Is the ABS what the British public want next for education reform?

We know an election’s getting closer when the political parties start getting all reflective. In the chamber, MPs’ claims about their parties’ records on education – raising standards, closing gaps, their love for apprenticeships – are amping up.

In our new poll of more than 2,000 adults up and down the country, conducted with Public First, we got a bit pensive too. (It is our twentieth anniversary this year, after all.) So we sought to explore just how far attitudes on education – specifically technical and vocational – have come, and whether policy has caught up.

So, how do these claims really square up?

As our report – Advancing British Standards? – reveals today, more than one-third of the public believe that those leaving education today are no better prepared for life or work than they were twenty years ago.

Edge have been calling for change to make education relevant to the realities of life and the world of work for some time now. And large majorities of the public agree: 88 per cent think education should focus more on teaching young people skills that will be useful for the workplace and 90 per cent want a curriculum that better prepares them for everyday life.

This proves promising for Labour, with their commitment to a more applied curriculum – as our Deeper Learning Network of schools and colleges already deliver to a high standard. But the public go a step further: 82 per cent want schools to encourage more young people to explore technical or vocational options as the means to equipping students with those all-important essential skills.

Choice for young people over what they study is absolutely paramount to voters. This would indicate that Labour’s pledge to pause and review the defunding of BTECs might win out over the Conservatives’ efforts to simplify the complicated post-16 landscape to A Levels and T Levels.

Having said that, we also find significant appetite among all voters for policymakers to undertake substantial 16-18 reform, resembling something of a broader baccalaureate, which we have been exploring at Edge through our ‘Bacc to the drawing board’ series. The Prime Minister clearly heard us, announcing the Advanced British Standard (ABS) in December.

Choice for young people over what they study is absolutely paramount to voters

In the poll, we took care to explain the ABS proposals in detail. What we find is that the policy is popular in principle and in practice. More than three-quarters (78 per cent) say they would support a reform in line with the ABS, compared to just 10 per cent who oppose it.

In fact, a massive 61 per cent said they thought the ABS would represent an improvement on the current system of 16-18 education. Even maths to 18 proves highly popular (as long as this is about numeracy skills), though there’s a lot of work needed to bring younger voters on board.

Crucially, however, what drives respondents’ support for the ABS is the opportunity for young people to study a true blend of academic, technical and vocational subjects at 16. Nearly three-quarters think young people should be able to mix and match. That’s because 61 per cent see this would prepare young people better for the workforce, and 58 per cent believe the economy would benefit from having more people with a mix of technical and academic skills.

At Edge, we aren’t satisfied that the current proposal to offer ‘the ABS’ and ‘the ABS occupational’ sufficiently does away with the twin-track approach of academic and vocational pathways. Evidently, there is a strong public opinion case to revise this – something a Labour administration would do well to build on.

There are plenty of education polls, but what was quite remarkable in these findings was the consensus among different voter and demographic groups with regards to the current state and future of 16-19 education.

The public want all students to have the opportunity to study a blend of general, technical and vocational subjects, with an underpinning of applied numeracy and literacy skills, greater emphasis on life skills and work placements or projects with employers.

So voters’ appetite is there. It’s up to the parties now to catch on.

Is your organisation prepared for a major incident?

Helping you provide a safe and secure environment

All colleges, regardless of size, face the risk of disruption preventing their ability to meet the needs of their students and provide a safe and secure environment. Whilst many colleges may already have a Business Continuity Plan (BCP), it’s essential to regularly test, exercise and review the plan to understand and maximise its value. By testing the plan, you can identify any potential weaknesses and ensure it is effective and fit for purpose.

A robust BCP could ease some of the pressures and decisions you and your people may face and ensure you have developed effective strategies to help protect them. Having a resilient and comprehensive continuity plan will help ensure staff are prepared and trained in advance and help you to safeguard your college community. Effective continuity planning builds confidence and reassurance and helps ensure you are providing the necessary duty of care. It can also help improve response and recovery times, so that if an incident does occur your people are better prepared.

In difficult times, you need to be able to turn to robust business continuity management policies and procedures that will help protect you and your organisation.

Business continuity management process

In order to develop a BCP arrangement consistent with good practices, organisations should develop, implement and embed an effective process. Your organisation may benefit from working with an external provider who can help you to achieve this.

