A half-day workshop with more than 40 FE college governors, principals and clerks has resulted in a new report from the 157 Group and Ofsted. Andy Gannon discusses its key findings and recommendations.

Today, we published The Leadership of Teaching, Learning and Assessment by Governors. The report is the latest in a series which we hope has contributed greatly to the thinking and practice of leaders within FE colleges, mindful as they are more and more of their core business.

We have explored the tenets of great teaching, the elements of practice that contribute to great pedagogic leadership, approaches to the professional development of staff and the aspects of a culture which encourages good practice. In all these documents, our audience has been teachers themselves, and senior leaders.

But the role of governors has been receiving greater emphasis of late — and the important part that these volunteers play both in setting the tone in which excellent teaching can take place and in scrutinising how successfully it is happening is ripe for some attention.

The important part that governors play both in setting the tone in which excellent teaching can take place and in scrutinising how successfully it is happening is ripe for some attention

So, the germ of an idea was born when we spoke late last year to colleagues at Ofsted. How would it be, we suggested, if, along the lines of previous work we had done, we gathered 40 or so governors from our member colleges and others together in a room, and thrashed out what the key issues were?

Such an approach has been successful before — for our 2012 Great Teaching and Learning report, we combined the wisdom of more than 70 people into one report — a true example of practitioners generating the thinking and the helpful tips that may enable others to succeed.

With Ofsted in agreement, we set about the task.

It is a widely-held belief that governors are perhaps more comfortable dealing with finance and buildings than they are with the sometimes messy and unpredictable business of teaching — as such it may be either surprising or, perhaps, unsurprising that many bit our hands off to seize the opportunity of discussing practice with others across the whole of the UK.

Set against the backdrop of the Common Inspection Framework, with its revised expectations of governors, but acknowledging that the governance of teaching, learning and assessment is too important to be done just because Ofsted wants it done, the results of the workshop offer some great insights into the very human nature of the challenges governors face.

The resulting report does contain some very practical hints — about how to organise learning walks, how to engage governors in a meaningful quality cycle, and how to structure meetings so that they do not become overtaken by other issues.

It is accompanied by a resource bank, with materials kindly shared by six of the colleges who participated — on the 157 Group website.

But more than anything, the report talks about the kind of governing body that you need to be in order to get to grips with issues of teaching, learning and assessment.

It talks about how the relationships between senior leaders and governors must be clear.

It talks about how the governing body itself should spend time developing its core view of outstanding teaching, learning and assessment and its confidence to make judgments.

And it talks about developing an active approach to meetings, where performance is challenged supportively, but where governors are encouraged not simply to accept what they are told.

One thing is clear — that ‘one-size-fits-all’ does not apply here.

The governors we worked with were clear they had to establish their own definition of what expectations of teaching, learning and assessment should be in their college, and then find ways of understanding their own practice and making that chime with the college’s quality cycle.

But the vital importance of governors’ doing this work is clear — both for Ofsted and for their learners. We hope this report will help them to do it with a little more confidence.

Andy Gannon, director of policy, PR and research, 157 Group

Business Secretary Vince Cable’s Cambridge Public Policy Lecture on the future of further and higher education last month brought the prospect of elite colleges to the fore, as Mick Fletcher explains.

The Business Secretary’s speech was an important one. He was clearly trying, retrospectively, to impose a logical policy framework on an area where development has derived from soundbite politics rather than coherent analysis.

It is a measure of how far we now sit from rational policy formulation that Dr Cable can announce that the Department or Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) will issue a National Colleges launch document ‘in the near future’, months after ill-formed ideas for an ‘HS2 College’ and a ‘nuclear college’ first emerged.

His objective — to raise the status of FE and by so doing help expand the numbers studying technical subjects at higher levels — is worthy.

Unfortunately his prescription is profoundly wrong. It fails to understand both FE and the nature of higher education delivered in FE colleges and ignores clear lessons from history.

Dr Cable is right, and not alone, in lamenting that increasingly FE colleges are focussed on lower level work. He ignores however the fact that this is a deliberate policy choice by his department.

