The sky was no limit for ex-college learner Stephen Greenall as he scaled the heights of Canada’s second tallest building to prove he could take on one of the toughest jobs in the world, writes Billy Camden.
Looking down from the 180-metre high Plaza Bank Building skyscraper, Stephen Greenall’s mind turned back to the comfort of his Warrington Collegiate circle of friends.
Stephen Greenall cleaning the second largest building in Toronto, the Plaza Bank Building
The 19-year-old’s journey from a BTec national diploma in aviation operations to the top of Canada’s second highest building, in Toronto, features on BBC3 tomorrow night.
He applied to take part in the World’s Toughest Jobs programme and was accepted to take on the role of window cleaner.
“When the BBC told me I was going to Toronto as a skyscraper window cleaner. I was shocked, excited, nervous and speechless,” said Stephen.
“At times I just wanted to be back with my friends at college. I went through a whole rollercoaster of emotions,” he added.
Filming took place over the course of two months from March last year, with Stephen completing his college studies upon his return to the UK.
Each of the six 60-minute episodes follows the journey of three 18 to 24-year-old Brits as they leave the UK in a bid to take on some of the world’s toughest jobs.
The second largest building in Toronto, the Plaza Bank Building
Stephen met up with his episode’s two co-stars — Dom Monk, aged 25, and Darci Tesfay, 23 — in Canada and after intensive training, lots of practice and health and safety checks the job began.
“When I was working up so high I felt like I could see the whole world. It was absolutely breath-taking,” said Stephen.
“As you climb up the ladders you open this little door and all you see is blue sky. The sun feels amazingly close. It just leaves you speechless.”
And his college aviation studies came to his rescue when he needed them the most.
“When I was climbing over the edge of the building I did cry a lot,” said Stephen.
“However once the container started moving, I just went in to cabin crew mode telling myself not to worry, and imagined they were turbulence.”
Diane Lewis, lecturer in aviation at Warrington Collegiate, said: “I’m really proud of Stephen and everything that he’s achieved.
“He was a student who stood out from the start. Outgoing, determined, with a great personality I always knew he would be exceptional both in the classroom and beyond.”
World’s Toughest Jobs will be televised on Tuesday, March 10 at 9pm.
Main pic: Stephen Greenall at Warrington Collegiate on his aviation course
A Richard Huish College student has hurtled from fourth to second in the world youth rankings for Bobsleighing following two weeks of racing for Great Britain.
George Johnston, aged 16, is the number one youth driver in Britain and is looking in good form to qualify for the 2016 youth Olympics.
He beat competition by 0.56 seconds to win the last race of the Omega Series Races in St Moritz during half term and was announced overall winner.
George, who is studying a sport BTec extended diploma at the Somerset sixth form college, said: “I was really happy with the result because I was one of the fastest in training all week but I wasn’t expecting that to be replicated in the race.”
Main pic: Bobsleighing champion George Johnston, from Richard Huish College
The Skills Funding Agency clawback saga appears to have ended with around 100 of the 600 providers warned they might have to pay back funding actually having to do so. Andy Gannon considers what happened and also whether there’s a bigger picture to look at.
The news last week that just 15 per cent of providers will be subject to a funding clawback from the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) will, sadly, not surprise anyone who has worked in FE for any amount of time.
We have become rather used to our attention being drawn to data systems and funding ‘errors’, even though our natural instinct is to be more concerned with things like teaching and employer engagement.
It is striking that, while the overall number of those ultimately affected is small, nearly 700 providers received the first, rather ill-timed, communication from the SFA before Christmas. Even if only the chief executive of each one was caused a sleepless night or two, that still amounts to quite a lot of professional energy expended.
But the reality, of course, is that, in each of those 700 providers, there will have been a small team of people beavering anxiously away on data throughout the month of January in order to arrive at the conclusion, in many cases, that the clawback amount in total would be less than £500.
In lighter moments, you could be forgiven for thinking that we had just lived through an episode of Yes Minister. The story has it all – ‘bumbling bureaucrats’ pursuing palpably intricate processes which, to anyone in the outside world would seem, at best, unrelated to the business of education and, at worst, downright distracting.
while the FE and skills system has operated in a more and more ‘market-driven’ way over the past two decades, the nature of centralised control has become more and more demanding
There was even the delightful element of timing — cue scenes of hard-pressed provider data managers eating turkey and mince pies while hunched over a computer screen examining ILR fields while the Minister and Sir Humphrey enjoy a luxurious Christmas banquet without a care in the world.
