Fourteen years of alpine skiing hard work have paid off for a Northamptonshire college sports science student with a call-up to Team GB for the European Youth Winter Olympic Festival (EYOF), writes Billy Camden.
While most 16-year-olds were settling back into the routine of college, 2015 started with the announcement of a lifetime for Jessica Anderson.
For alpine skier Jessica, a sports science student from Moulton College, was told she had been selected to represent team GB at the EYOF, in Austria.
“I found out this month and I just felt overjoyed, honoured and excited to represent Great Britain and ski in such a big tournament,” she said.
The five-day event, which opened yesterday (January 25), is for athletes between the ages of 14 and 18, and Jessica is one of 15 Team GB starlets having started skiing at the age just two.
Jessica at Moulton College.
“Everyone tells me I was born to ski. it all started when I was just a day old, when my parents named me after the French Ski resort of Tignes, and has not stopped ever since,” she said.
“My mum [Julia] and dad [Stuart] used to ski quite a lot and they used to take me on skiing holidays when I was a child.
“I used to just stay in the crèche but I tried it one day after seeing everyone else do it and was told I was really good.
“I carried on and at six years old I was told to go and try out for a race team, so I did and got in.”
Jessica, who is studying a level three extended diploma in sport and exercise sciences, has also represented GB in a number of competitions.
Her most successful year came in 2012 when she became British Slalom Champion and won three other competitions in Scotland.
Jessica trains in Austria in the winter and then at SnoZone Milton Keynes when she is at home.
Hoping to be as successful as her hero, Lindsay Vonn, an American World Cup alpine ski racer who won four World Cup championships, Jessica is aiming for even bigger achievements in the future.
“My goal is to compete at the Olympic Winter Games one day and EYOF 2015 is a great opportunity for me to learn and experience a part of Olympic life,” she said.
“Skiing is great sport and I hope many other children will take it up when they hear about my success.”
Craig McIlwain, programme leader for sports studies at Moulton College, said: “We are not only fully supportive of Jessica’s training and competition commitments but are also extremely proud of her achievements.
“She is an excellent role model to her peers and future sports students of the college and we look forward to seeing Jess continue to be successful.”
Main pic: Moulton College skiing star, Jessica Anderson, hits the slopes.
A former Chester Zoo worker who has also travelled to Sri Lanka to study elephants is behind a new course for dogs and their owners at Derby College.
The four-week course, launching on February 16, is run by animal behaviour specialist Jonathan Taylor.
Jonathan has worked at Chester Zoo and in Sri Lanka looking at animal behaviour from dogs to elephants and says that the course is as much about changing owners’ bad habits as it is about dog behaviour.
He said: “The dog behaviour and training evening course is aimed at new dog owners who want to be more confident in handling their pets right through to people who need special training with a view to entering their dogs into shows.
“Everybody brings their dogs to the course and we provide individual support.”
Main pic: Jonathan Taylor with Loki, a colleague’s dog
One of the most frequent complaints levelled at Ofsted is that it lacks transparency.
For example the system for dealing with complaints against inspection results, it has been claimed, is not open to scrutiny.
However Marina Gaze, deputy director for FE and skills at the education watchdog, sees things differently.
“I’m really sorry people think that,” she says.
“Because I do feel that we work hard to listen to people and, actually, that’s one of the great pleasures of my job — I do want to hear what people say.
“Obviously we’re accountable to parliament, but we’re accountable to the sector as well. It will tell us if things aren’t right.”
From left: Gaze’s, daughter Kat, husband Colin, son Alex and Gaze at Doge’s Palace in Venice
It’s hard to imagine that a career trajectory producing such a staunch defence of Ofsted could have started with, of all people, a Lycra-clad Jane Fonda. But it did.
Fresh out of an English degree at Middlesex Polytechnic in the mid-1980s, and keen to return for a master’s degree with plans to become a journalist or an English teacher, Gaze realised she was going to have raise some money.
