Ofsted’s former deputy director of further education and skills has been given the director’s role after Matthew Coffey was promoted, the watchdog has announced.

Lorna Fitzjohn previously served as deputy director for FE and was more recently director for the West Midlands, a job she will continue with alongside her new role. She has also previously held leadership roles in primary schools and FE colleges.

Mr Coffey, who has been in charge of learning and skills at Ofsted since the beginning of 2012, will become chief operating officer.

Ms Fitzjohn said: “I am delighted to take up the role of director for further education and skills at Ofsted and will be looking to build on the work of my predecessor, Matthew Coffey HMI, in improving standards and outcomes for learners.

“Further education is a vital sector which provides learners of all ages with the skills and opportunities they need to succeed. We are seeing teachers and providers make significant improvements, helping learners to get the qualifications they need to find employment in the industries they want.

“However, there is still much to be done to ensure that all FE providers offer a quality learning experience. There are big changes planned for the way Ofsted inspect schools and I will be working closely with the FE sector to consider ways in which we can bring these changes into the inspection of apprenticeships, colleges and more in order to improve standards and outcomes.”

A pilot scheme will soon be launched for a training course preparing FE lecturers for a massive expansion in the number of students needing to learn English GCSE.

The Department for Education (DfE), Education and Training Foundation (ETF), and Association of Centres for Excellence in Teacher Training (ACETT) confirmed before Christmas they were developing an English enhancement programme.

The ETF has now confirmed 80 applications have been received from providers that want to take part in a pilot scheme for the course, which will run from mid-April to July.

The main course, which will help FE lecturers teach English at GCSE, is set to be launched in September.

An ETF spokesperson said: “We are working closely with the organisations who are developing the English enhancement programme under contract with DfE.

“Based on the outcome of the pilots, and learning from the current maths enhancement programme, we expect to roll out an English enhancement programme in September.”

She added it was likely ETF would subsidise the courses, but was unable to say by how much at this stage.

An ACETT spokesperson said: “ACETT is sharing our learning with the ETF, from coordinating the delivery of the GSCE maths enhancement programme, to inform the future delivery model of the English GCSE professional development programme.”

A similar maths enhancement course for FE lecturers was launched last November.

A subsidy provided by the ETF limited the cost of the course to £100 per person and 2,000 lecturers have already enrolled.

The courses are needed because the government has announced learners aged 16 will no longer be able to drop maths or English, unless they have achieved at least grade C in their GCSEs.

This will mean thousands more teenagers having to be taught GCSE maths and English in FE.

A DfE spokesperson said: “Good qualifications in English and maths are what employers demand before all others.

“That is why we want all students who do not achieve a grade C or above in these subjects at GCSE to study them post 16.

“To help the further education sector prepare for this change, the ETF is developing new in-service training for teachers to enhance their English skills and help them confidently teach GCSE.  This will be piloted in the spring and is due to be rolled out nationally in the autumn.”

Sector leaders gave a mixed welcome to new requirements for providers to collect data on what happens to learners after they finish courses.

The Skills Funding Agency (SFA) has published a second version of its guide to data collection requirements for individual learner records (ILR) for 2014/15.

It includes a new requirement to complete five new learner outcome fields — including the outcome start date (for example, when learners get a job after completing a course).

The other fields are outcome type (for example, whether the former learner is in paid employment or back in education) , outcome code (more detail on the type of learner outcome being recorded), outcome end date (the date that the former student finished a learner outcome such as a new job, if applicable), and outcome collection date (when the outcome data was collected from the learner).

The ILR specification says these new fields will be mandatory (unlike the current destination field) but only for certain learners — for example those taking traineeships, students funded by the adult skills budget and learners who were unemployed prior to enrolment.

It will be the first time information about a learner’s enrolment can be recorded in a future year’s ILR file.

David Hughes, chief executive of the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education, was in favour of tracking learner outcomes.

He said: “It will prove what providers have been doing has worked, with different courses leading to jobs. It will also help providers maintain better links with both learners and providers.”

The recently-released Skills Funding Statement (SFS) made several references to linking learner outcomes to funding.

It said the government had been working on three “core” measures that could determine funding — destination (into further learning or “into/within” employment), progression (through learning) and earnings changes (following completion of learning).

Stephen Hewitt, Morley College’s strategic funding, enrolments and examinations manager, said: “I definitely don’t think learner outcomes will be taken into account for provider funding for 2014/15, as we have already been given the funding rules for that period.

“It’s more likely they will have to take a look at the figures over a couple of years to see how learner outcomes could affect funding. If they changed the rules without taking this into account, some providers could be left with huge cuts in funding without being able to plan for this.”

Joy Mercer, director of policy for the Association of Colleges, said: “To hold learning providers responsible for job outcomes is unfair when some colleges are operating in very difficult areas with high unemployment.

“However, to collect a broader set of statistics on what happens to students after a course of study is of enormous interest both to the government and the colleges themselves.”

Lynne Sedgmore, chief executive of the 157 Group, said: “It is a step towards developing a more mature approach to accountability. How the data is used will be a question for the future, once we are sure it is complete, accurate and robust.”

Paul Warner, director of employment and skills for the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said: “In principle AELP has always been supportive about the introduction of destination data collection.

“However, providers, particularly ones without large resources, will need time to get up to speed on tracking all learners.”

The only funding linked to learner destination at the moment is the Skills Funding Agency’s job outcome payment, offering a compensation payment that can only be paid to providers when learners either fail their qualifications or walk away early — providing they’ve won employment.

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said in February it planned to launch a consultation on “outcome-based measures of performance for all post-19 FE and skills”.

But this has not yet been launched and a BIS spokesman said there will be “an update in the summer” on when it will happen.

BIS declined to comment on how learner outcome data collected from individual learner records could be used in future funding calculations.