But this is not Yes Minister. Rather, it is the state we find ourselves in because of one ultimate policy contradiction. That contradiction is best summed up as the rather perverse notion that increased freedom breeds increased control.
There is no small irony in the fact that, while the FE and skills system has operated in a more and more ‘market-driven’ way over the past two decades, the nature of centralised control has become more and more demanding.
At the highest level, this is explained away as the need for ‘rigorous accountability’ if professionals are to be allowed to spend public money as they see fit.
However, the real issues go deeper than this — and reveal a fundamental political mistrust of people ‘on the ground’ to manage the very things that they should be best placed to manage themselves.
Just as, with schools, central control extends over the curriculum and the money rather than the system as a whole and making sure that every child can access a good education, so in FE, we have an overly-bureaucratic approach to funding, rather than a consolidated national view on, say, employer engagement and careers advice.
It is very reassuring to hear SFA officials acknowledge the need to simplify and make more predictable their processes — and I have no doubt there is a genuine regret about the way in which this episode has been handled.
But simplification has a habit of making things more complex, and ignores the fact that the processes themselves are often a distraction.
To add insult to injury, the clawback announcements, such as they were, came on the same day as the news that 24 per cent was to be cut from sector budgets in the coming year.
While huge effort has been focused on the microcosmic data detail, a cataclysmic shift will rock the big picture. What was Nero doing while Rome burned?
“I guess research is just about being nosey. Nosey and methodical — that’s what makes a good researcher,” says Dr Fiona Aldridge, assistant director for development and research at the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (Niace).
“I love qualitative data because it’s about people, but then I also love quantitative data because I love numbers. I’m a bit sad like that.”
But, as we chat on the dark day the skills funding letter is published, I get the sense that, with an 11 per cent cut in next year’s adult skills budget, there’s one set of numbers she might not be so keen on.
The problem is, she says, the numbers are being viewed in the wrong way.
Aldridge with father Geoff graduating from Leicester University in 1996
“It’s a really hard time to argue for more money to be spent on anything given public finances, but investment in education is an investment — not a cost,” she insists.
“It’s investing in the skills of people to get jobs, progress in work, to develop the skills to support their home, their community and their society.
“We should be concerned therefore about the impact reducing that investment has on people’s opportunities to take part in learning.
“Of course there are loans around for people who are convinced of the benefits of learning, but for those people who are not yet certain that its valuable to them then it could have a massive impact on numbers.”
Aldridge, aged 39, began working for Niace 18 years ago, almost by accident after being sent there from a temping firm while she worked out what she “wanted to do with my life” – but quickly decided she might have already found it.
“I suppose I loved the idea that it was about people and people’s opportunities to realise their ambitions,” she says.
“You only have to go to Adult Learners’ Week and see the stories of winners to recognise that this is something people recognise has made a real difference to their lives and made a real difference to mine, too.
Aldridge aged 5
“And therefore to work on a policy level or a practical level to help create more and better quality opportunities for adults to learn is just so enthusing and motivating.”
But what really convinced her to stay was an episode in her mid-20s that ends with her being splashed across the front page of the Mail on Sunday.
“It was when a dispersal policy had been introduced and around 400 asylum seekers were sent to Leicester and all the media work was negative,” she explains.
“And we were doing a tiny, tiny piece of work on asylum seekers — the skills and qualifications and experience they were bringing with them.
“And the local paper knew about it and was owned by the Mail — so the headline was ‘NHS gives nurses’ jobs to asylum seekers’.
“Well, we weren’t working with the NHS, and asylum seekers can’t work and we weren’t trying to get them jobs, but apart from that it was right.
“I was really young and just horrified that there was a quote on there that had been taken out of context and Ann Widdecombe said I was increasing Britain’s reputation as a soft touch nation. I thought I was going to get the sack.”
Ann Widdecombe said I was increasing Britain’s reputation as a soft touch nation
Aldridge phoned then Niace chief executive Alan Tuckett.
