Vocational qualifications will be celebrated by hundreds of people at colleges and independent learning providers across the country to mark VQ Day 2015.

Winners of teacher of the year, employer of the year, and learner of the year VQ Day awards will be announced tomorrow (June 9), during a ceremony starting at 6pm at the Mermaid Theatre, Blackfriars, London.

The eighth annual VQ Day itself, which is a national celebration of vocational qualifications overseen by the Edge Foundation, will be on Wednesday (June 10) but events are taking place throughout the month.

David Harbourne, acting chief executive of the Edge Foundation, said: “We have been overwhelmed by the levels of support which VQ Day has enjoyed in previous years and are excited for 2015’s celebrations.

“VQ Day provides the opportunity to celebrate the many first rate vocational learning opportunities which exist in the UK — and those who undertake them — ensuring they are valued as highly as their academic counterparts.

He added: “Those of us involved in the field of vocational education, whether as teachers, trainers, learners, employers or sector partners, know only too well how essential high quality vocational qualifications are to UK society, providing young people with the skills, experience, motivation and inspiration to get ahead.”

Popo star Kate Nash (pictured right), who went on to record number one single Foundations and win the 2008 best female artist Brit award after passing a vocational diploma in drama from The BRIT School, in Croydon, London, is an ambassador for this year’s VQ Day celebrations.

She said: “University is definitely not the only option open to ambitious teenagers.

“There are alternatives to suit different career paths, whatever they may be, and I strongly challenge the elitists that think VQs don’t offer the same opportunities as traditional more academic routes.”

See below for a list of VQ Day events taking place across the country:

Events guide:

Southport College

When: June 8, 4pm to 7.30pm

Where: Southport College, Mornington Road, Southport, Merseyside

Open evening for anyone interested in learning about vocational courses available at the college

South Essex College

When: June 9, 7pm to 8.30pm

Where: South Essex College, Luker Road, Southend-on-Sea

The college is hosting its own awards ceremony recognising vocational qualification-related achievements

Nelson and Colne College

When: June 10, 9:30am to 3pm

Where: Nelson and Colne College, Nelson, Lancashire

The college will be hosting various skills demonstrations to celebrate vocational achievement and raise awareness of vocational courses. Activities will include beauty therapy, hairdressing, catering and hospitality, creative arts and sport. There are also plans to run an enterprise challenge with the college’s business team

St Helens College

When: June 10, 9am to 3pm

Where: St Helens College, Town Centre Campus, Water Street, St Helens, Merseyside

More than 400 students from a number of schools in the area will be taking part in VQ Day-themed activities, including hands-on hair and beauty sessions, and demonstrations of how to use a drill and handsaw in construction, create a music video using ‘green screen’ technology, and check people’s blood pressure

New College Durham

When: June 10, 9am to 3pm

Where: Whitworth Park School, Spennymoor & Tanfield School, Stanley

Aimed at students in years 9 to 11. The college’s school liaison staff will visit the schools to educate learners about vocational qualifications, including engineering, sport, hairdressing and beauty therapy

Tresham College

When: June 10, 12pm to 1pm

Where: Manor Restaurant, Corby, Northants

Students will be presented with certificates for achieving excellence in their vocational subjects

YH Training Services

When: June 10, 9:30am to 4pm

Where: YH Training Services, Army Reserve Centre, Coldyhill Lane, Scarborough

The day, which is aimed at 14-16 year old students, college leavers, young people who are not in education, employment or training and 19 to 24-year-old Job Seekers Allowance claimants, will include a variety of taster activities, covering military fitness, command tasks, peer mentoring, camouflage and concealment, and an introduction to military careers

Truro & Penwith College

When: June 11 to July 13

Where: Truro and Penwith College, Gloweth, Truro, Cornwall

Taster events taking place on both college campuses, with 14 schools sampling various curriculum options and attending taster lessons

Yeovil College

When: June 13, 10am to 1pm

Where: University Centre Yeovil campus, Preston Road, Yeovil, Somerset

The motor vehicle team will be putting on a display to promote their part-time courses

Harewood and Avonbourne College

When: June 16, 9am to 4pm

Where: Avonbourne Sports Hall, Bournemouth, Dorset

It will be a mock interview day for year 10 students, who will already have lodged ‘applications’ for various vocational jobs by completing application forms and submitting CVs. They will be interviewed by employers

Derwen College

When: June 17, 11am to 3pm

Where: Derwen College, Whittington Road, Gobowen, Oswestry

There will be a variety of inclusive skills competitions and ‘have a go’ activities covering recycling, arts, ceramics and sports. There will also be a catering competition, restaurant service, word processing and functional skills session

Dearne Valley College

When: June 18, 10am to 12pm

Where: Dearne Valley College, Manvers Park, Wath-upon-Dearne, Rotherham, South Yorkshire

