The principal of a troubled London college has conceded there were “no excuses” for the poor results in an Ofsted monitoring report that found insufficient progress had been made in its efforts to bounce back from an inadequate grading.
The Ofsted monitoring visit found Lewisham and Southwark College, which late last month had ministerial permission to rename from Lesoco, had made “insufficient progress” in each of the areas looked at.
The areas were improving teaching and learning, learner attendance, tutorial arrangements, teaching support and maths and English provision.
It was Ofsted’s fourth return to the college since the initial inspection in November last year.
On previous monitoring visits inspectors noted the college had made “reasonable progress” with maths and English but had struggled elsewhere. And the latest report said improvements had “slowed”.
Interim principal Ioan Morgan (pictured): “No excuses, this is not good enough. We will have the college in better shape for its new principal and on a much more secure financial footing. The bottom line, however, is that this is a long haul recovery.
“Impact from our new systems will be seen in improved learner performance in this academic year when new data is available resulting from improved teaching and learning.”
FE Commissioner David Collins visited the college in late January and a spokesperson for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) said he “identified some weaknesses in the governance and leadership of the college”.
Then-principal Maxine Room later stepped down and was replaced by Mr Morgan and a revisit to the college by the commissioner in July resulted in praise for the new leadership.
However, a BIS spokesperson told FE Week: “The commissioner and his advisers continue to monitor and review progress at the college and are challenging the governing body and senior executive to take action to increase the pace and quality of improvement.
“The commissioner is set to conduct a stocktake assessment of the college in early 2015 to formally review progress against his recommendations, advising Ministers and the chief executive of the funding agencies on progress. If there has been insufficient progress, further action will be taken.”
Ofsted monitoring visits occur around every three months after an inadequate inspection result, until the full re-inspection, which takes place around 15 months after the initial inspection.
The college was formed by a merger between Lewisham College and Southwark College in 2012 and was rebranded as Lesoco in 2013 at a cost of £290,000, as exclusively revealed by FE Week two months ago.
And Skills Minister Nick Boles has now given the college permission to ditch Lesoco and officially call itself Lewisham and Southwark College.
Mr Morgan said: “We are very pleased that common sense has prevailed.”
He added the name change would “enable us to get on with the important work that lies ahead with the assurance that we will still be recognised as the local college serving the two boroughs and surrounding parts of London”.
An East London council has given out a £2m loan to “help safeguard” the future of its local college.
Newham Council cabinet approved the cash for Newham College of Further Education, which it said had been put in an “extremely difficult position” by government cuts.
The college described the council’s support, agreed at a meeting on Thursday, November 20, as “invaluable”. The loan will be repayable over two years at an unspecified “commercial” rate.
Newham councillor Lester Hudson, cabinet member for finance, regeneration and planning, said: “Newham College has been placed in an extremely difficult situation by Government cuts to its funding, which has seen almost £5m cut from its budget.”
He added: “As a council we want to ensure that changes to funding for FE do not harm our education establishments and that they can continue to meet the needs of the borough’s young people.
“This is why the council’s cabinet approved a loan of £2m to help safeguard the college’s future.”
He said the loan would “ensure the college can aid in the skills development of the borough’s young people and adults, as well as supporting the council’s aim to provide tailored programmes to help people into work”.
Around 60 per cent of the college’s 20,750 students are Newham residents.
Principal Di Gowland said: “The council’s support is invaluable given the level of cuts throughout the FE sector and the impact these will have on the Newham community.”
The loan proposal was initially put to a full council meeting on September 29 as part of the Mid-Year Review of the 2014/15 Budget and Overall Financial Position. A ruling was then delegated to the cabinet.
Ms Gowland said: “The borough has one of the most diverse populations in the country and the wide range of education and training offered by Newham College is giving our residents the skills they need to boost the borough’s economy.
“This short term loan will ensure we are positively engaged in developing and delivering the training needed to support the local skills and employment agenda.”
An Association of Colleges (AoC) spokesperson said: “There have been many loans, grants and in-kind contributions from councils to colleges over the last 20 years, which reflects their joint work in meeting community need and fostering local economic growth.”