“And he said: ‘Excellent. I would much rather you get criticised for doing the right thing than applauded for doing the wrong thing’.
“The support, the encouragement and that sense of ‘let’s do the right thing here for learners, take risks but not dump it on you if things go wrong’ made me think that was a place I’d quite like to work.”
And Niace’s emphasis on family learning, where parents learn alongside their children and in turn help them learn, chimed with her own experience of education growing up in Walsall with parents Geoff and Maureen, and younger brother Andrew.
“My parents are from a working class background, with not great educational achievement but a real strong sense of the value of education so they really invested in my education and supported it,” says Aldridge.
“My dad left school at 13 and hadn’t had a great education and went to be a bus driver and he hated it.
From Left: Aldridge’s university friends Clare Gough, Cath Page, Aldridge and Eleanor Bowskill
“He would say to me: ‘You need to work hard at school, because you need to have choices about the job you do’.”
One of her strongest memories, she says, is of him staying up late with her whenever she had to study.
“He was never in a position to be able to help me with my maths A-level, but he would just always be there so that I wouldn’t be on my own for that.”
After passing the 11-plus and attending grammar school, she became the first person in her family to go to university, studying economics at Leicester.
A gap year followed academia and then came the post at Niace, which she has seen grow from 40 people to 65. She has also extended its research work and, she says, expanded its focus from community learning into workplace learning.
Indeed, Aldridge manages the annual participation survey, measuring how many adults throughout the UK are accessing education.
“What always comes out in the survey is that, apart from the massive inequalities for learning, for those who are in those groups that are most unlikely to learn, the place where they are going to get those chances is going to be in work,” she says.
“So actually that’s a key area for us — if we’re interested in adults having the opportunities we had just by going through the system in a particular way then we need to be focussing on work.”
It’s a really hard time to argue for more money to be spent on anything given public finances, but investment in education is an investment — not a cost
But a bigger change for Niace could be looming on the horizon, after the organisation announced a “strategic alliance” with the Centre for Economic and Social Inclusion (Inclusion) – which could, if successful, lead to a merger later in the year.
“I’m really excited about it,” she says.
“I’ve worked with them for quite a long time and it works well, because they have the same approach to work, tackling inequalities and disadvantage.
“And lately we’ve been trying to think more about skills in the workforce and employment systems, and they’ve been doing more work around what we’ve been traditionally doing so we’ve been bumping into each other more.
“For me, an alliance makes complete sense and I’m quite excited about the potential that gives us for an extra offer — I’m really excited about the possibilities.”
And, with an election coming up, the stakes are high.
Coming into the election, she says, “we really need to show the adult skills budget is an investment the country can’t afford not to make”.
“We need people to have the opportunities to take part in learning that will bring benefits to their working lives, their social lives, their families their communities and to the local economy and to be able to make that as easy as possible for employers and individuals and providers,” explains Aldridge.
“It would be great to see some creative ideas on how to make that possible.
“It’s a shame that money dominates everything, but it’s about what we can do within that context to create good, high quality opportunities for people to take part in learning.”
————————————————————————————————————————————–
It’s a personal thing
What is your favourite book, and why?
I don’t have a favourite book, but I love to read. I’ll read a book and really enjoy it, but then just move on. At the moment I’m reading Dominion by CJ Samson, about the dangers of being overly focussed on nationalism — it’s a story that’s meant to be a million miles away from where we are, but it feels scarily close.
Aldridge and husband Ian on their wedding day in 1999
That’s my current favourite book, but it won’t be my favourite book in a month’s time.
I like novels that give you an insight into different people, cultures and possibilities
What do you do to switch off from work?
I have three children so essentially I just walk through my front door and then I’m switched off, because children aren’t very forgiving of the day you might have had at work. I like to read spend time with good friends and family
What’s your pet hate?
I’m naturally optimistic, so I don’t like cynicism. And if I’m doing something I like to put everything into it so I don’t like half-heartedness
If you could invite anyone to a dinner party, living or dead, who would it be?
A good dinner party for me is fun, so I’d like comedians Rob Brydon, Lee Mack and David Mitchell because they’d keep me laughing
all night
What did you want to be when you grew up?