The college will host an event for year 10 pupils, with vocational tasters for subjects including construction, sport, public services, health and social care, early years and engineering

West Thames College

When: June 30, 10am to 4pm

Where: Feltham Skills Centre, Boundaries Road, Feltham TW13 5DR

Aimed at individuals aged 14-25, the event will include ‘have a go’ activities for subjects including engineering, construction, catering and travel/tourism. Employers including Network Rail, Sky, Mace, Allianz, Vision Express, Mark Warner Ltd, and the British Army will be giving on-the-spot interviews and providing information about vacancies for more than 150 job and apprenticeships. The National Careers Service will also be available to give one-to-one specialist career advice and guidance

Got a VQ Day event taking place that’s not listed here? Get in touch with FE Week reporter Paul Offord by email on paul.offord@feweek.co.uk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Senior FE and skills figures warned that colleges would have to change “more than ever before” to survive, at the launch of a 216-page book celebrating ‘the coming of age of FE’.

The book, which focuses on the experiences of FE colleges since incorporation in 1993 and also considers their future, was unveiled at the Institute of Education (IoE), in Central London.

One of the book’s 25 contributors, Mick Fletcher, a founding member of the Policy Consortium and senior IoE research associate, spoke to the audience that included former Whitehall FE and skills chief Dr Sue Pember and chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers Stewart Segal.

“Surviving and surviving in its current form are two very different things for FE. Colleges will have to adapt,” said Mr Fletcher. He added: “Incorporation has done a lot of wonderful things, but people are still worried about many of the same things as they were all those years ago [around the time of incorporation]. Finance is obviously the biggest concern.”

Dr Lynne Sedgmore, 157 Group executive director, also told the 120-strong audience of college, awarding organisation, union, and other sector membership body leaders that “we need to change perceptions of the sector”.

This was something, she said, “we haven’t managed in the 35 or 36 years that I have been involved, but I think we can focus minds on the important economic contribution that we make”.

Kirstie Donnelly, managing director of City & Guilds UK, said: “We have to be more responsive to learners and what they need. They are going to be paying for their training, either directly or indirectly [through employers], so we need to listen to them.”

She added: “We must be bold about technology and look at more innovative ways of delivering learners’ needs.”

The book was published by the IoE and was partly inspired by an FE Week supplement in April 2013 entitled Celebrating Twenty Years of College Independence.

Paul Grainger, co-director of post-14 research and innovation at the IoE, which published the book, said: “This is a very proud day for everyone at IoE. I think it is the first time that a book has gone into so much detail about the changing fortunes of our wonderful sector.”

Click here to buy the book, priced at £24.99 and entitled The Coming of Age for FE? Reflections on the past and future role of further education colleges in England. The book launch took place on Thursday (June 4).

Click here for an expert piece by Ann Hodgson

From left: Ian Nash, Dr Lynne Sedgmore, book editor Ann Hodgson and Mick Fletcher

 

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‘Newcomer’s’ view of incorporation book

Nikki Gilbey (pictured), head of learning, land-based at Chichester College, gives her view on Ann Hodgson’s new book on FE.

For those of us who are relative newcomers to the sector, with less than a decade under our FE belts, this publication comprehensively covers a range of issues and topics that give a broad yet detailed understanding of, as described in the first chapter, this “important but visible sector”.

Ann Hodgson, Bill Bailey and Norman Lucas’ contribution to The Coming of Age of FE? in opening chapter What is FE? should be recommended reading for all politicians, teachers elsewhere in the education sector, employers, in fact everyone should read this.

The authors’ sense of importance of the sector and the impact it clearly has on thousands of people shines through the data and descriptions of what FE colleges do, how they are managed and also how they have changed over the years since incorporation.

Hopefully this book will go a long way in changing the problem of the “low political profile” of the sector, reminding all who read it of the numbers of students who have successfully passed through the doors of colleges with qualifications, knowledge and skills and the dedicated staff at all levels who make that happen.

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Twenty one years of central government control

Politically, FE has been an instrument of central government control from day one of incorporation. It was soon apparent that “freedom” was tied to unrelenting “efficiency savings” — a euphemism for cuts.

Labour did bring huge funds and a heyday of lifelong learning expansion with former Education Secretary David Blunkett’s vision in The Learning Age, but this was with hindsight remarkably short-lived and everything soon focused on skills in line with the Treasury-commissioned Leitch review demands for meeting skills targets.

From then on, if not before, FE policies of all parties converged. It became clear that Labour’s big spending had brought false hopes as an unrelenting shift of emphasis
on funding for skills priorities took precedence only to accelerate with
ensuing spending cuts.

Considerable research evidence in support of wider lifelong learning as an effective means of social and economic inclusion — getting people on to the first rungs of the skills ladder — was swept aside as too slow. Has the skills push really achieved much? No, other than to minimise demands for employers to meet essential training costs.