However, she said AoC was unable to give specific examples of such agreements and could not offer advice on seeking local authority loans.
A report from the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) which warned workforce skills and skills provision must be increased to boost productivity, wages and social mobility has been branded “disappointing” by the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP).
The report, Growth through people, published on Monday (November 24), outlined five priorities for action over the next 20 years, including giving employers leadership in the skills and apprenticeship system, measuring job outcomes as success not just qualifications, increasing workplace productivity, more opportunities to earn and learn, and stronger links between employers and education.
A spokesperson for AELP said it welcomed the report’s “focus on skills as a key driver of sustainable economic recovery” and its calls for closer working between employers and training providers of all types.
“However it is disappointing that the paper says ‘FE colleges should be supported to work with employers’,” he said.
“This institutional view of the sector does not reflect that the best provision of technical skills often involves partnerships between employers, colleges and independent training providers.”
Stewart Segal, AELP chief executive, added: “The partnership approach to skills with employers having the choice to work with training providers of all types is the only way forward.”
But, he added: “There is much in the UKCES report that we can support. The focus on employer engagement, the role of skills in driving productivity and the focus on earning and learning are all approaches AELP has promoted over many years.
“We need to drive the apprenticeship programme and we need a period of long term stability not fundamental change proposed by the government.”
And Mr Segal warned “employer leadership” should not necessarily mean complete control over funding. “Employers want to retain the choice of direct funding or working with their chosen training provider and we should retain this option in the system,” he said.
David Hughes, chief executive of the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education, described the report as “important” — pointing to a “perfect storm” of widening skills gaps, high unemployment an aging population and a reduction in employer investment in training over the last five years.
“There are solutions to this. The UKCES itself is a good start in establishing the national and local partnership approach between Government, employers, providers and workers,” he said.
Martin Doel, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, said: “Employers must work together with the education community to create meaningful qualifications for today’s fast-changing global skills economy.”
Reading the preamble to Ofsted’s Better inspection for all consultation suggests a degree of reflection from Chief Inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw — not only the title, but the narrative and rhetoric.
He hints at three main weaknesses (or ‘areas for improvement’?) in the inspection methodology that need addressing: consistency, better inspector training and more practitioners becoming involved as inspectors.
The consultation’s questions cover quite different areas, though. They mainly relate to developing a common inspection framework (CIF) — across maintained schools, academies, FE and skills, early years settings and some independent schools. Given that disparity, here are some ideas about those three issues from Sir Michael.
Consistency
At first glance, this new approach could potentially enhance consistency to a degree. It’s been welcomed as providing more equitable comparisons between, say, school sixth forms and sixth form or GFE colleges.
However, critics of a lack of consistency in inspection haven’t focussed on the framework’s validity as an evaluation tool, so much as its application — and the resulting reliability of inspectors’ judgements.
Our research and discussions with providers have uncovered a feeling that Ofsted may have ended the contracts with CfBT, Serco and Tribal because, in part, they played a significant role in perceptions among providers of an ‘element of luck’ in inspections.
Sir Michael will therefore take this aspect back in-house, reportedly to improve consistency. The consultation’s Q11 focuses specifically on reliability of judgements and evidence-gathering, suggesting that this is a concern for Ofsted.
Is this really where the problem lies, though?
Perhaps the reductionist nature of the inspection process is the real heart of the consistency issue. Ultimately, just one of four broad grades is used — although talk of, for example, a “strong grade two” often pervades inspections, somewhat hedging Ofsted’s bets.
The brave statement that inspectors will use “all the available evidence” to arrive at judgements appears in the consultation, alongside a restatement of the current grading headings.
But the complexity of what is under scrutiny isn’t amenable to such simplistic categorisation. Moreover, how any valid intelligence and lessons from provider complaints are used to improve the reliability of inspection judgements is not clear. The number of complaints, and the fact that very few are upheld, are both made public. Yet little information is available about the nature of the complaints, the significance of any resulting changes and how all of that informs improvements to inspection.
Although some complaints will come from providers who are essentially ‘in denial’ of bad news, others may have some degree of merit — and a few are sufficient to warrant being upheld. Those final two categories contain food for thought and action by Ofsted.
