Further education providers have been warned they could be left with a bill for greater numbers of compulsory English and maths learners as the new numbered GCSE grades regime makes it harder to achieve a pass.
Under a condition of Department for Education (DfE) funding, providers must make 16 to 19 learners who have not achieved at least a C in English or maths resit until they pass.
But the current system’s C grade is partially the equivalent of a four under the new system and that won’t be enough for a ‘pass’.
It has prompted warnings of even more 16 to 19 English and maths learners who must continue to study to get the more difficult ‘pass’ grade.
Indeed, research by FE Week sister newspaper FE Week has discovered around two thirds of learners who achieved a C grade for maths and English GCSE last summer would be considered to not have passed under the new system — where five will be the lowest possible pass (with nine being the best).
James Kewin (pictured above left), deputy chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges Association, said: “Making the maths and English GCSEs harder to pass will mean colleges having to find the resources to teach the subjects to a lot more young people post-16.
“It’s going to be a case of FE having to pick up the pieces for failures with teaching in schools.”
However, a DfE spokesperson said FE providers would, up to the end of 2018/19, only have to teach maths and English to 16 to 19 learners who hadn’t reached grade four, to give “time to adjust”.
Education Secretary Nicky Morgan (pictured right) announced on June 15 that five would be a “good pass” under the new GCSE grading system.
And Ofqual has indicated that a grade five would only be awarded to the top third of pupils achieving the current C grade — so learners who previously achieved a middle or low C would have got a level four, and so not passed.
Catherine Sezen (pictured main, right), senior policy manager for 14 to 19 and curriculum at the Association of Colleges, said: “What’s particularly concerning is the plans to align the new GCSE good pass with the 16 to 19 English and maths funding condition for colleges.
“While this will be a phased approach, the detrimental effect this could have on college funding is worrying.”
Dr Lynne Sedgmore (pictued below), executive director of the 157 Group, said: “This announcement will undoubtedly add to the well documented challenges that colleges are facing in implementing policy around English and maths.”
Dr Lynne Sedgmore
The FE Week research, which focused on learners who sat GCSEs last summer only, showed that 27.3 per cent of learner grades were C for English — but under the new numerical grading rules, only a third of these (9.1 per cent) would have achieved a grade five.
In maths, 30.4 per cent of students received a C grade. However, FE Week found that only a third of these (10 per cent) would have received a grade five.
The DfE spokesperson said: “From 2019/20, we intend to align the funding condition with the new good pass at grade five.”
Hundreds of teachers and tutors are descending upon the grand setting of Berkshire’s Wellington College for two days of classroom-related talk, debate and fun.
Among the day one speakers yesterday were university technical colleges boss and former Education Secretary Lord Baker and Gazelle chief executive Fintan Donohue.
They took part in a number debates and panel sessions and are featured below, where Lord Baker outlines his views as to why apprenticeships should not be for those aged more than 25.
Also featured below is Mr Donohue session where he expressed his views on the level of entrepreneurial know-how among college boards, during a panel session hosted by Association of Colleges deputy chief executive Gill Clipson.
Lord Baker proposes ‘late 20s’ apprenticeship cut-off
People in their late 20s and 30s “shouldn’t be given apprenticeships,” former Education Secretary Lord Baker (pictured above) has claimed.
In a speech at Wellington College, in Berkshire, on day one of the Festival of Education, which counts FE Week as a key media partner, he spoke about the future of technical education. And he warned apprenticeships for older learners were “largely a re-labelling exercise”.
Lord Baker, who served as Secretary of State for Education and Science under Margaret Thatcher from 1986 to 1989, said the government had committed to a “very large” expansion in the apprenticeship movement, and that he “applauded” efforts to reach 3m starts by 2020.
But he said they “should be 3m good apprenticeships,” adding: “Many of them are now for people in their late 20s and 30s.
“Apprenticeships were never devised for those sorts of people, and shouldn’t really be given to them in my view, particularly in the public sector it’s largely a re-labelling exercise.