I went through a stage of wanting to be Prime Minister until I saw Spitting Image and then I thought I wouldn’t want anyone to ever do that to me. And then I wanted to be Kate Adie — she just seemed so strong and intelligent and thoughtful
The title of ‘college’ appears to be coming back into sector fashion — and even worth fighting for, just ask Newcastle College principal Carole Kitching. Ruth Sparkes considers whether it, like ‘university’, should be protected.
After news that Newcastle College Group (NCG) successfully, and legally stopped a mystery outfit calling itself Newcastle College Ltd from trading under that name, it’s probably worth considering just what value there is in our institutions’ brands.
Other than one business trying to pass itself off as another, which is a suspect practice to say the least, it’s interesting to consider that some highly regarded and well-established colleges have changed their names — an important part of any brand.
Some colleges have dropped the word ‘college’ from their titles. Indeed, it was a bit of a trend a few years ago, but I think the word college is coming back ‘en vogue.’
I suspect the college rebrand with the most press coverage was Lesoco (or LeSoCo as it had said). Born out of the Lewisham and Southwark colleges’ merger, it has since become Lewisham Southwark College. West Notts College became Vision, now it’s Vision West Nottinghamshire College.
Newcastle College (the real one) is part of this gang, sort of. As the institution grew, it took over or merged with other colleges
and independent training providers, and became NCG.
As I think many of these other colleges at one time or another have claimed, NCG is more than a college.
A cursory glance at its corporate website details its might. It is a collection of FE colleges, a sixth form, a training provider, a free school and more besides.
It boasts a turnover of more than £179m, has the largest Education Funding Agency contract in the UK, its own degree-awarding powers, delivers around 20,000 apprenticeships a year and employs thousands of staff. Arguably, the word ‘college’ is not enough.
Why, I wonder did the former ‘Newcastle College Ltd’ ever take it on? Perhaps it thought it could operate under the radar — that it could piggyback on NCG’s mighty brand. Or maybe it thought NCG was so big, it’d never notice?
Is there an argument for more control over the terms ‘college’, ‘school’ or ‘academy’, to help make sure that everyone understands what sort of learning institution it might be?
But there are plenty of organisations wanting to call themselves a ‘college’ — it is such an accessible word.
Schools call themselves colleges, ‘Anytown Community College’. Some independent learning providers call themselves colleges, and some private colleges that might be legitimate or dodgy ‘visa factories’ have also used the term ‘college.’
Is this practice a deception? Are these institutions deliberately using the term
college to present themselves as something they are not?
Can similar be said for the term ‘academy’? The Royal Academy of Music is a long way from being like the O2 Academies in Bristol, Brixton or Newcastle, and even further away from the Marlowe Academy, in Ramsgate.
And schools, they can be nurseries, primaries, secondaries or even higher education institutions. The AA’s driving school offer, for example, would never be confused with the courses at the London School of Economics (LSE).
So, the only term that is very rarely ‘misused’ for the UK’s education institutions is the word ‘university’.
And that’s because the use of the term ‘university’ in any institution’s title requires the government’s consent.
University is a title that has to be earned, to be applied for and is generally seen as an achievement when the title is eventually bestowed. Ror example Falmouth School of Art, became Falmouth University College and then Falmouth University. King Alfred’s College became University College Winchester, then the University of Winchester.
So, is there an argument for more control over the terms ‘college’, ‘school’ or ‘academy’, to help make sure that everyone understands what sort of learning institution it might be? Would it be better if these titles had to be earned and bestowed like the word university? And what value does the word college really have when so many are prepared to ditch it, even if it is a trial separation?
Stoke on Trent College has welcomed Kevin Smith as its new principal.
Mr Smith, who has more than 25 years’ experience in education, will support chief executive Sarah Robinson, allowing her to dedicate more time to the strategic future of the college, according to a college spokesperson.
In his most recent role as vice principal at Riverside College, in Cheshire, Mr Smith helped lead the college’s 11-month turnaround from Ofsted ‘inadequate’ to ‘good’ by early 2010.
“I am passionate about transforming people’s lives through the power of education; making teaching, learning and assessment our first priority and ensuring that the needs of our learners always come first,” said Mr Smith.
“Among my main aims as principal are to help Stoke on Trent College become the first choice for school leavers, adults and employers across the sub-region and lead the college to become a centre for vocational excellence.”