Shouldn’t the reflective development of a standard framework across most of the education system incorporate a proper analysis of the ‘free consultancy’ that complaints provide? After all, the complaints procedure is itself already generic across Ofsted.
There’s also the issue that, if providers from the FE sector (or indeed, elsewhere) do not feel a revised ‘universal’ CIF is appropriate for inspecting their work, then complaints about the inappropriateness of judgements made using it will increase.
Ofsted has re-engaged with improvement for some time; it asks for advice on how it inspects. The consultation’s introduction indicates that future inspections will encourage “professional dialogue about the key issues, strengths and weaknesses that are most relevant to the individual school or further education and skills provider”.
In some settings, linking Ofsted to weaker providers has been welcomed — as have proposals envisaging more frequent inspections for good or outstanding providers.
Equating inspections with ‘professional dialogue’, while coupling them with the re-introduction of the word ‘weaknesses’ is a somewhat piquant idea, however.
A consultation question ‘that might have been’, here, would run: “How can providers work more closely and effectively with Ofsted to ensure the best degree of consistency and reliability in its judgements, while also maintaining proper independence and rigour?”
Better-trained inspectors
Ofsted already has a significant and demanding training programme for inspectors, whether full-time or part-time. To suggest more may be impractical and possibly even counter-productive. But better training, however — more closely reacting to matters like achieving reliable and consistent judgements, or using evidence with greater insight and evaluative care — is neither impossible nor a trivial as a goal.
The implications of getting these judgements wrong are significant for providers and the individuals. Change is imperative.
Currently, training is varied and includes shadowing, regular updates and a requirement to keep up-to-date by undertaking several inspections a year. There’s a strong consensus that the current CIF focuses on the right areas; but it isn’t clear how training will address the proposed increased emphasis on the curriculum.
Colin Forrest from the Policy Consortium
Indeed, the focus isn’t clear from the consultation: is it ‘English and maths as indicators of employability’, or ‘how effective the offer is in meeting local employer needs’? If both, then what are the priorities? How will training enhance inspectors’ knowledge of the complexities and nuances of individual local enterprise partnerships (Leps) to which providers increasingly look for funding?
If the inspection framework is a device for evaluation, then inspectors need to handle both quantitative and qualitative data reliably.
Training is necessary for using performance statistics, value-added and distance-travelled information. The validity of judgements can be enhanced through analysing qualitative data, too.
A missing question from the consultation in this field would be “How could providers help Ofsted improve its training of inspectors, without unduly increasing the burdens of such preparation?”
More practitioners as inspectors
Some of the harshest criticisms of inspection involve the credibility of highly-influential judgements from inspectors who may be far removed from the sector, the key matters under consideration (like teaching and learning, or the subjects, settings and courses involved), and from the genuine realities of provision.
One apparent solution lies in having a greater slice of inspection activity undertaken by current practitioners. It seems an obvious answer, with considerable benefits for all those involved.
However, the disadvantages are not as well appreciated. For instance, assumptions arising from being immersed in daily practice for one kind of provision can prove more difficult to put aside in a different inspection context than it is for someone who is otherwise more remote.
A good example might be the highly-contested territory of graded or ungraded lesson observations, where views are strongly-held on either side.
Being a practitioner doesn’t automatically guarantee the skill-set to be an inspector, too — although Ofsted’s recruitment processes can make such distinctions. Some might, however, argue that they haven’t always succeeded, to date.
Relating the practical demands of inspection schedules to inspector supply may still produce anomalies. And if an associate inspector works at a provider that drops to ‘Requires Improvement’ or ‘Inadequate’, then he/she is barred from undertaking inspections until that grade improves.
All this has a potential impact on the supply of inspectors and their deployment.
More sheer practicalities add to reservations around the good idea of engaging more current sector staff as inspectors. Ofsted’s training and accreditation regime, and its inspection and reporting processes, are all famously demanding — and rightly so. Yet so too is the day-job; and as most would agree, increasingly so.
Mike Cooper from the Policy Consortium
Whatever the potential advantages, providers may think twice about their staff becoming associate inspectors, and a commitment to release for a set minimum number of inspections.