“The really significant levels of apprenticeship are at 16 and 18, but an apprenticeship is supposed to last for two or three or four years.
“You don’t need to spend two or three or four years as an apprentice in retail to know how to run a shop. You really don’t.”
Last academic year, learners aged 25 and above made up 37 per cent of the 440,400 apprenticeship starts. It was 45 per cent of the 510,200 starts the previous year and 44 per cent of the 520,600 apprenticeships in 2011/12.
Lord Baker also spoke about how his University Technical College (UTC) programme for 14 to 19-year-olds was developing, with 30 currently in operation and a further 20 due to open by 2017.
He said asking learners to leave school at 14 was a “challenge”, requiring a “big marketing job”.
But when pressed by FE Week on the fact both the Hackney and Black Country UTCs were closing this summer, with the latter having been rated as inadequate by Ofsted, and on recruitment and attendance problems facing a number of UTCs, Lord Baker said he accepted there were instances where the model hadn’t worked.
“Out of the 30, we have decided to close two because I’m not interested in keeping failing schools going. If I was still Secretary of State, I would close failing schools very quickly,” he said.
“We have had two that have not done well and the reason why they did not do well was they had very poor heads and governing bodies. We are now very much more involved. We sit on the board of appointments of headteachers in UTCs.”
Lord Baker said recruitment had been “sticky at the beginning” but was “now much better”, adding that the UTCs opening this September would “virtually all be fully-subscribed, some over-subscribed”.
He said: “For a UTC, which has only been going for two years, pioneering a new type of education, to get an outstanding is unique in the history of education. It’s remarkable.”
‘Governors don’t know entrepreneurship’ — Donohue
Most college governors “don’t know what entrepreneurship is,” Gazelle chief executive Fintan Donohue told Festival of Education-goers.
“I think one of the big things is that most of our governing bodies don’t know what entrepreneurship is,” he told the audience on day one of the festival.
“Let’s make it simpler and say, ‘what’s the cost and return on innovation in the organisation’.
“Governing bodies spend oodles of time monitoring I think very small amounts of money sometimes and very manageable things.
“The real cost to colleges is in innovation and growth but it’s quite invisible for most of our governing bodies.”
He added that colleges needed to be “inventive” when trying to deliver their “community mission”, and said they should turn to alternative sources of income, like local businesses, when trying to run competitions and other elements “beyond the classroom”.
“If you’re in the college system and you look at programmes of study and the funding, there is a lot of flexibility in there if you are prepared to find ways to stretch it,” he said yesterday.
“I think there will be ways in which we can do it, but there is a real possibility of doing more with students beyond the classroom. We have a mentality at the moment that we can only do what we are funded to do.
“But the truth is we have large assets, big campuses, lots of technology and resources, and if we want to deliver our community mission then I think we’re going to have to find new ways of saying ‘this doesn’t have to be funded, this is a gift from our college’.
“We can run competitions, we can do much more with it, alongside that which we’re funded to do, and I think we’re going to have to think about doing that if we’re going to give the young people, the adults, an opportunity to go beyond what the public sector is going to fund in the future.”
Peter Jones Foundation chief executive Alice Barnard was also on the panel.
She said: “We talk about employer engagement all the time, and some places have done very well with it, and some places it’s just talked about and not a lot happens.
“To have meaningful business engagement, that needs to be businesses coming into colleges. It means work placements. It means masterclasses, mentoring, business services. It means taking on apprentices.
“Government is talking about taking on 3m apprentices, but you need the businesses to commit to that. I could promise 3m apprentices right now in the same way as the government has, but if I don’t have any employers lined up, then that could take me 150 years.
“It’s really critical that we don’t just talk the talk.”
More FE and skills sector coverage from the Festival of Education will appear in a supplement with edition 143 of FE Week, dated Monday, June 29.
College lecturer Bill Fowler didn’t rest in his bid to raise funds for a cause close to his heart as he cycled more than 166 miles in under 12 hours on North Wales’s steepest mountain, writes Billy Camden.
