Two years after pilot success, at last it’s official — Exeter College is outstanding

Exeter College need no longer bite its lip after watching Walsall College take credit for the first ‘outstanding’ Ofsted result under a tough new inspection regime nearly a year after it had already achieved the feat.

The Devon college today won outstanding status having earned the top grade in early 2012 after a pilot no-notice inspection — but the resulting report was not published, although the result was publicised.

It meant the college remained on its ‘good’ grading from 2008, and could only look on with envy as Walsall College was hailed the first to officially win an outstanding grade under the new inspection regime.

The Midland college’s grading came in March last year, around five months after the new FE and skills common inspection framework — with the notice period down from 30 days to just two — had fully come into force.

Exeter College principal Richard Atkins
Exeter College principal Richard Atkins

But Exeter was revisited by the education watchdog last month and, like Walsall, inspectors gave it grade one marks right across the headline fields.

Exeter principal Richard Atkins said: “Following our success with the pilot in 2012, I was confident that the Ofsted inspectors would see again evidence of our outstanding teaching and learning and exceptional practice across our curriculum areas.

“The new inspection places a high emphasis, rightly, on hearing the views of students and college users and seeing at first-hand training and academic sessions. This makes for a very rigorous and thorough view of the college and, while we are not perfect, I am very proud that this report makes such positive reading.”

The report on the 9,000-learner college said: “Outstanding leadership, management and governance have improved teaching, learning and assessment and raised standards since the last inspection.

“College leaders have established a culture of high expectations in which lecturers are encouraged to innovate, and learners to have high aspirations. A very large majority of learners successfully achieve their qualifications and almost all learners progress to further education, training or employment once they have completed their course.

“Standards of almost all learners’ work are high, and in many cases very high. Learners attending the excellent provision in The Michael Caines Academy, the REACH Academy and the Flybe Training Academy produce exceptionally high quality work.

“As a result of the highly motivated, skilled and experienced staff, the quality of teaching, learning and assessment is outstanding. Lecturers provide learners with challenging work that prepares them extremely well for their next steps.”

It also said: “The college has excellent, long-established links with local businesses and organisations which offer valuable work experience or visits. These show learners the career options in the sciences and help them with their choice of degree.

“For example, last year four physics learners, who were considering a career in engineering, gained valuable knowledge by working with a local company on a design problem to reduce waste from a moulding process.”

Mr Atkins added: “The success of the college is a direct result of the continued development of strong and committed partnerships between the college and local and regional businesses, schools, and community organisations.

“I am pleased that the strength and range of these partnerships are recognised as a real feature of the college with the inspectors praising our ‘excellent links with schools, employers and other agencies’; that our values and priorities are viewed as fostering ‘excellence, innovation and a commitment to educating and training the local community’ and that the college’s provision makes an ‘excellent contribution to the educational, social and economic development needs of the region’.”

Philip Bostock, college governors’ chair said: “On behalf of the board I am delighted that the college’s passion and commitment to outstanding teaching and learning has been recognised by this fantastic outcome. This Ofsted report is a great result for the students and staff, for the city and the wider community the college serves.”

Police will not investigate Barnfield Federation

Police in Hertfordshire have announced they will pursue no criminal investigation into allegations of financial mismanagement at the Barnfield Federation.

Reports by both the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) and Education Funding Agency (EFA) into the organisation were passed to officers last week.

But a Herts police spokesperson said today: “Officers from Hertfordshire Constabulary’s Economic Crime Unit have reviewed all of the material referred to them and can confirm that the information does not warrant any criminal investigation. The matter has been referred back to the education authorities.”

The reports were handed over amid claims that the Federation, which runs Luton-based Barnfield College, received around £1m in funding for learners it had no record of teaching.

Now that the matter is out of police hands, reports from both agencies are expected to be released, but neither have said when this will happen or commented further at this stage.

A Barnfield spokesperson said the federation would not comment until the reports are released.

*Within hours of the police announcement, the SFA and EFA both published their reports.

Is linking funding to outcomes more trouble than it’s worth?

Using learner destination data to determine funding for FE is “fraught with difficulty,” according to Geoffrey Stanton.

The recent Skills Funding Statement indicates that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) is considering “how funding can be more strongly linked to outcomes in future”.

In post-19 FE and training, funding is, of course, already strongly linked to outcomes — outcomes in the form of qualifications.

For 16 to 18-year-olds on the other hand, this approach has now been abandoned following the Wolf Review.