This is particularly so when — as one rightly hopes with potential inspectors — they are high-performing ‘assets’. Similarly, even ambitious and able full-time staff may feel that taking on an inspection role would prove one extra burden too far.
Availability at short notice is a further key challenge: for Ofsted, for providers employing would-be part-time inspectors, and for those practitioners themselves.
Although Ofsted’s confidential scheduling is not normally short-notice itself, the realities suggest that there may well be a growing stream of urgent late calls for associate inspectors to fill gaps.
So, improving inspection through increasing current practitioners has clear attractions — but that involves significant risks, too.
Here, the consultation might have asked “How can Ofsted make better use of the sector practitioners’ current experience and ability in inspections, without unrealistic demands on the organisations and individuals involved?”
Will “better inspection” actually produce improved provision for all?
Sir Michael was quite right to highlight those three topics in his preamble. Why those issues did not feature significantly in the consultation is puzzling — not least because arguably, they matter at least as much as the structural discussion about a universal framework regarding the key, ultimate function of inspection: improvement.
Any change in inspection must aim at achieving more effective, speedy and reliable impact on learners’ experience and outcomes. The process also needs to become more transparent, adding to the potential for co-ownership, between providers and the inspectorate, of improvement.
Some time ago, the Skills Commission called for an evaluation of Ofsted’s role in improvement. Nothing in this consultation hints at reviewing this crucial — perhaps uncomfortable — aspect of its work. Yet it refers to the inspectorate ‘evolving’. Few, if any, students of Darwin would recognise that as an appropriate description of the proposed changes.
If the right consultation questions aren’t being asked now, then how and from where will improvement come?
Deadline approaches
Ofsted’s Better inspection for all consultation opened on October 9 and closes on Friday (December 5). Click here to take part.
Bournville College leadership got a glowing grade one from Ofsted before the FE Commissioner Dr David Collins was sent in to sort out the finances. He later said the education watchdog could “be more useful” on college financial matters and Graham Taylor considers who’s got it right.
In the Ofsted versus FE Commissioner Rumble in the Jungle, who wins? It’s a no-brainer — Dr Collins.
How can you possibly be awarded a grade one for leadership and management and be bordering upon insolvent at the same time?
Ofsted needs to rethink its evaluation criteria for FE. It pays little attention to financial indicators or customer growth and rarely (if ever) comments on it. So it’s possible to get a high grade when you are approaching bust and/or your learner numbers are falling.
Ofsted supposedly promotes value for money within the common inspection framework (CIF) principles of inspection and regulation, but it doesn’t report on it.
If it did, the 1,180 school sixth forms with fewer than 100 learners would be in trouble. Three quarters of the University Technical Colleges, free schools and studio schools are funded for fewer than 100 16 to 18-year-olds in 2014/15. And the taxpayer paid for 100 per cent of the capital funds to build these gleaming and underutilised edifices.
It’s a minor miracle if FE sector managers make a modest surplus to reinvest in improving teaching and learning. Only 43 per cent of colleges managed a trading surplus last year and just 26 have been ‘financially outstanding’ for the last three years.
The sector and Government is sleep-walking into a financial crisis and I guess Dr Collins will be calling on a few FE colleges struggling to make ends meet
You should get a grade one (and a gold medal) for this and good success rates and not because of lesson observation judgements — subjective by definition and outmoded for e-learning and work-based assessment methods.
So the next Ofsted CIF (it seems to rewrite them every three years) should include for FE, a financial measure; a learner FTE measure — is the provider attracting learners (you’d be surprised how many providers with good or outstanding grades are losing business/ learners)?; and a rethink of how e-learning and workplace learning (usually assessment-based) are measured.
If we follow the Further Education Learning Technology Action Group path then classroom work will be a minority sport. Ofsted needs to get IT and get social media savvy. Sitting in classrooms trying to figure out if learning is taking place while students watch an inspirational TED lecture is a tough call.
Moons ago we used to receive inspection reports on why colleges fail and how colleges succeed.
We could do with these reminders rather than the bland reports which we read now. If they “support and promote improvement” they need to get the KPIs right — customers and finance come first — the rest follows.
