A graduate from the UK’s first post-16 space engineering advanced A-level programme at Loughborough College has secured an out-of-this-world apprenticeship with leading aerospace company Airbus.
The two-year course was launched in September 2012 and the first wave of 11 graduates completed in June.
It combined A-level maths and physics with BTec engineering and weekly visits to the National Space Centre, in Leicester, where they met NASA astronaut Colonel Chris Hadfield in January.
Graduate Nigel Grainger has now secured an undergraduate apprenticeship with leading aerospace company Airbus.
He said: “I’ll be working with a company set to be involved in the UK’s first ever space port.
“It doesn’t get much more exciting than that.”
Another graduate Jessica Bains has also secured a full scholarship with the University of South Florida for a master’s degree in physics with maths and engineering.
She said: “I won’t be far from NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre, so it’s a dream come true.
“Eventually, I hope to work with the European Space Agency.”
Cap: Loughborough College space engineering advanced A-level graduates Nigel Grainger and Jessica Bains, both aged 18, at the National Space Centre
College staff have voted to strike next month in the latest of a series of strikes over pay, the University and College Union (UCU) has announced.
UCU members at colleges in England are expected to take part in the October 14 strike after 85 per cent of those balloted voted to reject a “final” pay offer from the Association of Colleges (AoC).
The union also said it would consider further industrial action if the pay offer, which includes the removal of the lowest pay grade, a 2 per cent rise to £7.65-an-hour for staff on the lowest remaining grade and a 1 per cent rise for all other grades, did not improve.
The proposed deal was better than the 0.7 per cent rise offered in previous talks at the National Joint Forum (NJF), which includes Unison, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), Amie (ATL’s section for education leaders and managers), Unite and GMB.
However, the UCU has been looking for a 3 per cent rise or £1,040, whichever is the greater.
A UCU spokesperson said: “Our FE committee met on Friday and backed strike action in the pay row. Our members in English colleges will be out on strike on Tuesday, October 14.
“85 per cent of those who took part in our e-ballot voted to reject the 1 per cent pay offer and support strike action in an effort to secure an improved deal.
“The committee voted in favour of the action on October 14 together with other public sector unions and to determine dates for further targeted and national strike action when it next meets on October 17.”
UCU head of bargaining, Michael MacNeil, said: “Our members have made it quite clear that they are not prepared to accept another real-terms pay cut. The cost of living continues to rise but pay just isn’t matching it.
“Our members have seen their pay fall by 15 per cent in real terms since 2009 and have also been hit with higher monthly pension contributions. We will be joining our colleagues in other public sector unions because Britain needs a pay rise.”
Marc Whitworth, the AoC’s acting director of employment policy and services, said: “With colleges facing significant financial pressures, AoC’s final recommendation of a 1 per cent pay increase, with no conditions, is a fair balance between rewarding staff and maintaining the financial well-being of colleges where possible.
“UCU’s decision to take industrial action is extremely disappointing. AoC hopes to discuss this further with UCU.”
It comes as the Department for Education (DfE) prepares to resume talks over proposed changes to pay and conditions with unions representing teachers, including those at sixth form colleges.
Education Secretary Nicky Morgan has written to the group of unions, which includes the ATL, the National Union of Teachers (NUT) and the National Association of Schoolmasters and Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT), to say she was “looking forward” to joining the talks.
The NUT wants the DfE to shelve plans for a system of performance-related pay, and commit to increase salaries in line with inflation. They also want the government to reverse pension reforms.
And in her letter, Ms Morgan said: “I would like to continue the talks in the format that has already been agreed. I know that previous discussions have been helpful in identifying some concrete ways in which we can implement policy better and believe there is a great deal more we can usefully discuss.
“One issue I particularly want to focus on with you is what more might be done to address the unnecessary workload sometimes experienced by teachers.
“I have been struck by the national and international evidence around this issue, which I know has already been reviewed in the talks with you, but also by what I have heard from individual teachers about the tasks they are sometimes asked to take on.