There was no rest North Shropshire College lecturer Bill Fowler as he took on the Horseshoe Pass 12-hour Everesting Challenge raise more than £500 for a learner.
It was done in the name of level three animal management student Cerian Cowley, aged 21, who suffered a stillbirth in February and has since been on a fundraising mission for her charity Willow’s Wishes.
Named after Cerian’s stillborn baby, the charity aims to provide more cuddle cots, which allow bereaved parents to spend time with their stillborn child, at the Wrexham Maelor hospital where she gave birth.
Cerian’s family friend and course lecturer, Laura Pugh, approached engineering lecturer Bill to help with the fundraising. She said without the cot “Willow would have been placed in the mortuary away from family and friends”.
Bill Fowler
Bill said: “You can imagine the upset it [the stillborn] caused. It is awful, I couldn’t think of anything more traumatic.”
Keen cyclist Bill completed the Everesting challenge, which involves choosing a hill and cycling up and down it enough times to gain enough vertical height to make a total of 8,848 metres (the height of Mount Everest) on North East Wales’s Horseshoe Pass. It is the biggest mountain climb in North Wales in terms of height gain.
“Physically it was hard. I was caught in a headwind throughout the day which didn’t really help but I think it is more of a mental challenge,” said Bill.
“You’re literally riding a loop and once I had gone up and down for the fourteenth time I started to recognise things like a bit of litter in the hedge road. It all started to seem awfully familiar but not in a terribly good way. It was like being in a hamster wheel.”
But when times got tough, Bill set his mind on what was really important.
“In that situation you’ve just got to press on and think about the cause it was for,” he said.
“I think cycling is one of those disciplines where the pros talk about “learning to suffer”, which sounds very dramatic, but you learn to just think about other things and for me it was thinking about Willow’s Wishes.”
Cerian said: “We are all very proud of Bill and what he has achieved, with raising money, his help, generosity and completing a new personal achievement.”
From left: Laura Pugh and Cerian Cowley
He thanked all those who came along and supported him, including Laura and fellow North Shropshire College animal lecturer Jenna Motley.
Laura said: “I was there to support Bill all the way and being at the finish line was emotional not only to see Bill achieve a personal challenge but to be so selfless and help raise money for a friend of mine who has been through such a heart breaking ordeal. Bill you are a super star.”
More than 20 FE and skills-related figures were among the 1,163 people to have received an award in this year’s Queen’s Birthday Honours List.
City and Islington College principal and chair of the Commission on Adult Vocational Teaching and Learning (Cavtl) Frank McLoughlin was chief among these with a knighthood.
The remaining awards were made up of five CBEs, 11 OBEs, seven MBEs and a BEM (British Empire Medal). Six of these (including Sir Frank) went to college principals or chief executives, one went to a governor, another to a head of student life, another to a bricklaying tutor and one to a former college higher education manager.
There was also recognition for skills provision outside the college environment with Cumbria-based independent learning provider Gen2 Training chief executive Mike Smith picking up an OBE.
Further skills honours for the business world came for Rotherham engineering firm Newburgh Engineering chair and managing director Vincent Middleton with an OBE, while South East Midlands Local Enterprise Partnership (SEMLEP) chair, Helena Kennedy Foundation chair and founder, and former principal of Milton Keynes and Cambridge Regional colleges Ann Limb received a CBE.
Stewart Segal, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said: “It’s good to see that a wide range of people across the sector have received awards.
“In the independent sector, Mike Smith’s championing of skills training in the North West has been fantastic and his OBE is richly deserved. We hope to see more independent providers recognised in future honours lists.
“We have worked closely with Ann Limb in the development of skills and employment within the sector so we are equally pleased about her CBE. And we were pleased to be part of the Cavtl initiative and therefore we are delighted about the knighthood for Frank McLoughlin.”
