said. “This means from a first open day visit right through to enrolling and progressing through the college and beyond.”
Struggling Totton College opts to ‘join with’ national charity after Ofsted brands provision ‘inadequate’
A struggling sixth form college in Hampshire has announced plans to become part of a national crime prevention charity after being branded as “inadequate” by Ofsted.
The governing board at Totton College has this morning announced that from November it will “join with” Nacro, a charity which uses skills and training to reduce crime and re-offending in English and Welsh communities.
The charity told FE Week that Totton College would retain its name and FE focus, and was simply becoming part of the charity’s structure with the blessing of the Education Funding Agency, and was was not being purchased by Nacro.
A spokesperson said Nacro was “committed to delivering all vocational courses as set out in the 2015/16 Totton College prospectus”, and that Totton staff would become Nacro employees from November. She added that Skills Minister Nick Boles had been “kept informed” of the plans.
The deal was agreed by governors at a meeting last Thursday and comes after Ofsted announced the college had been given grade four ratings across the board, with inspectors raising specific concerns about a failure of leadership and management to “secure improvement in quality” and remove “weaknesses” in teaching, learning and assessment.
Nacro chief executive Jacob Tas (pictured) said: “With nearly 50 years’ experience of delivering vocational courses, Nacro works to deliver quality education that provides tangible work opportunities across communities in England and Wales. We are rated ‘good’ by Ofsted and our education centres have over 3,000 students.
“Uniquely, we connect our education provision to the local economy, providing the skillset needed for local employers to harness talent and for our students to gain clear progression into work and further education opportunities.”
Chair of governors Mike Hawker said the board was “confident” that it was putting the “right measures in place” to deliver change and “secure a quality experience for our students”.
He added: “The absolute priority for Totton College and Nacro is to ensure quality learning outcomes for all students attending Totton College. To achieve this, all our vocational courses will still be available at the start of the 2015/16 academic year, subject to enrolment.
“This has already resulted in the decision to focus on building a centre of excellence for local vocational training. The leadership team at Nacro and Totton College will create a platform for change across the organisation, focusing on professional standards and delivering a quality vocational curriculum that meets the needs of the local population.
“At the centre of this work is the determination to ensure Totton College retains its community focus and provides outstanding education and training opportunities for local people.”
A merger has been on the horizon for the college since last December, when former principal Mike Gaston said it was looking at its options after sixth form college commissioner Peter Mucklow warned it could not function alone.
Mr Mucklow’s verdict came after Ofsted told the 3,600-learner college it “required improvement” in March last year.
But an earlier attempt to merge with Eastleigh College was abandoned in March after the proposals were rejected by Eastleigh’s board.
Other concerns raised by Ofsted, who visited the college in late April and announced their findings last Wednesday, included worries that students’ achievement rates declined in 2013/14 and were “very low” and that progress made by A and AS-level students in relation to their prior attainment has declined and was “poor”.
The report continued: “The proportion of apprentices who complete their framework within agreed timescales is very low. In the majority of lessons and related activities, teaching, learning and assessment are not good enough, and in too many cases are inadequate.
“In most lessons, teachers do not challenge students to achieve to their full potential. Teachers do not focus sufficiently on assessing the progress that students make. The targets that teachers set for students are not sufficiently challenging or detailed to help students to improve.”