“Teachers join the profession to teach and we have a common interest in reducing – where we can – unnecessary work that takes teachers’ time away from teaching.”
Sixth Form Colleges Association (SFCA) chief executive David Igoe said: “It’s encouraging that the new Secretary of State recognises that teachers have difficult workloads and is keen to have a dialogue about this.
“However the issue in SFCs is not so much about teachers having administration tasks that take them away from teaching, it is more about teachers generally having larger classes with a heavy burden of marking and preparation that that entails.
“The reductions in funding have forced colleges into being more efficient and they have had little choice but to increase class sizes and increase contact time in order to balance the books.
“Only time will tell whether this has an effect on quality and as ever it will be the students who suffer as teachers have less time or energy to give them the individual support they need. Our message to the Secretary of State is to give colleges (and schools) the resource they need to do the job and that includes making sure teachers have the time and space to support students individually.”
Education Secretary Nicky Morgan has come under pressure from FE sector leaders to reform careers advice and guidance by establishing ‘careers hubs’.
In a letter to Mrs Morgan, the Association of Colleges (AoC), National Union of Students and children’s charity Barnardo’s, the three organisations request her support for an improved careers advice system.
The letter asks Mrs Morgan to support the solution of careers hubs in different areas of England. The hubs would enable young people and others to find out about the career and training options available to them.
The letter suggests the hub would be supported by schools, colleges, universities, Jobcentre Plus and local authorities.
Schools already have a legal responsibility to provide independent and impartial advice to pupils, including information about vocational routes and apprenticeships, but the AoC has also asked Mrs Morgan to ensure a careers education is embedded into the curriculum.
Joy Mercer
Joy Mercer, Director of Education Policy at the AoC, said: “We do not blame schools. The government has created more places than there are students, so without support for transport, young people may stay on at school rather than pursuing a course or apprenticeship that might have immediate and lucrative employment rewards. We have to stem the tide of those dropping out of education at 17.
“Young people need to be made aware of all their options and to be taught how to do research into their chosen career.”
It comes after research carried out for the AoC showed that although 66 per cent of 2,001 children surveyed online said they were getting the support they needed, only half felt well-informed about the jobs available.
It showed that children tended to ask their parent or guardian (70 per cent) or a teacher (57 per cent) for advice about careers. Less than half of the year 11s questioned had seen a professional careers adviser despite being at a point where significant choices are made.
The education select committee is currently preparing to hold an inquiry into careers advice later this year. The deadline for written submissions is Friday.
Ms Mercer added: “We believe that LEPs are ideally placed to lead these hubs. Careers advice should be included as a priority in their strategic plans. They would be able to ensure that the hub provides up-to-date information about the local jobs market and the qualifications and skills needed to work in local industries.
“From research that we carried out interviewing young people as part of workshops, we know that young people want hands-on work, practical experience of work, not just lessons in a classroom. Our workshops show that they want work experience to be a core part of their school or college experience.”
A spokesperson for the DfE said: “Delivering the best schools and skills to help young people succeed is a key part of the government’s long-term economic plan.
“That is why, as well as ensuring every young person develops a core body of knowledge and expertise, we are taking decisive steps to improve careers advice and make sure it meets the needs of young people and employers.”
Wigan and Leigh College has started the new academic year with a new principal, Michael Sheehan.
Mr Sheehan, who has previously led Pendleton College in Salford and Runshaw College in Lancashire, has replaced Catherine Hurst, its principal of six years, who left in July to “explore new challenges”.
In a statement, the college said Mr Sheehan, who was most recently principal at Riverside College in Halton, was “recognised as one of the country’s leading FE professionals” with an “exceptional track record in helping colleges achieve success”.
Mr Sheehan said: “I am excited to be offered the opportunity to lead Wigan and Leigh College and am looking forward to working with students and staff.
“The college is at the heart of the local community and is a key provider of education in the borough.
“With the multi-million pound redevelopment of the campus, coupled with staff who are dedicated to providing a positive learning experience, the college has a bright future.”