Martin Doel, Association of Colleges chief executive, said: “Congratulations to all our FE sector colleagues, but most particularly to those in our member colleges whose tireless work has been recognised.
“Every year principals, governors and other staff are rewarded for their dedication to FE and we are pleased to see such a number again this year.”
Dr Lynne Sedgmore CBE, executive director of the 157 Group, said: “We offer our congratulations to all those who have been honoured for the important work they do in FE and skills, which has enormous value for individual learners, employers, the economy and society.”
South Gloucestershire and Stroud College (SGS) students taking part in a project designed to help those in need in the Philippines have raised more than £5,000.
The learners from courses across the college have been getting ready for the trip of a lifetime by raising the funds during this academic year through events such as bake and jumble sales, bag-packing and performances.
Now in its fourth year, the 18-day college project involves the students working in the Philippine Community Fund School (PCF), and also at drop-in and reintegration centres run by three other charities which support street children.
Health and social care learner Billie Rogers, aged 18, was part of the project last year and is returning for her second year. “Working with PCF and other charities is a great opportunity for someone lacking in self-confidence such as myself to break out of their shell by committing to helping those less fortunate,” she said.
Main pic: From left: Clark Alltoft, Maria Meredith, Josh Doidge, Tim, Eleanor Ford and Kheamah Powell
New Shadow Minister for Young People John Woodcock MP said he was “in listening mode” at a special FE Week event at the Houses of Parliament to introduce him to the sector.
The event on Tuesday (June 16) gave 180 representatives from providers, colleges and awarding bodies the chance to tell the Labour MP what opposition policies they would like to see proposed in the new Parliament.
Mr Woodcock
Mr Woodcock said: “I am very much in listening mode. I need to understand from all of you what’s happening in the sector… and what your sense is of the big challenges facing you.”
He said Labour had “palpably failed” to convince the public it could do better than the Conservatives at the election.
“And that requires some sense of determination yes, that we will do better next time, but also some humility,” he said.
“So we need as an opposition to reassess with you, what was right, what was wrong and not going into this simply committed to saying the same things as we were over that last five years with the same results.”
Key on providers’ list of concerns were issues around provider engagement.
Mike Motley, managing director of TQ Training, told the Shadow Minister: “Employers’ involvement with apprenticeships is at about 14 per cent in this country which is paltry.”
When Mr Woodcock asked why engagement was so low, and what government could do, Mr Motley told him incentives were key.
He said: “It’s about showing them the real benefit and we do all we can through the provider network but I don’t think enough is done from a government perspective.”
Mr Motley said reaction to the apprenticeship grant for employers, an incentive payment for those who take on apprentices, was that it was too bogged down in bureaucracy.
He said: “The other issue with employers is size — 97 per cent of employment in this country is through small and medium-sized enterprises [SMEs] and they are the hardest to engage.”
John Hyde, executive chair of HIT Training, said employers needed “stability” in order to commit to apprenticeships.
“If the government wants 3m apprenticeships, they’ve got to forget Trailblazers and just get on with what we can do,” he said.
“We haven’t got time to change all the programmes and all the problems that are going to come with it — it’s either 3m apprenticeships or Trailblazers, take your pick.”
Guy Helman, chief executive of the provider Impact Futures, blamed government strategy for the lack of SME engagement.
“I’d like to know if there’s going to be an employer engagement policy where actually deciding on policy we’re going to engage with the 97 per cent of SMEs out there in stead of the 3 per cent who are the larger employers,” he said.
Mr Woodcock said that while he couldn’t say what the government planned to do about the issue, he could “absolutely recognise the need” to engage differently.
“Having seen the way that Whitehall and ministers work from the inside, I can understand why government often does engage with blue chip employers because they have the economies of scale,” he said.
“But it’s unquestionable that the system is not delivering for small businesses.
“Recognising that problem is not the same as solving it, but I think absolutely we do have to work from that basis.”
Key to this, he said, would be understanding why apprenticeships were not “suitable” for small employers and how to communicate better with SMEs.