Business continuity lifecycle

Policy and Programme Management

  • Establish the organisation’s BCP policy.
  • Ensure it aligns with the organisation’s strategic objectives.
  • Define how the BCP system will be implemented.

Analysis

  • Business impact analysis.
  • Risk assessment.

Design

  • Identification and selection of business continuity strategies and solutions.

Implementation

  • Development of business continuity plans (BCPs).
  • Includes response framework and structure.

Validation

  • Testing and exercising BCP arrangements.
  • Maintenance and updating.
  • Management reviews and audits.

Embedding

  • Integration of BCP into the ‘business as usual’ culture of the organisation.
  • Inclusion of BCP consideration in any organisational change
How can Gallagher help?

Gallagher is a specialist in the Further Education sector, working with over 75% of Further Education colleges in the UK to create tailored insurance and risk management solutions.

The Gallagher team has also created a consistent method for running tabletop exercises with college senior leadership teams. These exercises focus on various realistic scenarios that might disrupt normal college operations.

The aims and benefits of conducting such exercises include:

  • Identify Gaps and Weaknesses: This process helps uncover areas that may not have been adequately addressed or potential vulnerabilities that need to be rectified before an actual crisis occurs.
  • Validate Effectiveness: It allows colleges to assess whether the BCP can effectively mitigate risks, minimise downtime, and ensure the continuity of time-critical activities.
  • Train Employees: Testing and exercising the plan helps train employees on their roles and responsibilities during a crisis, ensuring they understand their tasks and can execute them effectively when needed.
  • Build Confidence: Testing and exercising builds confidence in the BCP and the college’s ability to handle crises.
  • Improve response and recovery time: By testing the plan, colleges can identify areas where response and recovery time can be improved.
  • Governance and Compliance Requirements: Testing and exercising are often required by regulatory bodies or industry standards. Colleges need to demonstrate that they have tested their BCP to comply with these requirements and avoid potential penalties or legal issues.
  • Enhance Communication and Coordination: It helps identify any communication gaps or breakdowns and allows colleges to improve their communication strategies during a crisis.
  • Continuous Improvement: It provides valuable insights and feedback that can be used to refine and enhance the BCP over time, ensuring it remains effective and up-to-date.
Face your future with confidence

While insurance provides a foundation for recovery that keeps the wheels turning in the short term and recoups your losses over the long, it’s only one part of the equation. Our qualified professionals take the time to understand your organisation, determine a suitable business continuity strategy, implement the responses and then maintain and review the plan over time.

It is not uncommon for FE colleges to fail the audit requirements for an effective BCP. The Gallagher team is able to assist your college by conducting a Business Continuity Test Workshop, which involves reviewing the existing BCP and running a test with an agreed scenario. The BCP is then assessed and feedback provided so any required improvements can be made.

To find out more about how Gallagher can support your college by developing an effective Business Continuity Plan or conducting a BCP workshop please call Karen Banks on 07804 042 951. Visit https://www.ajg.com/uk/education/education-insurance/ for more information on our insurance and risk management solutions for further education colleges.

Arthur J. Gallagher Insurance Brokers Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Registered Office: Spectrum Building, 55 Blythswood Street, Glasgow, G2 7AT. Registered in Scotland. Company Number: SC108909.

Why we’re developing micro-credentials – and you should too

In recent years, we’ve seen collaboration between FE colleges and employers intensify as we attempt to tackle the widening skills gaps affecting major sectors. While this is a brilliant response from the sector, we need to be really honest with ourselves and ask: are we approaching this in the best way? 

Instead of just consulting with employers to help inform our existing offering, shouldn’t we actually be working with them and each other to design entirely new qualifications, ones that are able to address specific needs, and that make FE a lot more accessible?

As a group of eight FE colleges across north and south east London (along with partner sixth form colleges, HE providers and adult education centres), we’re doing just that. After being awarded £6.5 million as part of the Government’s Local Skills Improvement Fund, we’re using a chunk of that to consult closely with employers and design new courses and qualifications. Specifically, we’re focusing on micro-credentials in green and digital skills.

These mini courses are based around a particular learning outcome an employer has told us they need. They can be a stand-alone qualification or can be stacked to form part of a larger qualification which could be equivalent to a HNC or HND.

Currently, we’re developing 50 externally accredited micro-credentials in areas including building information modelling, retrofit and power BI. These range from 10 to 120 hours of learning and can be delivered in bite-sized ‘modules’ of 15 to 20 minutes, making learning more flexible for those in work. We believe this approach throws the doors open to making FE infinitely more accessible and financially viable.