Mr Sheehan’s arrival has been welcomed by college governors, who said they would work with him to “strive for excellence” for the college, which was rated “good” by Ofsted in 2010.
Chair of governors Liz Shea said: “I am delighted that Michael is joining the college.
“We are really looking forward to working with him as we continue to strive for excellence and to offer exciting opportunities for the people of Wigan.”
In a statement sent to local media in July when her resignation was announced, outgoing principal Mrs Hurst said: “I am really proud to have worked with so many committed staff that genuinely care about students and want them to succeed.
“There are many effective partnerships which have supported the college and I am sure it will go from strength to strength.
“Wigan has been a fantastic place to work and I wish it well.”
Mrs Hurst, who was given the OBE in the New Year honours list in 2012, began her teaching career at Bury College in catering and commercial studies, later joining Wigan and Leigh College as vice principal for curriculum in 2002.
She had been principal since 2007.
The college told FE Week that Mrs Hurst had not taken up a leadership role at another institution.
From a difficult start at school to the top of a group of three colleges and two University Technical Colleges (UTCs), the rise of Sally Dicketts has been nothing if not hard-earned.
The Manchester-born and Cardiff-raised 59-year-old has enjoyed a long and varied teaching career in both schools and colleges despite having been written off as “slow” before she was diagnosed with dyslexia.
Scuba diving in Malta
But teaching was always on Dicketts’s mind and the achievement of a childhood goal is evidenced by her chief executive role at Activate Learning — the grouping of Banbury and Bicester College, City of Oxford College, Reading College, two University Technical Colleges in Oxfordshire and Reading and a marketing consultancy — and her chair’s post of the Women’s Leadership Network.
“I always wanted to be a teacher, because I thought that the education I had got was just so demeaning, and made you feel so stupid,” mum-of-one Dicketts tells me as we sit down in her spacious office at Reading College.
I’m friendly and chatty, and that often wasn’t seen as gravitas
“When I did my 11+, I didn’t actually answer any question because I felt so sick, and I was put in a remedial stream in my secondary school because they assumed that I clearly had major learning difficulties.
“I had a very feisty mum who came to the school and said there was no way her daughter needed to be in a special needs stream, and after two months of being in that stream, I was moved up.
“I remember my first day in secondary school. I was in uniform, I had a leather satchel, and I had all my pens because I could write, and I remember my fellow pupils were — not horribly, it was just fascination — they emptied out the whole of my satchel and all played with my pens because none of them had ever seen such interesting implements before.”
With siblings, from left: Richard, Susan, Dicketts and Gerry
In spite of dyslexia, Dicketts did well at school, but was banned by one teacher from taking the maths A-level she wanted. But it wasn’t until her first days at Redland Teacher Training College, in Bristol, that Dicketts realised it was something completely different that was holding her back.
She says: “When I got to college, particularly in economics, it was the first time anybody discovered I had a brain and was lazy, and that came as a shock to the system, so the first assignment I did I had sent back, and was told to rewrite it.
“And I said, ‘You don’t understand – I’ve got problems.’ And I remember the tutor saying to me, ‘No – you just have to work harder.’ It was the first time anybody had ever said that to me.”
After graduating from Redland College in 1977, Dicketts took a job at Tredegar Park High School, in Newport, teaching economics. She stayed for two years before moving to Mount Carmel Girls School in London because her then-husband Stephen Morgan had a business in the capital.
Within two years, she had been put in charge of the fifth form, careers and business studies and began to think about her own future in the early 1980s.
For every training provider that has scammed the system, we don’t look at the 500 that haven’t
Initially passed up for the head of economics and business job at the newly-formed Islington Sixth Form Centre, Dicketts moved to Hackney College in 1984 and began a connection with the FE sector which remains to this day.
Dicketts, aged nine
“I absolutely adored it,” she says. “I’m very into curriculum design and development, and designing something for your students, which you could do in FE in those days, which you can’t do now.”
