Edition 138: Andy Forbes, Louise Twigg, Desdra Kingdon, Stewart Cross, Kurt Hintz, Ross Maloney, James Ward & Ian Hanham

The College of Haringey, Enfield and North East London (Conel) is under new leadership.

Andy Forbes took on the role of principal late last month, moving from the same post at Hertford Regional College.

He took over from interim principal Louise Twigg, who had been in post since November.

Starting his career as a school English teacher, Mr Forbes has worked as vice principal at Blackpool and the Fylde College, director of widening participation at The Oldham College, chair of Oldham Race Equality Partnership and specialist adviser to the Parliamentary Select Committee on Social Cohesion.

Mr Forbes said: “Students of all ages and at all levels get a really positive experience at Conel and — most importantly — the great majority pass with flying colours and go on to university, further training or into good jobs. I will ensure that the college continues to play a key role not only in education but in supporting economic growth for our local communities.”

He has been replaced as principal on an interim basis at Hertford by Desdra Kingdon, deputy principal, finance and resources.

He joins a senior team including vice principals Stewart Cross, finance and resources, and Kurt Hintz, curriculum and learner experience, that has been in post since the start of the academic year.

Meanwhile, the chief executive of Skills Show organisers Find a Future Ross Maloney is set to step down at the end of next month in a return to his previous employers, the Scouts, as director of operations.

He told FE Week: “I feel privileged to have had the opportunity to lead and build Find a Future, in partnership with the board, staff and stakeholders, to deliver life changing experiences for so many young people.”

It comes just over a fortnight after the Edge Foundation was unveiled as new lead sponsors of the Skills Show for 2015, with City & Guilds’ three-year agreement having come to its natural end.

The board was working to find a new chief executive through “a robust executive recruitment process,” said Find a Future chair Carole Stott.

Meanwhile, the Workers’ Educational Association (WEA), the UK’s largest voluntary sector provider of adult education, has made two new appointments to its senior leadership team.

James Ward is the new director of marketing, membership and income growth and Ian Hanham joins as chief operating officer.

Prior to his appointment, Mr Ward was the director of business development at The English Speaking Union and director of development and communications at the University of Westminster.

Mr Hanham was previously director of corporate resources at EveryChild. He has also been deputy finance director at WaterAid and head of financial planning and reporting for the British Red Cross.

Ruth Spellman, WEA chief executive, said: “They will be playing vital roles in raising awareness of the importance of adult learning with policy-makers, generating new sources of support for the WEA and developing our educational offer.”

 

Former college tutor jailed for ‘horrific’ animal cruelty

*WARNING – CONTAINS IMAGE OF DOG INJURIES

A former Canterbury College tutor has been jailed for animal cruelty after forcing his dogs to fight “barbaric” matches against wild animals, resulting in appalling injuries.

Steven Alston (pictured) was sentenced to 160 days behind bars, banned from keeping animals for life and ordered to pay £10,000 in court costs last week after pleading guilty to causing an animal fight to take place and causing unnecessary suffering.

District judge Justin Barron, who heard the case at Folkestone Magistrates’ Court, said he would have passed a stronger sentence if the law had allowed it.

Inspector Cliff Harrison, from the RSPCA’s special operations unit, described Mr Alston’s actions as “a sickening form of deliberate and premeditated animal cruelty”.

“It isn’t just the animals targeted that suffer sickening injuries, but also the dogs used in this barbaric activity,” he said.

“No animal deserves to be used and treated in this way. I am pleased that the court clearly took a similarly strong view and has prevented the defendant from owning a dog ever again.”

The RSPCA has released images of the injured dogs, many of which needed reconstructive surgery after having parts of their nose, jaw and muzzle ripped off in fights.

Canterbury College has distanced itself from 49-year-old Mr Alston, who taught bricklaying there between 2005 and 2010.

A college spokesperson told FE Week: “The horrific crimes for which Steven Alston has been convicted do not relate to the college or his time here.

“He left the college in 2010 following a departmental reorganisation that led to his position in the college being made redundant.”

Jonathan Edwards, defending, told the court Alston had lost work because of publicity from the case and that his earnings had subsequently been hit, meaning his financial situation was”precarious”.

Major - one of former bricklaying tutor Alston's dogs that suffered appalling injuries while in his care
Major – one of former bricklaying tutor Alston’s dogs that suffered appalling injuries while in his care. The dog has since been rehomed

He also claimed Alston  had used painkillers to reduce the dogs’ suffering, adding: “He is not completely dismissive of their injuries and is not callous but a man who valued the animals in his care. There was no intention to hurt them.”