He added: “FE cannot continue in perpetuity to be the second or third cousin to other areas of education.
“It is extraordinary what many of your institutions have been able to achieve over these last few years given the squeeze — not simply financial squeeze but a squeeze on aspirations from a government which talks to universities, talks to schools and in many ways fails to understand what you are capable of.”
Main pic above, from left: panel members Richard Atkins, Association of Colleges president, Stewart Segal, Association of Employment and Learning Providers chief executive, Angela Middleton, chief executive of MiddletonMurray, Nick Linford, director of FE Week publisher Lsect, John Woodcock MP and Paul Steer, OCR head of policy and public affairs
Three carpentry students from West Suffolk College took first, second and third places in a national joinery competition.
Competing at the Worshipful Company of Joiners and Ceilers event in London this month, the learners beat more than 20 students from different colleges who were all tasked with making a traditional wooden sash window from drawings.
The competition has never seen all three top places taken by students from the same college.
The winners were level three carpentry learners Rowan Dewsbery, aged 19, in first place, Elliot Hall, 20, in second place and Conor Willmott, 18.
Brian Turner, lecturer in wood trades at West Suffolk, said: “I am so proud of our students. They are all excellent carpenters and joiners and I expect them to go on to great careers after winning this honour.”
Main pic: From left: Elliot Hall, Rowan Dewsbery and Conor Willmott
Ofsted is ending its system of graded lesson observation. It’s a subject that leant itself to the theme a conference on June 17 at the University of Wolverhampton’s Centre for Research and Development in Lifelong Education (Cradle). Dr Lorna Page was there and outlines the event.
The first national conference dedicated to the issue of lesson observation was entitled Lesson Observation: new approaches, new possibilities. It attracted lecturers, teachers, researchers and managers from as far afield as Guernsey.
It gave a much-needed platform for delegates to gather, discuss and reflect about the important and timely issue of lesson observation.
Launching the day’s proceedings was Professor Alan Tuckett, who reinforced the significance of the conference at a time when Ofsted finally recognises that graded lesson observations are not an effective or appropriate way to capture quality in learning and teaching.
Professor Tuckett’s aim for the day was that we should all leave pulsating with brilliant ideas about lesson observation.
Dr Matt O’Leary, the first of two keynote speakers, gave an engaging, informative account about the need for teaching to be an evidenced-based profession.
He used the idea of Japanese knotweed being a metaphor for lesson observation — the unwelcome visitor that is quickly colonising teachers’ professional lives.
Delegates were then fortunate to be able to call upon expert voices and join a variety of focus workshops, one of which was my own. It was entitled The impact of lesson observation on practice, professionalism and teacher identity.
The workshops were presented under four themes — making the transition to ungraded models of observation; recent research studies in lesson observation; peer observation/coaching and mentoring; and lastly, innovations and developments in observing classroom practice
I joined Dr Ann LaHiff’s session which explored ‘Maximising vocational teachers’ learning: The developmental significance of observations’. She gave a passionate address to illustrate how lesson observation is a complex phenomena; that it’s more than just ‘watching’.
By the time we paused for coffee, delegates were cheerfully absorbed in exchanges relating to their own experiences of lesson observations. The energy and level of discussion that ensued illustrated how contentious the topic of lesson observation is, both for observers and observees.
Lots of nodding and positive murmurs confirmed that the findings from my own research on lesson observation resonated with the many delegates who attended my session.
Discussions that followed suggested that ungraded observations are being trialled around the country; however, they are bringing problems of post observation feedback, particularly the vocabulary being used by observers — how do you say a lesson is ‘good’ without suggesting it’s a grade two?
While the rain made attempts at dampening the campus’s grounds, the same could not be said inside the canteen where delegates were eagerly sharing their morning’s experiences and tweeting under the hashtag #obsconf2015.
Following lunch, Dr Phil Wood’s impassioned keynote talk called for a different type of observation: lesson study. This type of observation sees teachers planning collaboratively and observing the learners, not the teachers.