After teaching in schools where the majority of the pupils were white, Hackney College proved a culture shock for Dicketts, who remembers the adjustments she had to make in her own understanding.
“At Hackney College it was 90 per cent black students — so for the student population, they were pretty secure. If you were white you were unusual — but of course the majority of staff were white.
“And it was a huge cross-section, so when I was there in the 80s it was a huge African population, not Afro-Caribbean.
“I can remember a student was failing and he offered to buy my a Mercedes if I passed, and to this day I don’t know whether that was a serious offer, but I can remember being really shocked.
“There were quite a lot of different cultural aspects. There were, even then, knifings, drugs, but it tended to be peripheral to the college. A lot of the students wanted to learn and were hugely positive. They were delightful.
“I had some amazing students who went on and did amazing things, but we had a lot of money to be able to do lots of extra-curricular activities and support, which there is just no way now that you could do. So, although there was a lot of deprivation, there was a lot of money to help mitigate that deprivation.”
In 1988, after initially being overlooked for a head of department job at Hackney, Dicketts was encouraged by several colleagues to apply for a job at Milton Keynes College. One of those colleagues was Lynne Sedgmore, now executive director of the 157 Group, who kindly dropped off her application for her.
Dicketts in Thailand, 1987
Dicketts initially struggles with my question about whether she thinks her gender ever held her back in her career — an issue often considered within her WLN role — given the number of times she was overlooked for management roles.
“It’s always a really difficult question, isn’t it,” she says. “I think, because I was very friendly, often I wasn’t taken up.
“I’m friendly and chatty, and that often wasn’t seen as gravitas. And maybe if I’d then got an Oxbridge education, I could overcome my lack of gravitas. So I don’t know if it was gender, but certainly I think it was personality.”
But Dicketts was to become assistant principal at Milton Keynes, then vice-principal, and in 1996 was chosen to lead the college from the principal’s chair, which she did until 2003 when she moved to the newly-merged Oxford and Cherwell Valley College (OCVC)
Now she heads up Activate Learning, which in March had a Skills Funding Agency allocation of more than £16m.
Dicketts, who lives in Oxford with partner Lee Miao and their daughter Isobel, 19, explains her belief that joint working between colleges, such as that on show within Activate Learning, will become more prevalent as institutions look for ways to supplement government income.
But she is keen to stress that the federation model — perhaps most infamously in the case of Luton’s Barnfield Federation, which is expected to split in November — would not work for everyone.
She says: “One of the things we have developed here is a curriculum and leadership philosophy. If you really believe in a curriculum leadership philosophy and technology, then you need a sum of money to really develop it and trial it, do the research for it, and you need group services — ie your IT, your HR — to also be stunning to support it.
“If you’re a £20m college, you might be able to put it into your curriculum, which is fantastic, but then your group services are going to let you down, or you put it into IT but you don’t develop it.
“I think what you might get more of is collectives of FE colleges that stand together. What we have tried to do is resolve some of the issues. Each of the colleges is a separate college — Reading College runs as Reading College, but the principal of Reading College is a group director of Activate Learning, so we have done it very differently [to Barnfield].
Dicketts with daughter Isabel, now aged 19
“It’s interesting, isn’t it? For everything that goes wrong — like Barnfield — we never look at the things that go right. For every training provider that has scammed the system, we don’t look at the 500 that haven’t.
“I don’t want us to own hundreds of different things, but I do believe in the FE sector and I want to protect it, and I don’t want large commercial organisations taking over, because contrarily, I don’t think the private sector necessarily does do it better.”
It’s a personal thing
What is your favourite book?
A defining book for me, if we’re looking at it from a woman’s point of view, is Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy. You probably can’t get it now, but it was during my real feminist age
What is your pet hate?
Discrimination. I’ll give you an example. I cannot bear being called a lady. I’m not a lady, I’m a woman. And we have real arguments with the office staff. Some of them like being called a lady, and that’s fine, but I ask that people respect me and call me a woman
What do you do to switch off after work?