So she trained as an aerobics teacher and was hired by her tutors to help train exercise teachers.
“I’d never done it before. It didn’t really exist before then — it sort of burst onto the scene at that time — and I think that was sort of the point, it was the newness of it,” says Gaze, aged 52.
“At that time, Jane Fonda was around and there was an explosion in exercise classes, and lots of people were getting injured and so on, so they needed to train people properly to teach exercise safely and effectively.”
When Royal Society of Arts examination board (now part of OCR) came to verify Gaze’s course, it asked her to join as an external verifier, which she did, before moving on to become the regional and then national external verifier for exercise qualifications.
“I was writing these qualifications and they were being used all over Britain, and of course all over the world as well, so it was really exciting,” she says.
Alongside that, at 28, Gaze set up her own training company.
Gaze on family pony Chester
“So the bit about being an English teacher or a journalist went all sideways,” she says with a grin.
It was also through exercise that Gaze met husband Colin when she moved to a village on the North Yorkshire coast.
“I was giving a talk to the village WI about exercise, and this woman said to me, ‘Oh, you should really meet my son’,” she says.
Gaze had her doubts. But, she says: “I did meet him and she was right — I really should’ve met him. And I married him.
“So I tell everybody I had an arranged marriage — my mother-in-law arranged it.”
Gaze’s own beginnings were much more the result of chance.
Her father, Peter, is from Yorkshire, while her mother, Edda, grew up in Italy under German occupation in the Second World War.
“They met because my dad went on holiday to Paris, and it was raining, so he jumped on a train, and went to Italy,” says Gaze.
“So if it hadn’t been raining in Paris, my parents would never have met.
“Of course, the question now to my parents is, ‘Why did you choose Yorkshire and not Italy?’”
Edda, says Gaze, had a “very broken schooling and a tough childhood”, as the youngest of eight children, whose father was killed in the war.
“My father had a better go at schooling,” she adds.
“He was from a poor working-class family, but he passed the 11+ and went to grammar school, but then went on to an apprenticeship, because his family couldn’t afford for him to go to university.
“During his working life, he was very strong with the unions, so I suppose he always had quite a strong sense of social justice, and actually still does.”
We’re accountable to parliament, but we’re accountable to the sector as well. It will tell us if things aren’t right
Gaze, the oldest of three, loved her own experience of education — as part of the first cohort to attend comprehensive schools.
“I have always enjoyed learning, always,” she says.
“So I am a great believer in state education — I work in the state education system and my children are in the state system.”
And it is in discussing her 10-year-old twins, Alex and Cat, that Gaze raises an issue she is keen should be included here. They, she tells me, born through IVF.
“I don’t mind that being printed,” she says.
“I think people should talk about it and know that medical treatment can work.
“We had lots of cycles of IVF, I think it probably was tough but I think — sorry if it’s awful to say it — it’s all character-building stuff.
“My husband and I went through it together, and the joy of having children at the end of it was just wonderful. And it puts things into perspective, doesn’t it?”
Gaze in her Yorkshire village Staithes with Kat and Alex, both aged two.
From chief external examiner for OCR, Gaze moved to the newly set up Training Standards Council (TSC).
“I was very impressed by them very quickly because, as an organisation, we had teeth,” she says.
At that time, she says, “there was a lot of very poor provision”.
“When I started as an inspector, the national success rate for apprentices was about 7 per cent,” she says.
“And of course, there were lots of people getting money for things that they weren’t doing.
“So we felt we had an impact very quickly — the inspector reported on where the poor provision was, and the funding bodies took the money away.
“You either got better or you had your funding removed. It was very satisfying.”
From there the TSC became the Adult Learning Inspectorate, and was incorporated into Ofsted in 2007.
In her years as an inspector, she says, she has seen some things that were “absolutely shocking”.
“Without going into detail, we have had occasions where there are learners or apprentices on programmes and the provider has just been to visit them a couple of times for the last couple of years, things like that,” she says.