Dr Wood gave a compelling argument to state that learning is hidden, only elements of it can be seen — classrooms are complex adaptive systems and lesson study can be used as a system for supporting deep discussion on enhancing professional capital.
How do you say a lesson is ‘good’ without suggesting it’s a grade two?
‘Using lesson observation to promote teacher-efficacy’ was the final session I attended. Terry Pearson facilitated table discussions about whether lesson observation could promote teacher self-efficacy. Furthermore, he encouraged delegates to participate in practical challenges to demonstrate their own perceived self-efficacy. The overarching point Mr Pearson conveyed was we should be using lesson observation to address staff development needs, not to identify staff development needs.
To conclude the day’s events, delegates reconvened to dissect the issues addressed and pose questions that hitherto had been examined during the day.
Far too quickly, the conference came to a close. At the start of the day, Professor Tuckett’s aim was that we would all go away ‘pulsating with brilliant ideas about lesson observation’. I think it’s fair to say not only were we pulsating, we were positively reverberating — all I can say is, watch out lesson observation, we’re coming to get you.
The latest country to emulate, apparently, is the Netherlands, with Skills Minister Nick Boles this month advising MPs to look there for a ‘transferable and applicable’ education system.
And it’s true the Dutch set a good example — ninth to our 20th in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development school rankings, with lower youth unemployment.
As the government will know, Dutch teens can opt for interchangeable pathways that don’t restrict what they do at 18, and more than half take a vocational route. That’s a figure we in this sector can only dream of, so perhaps he’s right that it’s time to ‘Go Dutch’.
But let’s take a step back because we’ve been here before. It was only recently that debate in FE and skills was dominated by the German model, and we all remember the spirited discussion about the merits of the Swedish schools model.
We should be advocating continuity over constant tampering, set within the UK’s own unique economic and social context
Yet evidence then emerged suggesting the German approach wasn’t the best fit for the UK, and that the ability of the Swedish model to transform school standards was questionable.
What they want is evidence-based policy reform, stable funding and the freedom to respond to local demand.
And the truth is, we’re already embracing the most relevant aspects of the Dutch design, making good progress towards enhancing flexibility and expanding access to technical options, for example via university technical colleges and career colleges.
During the election campaign there was endless debate about apprenticeships, and giving vocational education parity of esteem.
This suggests we are moving in the right direction, in allowing young people to pursue alternative professional and technical education routes while also keeping their options open, as is the case in the Netherlands.
But realistically, we’re not simply going to remake the UK system in the image of the Netherlands — or another country we admire.
Ultimately, I’m not sure this tendency to look abroad with rose-tinted glasses is that helpful. It overlooks the fact we are rarely comparing like with like.
Already, it’s clear that beyond the general emphasis on flexibility, core aspects of the Dutch system are not easily transferable.
There are definitely elements of the Dutch model that could work here, and we clearly have a good deal to learn from the experiences of other nations. However, it is also important to learn from Britain’s prior experiences — (something we know from our Sense and Instability research into 30 years of skills policy) — is not done nearly enough.
Certainly, it’s important for policy-makers to look at the most effective elements of the world’s best education and skills systems. But there is also a limit to what this can instructively tell us about our own.
As the Minister pointed out about the German model, every country has its own unique economic and social cultures and so we also need to look closer to home. That’s not to simply accept the status quo. But change has got to be incremental and we should be advocating continuity over constant tampering, set within the UK’s own unique economic and social context.
So let’s rephrase the question. Rather than looking abroad for what is ‘transferable and applicable’, let’s raise our voices about the lessons we can offer to other countries.
Education is a vital export market for the UK, yet too often it feels like we focus only on our shortcomings and not our successes. By all means, let’s look at what the Dutch can do for us, but let’s look at what we can do for the Dutch and the rest of the world too.
Click here for an expert piece outlining the Dutch Vet system and comparing it to that of England by academic Jeroen Onstenk