I’m an avid reader, which is why your ‘favourite book’ question is one I found really difficult
If you could invite anyone, living or dead, to a dinner party who would it be?
Eleanor Roosevelt and Hillary Clinton. They were both married to people who were the ultimate — supposed — power for people. How do you, as such a very powerful woman, sublimate some of your needs because your husband’s the president? And also Carl Jung. I am fascinated by psychology, and how we think, and the impact we have on one another, and I am fascinated by Jungian psychology
The funding, teaching and organisation of adult literacy and numeracy programmes are in need of government action, says Adrian Bailey.
Problems with reading, writing and maths can have a huge impact on people’s daily lives, including getting and keeping a job, understanding bills, forms and documents, and guiding children through education. It can affect adults in many walks of life, but it also undermines the economic performance of our country.
Much of the paid-for provision is just not good enough — many English and
maths providers need to improve their standard of teaching
It is a scandal that there continues to be an alarmingly high proportion of adults with low literacy and numeracy skills. A survey carried out by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in October 2013 — based on interviews with 166,000 people in 24 countries — found that England and Northern Ireland was ranked 22nd for literacy and 21st for numeracy. This shocking state of affairs was the impetus for my committee to undertake an inquiry into how to tackle this problem.
We found that adults struggling most at English and maths are just not getting the help and support needed. To this end, our report calls on the government to launch a high-profile campaign promote its funding for training and tuition for any adult wanting to study English and maths up to and including GSCE level. This campaign should also help adults in finding the most appropriate and nearest help, with either voluntary schemes or more formal classes.
During our inquiry, we heard of many excellent examples of literacy and numeracy programmes in a variety of settings, from workplaces, community centres, schools and prisons, to those organised by homeless charities.
We heard about the fantastic role that volunteers are taking in providing adult learning schemes.
However, we also found from Ofsted that much of the paid-for provision is just not good enough — many English and maths providers need to improve their standard
of teaching.
Post-graduate qualifications should be reintroduced, to reinforce the fact that adult learning is a specialist job, and to ensure that the best teachers are helping adults to improve their English and maths.
Our report also recommends that the government takes a more flexible approach to adult learning, getting behind what works — both in terms of the funding and the learning offered.
The government should move away from its preoccupation with GCSEs as the ‘gold standard’ of measurement for adult skills and, where appropriate, provide more support for less linear and traditional learning schemes, which are often more effective in engaging adults and improving their literacy and numeracy.
Adult learning can play a vital role in helping people escape the trap of low-skilled jobs or unemployment, yet the committee found there was little rigorous or uniform assessment in place for when adults claim unemployment benefit — despite the fact that this is an ideal opportunity to help adults to gain essential skills needed to get a job.
Again, this is an area where more a coherent government approach is needed. The Department for Work and Pensions, BIS, and Jobcentre Plus and skills providers all need to work closely to ensure there is consistent and thorough assessment of skills at the earliest possible stage of unemployment benefit claims.
Government departments must work together to drive change. Many have adult literacy and numeracy included in their remits, but my committee found that closer collaboration is needed.
In order to deliver more coordinated and effective support for literacy and numeracy programmes and policies, we have called on the government to make sure each relevant department nominates a civil servant to act as a champion for adult literacy and numeracy.
The video we have produced to accompany the report includes a summary of our findings and the committee’s recommendations, but I hope it also acts as a showcase for the positive impact which effective learning can have on individuals’ literacy and numeracy skills.
The government’s positive initial reaction to our report is encouraging and while there is no silver bullet to this problem, if they adopt our recommendations, the government can make a real difference to people’s lives and our economy’s productivity.
With a number of principal appointments to have hit the FE Week headlines over the summer, Sue Pember looks at the issues all governors need to consider when looking for a new leader.
College governors feel that they have the biggest impact when they are appointing a new principal.
When I was appointed as a principal, it was a two-day process, including several interviews, presentations and an evening reception for stakeholders.