Imagine you’re an employer and you want a plumber with 20+ years of experience to upskill in retrofitting. You don’t want to put them through a 40-week training course, which may require attending a local college one day a week. Huge chunks of the course would be telling them what they already know. Instead, putting them through a tailored 20-hour online course would be far more appealing and cost-effective. 

If it doesn’t already exist, build it!

It means that a broader range of employers would be able to engage with FE at volume. It even means that they could design a bigger national qualification (if it meets the study hours requirement) that’s bespoke to a specific role, by taking a pick-and-mix approach to micro-credentials. In turn, this would boost the extent to which employers are using the apprenticeship levy to fund skills training, assuming the qualification met the levy criteria. 

We’re also working hard to ensure that micro-credentials are financially viable for smaller employers, where possible. For example, we’re looking to align all appropriate micro-credentials with the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) to make them eligible for CITB grant funding, where unused levy gets reallocated to smaller construction firms.

For a sector where 95 per cent of employers are SMEs, this is an integral step. Without this access to funding, there’s a danger that we leave huge sections of industry with technical skills gaps that are too difficult to overcome.

For individuals too, micro-credentials can open new routes to funded learning. From 2025, individuals will be able to use their Lifelong Learning Entitlement for micro-credentials if, like ours, they’re externally CPD-accredited.

Currently, many individuals pay for CPD out of their own pocket, which can be a significant barrier to upskilling. Again, we’re working with sector-specialist training providers such as the BIM Academy to offer learners a direct route. 

Ultimately, micro-credentials offer FE providers a means of being much more agile and responsive to emerging skills challenges. Instead of tinkering with the existing curriculum, if it’s not feasible as a programme offering, we need to evolve.

Micro-credentials give us a brilliant opportunity to do that. This is a key strategy in responding to Local Skills Improvement Plan policy, as well as demonstrating a responsive approach to meeting ‘local need’ in ESFA local accountability agreements.

If it doesn’t already exist as an off-the-shelf programme, build it! We encourage other FE colleges and groups to consider taking a similar approach, and look at how they can better align provision with employer needs.

We have to practise what we preach about sustainability

I recently taught a session about sustainability in the workplace to trainee early years practitioners. Reflecting on the experience I began to wonder how effective words are in influencing young people’s worldviews.

Sustainability is a hot topic, and rightly so. Taking responsibility for our actions and behaviours at home and in the workplace to do our part is the only way most citizens can be proactive in protecting our planet. However, educators are in a privileged position to inform and enthuse young people for the effort.

As tutors of future early years practitioners, teachers, family support practitioners and social workers, my colleagues and I are deeply aware of our responsibility in this regard. We are not only teaching sustainability to our learners but teaching them to teach the subject to children, young people and families.

With sustainability as with other topics such as mental health, privacy and British Values, we are offering our students an opportunity to think about their own lives, practices and choices and modelling how to pass that opportunity along to their communities.

For example, we can’t just teach about the ravages of single-use plastics with a plastic water bottle from the vending machine in our hand. What use is recommending a reusable one from home if we don’t make that choice ourselves? We are teaching knowledge and skills rooted in appreciating and protecting the natural world. And that starts with each of us being (and being seen to be) responsible for caring for the planet.

What surprised me most while leading this session was how students reacted to the information I passed on. It made me question whether we are embedding sustainable living into our teaching enough and question the bolt-on approach we are often forced to adopt when doing so. But most importantly it made me wonder if we should be considering the impact of teachers (and the organisations we work for) as role models.

Do we really need to ‘teach’ all these topics outright, or would learners be more greatly influenced by seeing us, as responsible adults, walking the walk and not just talking the talk?

There’s a mental health component here too

Early years settings implement policies that include drinking only water and snacking on fruit and vegetables in front of their young charges because they appreciate the value of social learning and role modelling. But how many FE staff do the same?

Do we role model the use of separate bins for recyclable and non-recyclable waste in the classroom or workshop? Do we verbalise our actions and explain why it matters? How many students witness staff stubbing out a cigarette on the ground? How many see staff using a coffee mug they brought in from home or throw away their lunch waste into a separate bin?

It’s not just a question of sustainability. There’s a mental health component here too. Climate anxiety is real and affects many young people. What damage are we doing preaching sustainability while failing to practice it?