It is to its credit that BIS is now recognising there are problems in just using the achievement of qualifications as a trigger for funding in the adult FE sector, but using learner’s destinations for the same purpose is even more fraught with difficulty, and it looks as if this is what BIS has in mind.

There has been ongoing confusion in policy circles for decades about the use of outcomes in education and training. Are they usable as quality measures, or just quality indicators? Could they even be used a triggers for funding?

Efficiency came to mean avoiding the teaching of anything that would not be tested, and avoiding the recruitment of learners who might take longer than average to achieve

At one level the greater focus on outcomes has been hugely beneficial — not least as a counterbalance to an emphasis on where, how and for how long someone has to learn before their achievements can be recognised.

It was a good idea for NVQs to link qualifications to occupational standards, what a job required someone to do and understand.

This benefitted many adults already in work. But it all went wrong when NVQs were used as a trigger for funding.

All too often efficiency came to mean avoiding the teaching of anything that would not be tested, and avoiding the recruitment of learners who might take longer than average to achieve.

There was also a disastrous confusion between designing accurate standards for the occupation and designing effective learning programmes for individuals.

The former was funded and prioritised, the latter was not. It has taken until last year’s Commission on Adult Vocational Teaching and Learning to start to redress the balance.

Of course destinations matter, not least to the learners. I have no problem with encouraging providers to make strenuous efforts to track destinations, and to publish the results to applicants and to Ofsted. But the practical problems of a link to funding are obvious.

How long a period should be allowed to elapse after qualifying before the destination affects funding?

Promotion, a successful job application or a career change may not come immediately. And how enduring should any destination have to be? If someone gets a new job in a prioritised occupational area, but loses it within a month or two, should there be clawback?

There is also the problem of keeping track of individuals post-course. Email addresses may prove to be more stable than postal ones, but recipients cannot be compelled to respond.

The 2012 report Social Market Foundation (SMF) suggested that individuals could be tracked through the tax system. This would not identify the occupational areas concerned, but in any case the SMF was understandably sceptical about any government’s ability to forecast what should be priority areas.

The tax system would if course identify wage rises, and the SMF argued that these would necessarily indicate overall productivity improvements.

However, this required the making of heroic assumptions about the rationality of the labour market and the geographical mobility of workers, among other things.

What proportion of funding should be linked to destinations?

If the incentive was small it would be an irritating piece of noise in the finances of institutions.

If it was large it could destabilise some good institutions because of the need to fund provision up front perhaps years before they could be sure of the level of income from government.

Finally, there is always the “sauce for the goose and gander” test.

Why not road test the approach by applying it to universities or schools first?

I look forward the day when a minister writes to a university vice-chancellor with the news that the funding for an expensive engineering degree has been reduced because its graduates ended up in financial services rather than manufacturing.

Geoffrey Stanton is an independent consultant and visiting fellow at the Institute of Education

Young Neets rise draws RPA questions

NEET-FIGS

The government’s raising of the participation age (RPA) policy has been questioned after figures showed the number of unemployed 16 and 17-year-olds not in education, employment or training (Neet) had actually increased since it came into force.

According to figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), between October and December, 38,000 16 and 17-year-olds were unemployed Neets, compared to 31,000 the previous three months. Between October and December 2012, the figure was 37,000.

The proportion of the total number of 16 to 17-year-olds who were unemployed also rose by half a percentage point. Between July and September, 4 per cent of 1.464m 16 to 17-year-olds were unemployed, rising to 4.5 per cent of 1.461m between October and December.

Jonathan Clifton, a senior research fellow specialising in education at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), questioned whether there had been “enough reform and action taken to make it [RPA] a reality”.

Rushanara Ali MP
Rushanara Ali MP

Meanwhile, a Department for Education (DfE) spokesperson said it would not acknowledge or comment on the ONS figures that came out the day Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg (pictured) announced pilots in which Jobcentre Plus outlets would serve 16 and 17-year-olds.

The Liberal Democrat leader also spoke about setting up a UCAS-style application system for vocational courses — a similar idea to that mentioned by Shadow Education Secretary Tristram Hunt in an interview with FE Week last October — and providing young jobseekers with work experience. He also said those without level two maths and English would be required to train as soon as they sign on for Jobseekers Allowance.

However, the rise in unemployed 16 and 17-year-old Neets has drawn questions over the RPA, which came into force in September. It means young people have to stay in full-time education until the end of the academic year in which they turned 17.

Mr Clifton said he supported the RPA as a potential solution to a “collapse in the labour market”, but said people may be “falling through the cracks.”