The whole college was involved in one way or another. The process felt robust, rigorous, fair and transparent — although I may have thought differently if I wasn’t the successful candidate. In those days there was a blueprint that governors stuck to which included establishing a sub-committee to oversee the process. They would be responsible for national adverts, interview packs, establishing a long list, references and background checks, and shortlisting candidates.
Governors do need to ensure the college has a senior leader and an accounting officer, but they shouldn’t feel rushed
They would also host the two-day interview programme with governors, staff and other stakeholders, with a small group of candidates taken forward to the last day. The sub-committee then made recommendations to the full board which decided on the appointment. The blueprint was enshrined in the Articles of Association, which provided the statutory framework, and the updated version in 2008 set out the expectations.
The Education Act 2012 relaxed many of the requirements, but most colleges have yet to change their Instrument and Articles, so the 2008 version still stands. The process has served FE well and allowed good candidates to rise through the ranks, while not being closed to those (like me) who came up through a local authority route. This also helped to ensure equality of opportunity, which in turn led to more women being appointed.
It is for the college clerk and HR team to set out what governors need to consider in appointing a new principal. This starts with the pros and cons of whether to run the process internally or externally, and whether to commission full or partial support from an external agency. Keeping the process in-house is sometimes seen as the cheapest option, but that is often not the case. Recruitment takes time and eats up internal resources which are needed elsewhere and so this is a false economy in what is an important investment in the college’s future.
The most important element is determining the skills and behaviours needed from the new principal to take the college on to the next stage. This is may not
provide a clone of the previous principal and
the existing incumbent can provide advice,
but does not unduly influence the appointment panel. At this point governors should seek advice and the thoughts of others including students, staff and other stakeholders, such as the funding agencies.
Whether to allow outside competition is another important consideration. Some colleges find this easy to answer because they haven’t changed their Articles and so they have to go to national advert.
They may also have a college recruitment policy that states all jobs will be advertised externally and nationally. Some consider each job on its merit. This is a difficult
one because governors will not want to upset senior staff who may have aspirations to become a principal but, nevertheless, they must ensure they find the best candidate
for the college and will want to test the market.
There are instances where the principal has to step down, perhaps due to ill health. The governing body may feel they have to take immediate action. This is partly true because they do need to ensure the college has a senior leader and an accounting officer, but they shouldn’t feel rushed.
There must always be a plan in place for this type of eventuality, including a search and appointments committee meeting, confirmation of the temporary appointment of the vice principal or other designated senior leader and starting the ball rolling on the appointment process.
Every generation sighs about where the leaders of the future are going to come from and FE is no different. But they are out there and there is no need to worry.
Study programmes will be “central to inspections” from this week as Ofsted seeks to challenge a slow response to the initiative.
Lorna Fitzjohn, Ofsted’s director for FE and skills, told FE Week in an exclusive interview that providers should expect to see their ratings fall if they had not made enough changes to curriculum to meet government requirements.
Her comments come after Ofsted released its report on the progress of study programmes — new principles for 16 to 19 study that require learners to demonstrate progression to a higher level of attainment, take part in work experience and study maths and English to level two if they have not done so already.
The report, based on a survey during the first six months of the programmes, found that many providers had not done enough to change their curriculums to fit in with government wishes.
Speaking after delivering Ofsted’s annual FE and skills lecture at the Spotlight youth centre in Poplar, East London, Ms Fitzjohn said inspectors would be looking closely at FE institutions’ performance on study programmes.
She told FE Week: “As of this week, the study programmes are clearly what we are going to be inspecting for 16 to 19-year-olds, whether they be in a sixth form, an academy or a school, whether they be in a FE or skills provider, sixth form college, the study programmes are what 16 to 19-year-olds should be having, so they will be central to inspection.
“We are expecting now to see, six months on from finishing the report, that there really is a difference, at least that’s what we’re hoping.
“It’s bound to have a real impact on their overall grading, because all 16 to 19-year-olds should have a study programme, and if that’s not working it will impact on their overall grade.”