The examples above are only the tip of the iceberg. Every member of staff associated with a particular industry or sector can tell you how their industry is tackling sustainability in the ‘real world’. Does FE live up to that?

The opportunity and availability of resources to implement sustainable practices across colleges vary greatly. I am lucky to work in one where sustainability is high on the agenda and always part of strategic plans. Suffolk New College won the Inenco Award for Education for Sustainable Development for its Green Skills initiative.

We ran a two-day Sustainability Festival, hosted a green skills conference, and created a Net Zero Skills Centre to support training in renewable energy solutions and sustainable construction.  We even held a basketball game between students and staff, the score of which dictated the number of trees we planted around campus. (Basketball scores are high!)

Not all colleges have the resources to do this, but the little things count too. What every college can do is to conduct an audit of its day-to-day routines and be guided by it to do better. Because just telling learners how to do their part isn’t enough; we have to show we mean it.

We must embrace an assessment system that goes beyond grades

There’s a growing consensus within education that the current assessment system is not adequately addressing the needs or recognising the skills of diverse learners.

Our recent research with TeacherTapp asked more than 7,500 teachers if they felt GCSEs are suitable for every pupil. Only 7 per cent said that they do, and 81 per cent disagreed.

Assessment methods often focus on recall of knowledge that may advantage some but may be to the detriment of others, particularly those with additional learning needs, those from under-served backgrounds and those from ethnic minorities.  

According to Rethinking Assessment, the list of pupil groups who are disadvantaged by high-stress exams includes those with dyslexia, young people with poor mental health, those with English as an additional language, those from economically challenged and minority-ethnic backgrounds, autistic learners, and anyone who lacks the financial means to benefit from personal tutoring.

The upshot is clear: We need to rethink the purpose of assessment. It should be used for more than just generating a final grade. And it can and must be used to help develop skills, moving us beyond a largely high-stakes assessment system to an environment where formative assessment is embedded throughout the learning journey.

But how? Answering this question is why, back in 2021, we committed £1 million and created NCFE’s Assessment Innovation Fund (AIF). Its aim is to support the development of new ideas and methods for assessing learners at different ages and levels, and to help fill an evidence gap in the sector.

Over the past two years, this fund has supported 12 projects, with 3,289 learners now having participated in those pilots. In total, 206 educators across two continents and 49 institutions have been involved in AIF-funded studies.

One of the very first AIF pilots saw The Sheffield College using virtual reality (VR) in summative and formative assessment. The pilot’s aim was to explore how VR can be embedded in assessment to improve the learning experience and learners’ outcomes.

The landscape is disconnected, resulting in an assessment arms race

Using the funding to purchase VR headsets and build virtual assessment experiences in animal care, catering and construction, the pilot explored the possibilities of allowing learners to develop their skills outside of the need to always be in a practical setting.

Since the publication of the two-year impact report, the AIF is continuing to go from strength to strength thanks to our partnership with UFI VocTech Trust. Our aim was always to influence the debate on assessment innovation and lead digital disruption in the education sector – something we’re continuing to do through further grant funding, an innovation competition and investigating the impact of digital credentials.

We are committed to making all findings from the AIF pilots free and accessible to everyone, to ensure innovation in assessment methodologies continue to recognise the skills of the learners, are personalised to individual needs and place learning in context. You can find all the AIF final reports on our website.

While the mindset is changing, thanks in part to the impact of the Covid pandemic, the introduction of new assessment and feedback methods remains slow.

It is true that we must be certain that any adaptations deliver tangible benefits for all, that they retain appropriate rigour and consider any financial and practical implications. There are also concerns about innovation allowing more opportunity for academic manipulation.

This has led to a landscape that’s siloed and disconnected, with innovation on smaller levels and access to new technologies resulting in an assessment arms race. Technology is clearly pivotal but, as we saw during the pandemic, it doesn’t automatically bring equality and can even reinforce previous inequalities or create new ones.

There’s a need for rigorous, funded investigations into a range of innovative assessment methods that bring clarity to the sector. If we can fill the evidence gap through research, collaboration and investment, we can move the sector closer towards consensus on what form assessment innovation takes.

The sector must do better than to talk to itself about policy

I like the Association of Colleges. More importantly, I respect them. They were good partners when I worked in government. You could talk to them, and it wouldn’t leak. They were knowledgeable and they didn’t cry wolf. Those three things are important, and cannot be taken for granted.