And getting finance right will be even more critical in FE. The sector and Government is sleep-walking into a financial crisis and I guess Dr Collins will be calling on a few FE colleges struggling to make ends meet. But there are two solutions.
First, unprotect the schools budget to ease the pain.
Government is only halfway to clearing the eyewatering deficit so cuts will continue. Whoever’s in power next May should unprotect the schools budget so that cuts are spread more evenly. Whatever pressures schools are under they’re not financial. It would be “fairer” (an oft used political word) to cut schools more — they are, after all, funded 22 per cent more per pupil than we are. At present the protected schools budget makes up 80 per cent of educational spend. No wonder the unprotected 16 to 18 bit gets such a disproportionate bashing.
And secondly, give us more freedom to spend the (reducing) funds.
In 2010, the Government promised “less money but more freedom”. Given the dire state of the economy the sector bought into that. So we’ve had 35 per cent cuts in adult funding, 8 per cent in 16 to 18 but with less freedom.
We used to be able to vire between qualification aims and age groups. Now we have to pursue apprenticeships (*12,000 other qualifications are available) and loan funding. Please restore this ability to vire and follow customer demand.
Overarching FE and skills bodies have been looking at the Further Education Learning Technology Action Group (Feltag) report and come up with provider-level advice, explains Nigel Ecclesfield.
Feltag has been the subject of much discussion, not least at the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (Niace) and Association of Colleges (AoC) conferences last month.
But, for all our individual thoughts, tweets, and conversations, the issues raised are bigger than any one organisation.
“Ownership by the FE sector of Feltag’s recommendations is key,” read the report recommendations — work together and collaborate was the message.
And that’s what we’re aiming to do. At Jisc, we have already convened a forum of what reads like a who’s who of FE bodies, to co-ordinate responses and join our planning.
That group includes AoC, NIACE, Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP), 157 Group, HOLEX, the Gazelle Group, The Association of National Specialist Colleges (Natspec), Institute of Education, Ofsted, Association for Learning Technology (ALT), Tinder Foundation, Workers’ Educational Association (WEA) and the Education and Training Foundation (ETF).
Also involved are the government’s Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) and Skills Funding Agency (SFA).
These organisations cover all aspects of our sector — from the largest colleges to small independent providers — so they are the public voice of FE.
Working individually, these bodies represent their members and will continue to, but on this occasion they combined their knowledge and their experience in working on technology-related projects to provide a comprehensive overview of sector needs. They also identified solutions to respond to Feltag’s recommendations.
Staff, managers and students have told us they want more support for digital skills across a wide range of roles
In the first meeting in October this group identified six priorities for action on Feltag. Improving communication with funders was a clear priority, and we anticipate that this forum will help join the dots between what’s happening on the ground, and the sector’s strategic bodies.
But it’s not only collaboration between sector bodies that’s vital to meeting the recommendations. To achieve this shared vision individual providers also need to come together as one. We have outlined some key priorities where we think they could play a role.
Firstly, focus on the people. Feltag highlighted the need to share good practice and innovation through effective collaboration and networking, and to focus on people to make best use of technology.
To this end we have been consulting with thousands of individuals as part of our new co-design approach to innovation to understand what providers need. Staff, managers and students have told us they want more support for digital skills across a wide range of roles, and that’s what we’re doing; developing tools and guidance with our co-design partners, providers, learners and employers.
For example, for the ETF, Coralesce is developing a self-assessment tool to help diagnose skills gaps, with Jisc working to support the use of this new technology.
Staff-student partnerships are also a great way of boosting digital skills, so together we will be providing plenty of support for learner-led and learner-focused innovation and training.
Secondly, look for opportunities to support cross-provider communication.
The report argued that to overcome barriers to learner access, what’s needed is more effective sharing of content across providers. As an example, we know digital simulations can lead to improved learner outcomes; those who have success in using simulations for learning need to be able share their experiences to support others who may be interested in implementing these technologies.
To support access Feltag suggested the use of social media channels by providers. These should promote inclusion, offer advice and provide safe environments for their users, to create a platform for dissemination of best practice across various organisations.