“It’s grossly unfair on the young person who is learning and it’s just not a very good use of taxpayers’ money either.”
Gaze with twins Alex and Kat at a Pony Club Show
Despite that, she says there’s always cause for optimism.
“One of the things that does amaze me as an inspector is even if I go into a provider or a college where there is poor provision, I can guarantee there will be an outstanding teacher in there somewhere,” she says.
“Even when things generally aren’t very good, there will be sparkle in there, there will be something that is worth holding on to and building on.”
And the situation for adult education, she says, is “an improving picture”.
“There are some very good short course programmes that can help people get into employment quickly,” she says.
“But I think there still needs to be that big picture around all the other skills that people need to help them get into work — English and maths and so on — there is still a lot more to be done.”
Gaze sees her commitment to educational standards as being rooted in her love of exercise.
“Why wouldn’t you want the best?” she says.
“Why wouldn’t you want to take best practice and spread it around and aim for it?
“With exercise, it’s quite simple — if you don’t do it properly, you get hurt, and you don’t get the benefits you think you’re going to get, so it has to be done, and done well.”
It’s a personal thing
What is your favourite book, and why?
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. It has all the elements of a fantastic book. It’s a ghost story, it’s a love story, it’s a story about different generations, and of course it’s a story about Yorkshire, where I’m from
What do you do to switch off from work?
I’ve got 10-year-old twins, so I don’t. I go from one hectic lifestyle to another, so a lot of my life outside of work involves doing things with the kids. We’ve got ponies, we go riding on the beach, they go to karate, so we do karate with them — I started karate at the age of 50. But for just something for myself, I go for a run. I can cope with anything as long as I get an hour to myself to go for a run
What’s your pet hate?
Low expectations. It really irritates me in our sector when people say things like, “Well you can’t do anything with those kids, because they are from such-and-such a place or such-and-such a family”
If you could invite anyone to a dinner party, living or dead, who would it be?
I’d actually quite like to have dinner with my husband once in a while. I think I would like to meet Aphra Behn, she was a restoration playwright, and she was a spy. No-one really knows anything about the first 27 years of her life, so I would like to know what she was doing then, and I think I’d like to know what it was like being a woman in such a male-dominated world. And I’d have prison reform campaigner Elizabeth Fry
What did you want to be when you grew up?
I wanted to be a war correspondent or to work in human rights
The principal of a large and well-established FE college writes about life at the top — the worries, the hopes, the people and the issues they have to deal with every day.
Congratulations to colleagues up and down the land who received well-deserved recognition in the New Year Honours list.
One person in particular that I have the utmost respect for is Burton and South Derbyshire College principal Dawn Ward OBE — she got a CBE for services to FE. What a brilliant advocate for the sector, vocational learning and hairdressers.
Moving onto the Skills Funding Agency (SFA), and frankly speaking, given its latest debacle in sending out letters before Christmas warning of clawback and errors in funding claims for 2013-14, we all deserve an award for patience and understanding.
I recall a similar pre-Christmas shambles when colleges were advised of the collapse of capital funding as someone forgot to add up and take away. It was a pretty bleak Christmas then as well. We were all assured in the aftermath it wouldn’t happen again. Well it just did in my view. Perhaps this is why there is such a strong emphasis now on English and maths in the sector?
More to the point why should we as a sector continue to tolerate this type of incompetence from the SFA.
We are continually reminded that as principals we are held to account by our governing board, Ofsted, SFA, Education Funding Agency, Higher Education Funding Council for England, auditors, etc.
A plethora of objectives and targets are set that we are judged against and hey presto, if you fail you’re under the grill with the commissioner or whoever.
But where’s the accountability for the SFA and who regulates it? No one it would appear, because yet again we’re in the dark.
Where’s the accountability for the SFA and who regulates it?