It is BIS funding rules and priorities that direct funding towards basic skills and level two; his funding cuts that are making it harder for adults to access learning at level three and above.

If government wants to retain a ‘ladder of opportunity’ through FE it should stop chopping away at the rungs.

Dr Cable is right, and not alone, in lamenting that increasingly FE colleges are focussed on lower level work

Developing a new tier of ‘elite colleges’ can only make the problem worse; higher level skills will be focussed in a few institutions and progressively removed from the rest.

This has happened twice before as first the CATs (college of advanced technology) and then the polytechnics were wrenched out of the FE system.

We should reflect carefully on the fact that while Aston, Warwick, Loughborough and the rest remain high status institutions delivering world class technical skills their removal from the sector did nothing positive for the status of those left behind.

Moreover, the fact that these higher education institutions are now called universities has not altered the fact that they are primarily technical institutions.

If there is a demand for more technical training of the highest quality it is not clear why they should not be leading its delivery.

Dr Cable comes dangerously close to saying that what we need from the new ‘elite’ FE institutions is something of rather lower status or ‘sub-degree provision’. It is a very odd way to raise the status of the technical route.

FE colleges already play an important role in the delivery of higher education.

Its leaders emphasise that it is distinctive in being work focussed, part-time and concentrated on adults. In many cases it grows organically out of a specialism offered at lower levels providing a basis for progression outside the traditional academic route.

To the extent that this is true the creation of a network of elite colleges risks undermining provision already at risk from cuts in public and private funding — part time enrolments are in free fall particularly in sub degree provision.

A large part of higher education in FE is not part-time however; much and perhaps a majority serves young full-time undergraduates who can study more cost effectively by living at home.

An important potential role for colleges is to help make higher education more sustainable by offering locally-based provision, often at sub-degree level but with articulation agreements that allow top up to a full degree.

If, as in the USA, this local higher education is to play an increasingly important part in higher education provision it requires a growth in the capacity of all major FE colleges — not their decapitation in favour of an elite.

Furthermore, if national specialist colleges require students to live away from home on maintenance grants they constitute an initiative pointing in precisely the wrong direction: more high-cost full time provision for the mobile young at the expense of the local, part time and affordable.

It is good that Dr Cable is thinking about FE and higher education, but on this central point he needs to think again.

 

Our directors and senior managers have been in discussions with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, sector skills councils, employers and trade associations about implementing the Richard review.

What is emerging are the unforeseen consequences of handing employers direct financial and operational control of apprenticeships. Is the government only going to fund employers solely for training and testing, as the consultations suggest? This could remove the glue and wiring that training providers routinely use to make apprenticeships work if these ‘hidden’ activities are no longer funded.

For example, who will pick up an apprentice who leaves their employer for whatever reason during their apprenticeship?

Currently, 11 per cent of our apprentices change their employer during their apprenticeship. No funding or information will be available to the provider under the proposed funding systems to pick up these learners, so completion rates will decline by a further 11 per cent.

Who will check the eligibility of an employee for apprenticeship funding? This complex arena, especially with foreign nationals and overseas qualifications, is outside the expertise of most employers, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Will employers be expected to buy this service from a provider and will they pay if the employee is found to be ineligible for funding?

Who will provide the advocacy and pastoral care for young apprentices where sexual and racial harassment and initiation rites are still prevalent in certain sectors? Providers routinely mediate in these circumstances or in extreme circumstances remove the apprentice.

How will this be funded in future if government is only paying for actual training, or is the wellbeing and legal rights of the apprentice to be ignored? How will an employer react to being billed for exposing any failures in their equality procedures?

There is a continuing danger of some young apprentices being exploited and abused by unscrupulous or ignorant employers, especially SMEs without any HR resources. Providers often act as the unpaid HR specialists for SMEs, but without funding this will no longer happen.

More worrying are the health and safety issues whereby the provider will no longer have responsibility to check out the suitability of the premises or equipment for apprentices. Neither will they be in a position to ensure suitable induction to dangerous equipment or hazardous areas has taken place. Regrettably, the Health and Safety Executive and environmental inspectors usually arrive on the scene after tragedy has occurred and removing training providers from this role could increase the mortality rate of apprentices.