Thirdly, seek opportunities for shared services. The joint provision of services for colleges and the skills sector are becoming increasingly recognised as a means of creating some of the efficiencies heralded by the Feltag report. A number of providers are already working together to share back-office management services, for example the FE Sussex consortium of colleges.
No organisation acts alone. If we all join in with our response to Feltag and to the new demands that teaching in the 21st Century is placing on us, we will be stronger and more influential together.
The art of being the boss hasn’t come naturally to Hull College principal Graham Towse.
“My first experience of management was a disaster to be honest,” he admits.
In 1995, having progressed to engineer at De-Smet Rosedowns Ltd, the company where he began an apprenticeship 10 years earlier at the age of 16, Towse moved upwards on the career ladder.
“And I hated it,” he says with a laugh.
“I remember saying to my wife, ‘I think I’ve hit my ceiling — I’m never going to be a manager, that’s not how I am’.”
But he says management skills can be learned — something that happened when he moved into FE teaching for the first time the following year.
“I sort of accidentally fell into FE,” he says.
His company had wanted him to move to India, but with two small daughters, Amy, now 23 and Anna, now 21, Towse declined the offer and instead accepted a tutoring role at Hull College.
“And I learned about management that way — through a range of different roles, from managing students to having 60 staff underneath me as head of engineering and being a deputy at Bishop Burton and Grimsby Colleges,” he says.
“Engineers are difficult people to manage — and I learned a lot.
“I learned tons of stuff around leadership and management and the difference between the two.
“Training courses and textbooks will give you the theory, but the application of it you learn through mistakes.
“There’s a lot of us as managers and leaders in FE who are quite transactional, process-driven, quite hard, and trying to balance that with the emotional side of it is a skill which I think can be learned, but it’s a very difficult one to learn.”
But Towse has always had a rocky relationship with learning.
Towse (right) with his family. From left: wife Sharon and daughters Anna and Amy
“I did terribly at school — awful,” he says. “I just pratted about to be honest. I just wasn’t interested.
“I sort of fancied going to sea, joining either the Royal or the Merchant Navy, so I went to Trinity House — a nautical college, the only one in the UK — and got to wear the sailor’s outfit and all of that.
“While I was there, I did GCSE engineering, and I sort of quite liked it, the practical side of things, but failed the exam abysmally.
“I’ve never been academic. Okay, now I’ve managed to get a master’s degree, but it was hard work. Nothing ever came easy to me.”
However, he’s philosophical about his journey.
“In some ways, it turned out all right, because if I had applied myself, things might have been totally different — I may have gone in a different direction, who knows?,” he says.
As it was, at 16 Towse realised the sea wasn’t for him, and decided “to stay with his roots” and his then-girlfriend, now wife, Sharon, in Hull.
He started his engineering apprenticeship, which at the time entailed a year of classroom-based learning before entering the workplace, at Hull College. This presented its own challenges.
“It’s changed now, but back then a young apprentice engineer took a lot of stick,” he says. “Nowadays, some of the things they did to us would be illegal. They’d hold you upside down, tie you to an engine hoist, hoist you up and leave you hanging.
“But you get used to it, and it was part and parcel of being an apprentice back then — that’s just how it was and it was accepted in the trade. Obviously it has changed significantly now.”
At 18 he married Sharon, then an apprentice with the council, and the couple bought a house.
He finished his apprenticeship and continued to work for the same company, who also put him through an engineering degree with the University of Humberside, before making the move into FE.
“I didn’t know how to be a teacher,” he says.
I have a motto — don’t let not knowing how to do something stop you from doing it
“I started August 27, 1996, and started teaching September 3 — six days and I was in front of a class, with no material.
“And you learn, and you get on with it, and I think that’s what it’s like in life. And that’s what keeps it all interesting for me.
“I have a motto — don’t let not knowing how to do something stop you from doing it.”
Towse’s softly-spoken Yorkshire accent stops this from sounding arrogant — and it’s clearly not meant that way.
“People or students say to me: ‘I can’t do that, I don’t know how to do it’,” he says.
“Well, sorry, have a go at it anyway and
do it.”
After a decade at Hull, he had risen to become director of 14 to 19 provision, when a deputy principal role opened up at the nearby land-based Bishop Burton College.