With no-one other than government paying for FE and skills training in any substantial way, FE colleges were forced as ever to follow the money and, consequently, successive failing government skills-for-work strategies.

The constant effort to get employers on board too often ends in spending money on dead weight training and scams, with exaggerated claims on all sides about the success of apprenticeships and other schemes.

The answer from politicians of every political hue is to shift the focus to schools with the creation of University Technical Colleges, Career Colleges and the like. FE colleges were seen as suitable sponsors — particularly when businesses failed to come forward in significant numbers — but this meant they were yet again tarnished by the failures resulting from bad policies, poor strategy and
lack of cash.

In the end, you could not get a cigarette paper between the policies of different political parties, with an increasing consensus around an ever-narrowing skills agenda and colleges taking blame
for shortcomings while the schools sector and employers take the increasingly limited resources.

But if one thing is certain it is that colleges will creatively bounce back and — being the “adaptive layer” as defined by Dame Ruth Silver — will bail out those who fail the system created by the short-term strategies of politicians. And, when they do, they will yet again bear the brunt of blame for any perceived failures.

 

 

 

Labour MPs Iain Wright (pictured above left) and Roberta Blackman-Woods (pictured above right) have launched bids to challenge Adrian Bailey for the chair of the House of Commons Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) Select Committee.

Nominations for the post opened on Thursday after it was confirmed that the chair would be elected from Labour’s stock of 232 MPs following negotiations between the main parties in Parliament.

Mr Bailey, who served as chair during the last Parliament, has confirmed that he will seek re-election to
the post.

And now Hartlepool MP Mr Wright, a former parliamentary under-secretary of state for 14 to 19 reform and apprenticeships, and City of Durham MP Ms Blackman-Woods, once a Shadow Business Minister and former member of previous guises of the education and business committees, have told FE Week they will be putting their names forward.

Mr Wright said the skills agenda was “vital” to addressing issues of Britain’s competitiveness and productivity, adding: “I don’t think there is sufficient co-ordination between education and business policy.

“I’d like the select committees to undertake more joint working to discuss education and business policy. I can see more scope for the BIS and education select committees to work together on key issues.”

Ms Blackman-Woods said she had taken a “keen interest” in and held offices relating to business and skills since she entered Parliament.

She said: “I have previously been a member of the education select committee, the innovation and skills select committee, the science and technology select committee and the BIS select committee and so have a strong understanding of the select committee system.”

The battle for the chair of the education select committee will be between Conservative MPs, and with former chair Graham Stuart having ruled himself out to seek election to chair the culture, media and sport committee, former Education Minister Tim Loughton and former committee member Neil Carmichael are among those who have thrown their hats in the ring.

Nominations close at 5pm on June 10 with elections by MPs due a week later.

 

A college’s exams blanket ban on watches over fears learners could use outlawed web-enabled smart watches has been branded “a classic example of how the assessment and accountability system inhibits innovation and progress”.

North Nottinghamshire College (NNC) said it took action because smart watches were becoming increasingly similar to normal watches — and it didn’t want to risk cheats sneaking internet devices past invigilators and into exam halls.

But Bob Harrison, a member of the Further Education Learning Technology Action Group (Feltag), criticised the move, claiming the assessment system needed to “catch up”.

He said: “The key message of the Feltag report was to ensure ‘the agile evolution’ of the FE sector to ensure it is fit for purpose for the digital age.

“This is a classic example of how the assessment and accountability system inhibits innovation and progress.

“In the week that Google and Levi’s announced joint working on wearable computers this just confirms the need for our assessment system to catch up and reflect the digital age and not try and ban it.”

Martin Hamilton, from education technology charity Jisc, suggested emerging technologies could one day be embraced by colleges.

He said: “What this is really symptomatic of is the shrinking and embedding of technology to the point where it will become increasingly hard to tell who is using it and how.

“Invigilators might well spot a student spending a lot of time fiddling with their
watch, but who’s to say that Bluetooth-enabled hearing aids aren’t relaying exam hints and tips from a phone?

“As technology becomes ever more deeply engrained in our lives, I think we will find that assessment changes too, to be much more about demonstrating how a learner can effectively marshall the wealth of open information to be found on the internet to demonstrate a point, solve a problem or create a coherent argument.

“Perhaps it won’t be long before most exams are open book, and the sign at the door of the exam hall reminds students how to connect to the wireless network.”

But NNC director of quality David Barnett defended the ruling, telling FE Week the college was just extending existing rules set by the Joint Council for Qualifications which prohibit the wearing of watches with any data or web capability in exams.

“Previously we have felt we have been able to identify these types of watches through the use of invigilators,” he said.