Control over WorldSkills UK and the Skills Show has been pulled together under a single organisation.

Find a Future, which will be funded by the Skills Funding Agency (SFA), the European Social Fund, and commercial sponsorship, was launched today (April 1).

The not-for-profit organisation has taken control of WorldSkills UK from the SFA and the annual Skills Show from UK Skills.

It will also take over the Skills Show Experience — an extension of the national Skills Show which stages local competitions across the country — from UK Skills.

Ross Maloney, chief executive of Find a Future, said: “Find a Future is the perfect opportunity for us to integrate three highly successful products and enhance their offering to our end users — young people — while adding real value to individuals’ lives and the future economic prosperity of our nation.”

WorldSkills UK selects the national team to compete in the prestigious international skills competition — which was last held in London in 2011 and will take in Sao Paulo, Brazil, next year.

It was run by not-for-profit organisation UK Skills, in partnership with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), until the SFA took complete control in 2010.

UK Skills was instead given responsibility for the Skills Show, which attracts more than 75,000 visitors a year to the NEC Birmingham and was launched in 2012, and the Skills Show Experience.

UK Skills has effectively now been transformed into Find a Future and assumed control over all three.

Mr Maloney added: “The [three] products have many synergies and shared ambitions, and by bringing them together, we are confident that we can achieve greater impact and reinforce the importance of valuing and celebrating further education, skills and apprenticeships.

“By combining our resources, Find a Future will ensure that employers have direct access to the diversity of talent which they need, to enable their businesses to flourish and our nation to prosper.”

The SFA confirmed its executive director for funding and programmes Keith Smith will continue as the UK’s official delegate for WorldSkills.

Visit www.findafuture.org.uk to find out more about the new organisation.

NB – this article was originally published as an April Fools story.

Plans to spend £100m installing satellite-linked thermostats in every college classroom in England to improve learning conditions have been labelled a “waste of money” and symptomatic of a “nanny state”.

Skills minister Matthew Hancock announced yesterday that the Department for Education would be able to monitor the temperature in every college classroom by 2017. He said classrooms were often too hot or too cold, and that the varying temperatures were disrupting learners.

It comes after Stockport College was told by Ofsted that classroom temperatures “vary too much across the college” and that some rooms were “too hot to be conducive to learning”. It also comes after research by the American Healthy Schools initiative showed test scores rose in classrooms which were not too cold or too warm.

But the investment – half of which will cover the cost of the equipment itself and the other half will be spent on the infrastructure – has been criticised by some sector leaders.

Lynne Sedgmore, chief executive of the 157 Group, said: “This new initiative runs contrary to consistent claims by the government that FE colleges have full autonomy and are being encouraged to be more mature and independent.

“Not only is this a waste of money when other significant financial cuts are being made, it also reflects a growing lack of trust. It is symptomatic of an ever expanding nanny state interfering more and more on the frontline.

“The satellite link smacks of the advent of Big Brother in our classrooms. The 157 Group is totally opposed to this initiative and can see nothing to welcome.”

Under the plans, the £800 wireless ambiance sensory testing equipment units, developed by Prafilloso Ltd, will be installed in every college classroom, and will link via the government’s non-essential services satellite directly to the Department for Education’s maintaining educational excellence action team, based at the Department for Education’s new headquarters at at the Old Admiralty Building

Mr Hancock said: “As someone who studied at an FE college, I know how important it is to get working conditions in classrooms just right, and the right temperature is an essential part of that. Recent research shows us that learners perform better if their classroom is the ideal temperature.

“During visits to several colleges over the winter, I found myself having to put on a v-neck jumper because classrooms, especially those in older college buildings, were not heated to an acceptable level.

“That is why I am delighted to announce today a £100m investment in technology to ensure that we know when colleges aren’t doing their bit to make sure their learners are as comfortable as possible.

“Information collected through this state-of-the-art equipment, installed in every college classroom in England, will be used by the government to monitor colleges to ensure our students are learning in a suitably healthy environment.”

According to the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, rooms where a normal level of physical activity is expected, such as classrooms or libraries, should be heated to 18C, while areas like gyms and drama workshops should be around 15C. Other rooms where there is a lower-than-normal level of activity like sick rooms are required to be heated to 21C.

Staff at Lambeth College will go on strike tomorrow (Tuesday) over proposed changes to pay and conditions, the University and College Union (UCU) has announced.

It comes after 95 per cent of staff who voted in a ballot backed industrial action following a dispute over plans to change contracts, and in particular, clauses about working hours, sick pay and holidays. The UCU has claimed the changes could leave some Lambeth staff working longer hours than all but three of London’s 38 FE colleges.

UCU regional official Una O’Brien said: “There is deep anger over these proposed changes which will mean workloads will increase but sick pay and holidays will be cut. Different staff will have different contracts, hours and benefits and that will do little to enhance morale.

“The management of the college needs to work with us to ensure the college is fit for purpose. Downgrading staff terms and conditions is not the way to do that.”

Principal Mark Silverman said: “The reforms we are proposing to employment contracts for new staff are vital if we are to survive the many challenges facing the sector – challenges that left unchecked at other colleges have resulted in dwindling learner numbers and eventual college closures.

“We are disappointed with the result of the recent ballot and will continue our dialogue with the unions and our staff to try to avoid a strike which risks damaging the education of our students and job security of all those employed at the college.

“If a strike is unavoidable, we will make the necessary arrangements to minimise disruption to the education of our students during this period.

“Existing staff should understand that the proposals will only affect new staff and there are no plans to change current contracts for existing staff. The changes are part of the college’s strategic plan, which has been underway for two years.

“We will continue to strive towards long-term success and sustainability of the college which will help protect all of our jobs and ensure the college has a secure future.”