While I’m on this why is there still no funding statement from the minister? Apprenticeship reforms appear to be in tatters with the latest non announcement. Adult funding is going to be slashed, I predict, far more than any of us realise or expect. Everyone I speak to in the sector is generally confused, worried and unclear as to what is going to happen next. Many good and committed staff are leaving and morale is low.
I also saw recently that Ofsted is considering ‘double inspections’ to give assurance of the quality and consistency of inspections. Really? I know of many associate inspectors, some of which have been involved with Ofsted for many years, that have been advised they are no longer are required for whatever reason or circumstance.
What puzzles and intrigues me is this — I have many friends and colleagues who undertake work as Ofsted inspectors, associate or otherwise. Many are highly experienced and skilled without a shadow of doubt.
Some though, and let’s be honest here, are not current practitioners, have not worked in the sector for many years and are out of touch.
While I respect they may have plenty of experience and may, back in the day, have been brilliant, I struggle to understand how they can judge with integrity and credibility.
Let’s hope Wilshaw and co freshen things up with current practitioners and, critically in my view, current or recent leaders.
I know of at least one very good lead HMI who never rose above the ranks of department head and yet is now judging the leadership and to some degree determining the careers and futures of time-served principals. Inspectors should be current, credible and appropriate.
I personally can’t wait for the General Eelection to be over and at least then we can have some sensible debate with government about FE in this country and its true value to society and the economy.
Last week President Obama outlined his plans to make college free in the USA. Wow — imagine that. Of course, it’s highly unlikely to become reality, but at least he sees the value in what we do and would it not be refreshing to hear our politicians backing FE in that way. Utopian I agree, but refreshing nonetheless.
The PAC was right to identify in its latest report that more needs to be done to support young people aged between 16 and 18.
There have been some positive developments in recent years with the launch of traineeships and the focus on functional literacy, numeracy and IT skills. Unemployment figures are generally moving in the right direction, but we can do much more.
Securing a job or moving onto an apprenticeship is now recognised by the Department for Education as a valid programme outcome and an example of this new approach has been the creation of traineeships where the programme design follows the recommendations made by AELP over many years.
Traineeships got off to a modest start, as we predicted, because it did not have the full support of the Jobcentre Plus network and government restricted both the eligibility of learners and the providers that could deliver the programme.
The changes which came into effect at the start of this year should yield a significant increase in participation during 2015, but we are calling on government to allow all training providers with a track record of quality delivery and employer links to be able to deliver this key programme.
The PAC report looks at the effectiveness of the Youth Contract, but AELP was never convinced that wage subsidies were the way forward.
Our view is that work-based opportunities for young people should be built around the core programmes of traineeships and apprenticeships.
What we don’t want is new initiatives and programmes that undermine and confuse an already complicated market
We should also support the continuation of programmes that have worked such as the Troubled Families programme. What we don’t want is new initiatives and programmes that undermine and confuse an already complicated market.
Raising the Participation Age (RPA) is a major risk to ensuring that young people are offered all of the options open to them. Too many schools will promote RPA as the raising of the school leaving age.
We need an effective communications campaign to ensure the RPA will not be seen just as a raising of the school leaving age and schools must give access to experts such as training providers to ensure young people get best advice on their post-16 options.
Training providers can provide the link between schools and employers.
Since the PAC took evidence, the DfE has announced the creation of a new careers and enterprise company for schools. This must not become just one more organisation operating in a crowded and confusing careers space.
Our long-standing position is that England should have an integrated all-age service with the DfE and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills presiding over a single structure built around the services of the National Careers Service.
The PAC report was obviously drafted before Skills Minister Nick Boles’s statement on the reboot of the apprenticeship funding reforms.
Nevertheless, we welcome the committee’s comments on the need to ensure that small businesses are not put off the programme because of a possible increase in the administrative burden and a perception that the costs might rise under the reforms.
The start figures for 16 to 18 apprenticeships went up in 2013/14 after a fall the previous year, and the arrival of traineeships as a stepping stone to an apprenticeship gives employers and providers a further opportunity to maintain the upward trajectory.