Mr Smith, whose appointment at the grade two-rated college came around three months after FE Commissioner Dr David Collins visited over financial concerns, brings with him expertise in curriculum and quality following his time with FE Associates, where he provided interim management and performance improvement solutions to more than 100 colleges and independent learning providers.
Ms Robinson, who had previously served as Stoke college principal, said: “Kevin is passionate about high standards within education and his attention to detail in quality improvement makes him a perfect fit for our college.”
Meanwhile, Richard Heatly’s 12 years at the helm of Hereford College of Arts (HCA) is due to end at the end of the academic year.
Before he moved into teaching at the 350-learner specialist college, rated as good by Ofsted in November 2013, he was a maker and ran a successful creative business, exhibiting his work in London, Milan and Paris.
A college spokesperson said: “When Richard joined the college in 2003, the future of HCA was uncertain. In August he will leave a financially secure College that has developed immensely, thanks to the major achievements of staff and students under Richard’s leadership.”
Mr Heatly said: “HCA is now the major university-level provider in the county, and its future will be as an arts university.
“It will complement the technology focus of the new university — which of course we also support.
“The college is the kind of place that hardly exists elsewhere, so we should all value it and be proud of it. Herefordshire is a really creative place, and this college is the foundation and centre of that creativity.”
He added: “I plan to pursue my interest in the arts as a practitioner again and by being involved with organisations.
“I hope to keep in touch with the College as of course I will remain a great supporter of HCA.”
A Bicton College student determined to secure an equestrian career despite slowly losing her sight, has taken her first step towards making her dream a reality by securing a role in industry.
Maria Dowswell was 13 when she was diagnosed with retinal dystrophy, a condition that slowly takes away vision.
Despite this, the 21-year-old is currently undertaking a British horse society (BHS) stage one training course at college and has now secured a role at Devon-based Otterdene equestrian centre as a working pupil.
Maria said: “Bicton College offered me the course that I wanted to study with horses and the support that I needed because of my visual impairment.”
Alex Robinson-Barr, head of equine at Bicton College, said: “I can’t express how proud I am of her to be working in industry while also continuing with her BHS course.”
Main pic: from left, Polly Edwards, owner of Otterdene Equestrian Centre with Bicton College student Maria Dowswell
Labour’s apprenticeship policy, so eloquently presented by Ed Milliband, totally exposes how out of touch his party is with the reality of the country’s skills needs and how the Westminster bubble has removed him from his party’s working
class routes.
Under his plans, 18-year-old school leavers with three A-levels will go to university and those with two A-levels will go onto an apprenticeship.
But where does that leave the 50 per cent or more who will have no A-levels or the 40 per cent who will not have basic English and maths when they leave school?
Their policy assumes the entry point for apprenticeships is 18-plus post-A-level, when in reality it is 16-plus post-GCSE (or equivalent) and ignores the fact that for many young people leaving school for an intermediate apprenticeship at 16 is the
best option.
It also overlooks the fact that even in the 21st Century many poorer families need to send their children out to work.
How have the Labour Party succumbed to this elitist A-level apprenticeship entry when the growth in the economy is being driven by level two entry jobs in hospitality, care, retail and construction.
Yes, we do need to expand the technician and digital advanced apprenticeship programmes, but not at the expense of
craft skills.
For many work-focused people, an intermediate apprenticeship is the best entry route to an advanced or higher apprenticeship.
While stating the apprenticeship and traineeship budgets are to be ringfenced, the reality in the way funding works, will mean funding for traineeships will be restricted to the numbers currently on the programme
They are wrong in their assertion that the current apprenticeships are simply rebadging of employers’ internal training.
Apprenticeships are strictly regulated and independently content-led. Apprenticeships can have elements added to meet employers’ needs, but not taken away. Surely that’s the best of all possible outcomes?
By focusing on advanced and higher apprenticeships Labour risk perpetuating an economy where staff at intermediate skills levels have to be imported from overseas, leaving many work-focused British citizens unemployed and without a springboard to higher skills.
Is this really the policy of the working class Labour Party or just their current academic, out-of-touch with reality, leadership?
Would a bacon sandwich be easier for politicians to swallow if cooked by an A-level advanced apprentice rather than a level two working chef?