Study programmes were first mooted by Professor Alison Wolf, the Sir Roy Griffiths Professor of Public Sector Management at King’s College London, more than three years ago in her review of vocational education.
They were introduced by the government in order to improve progression into higher education and skilled employment.
But Ms Fitzjohn was keen to avoid laying blame for the slow response to the study programmes at any particular door, and said the government and providers both needed to take responsibility.
She said: “I think all of us need to take some role in this. Colleges, providers, schools, academies all had a year’s notice of the introduction of the study programme, there was an opportunity then to make the step changes they needed to make.
“Many of them haven’t taken a hard look at their curriculum, what’s on offer for young people, so it’s not offering progression routes for young people to move on either through level one, two, three, or perhaps if the programme they start on isn’t the right one what else they might move onto.
“There also needs to be much more work experience for young people, and real life work experience, which takes some organisation. That isn’t happening yet. The English and maths certainly is an issue.
“Many of the providers, schools, colleges we went to hadn’t really been able to recruit the staff they needed to deal with the amount of teaching they now needed to do. There has been additional funding, but I think sadly there aren’t the people out there at the moment to teach.”
Ms Fitzjohn also raised concerns about a “fundamental issue with careers advice and guidance”, and said not enough attention
had been paid to the fact it had to start in schools.
She added: “Maybe it hasn’t been clear enough to schools that that’s what they need to do, but it’s certainly not happening.
“We do look at careers advice and guidance in schools. We will be looking at it far more rigorously from this month. That’s one of the priorities we have this year.”
The report offers 20 recommendations for government, providers, councils, employers’ organisations and Leps, and Ofsted itself.
The recommendations include a plea for government to ensure data about retention, completion of core aims and destinations on leaving the programme are recorded and made available to the relevant stakeholders.
The report also urges providers to ensure that senior leaders are held to account by those responsible for governance for fully meeting the requirements of the programmes, and said councils should work with providers to ensure up-to-date mapping of 16 to 19 provision across the full range of study programmes.
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‘Providers will respond to these challenges’ — AELP
The response to Ofsted’s report on study programmes has been a varied one, with many welcoming its findings.
The Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) said it supported the recommendations, but said in some cases the structure of the study programmes did not support high quality, flexible provision.
Stewart Segal, AELP chief executive, said: “The report raises some very important issues for the future of the study programme. Training providers will respond to these challenges but they will need the flexibility offered by the study programmes without further restrictions placed on the system.”
He added: “The Education Funding Agency has pushed many providers into full time programmes of study. This is not appropriate for some learners. Although the funding rules allow shorter and more intense provision, there is a clear intention that providers should recruit young people on a programme of one year.”
Mr Segal said: “The teaching of English and maths has improved considerably in recent years but no one should underestimate the challenge of reengaging young people in these subjects. Many of these young people do not see the relevance of English and maths which is why they sometimes do not progress in levels at this initial stage.
“We also agree that young people do not get effective careers advice at any level within the school system. Training providers and colleges are able to offer more options for young people and often work in partnership to provide the widest range of choices.”
Gill Clipson, deputy chief executive at the Association of Colleges, said: “The move to programmes of study and away from colleges being funded by qualification is a fundamental change.
“So too is the requirement for all young people to continue to study maths and English if they have not reached an acceptable standard at school.
“The intention is right but, as this is such a fundamental change, it is not surprising that there has been variable implementation, particularly since the Ofsted fieldwork for this report took place even before the first full year of implementation was complete.”
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “The report shows positive early signs that schools and colleges are entering young people for more rigorous qualifications.
“In fact, the latest figures show that the numbers of those over the age of 17 taking GCSEs in English and maths are rising, giving thousands more the vital knowledge and skills demanded by employers.
“Following Professor Alison Wolf’s ground-breaking review of vocational education we have scrapped thousands of low-quality qualifications so that only the gold-standard, employer-valued courses remain.
“And providers are now incentivised to ensure young people study valuable courses after we changed post-16 funding from per-qualification to per-student.”