Mr Alston’s activities were uncovered when his wife, Lucy, aged 44, accidentally dialled 999 on a phone in her pocket and police responding to the call discovered eight wounded terriers, as well as equipment for digging out wild animals, at his home in Littlebourne, Kent.

The Canterbury College spokesperson added: “The details of the case as published are disturbing and if any student or member of staff at the college is affected by the graphic content of some of the news reports then the college will provide whatever support it can.”

Full report on FE Week and Policy Consortium second annual sector survey released

The full report on the results of the second annual FE Week and Policy Consortium survey has been published.

The consortium, a group of FE and skills experts responsible for carrying out the survey and collating its data, has issued its full report.

The survey, covered in edition 136 of FE Week, showed concerns about funding once again topped a list of issues for sector staff.

In his introduction to the report, Policy Consortium member and FE journalist Ian Nash said: “Concerns over funding, external bureaucracy, workload and the pace and volume of change top the list of concerns among those polled in the survey.

Ian Nash
Ian Nash

“As the government continues to transfer skills funding to employers – despite evidence from employer ownership pilots that it doesn’t work – broader education initiatives with a proven track record have been severely curtailed.

“Equally alarming, say survey respondents, despite the ring-fencing of schools cash, is the failure of the Coalition Government to ensure that it is used by them in sufficiently tackling the levels of pupil underachievement in schools.

“This has left colleges with the unachievable target of bringing everyone up to GCSE A to C or equivalent in maths and English by age 18, with the demand that they ‘do it again’ until they make the grade.

“Moreover, the reduction in funding means that the sector is perceived as being less important than schools and higher education, say the respondents. The top two concerns around funding and government priorities appear to impact directly on status and morale in sector.

“Unnecessary and damaging competition with schools – as the Government’s free schools and other structural reforms take priority over all other considerations – is also a major concern. The proliferation of providers, especially small school sixth forms, was identified by many as a cause for concern both for young people and FE providers, says the survey report.”

The report is available to view on the consortium’s website.

Pearson stops certificating higher education course at general FE college over grading and enrolment concerns

Pearson has stopped certificating a higher education course at Sussex Coast College Hastings (pictured) because of concerns over a “lack of rigour” with grading and enrolments.

A report published by the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) this month following an inspection in February was highly critical of the higher national certificate (HNC) in business (management) delivered through “distance learning” at the grade two Ofsted-rated college.

It stated that students without standard-entry qualifications were only required to complete a 100-word statement to be enrolled and “in the view of the [inspection] team this is not a sufficiently robust assessment tool”.

It added that Pearson, which is the awarding organisation for the course, had “highlighted some issues relating to the lack of rigour in the internal verification process resulting in grades being too high”.

“As a result, Pearson had ‘blocked’ the programme,” the QAA report said.

It called on the 6,000-learner college to submit “an action plan to address the issues” next month.

College principal Clive Cooke said: “The college is working very closely with QAA, Pearson and the Higher Education Funding Council for England to address the recommendations and has already submitted an action plan with the aim to implement all recommendations by the end of the academic year.”

The QAA report said that private Middlesex-based education support services firm Acquire Learning had acted as a “recruitment agency [for the college course] providing guidance through the application stage and making offers to standard-entry students”.

An Acquire Learning spokesperson said: “There were some teething issues with this course but the college has made considerable steps to address these. The admissions process is quite robust.”

A spokesperson for Pearson said the college was not registering students on the course “while they work to address the issues identified”.

She added: “We continue to work with the college to ensure standards are met and maintained.”

FE leaders welcome new Business Secretary Javid’s ‘experience’ of sector

Sector leaders have welcomed Sajid Javid’s “experience” of FE after David Cameron announced he would take over as Business Secretary.

Mr Javid’s appointment was announced this morning and comes after Liberal Democrat former Business Secretary Vince Cable lost his Twickenham seat in last Thursday’s election.

The appointment of the Bromsgrove MP (pictured above), a former Parliamentary Private Secretary to ex-Skills Minister John Hayes who has served in two Treasury positions and as Culture Secretary since his election in 2010, has been welcomed by the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) and Association of Colleges (AoC).

Stewart Segal (inset, top), chief executive of the AELP, said Mr Javid would come to the post with experience having “worked closely” with Mr Hayes.

He added: “A bill on apprenticeships is expected in the Queen’s Speech and AELP looks forward to discussing with the new ministerial team at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills [BIS] how training providers can play a key role in delivering the targeted growth for the programme while maintaining quality.

“As the Secretary of State also has experience as a backbencher on employment issues, we will be encouraging him to work closely with the Department for Work and Pensions on bringing about more integrated employment and skills provision to help greater numbers of people achieve sustainable employment.”