Again, who will check whether the employer has the necessary insurances and licences to operate in their sector, thus making the site ‘legal’ to operate apprenticeship programmes with government funding?

Who will ascertain the potential apprentice’s prior learning and experience, and how this affects the percentage of funding available, or monitor that the government is only paying for new skills and learning?

Who will decide whether the employer can offer the full apprenticeship programme to meet the criteria of the new standards or advise the employer and the potential apprentice which qualification is most suitable for them?

Where trailblazers have opted to use awarding bodies, are the awarding bodies geared up to deal with and approve more than 200,000 employer sites? Do employers, especially those without a training department, have the expertise and time to deal with awarding body approval, registration and certification?

Who will mentor the apprentice and their workplace supervisor throughout the programme, especially when the apprentice ‘wobbles’ as happens to the majority who are tempted to give up before completing?

The solution is to allow employers the choice of direct funding or through the training provider. Similarly, while the trailblazers are untested, the SASE (Specification of Apprenticeship Standards for England) route or a trailblazer route should be available to each employer until comparisons can be made of which route provides the learner, the employer the better training and the country the better economic investment.

 

The 157 Group and law firm SGH Martineau have teamed up to produce a guide for college on the legal issues surrounding learners. Smita Jamdar outlines some of the key issues.

Over the last few years, the government has introduced policies to encourage greater competition and learner choice in the FE sector.

More recently this has been accompanied by an obligation on a growing number of learners to pay for their college education through loans and fees, creating a quasi-customer/supplier relationship.

Given that there may be any number of providers offering a learner’s desired qualification or study route, what drives learner choice between different providers is increasingly likely to be the quality of the overall experience on offer.

Understanding the law that applies to that experience is important if colleges are to guard against the risk of complaint and challenge from disgruntled learners.

The learner experience comprises a package of services, facilities and benefits that learners expect to enjoy as a result of choosing one provider over another. These include the quality of teaching and learning opportunities and facilities, as well as ancillary services such as careers guidance, counselling sevices, leisure facilities and placement opportunities.

The legal framework that underpins the learner experience includes contract law, requiring colleges broadly to promise only what they can deliver and then deliver what they promise.

Learners may be able to claim damages for losses suffered as a result of a failure in either respect.

Given the complexity, it would be easy to view the legal framework as just another part of the burden of compliance for colleges

A particular risk area for providers is where aspects of the contract fall to be provided by third parties, so partnership delivery, placements and the use of recruitment agents require careful attention and control.

Allied to contract law is the full panoply of consumer protection legislation which is designed to prevent colleges exercising the perceived imbalance of power in their relationship with learners by, for example, unilaterally withdrawing courses, or subjecting learners to onerous terms such as hidden fees or obligations. This is an area which is currently attracting particular attention in higher education as colleges who deliver such courses will know.

Learners are also entitled to all the protections of the Equality Act, meaning that the learner experience must be delivered without unlawfully discriminating against learners on the grounds of a wide range of protected characteristics including race, gender, religion or belief, age, sexual orientation or disability.

Disability discrimination includes a positive duty to make reasonable adjustments to eradicate any substantial disadvantage students with disabilities may experience in accessing the learner experience and this can be a challenging area for colleges.

A final strand of law that applies to the learner experience is public law, particularly relevant where a college intends to take action that has the potential to be detrimental to learners, for example by disciplining them, or taking action against them on the grounds of their fitness to practise.

Colleges are required to act fairly and proportionately when managing these adverse events for learners, often while having to balance the competing rights of other learners, staff and other stakeholders.

Given the complexity, it would be easy to view the legal framework as just another part of the burden of compliance for colleges.

However, embedding good legal risk management can deliver positive organizational outcomes. Clearly drafted college policies and codes, for example, are not just necessary as a matter of contract law, but also facilitate a transparent and open college environment where everyone knows what is expected of them.

This is why our guide to the learner experience and the law produced with the 157 Group focuses not just on the legal principles, but also practical steps colleges can take to improve and simplify the position, thus enhancing the learner experience as a whole.