“Obviously, with GCSEs we have a high volume of exam entrants, and with the advances in technology it is more difficult to tell the difference between types of watches, as a lot of the smart watches look like normal analogue watches.

“All candidates already have a mobile phone pouch on their desks, and we are asking them to put their watches in there too.

“It just seems like the best way of dealing with these advances in technology without causing disruption.”

 

The Department for Education (DfE) has overlooked Skills Minister Nick Boles (pictured above left) for its careers guidance remit — despite him having been handed the job for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

Mr Boles, who serves as a minister in both departments, has been given BIS responsibility for post-18 careers advice, while Education Minister Sam Gyimah (pictured above right) was handed DfE responsibility for careers advice up to the age of 18 and for the government’s new careers company.

It is a move that has led to concerns about a lack of “joined-up thinking” from the government on careers advice. However, a DfE spokesperson told FE Week that dividing the issue between two ministers was “evidence of how highly we are prioritising this important subject”.

Tristram Hooley, professor of career education at the University of Derby, told FE Week he had concerns about whether “desperately-needed” inter-departmental strategy on careers would take place under the new model.

“I think that we haven’t seen the direction that the current government wants to take on careers yet,” he said.

“The signs at the end of the last government were that there seemed to be some improvement, the question is whether that will be sustained.

“The OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] review of career guidance policies argued that the strongest model was to have a lifelong guidance system. Instead in England we have multiple ministers in multiple departments responsible for fragmented services.

“There is a desperate need for some strategy here.”

A DfE spokesperson said: “Two ministers having responsibility for two distinct areas of careers education — one focusing on young people up to 18 and one on adults — is evidence of how highly we are prioritising this important subject.

“Our new careers and enterprise company for schools will also help deliver real social justice by ensuring all pupils have opportunities to thrive, regardless of their background.”

BIS declined to comment.

 

Colleges readying themselves for an impending Department for Education (DfE) policy have witnessed a dramatic rise in the number of English and maths GCSE exams that has left many struggling to accommodate learners.

One college even saw gridlock on nearby roads with bumper learner numbers on Tuesday (June 2) and also had to resort to using its principal’s office to host exams.

Elsewhere, principals have hired external venues or partially suspended classes to provide rooms for exams.

The increase in candidates was caused by a DfE post-16 funding policy, due from August, requiring learners with GCSE grade D in English or maths to resit, alongside taking their other studies.

Many colleges piloted the requirement this year — and found themselves overwhelmed not just by booming GCSE numbers thanks to resits, but also clashes with the A-level and vocational exam timetable.

It has left colleges pleading with awarding organisations to change timetables for next year with separate English and maths GCSE days.

Havering College of Further and Higher Education, in East London, saw a rise of 159 per cent in those taking maths GCSE, to 591, while 763 students sat English GCSEs — a 137 per cent increase on last year.

Vice principal Asfa Sohail told FE Week that the office of principal Maria Thompson (pictured) was even commandeered in the quest to accommodate learners.

Every member of staff was also enlisted to invigilate and direct learners to exams, while mini-buses were placed on standby to transport students who turned up at the wrong campus.

Ms Sohail said: “We had to hire external venues, empty out classrooms and use staff offices — literally anywhere we could find.”

She added: “We’ve got students who have failed three times and it’s knocking their confidence.

“Government needs to look at improving learners’ grades in school — we shouldn’t be getting so many through with such low grades.”

Meanwhile, East Kent College principal Graham Razey said he “had to effectively close” for three half-days to accommodate 450 candidates in rooms normally used for teaching.

At Exeter College, classes were re-roomed, a community centre was hired and 85 invigilators were drafted in to cover GCSE English, AS-level English language and other non-GCSE exams all taking place at the same time.

Assistant principal Emma Fielding said: “The focus on English and maths is critical, nobody’s denying that, but what we would ask is that the policy is properly thought through — to put that expectation on us as a sector with significant funding cuts is really difficult, and for many colleges in the long run not possible.”

And New College Swindon principal Graham Taylor said: “Our exams officer wrote to exam boards last year pleading for dedicated GCSE maths and English days because of the sheer numbers.

“They clashed with other ‘big ticket’ subjects so the logistics were a nightmare.”

A spokesperson for the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ), which oversees the organisation of GCSE timetables, said: “In 2016 GCSE English/English Language will not be timetabled at the same time as any other GCSE or AS examination.

“For one of the GCSE maths timetable slots this has been possible in 2016 and further work will be taken on GCSE maths timetable slots in 2017 following the introduction of new linear specifications.”

A DfE spokesperson defended the incoming condition of funding policy and said colleges were “making good progress” in preparing to implement it.

“It is vital that all those leaving education have high standards of maths and literacy,” she said.

“That is why we want all young people who do not achieve at least a C in English or maths to continue studying until they reach that standard.”

From left: Maria Thompson, Graham Razey & Graham Taylor