Martin Doel (inset, bottom), chief executive of the AoC, said: “We congratulate Sajid Javid on his appointment to the role of Business Secretary. He brings with him experience of working with the former Skills Minister and of working with colleges in the creative industries in his previous post at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.

“We look forward to meeting and working with him and talking to him about the vital work that colleges do in providing high-quality technical and professional education and training for young people, adults and employers. No doubt the Secretary of State will recognise this as a former student of the now South Gloucestershire and Stroud College.”

Mr Doel said colleges would play a “key role” in the creation of the 3m apprenticeship starts pledged in the Conservative Party manifesto, and added that the AoC would be encouraging Mr Javid to ensure those “many millions of adults not eligible for an apprenticeship” were able to access training.

 

Main picture: Sajid Javid in Downing Street today. Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire

Boles re-appointed as Skills Minister in Cameron’s new government

Nick Boles is to continue to serve as Skills Minister, Prime Minister David Cameron has announced.

The newly-re-elected MP for Grantham and Stamford was called to Number 10 Downing Street a short while ago and joked with journalists on his way in.

Mr Boles took over as Skills Minister last July when the previous minister Matthew Hancock was promoted to attend cabinet as a business and energy minister.

The role will continue to be split between the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Department for Education and will include additional responsibilities for trade union and employment law.

Mr Hancock has now been appointed as Minister for the Cabinet Office, and will take charge of civil service reform.

It was confirmed earlier that Nicky Morgan will continue her work as Education Secretary and Sajid Javid will take on the role of Business Secretary in Mr Cameron’s majority Conservative government.

Shadow Business Secretary Chuka Umunna and Shadow Education Secretary Tristram Hunt remain in their jobs following a partial reshuffle of the shadow cabinet by acting Labour leader Harriet Harman.

See next week’s FE Week, dated May 18, for more information and reaction.

An ‘optimist’s’ view of the next five years of government

Bill Lucas shares his “optimist’s” view of the five years of the next Parliamentary term.

People who work in FE are resilient and resourceful. So despite the obvious financial challenges we will all face, I am confident that colleges, independent learning providers, universities, schools, charitable bodies, research agencies and anyone else involved in learning and skills have the potential to thrive in an unfamiliar political landscape.

But we will need both to change and not to change if we are to seize the moment. Three immediate opportunities come to mind.

First, we have a real chance to focus on the quality of the apprentice experience (rather than on quantity).

Second, we must hold to our values for the wider purposes of education and think expansively, not restrictively about the nature of learning.

And third, we have to become more holistic in thinking and acting across government departments.

Let me start with a focus on something on which all the main political parties are in agreement, the importance of apprenticeships.

In campaign mode would-be ministers told us how many hundreds of thousands more apprentices they would create. All their emphasis was on numbers.

While we absolutely have to have, as the Commission on Adult Vocational Teaching and Learning put it, ‘a clear line of sight to work’ in vocational education, we equally need to have vertical and horizontal progression routes and much better coordinated planning

Now, we need to think about the quality of what we offer this important group of learners. With my colleagues at City & Guilds, 157 Group and the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, we have looked in depth at the pedagogy of apprenticeships and shown how it is possible to go beyond simply training reliably skilled men and women for a range of occupations.

For we also need resourceful individuals (who can do things which they have not been taught and think on their toes). Apprentices need business-like attitudes, a much broader set of literacies than previously assumed (especially graphical and digital) and the highest possible levels of craft and professional pride.

And they need to be lifelong learners with the skills for personal and social growth they will need to thrive in uncertain times.

For they may well have several careers and many jobs to navigate. In Remaking Apprenticeships: powerful learning for work and life we described the best kinds of teaching and learning methods to achieve the kinds of broad outcomes above.

We are convinced that, unless we create rich, relevant and challenging learning experiences for apprentices, employers will not want to employ them and potential apprentices will choose another route instead.

Secondly, while of course I want the kinds of success typically measured by tests and examinations, we also have a moral duty to prepare learners for a lifetime of active citizenship.

This, as the Confederation of British Industry has argued powerfully in Ambition for All, requires them to develop certain key habits of mind such as grit, resilience, curiosity, creativity, emotional intelligence and sensitivity to global exchanges as well as academic or vocational expertise.

With my colleague Guy Claxton I have laid out this argument in more depth in Educating Ruby: what children really need to learn. The arguments we make apply equally to schools, colleges and universities. We have to be expansive in other ways, too. Specifically we need a more explicit use of research in FE, an expansion from a teaching role to a researcher one. John Hattie has demonstrated unequivocally how this shift in identity improves learner outcomes.