What follows needs to be understood in the context of my respect for them. 

Their document, Opportunity England, is a classic example of sector lobbying. It reads like documents that I have read from so many groups in so many sectors over so many years. 

It is well-intentioned, which is a good start. But well-intentioned is not enough. Indeed, I sometimes think that ‘well-intentioneditis’ is a diagnosable condition. Its most common symptom is a lack of precision.

For example, it is obviously well-intentioned to say – as Opportunity England does – that the government should encourage schools, colleges and universities to collaborate to ensure a complete ‘offer’ for every 16-year-old. Who, after all, could object to people working together to ensure that 16-year-olds have a smoother transition to the next stage of their lives? 

But what exactly are the authors asking the government to do? Send a letter to schools, colleges and universities asking them to collaborate? I think receiving such a letter would make no difference at all. Convene some round tables? Produce a government report saying the same thing? Again, I am struggling to see this making any difference at all. 

Years ago one of my more thoughtful ministers remarked to stakeholders that any government has five possible approaches: ban, mandate, tax, subsidise and make speeches. The first four work.

We ban children from working in mines. We mandate that schools should teach English and maths to age 16. Education to the age of 18 is so heavily subsidised that it is free. We tax cigarettes, alcohol etc to reduce their consumption. All of these work.

But making speeches and encouraging people? Who cares what the minister thinks or wants? A speech rarely changes anything. 

What exactly are the authors asking the government to do?

A good example of a mandate is the right of further education colleges to speak to year 11 pupils, to tell them that they don’t have to stay at the same school for Key Stage 5. Schools would have no incentive to let their rivals pitch for ‘their’ pupils, so a mandate is needed. 

Therefore, if you want something to happen, please remember these four points: ban, mandate, tax and subsidise. Which of these levers do you want government to pull?

If you want to make recruitment easier for further education colleges, you should definitely ask for a bigger subsidy so that you can compete with schools and other employers. You might also want to ask government to mandate the use of common pay scales across schools and colleges.

But note: it would be a nightmare if you got that and no extra funding. With government finances tight, asking for money and common pay scales risks getting only the latter – which really would be a pyrrhic victory. So be careful what you ask for, and remember that politics is the art of the possible.

I know, of course, that documents like this exist for two reasons. The first is to influence government. For that, you need to take my injunctions above very seriously. They are the route to effectiveness. The second is to represent consensus within the sector.

I understand that you need to get everyone on board. And I understand that this will always lead to well-meaning but imprecise documents like this. But I urge you, from the bottom of my heart, as someone who likes and respects the sector and sees it as key to building a wealthy and contented society for all: please, work hard to make stakeholders within your sector understand that the way to influence government is to be precise.

If politics is the art of the possible, then lobbying should be the art of the achievable. The route to influence that changes lives for the better is to make demands that government – and ideally one Secretary of State alone – can deliver. Sadly, this report does not do that.

Local elections: What mayoral hopefuls have to say on skills

Labour’s mayoral candidate for the West Midlands has claimed he has placed skills and adult education at the centre of his campaign, while others have chosen to focus on other policy areas in the build-up to local elections.

Richard Parker, who is hoping to win sitting Tory metro-mayor Andy Street’s job, says his “absolute priority” is creating “new jobs and training opportunities” in every town in the region.

His manifesto, due to be published today, ambitiously promises to “guarantee” an apprenticeship place for every young person who wants one.

Apprenticeship statistics for the West Midlands show that in 2022/23, only 22 per cent of apprenticeship starters were under the age of 19.

Speaking to FE Week ahead of the election, Parker – who left school at 16 before returning to education to gain an economics degree – said he understands the importance of education.

But aside from his apprenticeship guarantee – which lacked detail explaining how this would be possible – his campaign contained no other specific pledges on adult skills.

When pressed, Parker would only say that he would invest the West Midlands’ £150 million adult skills budget in “proper skills for people to get proper jobs”.

While Parker places jobs and training at the top of his list, the manifestos of many other candidates, including his rival Street, emphasise other key policies under mayoral control such as transport and housing.

Adult skills spending is one of the key policy areas under the direct control of the ten combined authorities planning to elect a new metro mayor on May 2.

Parker claimed Street has been “passive on skills” and commissioning training courses on using “Excel spreadsheets” to hit government targets.