He said: “Policy like this always takes time to filter through the system and I suspect the main reason [for the rise] is that there has not been enough reform and action taken to make it a reality. Just saying we want people to stay in education longer won’t make it happen. I suspect for a lot of people it is not being tracked and it is very easy for them to fall through the cracks.

“There are lot of things we have got to consider here, like the drop-off in jobs at the labour market, the fact we are still seeing the impact of the cut to education maintenance allowance and we know there are very confusing pathways for people when they do come to leave school. It is not clear to them what else they should be doing and there isn’t a decent offer for them so they just stop turning up, and because a lot of them are still living at home they do not get picked up through the benefits system.”

The ONS figures for October to December further show that there were 1.04 million 16 to 24-year-olds in the UK who were Neet, a decrease of 38,000 from July to September 2013 and down 37,000 from the previous year.

Joy Mercer, director of policy for Association of Colleges, said: “We have supported raising the participation age since it was first proposed in 2008, and we outlined some of our concerns in our report Sticks and Carrots: Will every 16 and 17-year-old stay in education or training? These included poor careers advice — which meant that young people were being told they had to stay in school rather than in education and were not given access to information on alternatives such as apprenticeships and vocational courses at colleges. As local councils were cutting travel subsidies for 16 to 17-year-olds, this made it even harder for them to make a choice that was right for them and affordable.

“Overall in 2013 the figures fell by 0.7 per cent over the year, but it is always going to be a concern that there are any young people not participating in education, employment or training when there are opportunities to re-engage and re-motivate them through college provision.”

The figures follow a review of the country’s youth unemployment policy by Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood. The government said the review would not be published, but it is thought that Mr Clegg’s speech at Southfields Academy in London on Thursday (February 27) drew on Sir Heywood’s findings.

A spokesperson for the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) said: “We welcome the announcements made by the Deputy Prime Minister, particularly in respect of the support being offered by Jobcentre Plus for English and maths.

“We only very recently called for Jobcentre Plus to work much more closely with providers on the initial assessment of jobseekers’ needs, especially basic skills, and at an earlier stage. We believe that more young people will then secure sustainable employment as a result of using employment support services.”

Both Skills Minister Matthew Hancock and Shadow Junior Education Minister Rushanara Ali declined to comment specifically on the ONS figures for 16 and 17-year-old unemployed Neets, and on whether they felt the RPA policy was working. Instead, they provided comments on the general Neet figures.

Mr Hancock said: “We must stick to our long-term economic plan and continue to bring Neet levels down. Through programmes like the new traineeships scheme, we will equip young people with the skills they need to compete in the global race and make a meaningful contribution to the economy.”

Ms Ali said: “The number of young people not in education, employment or training is still far too high and there are nearly a million young people unemployed under this Tory-led government.”

———-editorial———

Need for Neet Minister

The revelation that the number of unemployed 16 and 17-year-old Neets rose after the participation age increased last September isn’t enough for the sector to question the value of the policy.

But it has brought to the fore serious questions about what the government is and should be doing to implement the policy.

It comes, coincidentally of course, at the same time as the Deputy Prime Minister announced he wanted the same age group to be able to use the local Jobcentre Plus.

Hopefully advisers will be fully conversant in the RPA, having already witnessed confusion over what the policy actually means (NOT staying on in school).

And if we could justify a minister for the Olympics, maybe it’s time to raise the youth unemployment profile in the cabinet with a minister dedicated to coordinating coherent Neet policy implementation across departments?

Chris Henwood, editor

Functional Skills rejected in favour of GCSEs

The government has come under fire for rejecting Functional Skills qualifications in favour of GCSEs in its entry requirements for early years educator (EYE) training courses.

This will not raise standards but exclude some excellent educators who will be excluded for the wrong reasons.

From August, the Skills Funding Agency will only pay for new learners who have already got GCSE English and maths at grade C or above.

Functional Skills fully replaced Key Skills in October 2012, but concerns have been growing in the sector that they are increasingly seen by government as inferior to GCSEs.

And the Department for Education (DfE) claims its rejection of Functional Skills will “raise the overall quality of literacy and numeracy skills of those entering the workforce”.

But the move has come under strong criticism from the sector.

Stewart Segal (pictured right), chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP), said: “Our view is that this is completely wrong.

“It will exclude many people that have been failed by the system and we should set qualification requirements by the end not beginning.

“This will not raise standards but exclude some excellent educators who will be excluded for the wrong reasons.

“It should be GCSE and equivalents such as Functional Skills which are well respected by employers who value functional literacy and numeracy above GCSEs.”