Our own Expansive Education Network has worked with a number of colleges — from Highlands on Jersey to Trafford in Manchester — to use action research as a means of developing teacher expertise in order to produce outstanding learners.

Third on my wish list is for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Department for Education (and Department for Work and Pensions) to be much more grown-up and joined up in their planning and acting.

While we absolutely have to have, as the Commission on Adult Vocational Teaching and Learning put it, ‘a clear line of sight to work’ in vocational education, we equally need to have vertical and horizontal progression routes and much better coordinated planning.

The first two items on my wish list are achievable by a combination of clear leadership and a determination to use existing research and evidence.

The third, as we found during the last Government, will be harder to achieve as long as the geographical distance between the departments clouds ministers’ abilities to think collectively.

But I am an optimist.

Skills Show organisers Find a Future on hunt for new chief executive

The chief executive of Skills Show organisers Find a Future Ross Maloney (pictured above) is to leave for the Scouts at the end of next month, it has been announced.

Mr Maloney, who has overseen the Skills Show since its inception in 2012 and was the subject of an FE Week profile in June 2013, is returning to his previous employers the Scouts, as director of operations.

He told FE Week: “I feel privileged to have had the opportunity to lead and build Find a Future, in partnership with the board, staff and stakeholders, to deliver life changing experiences for so many young people.”

He said the organisation was “strong” and had “a bright future”.

“I know that through the iterative innovations across the organisation’s activities it will continue to exceed already high expectations and create real impact in championing further education, skills and apprenticeships,” added Mr Maloney.

It comes a fortnight after the Edge Foundation was unveiled as new lead sponsors of the Skills Show for 2015, with City & Guilds’ three-year agreement having come to its natural end.

Just two months after Mr Maloney leaves, competitors for the UK team for WorldSkills 2015, chosen, supported and coached by Find a Future, are due to jet off for the competition in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The final team line-up is due to be selected on Saturday, May 23.

Find a Future chair Carole Stott (pictured below right) said: “Under Ross’s leadership, Find a Future has made a huge contribution to skills across the UK and internationally.Carole-Stott

“It has developed the nation’s largest skills and careers event, the Skills Show, which has pioneered a modern and dynamic model of careers information and advice for young people.”

Mr Maloney joined UK Skills in 2009 as operations director in the run up to WorldSkills 2011 in London 2011, and became chief executive, first of the Skills Show and then of Find a Future when it was formed on 2014 to oversee both the Skills Show and skills competitions.

Ms Stott added: “Ross leaves Find a Future in good health and with ambitious plans for how we continue to develop and grow our impact. The board is very grateful for Ross’s huge contribution and we thank him and wish him well in his new role.”

The board was working to find a new chief executive through “a robust executive recruitment process,” she said.

David Cragg
David Cragg

“Meanwhile, the current management team, supported by me and our deputy chair David Cragg, will ensure that the organisation’s programme continues to be delivered,” added Ms Stott.

Mr Maloney worked in a range of roles at the Scouts between joining them in 2002 and leaving as head of head of activities and international affairs in 2009.

A spokesperson for the Scouts confirmed Mr Maloney’s appointment. The organisation was expected to issue a statement tomorrow.

Sajid Javid appointed as new Business Secretary

Former Culture Secretary Sajid Javid has been appointed to run the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

Mr Javid will take over the post of Business Secretary in David Cameron’s new majority Conservative government, moving from his old post at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).

It comes after Liberal Democrat Vince Cable, who served in the post for the last five years, lost his seat in Twickenham to the Conservatives on Thursday.

Elected as the MP for Bromsgrove in the West Midlands in 2010, Mr Javid rose through the ranks quickly, promoted to serve as Economic Secretary to the Treasury from September 2012 to October 2013 and Financial Secretary until April 2014, when he was appointed to replace Maria Miller at DCMS following her resignation over an expenses scandal.

mark sellis sajid javid lord michael grade
Sajid Javid on a visit to Amersham & Wycombe College last year. Principal Mark Sellis, Mr Javid and Lord Michael Grade CBE (non-executive Chairman of Pinewood Shepperton plc, former Chairman of the BBC and ITV)

He also served for a period as Parliamentary Private Secretary to John Hayes, the former Skills Minister.

Mr Javid was born in Rochdale, Lancashire, but moved to Bristol with his family at an early age, where he was educated at a comprehensive school near the city and at Filton Technical College, now part of South Gloucestershire and Stroud College.

Mr Cameron has already confirmed Nicky Morgan will continue to serve as Education Secretary, while further announcements, including Skills Minister, are expected to be made later today.