“I was looking for the next step and there wasn’t really an opportunity at Hull to progress,” says Towse.
“It was something totally different too — that college is very commercially active. It’s got its own farm, you’re dealing with pigs and horses and I’ve never had anything to do with animals before.
“I learned loads from the principal, Jeanette Dawson. I think we clicked. She was kicking my backside every day, don’t get me wrong, but she could get on with what she needed to and she trusted me to get on with stuff.”
After four years there, Towse got “itchy feet” and applied for a deputy role at the Grimsby Institute, which was still reeling from an abrupt change in leadership.
“They had gone through a rocky road at Grimsby,” says Towse.
“The new principal, Sue Middlehurst, and I worked really well together and we transformed the college.”
Towse had planned to stay at Grimsby, and was being groomed to take over the role of principal when Middlehurst retired — but the principalship at Hull College came up.
Towse, aged 17, using a lathe as an apprentice engineer
“For me it was a no-brainer,” says Towse. “It’s the college that actually saved me, because I’d left school with nothing. I think I got three O-levels at grade C, and did my apprenticeship and day release there, I did my HNC.”
But in going back, he says, “the loop was closed”.
“That was 18 months ago now, and it’s been brilliant,” he says.
The 28,000 learner college, currently rated outstanding by Ofsted, was among the first to directly recruit 14-year-olds last year, with an initial cohort of 200 — the largest in the country.
“That’s a real challenge for us because we’re sort of leading the way on it,” he says.
“Nobody has really done it before, so we’re picking up all sorts of things along the way that we perhaps didn’t think about when we first set out, but I hope that that really gets going in a bigger way.”
He adds: “It’s an interesting time in FE at the moment. Obviously, there are funding challenges, but everyone has that, but the study programmes, maths and English are a big issue in Hull.
“More than 70 per cent of the young people that come to us have less than a grade C in maths and English and that’s typical of a large FE college in a deprived area.”
Telling young people who have had bad experiences at school that they have to take maths and English is a struggle he says, and isn’t helped by the emphasis on GCSEs.
“Functional Skills are much better, students are able to contextualise and understand how to apply it to the trade they’re studying,” he says.
“I think if we lose them, we lose them at our peril, and getting it back again will be very difficult.”
But being the principal of the college you attended, has added benefits for dealing with unwilling students.
“Because I’ve been there and done it, through FE, you get a bit of respect,” he says.
Indeed, a picture of Towse using a lathe as a 17-year-old apprentice hangs in his office.
“What you get from young people sometimes is: ‘You don’t know, you’ve never done this…’” he says.
“And I can point to the picture, say to them, ‘Actually, yes I have…’ and that’s been really powerful.”
It’s a personal thing
What is your favourite book, and why?
I’ll read anything. The book that really got me into management thinking was The Goal by Eliyahu M Goldratt. But when I pick up Dan Brown and Lee Child books I can’t put them down
What is your pet hate?
Those that lack ambition for themselves and their organisation and those that do not take responsibility and instead look for others to blame or criticise. One my previous bosses always used to say: “Look in the mirror before you look out of the window”
What do you do to switch off
after work?
I like to read when I can. I’m quite handy at most practical things and I like gardening and DIY too. My wife and I have totally remodelled our house by ourselves over the years
If you could invite anyone, living or dead, to a dinner party who would it be?
I’m not bad at music trivia, so I’d invite the crew from Never Mind the Buzzcocks for a fun night with a curry and a few beers
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
I never really had a plan as to what I wanted to be. I fancied the Navy for a bit. I had a working class upbringing where you were expected to enter a trade, which I did. I am of course now in my dream job as principal of the college in my home city which saved me after I didn’t do well at school
Ofsted FE and skills director Lorna Fitzjohn told the House of Commons Education Select Committee that too many schools were failing to advise young people about the benefits of apprenticeships.
Ms Fitzjohn this morning gave evidence to MPs in Portcullis House, Westminster, that focused on how the number and quality of apprenticeships for 16 to 19-year-olds could be improved.
She said poor careers advice at schools, which tended to encourage young people staying in education post-16 to take A-levels and higher education degrees, was one of the main reasons that the number apprenticeship starts in the age group had “flatlined”.