The unintended consequences of an overall 11 per cent cut in Skills Funding Agency budget for 2015-16 will be to freeze traineeship numbers.
While stating the apprenticeship and traineeship budgets are to be ringfenced, the reality in the way funding works, will mean funding for traineeships will be restricted to the numbers currently on the programme.
Without being able to grow their programmes, many providers will cease delivering as decreasing starts will make the programme unviable.
Eventually the whole programme will wither, which again will disadvantage young people who need the traineeship programme to kick-start them into employment.
This has endangered our traineeship programme with a national retail chain, which had committed to recruit all its new sales assistants through the traineeship route and produced at 75 per cent into-work success rate to date.
Let’s hope the party policy makers listen to some of the noise being generated by us the apprenticeship practitioners at the three current conferences — AELP/City & Guilds, Apprenticeships4England and FE Week — being held.
Otherwise we face a bleak choice between the flawed and childish Richard reforms of the Conservatives and the intellectual proposals of the Labour Party to remove craft skills and non A-level achievers from the apprenticeship route.
We can only hope one or more of the minority parties, who may hold the balance of power, can bring some sense to the debate.
Whoever thought the likes of the SNP, Greens or UKIP could determine our apprenticeships future?
The Association of Colleges (AoC) has called for clarity over proposed new rules that could see college staff jailed for failing to report sexual abuse of learners.
Prime Minister David Cameron has announced a consultation on plans to extend the new criminal offence of ‘wilful neglect’ to cover those who work in education — but he stopped short of saying what age range of learners it would cover, or which institutions.
The announcement has already led the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) to warn the change could lead to a “flood of referrals,” fearing the change could scare teachers into a culture of “over-reporting”.
And Marc Whitworth (pictured), AoC acting director of employment policy and services, said: “We’ve always called for child protection rules in colleges to be the same as those in schools.
“Following the consultation on the government’s new plans to tackle child sexual exploitation, it will need to be absolutely clear what the specific requirements would be for college staff and they must be given adequate support to feel confident about referring children they believe to be at risk.”
Brian Lightman, the general secretary of the ASCL, said: “School and college leaders and their staff play a key role in child safeguarding and already work closely with social services and police where there are any concerns about a child’s welfare.
“There are robust professional systems in place in schools and colleges to ensure that staff report suspicions and it is unnecessary and counter-productive to threaten them with jail sentences.
“The unintended consequence could be that teachers are scared into over-reporting and that this leads to a flood of referrals to social services departments which are already struggling with workloads. This will ultimately make it more difficult to identify and deal with cases needing urgent attention.”
A spokesperson for the University and College Union (UCU) has called for the consultation on the change to be “full and open”.
She said: “FE staff already take their safeguarding responsibilities seriously. Any proposed changes to requirements should be subject to a full and open consultation with colleges and education staff.”
Speaking at a Downing Street summit organised in the wake of a series of damning reports which identified “systematic institutional failings” in response to child sexual exploitation scandals in Rotherham and other areas, Mr Cameron said the proposals were about “making sure professionals… do the jobs they are paid to do”.
He said: “Children were ignored, sometimes even blamed, and issues were swept under the carpet — often because of a warped and misguided sense of political correctness.”
The dates of the consultation have not yet been announced.
————————————————————————————————————————————–
Editor’s Comment
Taking a lead on care
At present, a number of colleges come into daily contact with children through school links.
And there is also a small, but growing number of ‘direct recruiters’ — and it’s on this point that my mind is cast back to the AoC conference of 2012 when then-Shadow Education Minister Karen Buck displayed all the petty ignorance with which the sector sadly still has to contend.
She said she was worried that “very young people going into college may not get the full pastoral care and support they would want”.
Of course Ofsted reports on college provision for 14 to 16-year-olds has shown just how wrong she was.
But more than this the sector has been at the forefront of other safeguarding issues.
Education Secretary Nicky Morgan told fellow MPs a few days ago about a new portal for reporting abuse — a concept many colleges will have been familiar with for some time on a local level.
The will to take such a lead has not come via the threat or force of criminal law — it has come through care for the learner and as such the sector’s voice should be among those most keenly heard in the government’s consultation on the wilful neglect law.