Street was unable to speak to FE Week, but his 149-page manifesto published yesterday pledges to take a “proactive approach” to getting young people into apprenticeships, continue focusing on technical skills and to “tailor” skills funding to local businesses’ needs.

His record includes overseeing the development of the “best qualified workforce in the West Midlands ever”, the manifesto claims.

Some candidates barely mention adult education

Sadiq Khan, who hopes to continue running London’s £320 million adult skills budget, does not mention skills or training in his top ten manifesto pledges.

However, he promises to continue his existing policy to provide free training to anyone 19 years and over who is unemployed, on a low income, or has limited formal education.

His Conservative rival Susan Hall has not mentioned skills in her campaign materials and did not respond to requests for comment from FE Week.

Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen, the only other sitting Conservative mayor apart from Street, has released a “plan for local jobs” that makes only passing reference to skills.

Sitting Mayor for Greater Manchester Andy Burnham is yet to reveal any pledges on skills other than the Greater Manchester baccalaureate, an educational pathway for 14-16 year-olds that would promote technical careers.

Incumbent mayors underline value of skills

Speaking to FE Week about their pledges on skills, incumbent Labour mayor for Liverpool City Region Steve Rotheram and independent candidate for North East Jamie Driscoll were both keen to emphasise the importance of their adult skills budget.

Rotheram, who started his working life as an apprentice bricklayer, said: “Skills is the building block that will allow us to attract the investment skills is the important thing.

“Skills is massively important – if we get skills right, we can improve productivity.”

He added that managing the adult skills budget during his seven-year tenure has felt “quite constrained” and pledged to fight for more spending flexibility in a devolution deal similar to Greater Manchester and the West Midlands.

Driscoll argued that since he has run the North of Tyne’s adult skills budget he has increased training enrolments by a “phenomenal” 60 per cent and given training providers more security through three-year settlements.

He pledged to continue taking a “learner-centred approach” to adult skills, with a focus on “getting people something meaningful in their lives”.

He added: “Now, if you’re starting with someone who’s barely literate, then actually that is a huge opportunity.

“But if you’re saying to people in central government style ‘you must go on a course because we effectively want to punish you out of unemployment’ that’s just a waste of everybody’s time.

“Why don’t we get people doing something that’s going to get them out? Some kind of benefit, because we all get repaid by that in the end.”

‘Inadequate’ care provider accuses Ofsted of ‘overlooking’ sector crisis

A care training provider has been graded ‘inadequate’ after Ofsted found apprentices being forced to work additional shifts instead of attending their training.

But the firm has hit out at the watchdog, accusing inspectors of “totally overlooking” the crisis the care sector is in. 

Ofsted found that many of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne-based ACT Education’s 236 apprentices had “substantially” passed the planned end date of their programme during a visit in January this year.

They said apprentices were “frequently required” to cover additional shifts instead of attending training and leaders had insufficient oversight of whether they had catch-up sessions. 

ACT Education was downgraded from ‘requires improvement’ to ‘inadequate’ in all areas except personal development, in a report published on Thursday.

Duty of care took priority over studies

The provider’s director Neil Wray hit back at Ofsted’s report, which echoes similar criticism placed on other care providers judged ‘inadequate’ since the pandemic and led to several failed legal challenges.

Wray told FE Week: “We are aware that there are other care training providers that have recently been rated as inadequate that have the exact same sector-specific issues that we do.

“We did lodge a complaint against the inspection, listing numerous contradictions and factual inaccuracies, which was obviously not upheld. As a mental health training provider, we found the attitude and conduct of the lead inspector to be very poor. The entire inspection was a very unpleasant process.”

He said learners usually miss their planned end date because “duty of care for vulnerable people” and staff shortages mean they need to cover shifts.

Wray claimed that if this happens learners receive additional training “at our own personal cost”. 

ACT Education is owned and run from the same office by New Beginnings, a company providing home care services to adults with learning disabilities and autism which is rated ‘outstanding’ by the Care Quality Commission.

Overall, the companies declared a profit of just under £1 million after tax on a turnover of about £13 million. 

Wray told FE Week “less than 10 per cent” of ACT Education’s apprentices are employed at New Beginnings.

Inspectors criticise low expectations

Ofsted said apprentices make “slow progress” at ACT Education due to a lack of off-the-job training, which amounts to “one or two hours” each month. 

They added that trainers did not set apprentices high expectations and impeded progress by failing to give deadlines for completing assignments. 