Ms Fitzjohn added: “We did a survey last week which showed that only one-in-five schools were offering quality careers advice. That clearly is a worry.”
She added: “Although they [schools] were aware of the National Careers Service, it was very underused.
“We certainly see schools, parents and young people having quite a poor understanding of what apprenticeships are about.”
She also spoke about the role that local enterprise partnerships could play in apprenticeship growth and her concern for young people outside of education and without a job.
Other people who gave evidence were Katerina Rudiger, head of skills and policy campaigns at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, Conor Ryan, director of research and communications at the Sutton Trust, and James Whelan, head of mathematics at Harris Academy Morden secondary school in Surrey.
Read issue 120 of FE Week, dated Monday, December 1, for more.
Cap: Lorna Fitzjohn giving evidence at the committee hearing
Dame Ruth Silver explains the origins of the latest Skills Commission report, which raises several ‘strategic alerts’ for the skills system and calls for more ‘systems thinking’ to ensure provision remains relevant and related to a rapidly changing world.
Skills Commission reports have always attempted to be ‘scripts for the future’ for sector leaders, policy makers and politicians to draw on, and our most recent contribution is no exception.
The ideas behind this inquiry had been a long time coming. While our other recent reports One System, Many Pathways, The Move to Improve (one and two), and Specialisation had focused on various reforms, institutions, and aspects of education and training, the commission recognised that wider societal changes were taking place that required fresh thinking and a wider lens.
Taking a step back and examining the system in its entirety from the perspective of ‘ changing work’ presented itself as a worthwhile, much needed enterprise, particularly at a time of public austerity and significant changes to the funding of skills provision, and its positioning in relation to the labour market.
The enthusiasm from the commission as we ‘entered the looking glass’, so to speak, and heard from leading labour market economists, journalists and academics, was hugely encouraging.
As we analysed the changing shape of the economy and new labour markets, examined occupation change, learned about emerging business structures, rates of training, the rise of flexible working patterns, and significant demographic and cultural changes, not only did we confirm the validity of our line of enquiry, we came to realise that the challenges facing the skills system were perhaps greater than we had imagined.
How does the system, for example, respond to training and progression opportunities in a flexible and polarised labour market, the reduction in structured entry routes into work for young people, the extension of working life, rapid technological innovation, and continuing disparities in outcome based on social class or gender?
Our repeated habit of constructing today’s solutions to fit yesterday’s problems is leaving a terrible inheritance for the next generation
These implications and the others highlighted in the report pose serious questions to all parts of the system and our assessment of the system’s components against these concerns prompted us to flag four ‘strategic alerts’ that require urgent attention.
Strategic alert one was uncertainty around the responsibility for training in an increasingly flexible labour market. Number two was declining social mobility owing to a reduction in the alignment of skills provision to work. Three was fragmentation in the system making it difficult for employers to engage. And four was alarming policy dissonance between different Central Government departments.
The alerts reflected points that were repeatedly raised by contributors to the inquiry but beyond these our discussions with providers, representative bodies, and employers raised a whole host of other issues which require more nuanced considerations. For example, we encountered tensions within the apprenticeship model between those who want a focus on delivering the high level skills required by industry and the professions, and others who wish the model to expand rapidly to restore our broken youth labour market.
Other recurring themes of the inquiry were around the possibilities ‘personal learning’ accounts could offer in an age that will require continual reskilling, the frustrations caused by seemingly arbitrary age restrictions on funding, uncertainty around structures of oversight, and the problems caused by funding systems not sufficiently flexible enough to respond to labour market intelligence.
These issues and the many others highlighted in the report require serious consideration from policy makers and new solutions. Our repeated habit of constructing today’s solutions to fit yesterday’s problems is — in so many instances from the state of the property market to the environment — leaving a terrible inheritance for the next generation.
With a skills system that we found in parts to be seriously out of tune with the rapid and unplanned changes in work, it is the Skills Commission’s hope that all players in the system will take heed of the issues raised in the report and join us in finding ways to create sustainable solutions that will serve individuals well in a flexible and polarised labour market as well as businesses in a high-tech and globally competitive economy.