But this will only happen if we get the reforms right for businesses of all sizes and so for some months AELP has been advocating a voucher system for employers which will give them the type of purchasing power that the minister is now talking about.
However, the proposal that employers should make upfront cash contributions remains on the table when we feel that the government should focus more on tracking the other significant contributions that support apprenticeship completion.
Improved careers choices, focus on the core programmes and flexible personalised delivery by high quality training providers would provide a clear and effective solution for our young people.
Ofsted national director for FE and skills Lorna Fitzjohn today launched the first conference for inspectors from across Europe dedicated to adult learning.
The two-day event, called Inspecting Post-compulsory Education and Training — helping to prepare the youth of today for the world of tomorrow, began on January 22.
Hosted by Ofsted and the Standing International Conference of Inspectorates (SICI), the first address was given by Ms Fitzjohn (pictured right).
She outlined her priorities for the future of FE in a speech to delegates from countries including Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium and Norway.
She said: “It is our job, as inspectors, to ensure all people taking part in post-compulsory education get the good quality teaching and learning that they deserve.
“While the terms used across Europe for post-compulsory education vary, we must all agree that the goal of learning and training is to help people gain the skills, knowledge and qualifications they need.
“In doing so, we are enabling adults and young people to reach their potential, responding to the needs of businesses and employers and supporting local communities.”
Issues scheduled for discussion included how inspectorates could help countries be internationally competitive and employer engagement.
Ofsted chair David Hoare is due to deliver a speech on the importance of vocational education on day two, when he is expected to say: “Vocational training is regarded by many, as a second or even third class option.
“School leaders have a responsibility to guide students in the right direction – academic or vocational. One path does not suit everybody… At the same time, employers need to engage with providers of vocational training.”
He will add: “We are here today to learn from each other and I know [Ofsted] are very keen to hear from you about what you as inspectorates have done to raise the profile of vocational education in your countries.”
Public Accounts Committee chair Margaret Hodge (pictured) has warned that the Department for Education (DfE) has “little understanding of the impact of existing initiatives and programmes” for 16 to 18-year-olds.
She spoke out with her committee today reporting on its three-month inquiry into participation in education and training among the age group.
The report warned that the DfE had no plans to replace the Youth Contract scheme, which supports the hardest to reach young people, when it ends next year, while Martin Doel (pictured inset), Association of Colleges chief executive, warned the DfE could not “carry on ‘hoping for the best’ without updating its policies and funding”.
The committee report put forward six recommendations, including a DfE evaluation of the “relative effectiveness” of its initiatives and a setting out by DfE of how young people will be helped after the end of the Youth Contract.
“The amount the government spends on 16 to 18 education has fallen by 8 per cent in real terms compared to 2010-11 and in September 2014 it reduced the basic rate of annual funding for an 18-year-old from £4,000 to £3,300,” said Ms Hodge.
“With scarce resources it is vital to understand whether and which initiatives are most effective and why. Yet, the DfE has little understanding of the impact of existing initiatives and programmes.”
The committee found that although the proportion of young people not in employment, education or training (Neet) was at its lowest since records began, 148,000 were still Neet at the end of 2013.
“While the number [of young people who are Neet] is thankfully improving, the UK is still behind other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries when it comes to reducing Neets,” said Ms hodge.
“It would seem common sense that the main reason the number of Neets is down is that the law has changed to require young people to continue in education or training until at least their 18th birthday.
“It is difficult to show that any other interventions, such as careers advice, have been effective.”
Mr Doel said: “The DfE cannot carry on ‘hoping for the best’ without updating its policies and funding to take account of this major change,” he said.
“Policy has fallen behind in terms of funding and supporting young people in achieving government aspirations.
“We know that young people are too often being held back, not only by a significant reduction in funding for 16 to 18-year olds, but by policies that are not fit for purpose – particularly around careers guidance and transport.”