Often, apprentices and employers did not attend progress review meetings, resulting in “little joint planning” for training opportunities. 

They said ACT Education had also been “too slow” to address concerns about English and maths functional skills training at an inspection in September 2022. 

Trainers did not set apprentices high expectations and impeded progress by failing to give deadlines for completing assignments, they added. 

Other concerns included ineffective careers information and insufficient personal development training. 

Although Ofsted praised tutors’ knowledge and experience, they said managers had been “too slow” to recruit suitably qualified staff. 

Wray said the inspectors’ criticisms “did not reflect the full picture”.

The company now faces seeing its contract with the Department for Education terminated, in line with its policy for independent training providers who receive an ‘inadequate’ rating. 

However, Wray said: “We are continuing to offer apprenticeships as we have received no instruction otherwise.” 

He added that the training provider will focus on improving ahead of an Ofsted monitoring visit due in six months.

Recognise young carers on the ILR to better support their needs, DfE urged

Young carers should be recognised on the government’s individualised learner record (ILR) to better identify and support their needs in further education, sector leaders have said.

Making this “simple change” would also help address the “gaping hole” in data that is recorded between FE learners and school and higher education students who have caring responsibilities.

The Department for Education added young carers to the annual school census in 2023 for the first time, while UCAS also added the group to its university application forms last year.

DfE minister Baroness Barran recently told parliament that making this amendment to the school census led to the identification of 38,983 young carers, “raising their visibility in the school system and allowing schools to better identify and support their young carers”.

She said this is providing the department with “strong evidence on both the numbers of young carers and their educational outcomes” as well as an annual data collection to establish long-term trends.

Yet the DfE has made no such amendment to the ILR, which records and tracks individual students in FE.

Andy McGowan, the policy and practice manager at charity Carers Trust, said the new data on young carers in schools through the census and universities through UCAS application is “vital” to understanding the educational challenges and employment routes young carers face compared to their peers.

“We are now left with a gaping hole in the data in further education,” McGowan told FE Week.

“This simple change [adding young carers to the ILR] would help the government to see the huge pressures young carers in education face. Only then can they truly understand how their policies affect young carers as they approach a key stage of their lives and transition into adulthood.”

A DfE spokesperson told FE Week that “further recording requirements will be considered in due course” for young carers. They added: “At the moment we are considering what the data tells us and what additional measures we need to consider going forward.”

Young adult carers are described as people aged between 16 to 25, who look after a friend or relative with a disability, illness, mental health condition, or a substance problem and cannot cope without help.

Data from Learning and Work Institute suggests that young carers are three times more likely to become not in education, employment or training (NEET) and four times more likely to drop out of college than their peers.

Latest statistics of the annual school census found young carers in schools were nearly twice as likely to be persistently absent as their peers, and nearly one in four of young carers missed 10 per cent or more of their education last year.

The Carers Trust estimates that 10 per cent of all students are likely to be young adult carers – at least 370,000 in the UK.

A separate data field on the ILR would help evaluate what employment routes young adult carers are taking, experts told FE Week.

Eileen Darby, director of safeguarding and wellbeing at Chichester College Group, said: “We hear that young carers won’t do certain careers like police uniform services because they have to leave their parents. Anything that involves unsociable hours, or nursing as they’re already doing that at home.”

Nicola Aylward, head of learning for young people at Learning and Work Institute, said adding young carers to the ILR would give a “better evidence base for tailoring support” that could look at how the means-tested 16 to 19 bursary fund impacts young carers.

Former skills minister Robert Halfon stated in a parliamentary question last month, that DfE allocated over £160 million of bursary funding in 2023/24 to help disadvantaged 16 to 19 year olds meet costs.

Young carers ‘put off’ T Levels

It is unclear how many young adult carers received 16 to 19 bursary funding due to the data collection gap.

Awareness training ‘practically doubled’ numbers 

Colleges have their own ways of recording young carers, through asking students during the interview and enrolment process, and through lecturers and feeder schools, if they have caring responsibilities.

Greenhead College in Huddersfield “practically doubled” the number of carers it recorded this year, just by emphasising types of caring responsibilities via social media and parent/carer updates. 

“I still think that students don’t know they are carers, so we will be doing more of that early on next year,” said Claire Parr, director of SEND and inclusion at the college.

Leaders fear that hundreds of young carers go under the radar every year. They claim that recognising young carers through the ILR would help address this.