Deborah Ribchester, 14 to 19 and curriculum senior policy manager at the Association of Colleges, said: “The recent announcement by the National College for Teaching and Leadership at the Department for Education says that functional skills will not be accepted as equivalent to GCSE. Currently, functional skills are part of the early years apprenticeship framework, and we are seeking clarification in this area.”

Rob Wye (pictured below), chief executive of the Council for Awards in Care, Health and Education, said: “While we recognise the importance of maths and English as a key part of developing a professional workforce for early years, we are concerned that making it a prerequisite to starting training, rather than to starting employment at the end of the course, will dissuade very many excellent vocational learners among young people and adults from coming forward for the EYE [early years educator].

“Many older learners may not have GCSE maths and English. Indeed, we note that there is no option to study the GCSEs alongside the EYE, thus excluding these learners from entering the workforce as an early years educator.

“We believe these new requirements will drive down the numbers taking the new EYE — at the very time we need numbers to go up to meet demand, not least because of the new and expanding two-year-old offer.”

And Suzi Gray, portfolio adviser at City & Guilds, said: “The government’s continued preference for GCSE risks understating the importance of being able to apply maths and English within the workplace.

“Singling out GCSE could be very damaging in recruiting to the profession, as it would bar potential applicants who have acquired these skills through other channels. It might also disadvantage applicants from areas where GCSE is not available.

“While we would obviously agree with the government that high standards are of the utmost importance, learners should be able to relate these skills to their everyday work and life and we would want to avoid the dangers of imposing a one-size-fits-all solution.”

The DfE said training providers “will be required to confirm learner’s prior achievement of this and record it in the learning agreement before enrolling learners on to early years educator training”.

Apprentice scheme for 14 to 16-year-olds back before MPs as wage increase proposed

Plans to revive the Young Apprenticeship Programme, offering 14 to 16-year-olds a work-based alternative to the classroom, are to reappear before MPs.

Conservative MP Dominic Raab’s (pictured) Young Apprenticeship Bill seeks to bring back the programme first introduced by Labour in 2004, but phased out around 2010 following concerns it cost £3,000 per learner more than if they had been in school.

The Young Apprenticeship Programme was a two-year scheme which combined English, maths and optional vocational subjects, as well as two days a-week in a workplace.

“The bill is about expanding educational opportunity, plugging the skills gap and giving 14 to 16-year-olds a credible, work-oriented vocational option,” he said.

Mr Raab claimed costs associated with the original programme might have been caused because the scheme never achieved the same economies of scale as post-16 apprenticeships. In its first year, with around 1,000 pupils, the scheme cost £3.95m.

Nevertheless, he also acknowledged that there were vocational options available for 14-year-olds with University Technical Colleges and direct recruitment of 14 to 16-year-olds to colleges.

But, he said: “We still lack a work-based alternative for 14 to 16-year-olds.”

Mr Raab’s bill, due to get its second reading in May, was welcomed by Association of Employment and Learning Providers chief executive Stewart Segal.

He claimed the scheme had previously been successful and said current funding flexibilities should allow schools to work with training providers and colleges on delivery.

He said: “We believe that many more young people should combine school studies with periods of work experience and work tasters.”

The bill also won the blessing of Teresa Frith, senior skills policy manager at the Association of Colleges.

She said: “We are pleased to see Mr Raab raising this as an issue in Parliament as we frequently hear a call from employers for young people with better work-related skills.

“Many young people would benefit from a more vocationally biased education, but this must be seen as an alternative, and not as the ‘academic failure’ route.”

 

Sub-story

Outstanding college rapped over academy standards

An academy backed by grade one-rated Walsall College has been warned by the government about “unacceptably low” standards.

The Secretary of State and I are therefore satisfied that the standards of performance at Mirus Academy, Walsall, are unacceptably low,”

Schools Minister Lord Nash has written to Walsall College Academies Trust chair Jatinder Sharma (pictured), who is also the college principal, with a “pre-warning notice” over standards at the Mirus Academy.

He warned that the sponsor college, which just under a year ago became the first outstanding college under Ofsted’s current FE and skills inspection framework, had “neither the expertise or capacity to resolve the issues needed to bring about sustained improvement”.

Mr Sharma said he was “fully aware of the challenge”, but confident he could replicate the level of success achieved by the college at the academy.

The academy, for ages three to 18, was graded as inadequate by Ofsted following an inspection in December and put in special measures, and in his letter Lord Nash highlighted problems with achievement at GCSE level.