He called on the next government to conduct a “once in a generation review” of how money is spent in each year of compulsory education, pointing out that spending on 16 to 17-year-olds was currently 22 per cent lower than for 11 to 16-year-olds.
The 15-page report also warned that careers advice was “patchy” and called for DfE to explain the steps it would take when a school was shown to be offering poor careers advice.
Association of Employment and Learning Providers chief executive Stewart Segal agreed with the call for improved careers advice.
“Raising the Participation Age offers us an opportunity to reduce the Neet figures further if young people are aware of the opportunities that traineeships and apprenticeships offer and that’s why the PAC is right to highlight that careers advice in schools is a real issue which needs to be tackled properly,” he said.
He called for an “effective communications campaign” to ensure the raised participation age was properly understood and young people were aware of their options.
Joe Vinson, NUS Vice President for FE, said: “This report confirms what we have been saying all along with regards to careers advice. One of the biggest decisions a young person will ever make is choosing the right path to take so they can achieve the career they want, but for many young people they are left to navigate the complicated world of qualifications, providers, further study or work options either alone or with minimal support.
“The current guidance is disparate and patchy from town to town, with many having to rely on a ‘one size fits all’ website or outdated, and sometimes biased, advice from parents and teachers. It’s clear that the system needs a radical overhaul.
“This report also confirms that travel is a major issue for students. Sometimes it can be the difference between making it to college or not, particularly for students from lower income backgrounds and those living in rural areas. Further cuts to these services could worryingly see a whole generation of people being unable to get to college.”
The report echoed the government’s response to the technical consultation on apprenticeship funding reform, published last week, which concluded that the proposed funding mechanisms designed to put employers in control of apprenticeships were in danger of putting off smaller businesses from taking on apprentices.
Lynne Sedgmore, 157 Group executive director, said: “The conclusions of this report seem most strikingly to indicate that time and more research are needed to assess the impact of recent reforms.”
She also called on policymakers to “heed colleges’ calls for a period of stability” in policy.
Association of School and College Leaders deputy general secretary Malcolm Trobe said: “What we still need are more young apprenticeships and employment opportunities with on-the-job training.
“These need to be targeted regionally as there seems to be a bigger issue in some parts of the country than others and, of course, in areas with higher unemployment.”
A DfE spokesperson said: “Ensuring young people leave school or college prepared for life in modern Britain is a key part of our plan for education.
“That is why we are doing more to enable young people to access high quality advice and opportunities that will enable them to make informed decisions, in particular through the creation of the new careers and enterprise company.
“The new company will encourage greater collaboration between employers and schools, helping them access a wealth of experience to inspire young people across the country about the possibilities of the world of work.”
She added: “Our plan for education means thousands more students are staying in education or training after the age of 16, giving them the skills and experience they need for life in modern Britain.
“We have ended the historic and unfair funding difference between post-16 schools and colleges by funding them per student, rather than discriminating between qualifications – this ensures young people are studying high quality courses that will help them get on in their lives.
“The funding is sufficient for each full-time student to undertake a full timetable of courses to suit their needs, be it A-levels or other post-16 qualifications. It is for individual institutions to decide on what they provide to best suit the needs of their students.”
For more on the report, see FE Week edition 125, dated Monday, January 26.
Kevin Hamblin outlines the journey his Ofsted grade two-rated college made in order to take over sponsorship of a nearby academy.
South Gloucestershire and Stroud College (SGS College) has announced that we will sponsor an under-performing secondary school though our newly-formed SGS Academy Trust.
If anyone had asked me four months ago if we would be in this position I would have doubted it.
I knew little about Multi Academy Trusts (MATs), how one would set about forming an MAT, and I had thought even less about why we might wish to do so — after all, haven’t we got enough on our plate right now with an expectation that funding will be even tighter after the election?
This all changed after a chance discussion in October with the South West’s newly-engaged Regional Schools Commissioner (RSC), Sir David Carter.
At the end of that meeting, Sir David asked if the college had considered forming an MAT.