He wrote: “The percentage of pupils achieving five or more GCSEs including English and maths in 2013 is below the national floor standard of 40 per cent with only 25 per cent of pupils achieving this standard.

“The academy’s 2013 GCSE results show that too few pupils make or exceed expected levels of progress with only 24 per cent of pupils making expected levels of progress in English and only 33 per cent of pupils making expected levels of progress in maths.

“This compares to the 2013 national median of 73 per cent in each subject.”

Lord Nash said that if standards didn’t improve he could appoint new trust directors. Ultimately, Walsall College could be replaced as the academy sponsor.

And Lord Nash warned he expected academy performance to fall short of the 40 per cent target this year too.

“The Secretary of State and I are therefore satisfied that the standards of performance at Mirus Academy, Walsall, are unacceptably low,” he added.

Mr Sharma said: “We were invited to set up the academy by bringing together the failing primary (at the time of conversion in special measures) and failing secondary (at the time of conversion only just, and arguably unsustainably, having come out of special measures) schools into the region’s first all-through academy.

“With no more than a term to set the new academy up, it is probably fair to say that we did not get everything right in the time we had.

“However, taking on The Mirus Academy was a courageous thing to do. We picked up a legacy of under-investment and neglect and are determined to spread our outstanding DNA. We have now put considerable resources and expertise into the task and it is beginning to show.

“On February 4, 2014, the first post-inspection Ofsted monitoring inspection took place at The Mirus Academy. Following the visit, the inspector agreed that the Statement of Action implemented by the interim principal, (partially) new senior leadership team and the sponsors/governors, was fit for purpose.

“The inspector also commented on a number of actions which already show improvements while giving us constructive ideas for improvement which are currently being made.”

He added: “From the outset, our aim has been to raise student achievement and aspirations and we remain steadfast in this commitment. Our own journey to Ofsted outstanding took more than nine years and we encountered many obstacles along the way. We are fully aware of the scale of the challenge we have taken on and if anyone can transform The Mirus Academy for the long-term benefit of students, we can.”

Around 40 academies have had pre-warning notices since September 2011.

Sector pays warm tribute to FE champion Lord Bilston

Tributes have flooded in for Labour life peer Lord Bilston (pictured) who launched the all-party parliamentary group for FE and lifelong learning.

Lord Bilston, who was MP for Wolverhampton South East for 18 years from 1987 before joining the House of Lords, has died, aged 71.

He had been suffering from cancer since November and had spent time in hospital before returning home to be with his family in his final weeks.

Christopher Walden, director of public affairs and communications for the Association of Colleges (AoC), praised the peer (full name Dennis Turner).

He said: “Dennis was a steadfast supporter of colleges, and of the AoC, for the best part of 20 years, regularly chairing meetings, asking questions and raising our concerns quietly, but very effectively, with government.

“He set up the all-party parliamentary group, which regularly heard about the work of colleges and challenged ministers to do better for his beloved FE.

“He persuaded the then Chancellor, Gordon Brown, to come along to the group [for hearings in 2005 and 2006], producing a record attendance of MPs.

“Dennis would be as charming as ever in gently encouraging Mr Brown to go a step further in offering something to help colleges with their work.”

The father-of-two launched the parliamentary group in 1997 and served as chair until he stood down in 2005.

And Mr Walden added that Lord Bilston continued supporting FE causes after becoming a life peer.

He said: “He strongly supported our No Free Lunch? campaign and before Christmas we met him to talk about raising the profile of colleges in the House of Lords. He will be sorely missed.”

The No Free Lunch? campaign secured a commitment last summer from the government to extend free school meals to disadvantaged students in colleges from September this year.

Alastair Thomson, principal advocacy officer at the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education, said: “Lord Bilston was one of the most reliable and supportive parliamentarians when it came to adult learning.

“He was instrumental in establishing the all-party parliamentary group for FE and lifelong learning and was a frequent and enthusiastic contributor to debates on education and skills.

“He firmly believed that people of all ages should have the opportunities they need to be able to transform their lives and communities through learning.”

Lynne Sedgmore, 157 Group executive director, said: “We are sorry to hear of the death of Lord Bilston.

“He was at the forefront of championing FE in parliamentary circles and will be sadly missed.”

Labour leader Ed Miliband tweeted: “Very sad to hear about the passing of Dennis Turner. He dedicated his life to public service and the people of Wolverhampton & Bilston.”

Lord Bilston was born, raised and lived in Bilston his whole life. He leaves a widow, Pat, son Brendon, daughter Jenny and granddaughter Bella.