As I see it, colleges can sometimes be victims of the success or failure of their feeder schools.
Or, more precisely, if there are schools in the community in which a college operates that are struggling financially or academically, sooner or later the effect of that performance will affect young people, many of whom will find their way to college.
Our intention is to sponsor primary schools feeding into these secondary schools, to produce an ‘all-through’ model
An MAT will allow SGS to work with feeder secondary schools to improve their academic performance, and our economies of scale will easily absorb back-office functions, freeing up income to spend on student-facing services.
Furthermore, as the MAT develops, our intention is to sponsor primary schools feeding into these secondary schools, to produce an ‘all-through’ model.
So, from that chance encounter in October, we have been taken through the process with considerable support from the Department for Education (DfE)and RSC staff.
Unusually, in my experience, the process has been output driven, with little additional bureaucracy, and the staff assigned to support SGS have all been very responsive, with a ‘can-do’ attitude.
This has involved many late night and early morning conversations with DfE staff as we have navigated our way through the process involving several ministers and government departments.
Within a week of agreeing with Sir David to look into forming an MAT, two excellent staff seconded from the DfE, and working for the SW Academies Group, visited me. They became an invaluable asset and have taken the college through the process and support available to form an MAT and to support any costs incurred.
A series of steps were necessary to keep governors informed and supportive, but also to ensure that SGS was walking into this initiative aware of the risks of such a move.
After the application for funding was agreed, which would cover the costs of the legal formation of the MAT, the Education Secretary’s approval that SGS was a fit and proper organisation to sponsor up to three schools initially was given.
Further funding to cover increased staff capacity, school improvement and due diligence costs was successful, as was a small but not insignificant grant to improve the first school’s ‘environmental appearance’.
We are now working with the school, which will become the first sponsored school in our MAT, subject to governors agreeing to its transfer at the end of this month, and after they have undertaken due diligence.
Obviously, an MAT isn’t for every college — it isn’t something which will benefit the bottom line and it will increase responsibilities for a number of college staff.
But I firmly believe if we can help support our local schools to be more successful, rather than catching the fallout from their underperformance, then there will be dividends for the young person, the community and post-16 providers in the future.
Lambeth College’s long-running dispute over new staff contracts came to an end this evening after striking union members voted to return to work.
Members of the University and College Union (UCU) unanimously agreed to call off an indefinite strike, which began on Monday, in a meeting at the college’s Clapham site.
Lecturers at the London college have taken part in a series of strikes since March last year, including an indefinite walkout in June which lasted for five weeks ending just before the summer holidays.
The row over contracts for new staff members, which UCU said would leave them with fewer holidays, less sick pay and longer working hours, also saw a series of escalating strike over the last two months, which culminated in the second indefinite walkout on Monday.
However, when the college offered to allow existing staff to change their hours without transferring to the new contract and made changes to the first year of sick pay, union members voted to accept and will return to work tomorrow.
UCU regional official Una O’Brien said: “UCU members at Lambeth have demonstrated their resolve throughout this long and at times bitter dispute. We are pleased that an acceptable resolution has been found and accepted by our members.
“We hope we can now restore good working relations with the college and get back to business as usual.”
Lecturers are expected to return to work tomorrow.
Lambeth principal Mark Silverman said: “The college has always been open to, and hopeful of achieving, a reasonable resolution to this dispute, and I welcome the end of strike action and return to work.
Mark Silverman
“This agreement brings an end to what has been a considerable distraction for our managers and staff, and I am pleased that we can now focus our time and effort on the important work of teaching and supporting our learners.
“We are very clear on the steps we need to take to improve the quality of our teaching and to assure our financial position as we build a high-quality sustainable college for south London.
“The terms and conditions in the ‘new’ contract, and the agreement we have reached today, support both of those objectives and I am pleased that we can now put the dispute behind us.
“My sincere thanks go to the staff who worked diligently throughout strike action to ensure that lessons and support for learners could continue.”
