One of London’s largest FE colleges, and a former outstanding one, has crashed to a grade four Ofsted rating.

LeSoCo, a 17,600-learner college in South London, has been graded inadequate after its latest inspection, less than two months ago.

While we fully accept the need for improvements in some areas of our teaching and learning provision, we do not recognise the grading of the college as inadequate and will appeal,”

The education watchdog’s report criticised poor teaching in engineering and foundation English and maths, as well failing to get enough apprentices through their training on time.

Among the criticisms was that the “teaching of functional skills is inadequate. In most subject areas teachers do not use the results from the initial assessment to inform the planning of learning”.

It is not yet known if the outcome is bad enough to prompt a visit from FE Commissioner David Collins, however, the college, which has a current Skills Funding Agency allocation of £26.2m, could be facing the boot from high-performing colleges’ body, the 157 Group.

Principal Maxine Room told FE Week she “did not” recognise the grading and would appeal. “While we fully accept the need for improvements in some areas of our teaching and learning provision, we do not recognise the grading of the college as inadequate and will appeal,” she said.

The college was formed of a merger in 2012 between Lewisham College — rated outstanding in 2006, before dropping to satisfactory (a grade three and now termed ‘requires improvement’) in 2012 — and Southwark College, which was graded inadequate in December 2011.

However, Ofsted said the college management of the merger had been a strength, but it nevertheless got a grade four result overall and also in the teaching, learning and assessment headline field. It was deemed to require improvement on outcomes for learners and leadership and management.

The Ofsted report said: “Staff do not set learning targets for learners or track their progress effectively. Tutorials are often unproductive [and] many learners cannot

recall when they last received a tutorial, when they were given individual targets relating to their qualification, or when they had a discussion about issues such as attendance.”

Ms Room said she was “devastated” by the outcome of the inspection and criticised the way the report appeared to let poor performance in English and maths bring down the college’s overall rating. “If you look at the proportionality of the grading, 80 per cent of the provision was grade two, and 20 per cent was grade three and four,” she said.

“The weighting on English and maths has overweighed the rest of the provision, and that is what we think is unfair.” Ms Room also said the college had a post-inspection action plan in place and that a number of visiting tutors had been removed in the past year because of poor performance.

But, she said, it was “not the time to talk about blame” and she had “no intention” of resigning. Nevertheless, she also criticised Ofsted for failing to keep the college informed about the outcome of the inspection.

Ofsted said it took complaints seriously, but would not comment on individual cases.

Lynne Sedgmore, 157 Group executive director, said it was too early to comment on LeSoCo’s future membership of the group, but said she was “surprised and disappointed” by the report.

A spokesperson for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills declined to comment on whether the FE Commissioner, who was appointed as a troubleshooter for failing colleges, would be sent into LeSoCo.

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Another week, another college crashes to a grade four inspection result.

It would be wrong to ignore the fact we’re seeing more outstanding colleges, but worryingly we’re also seeing former grade ones falling to inadequate.

We’ve seen Liverpool and Stockport stumble, and Bristol became a grade four having previously been good. Now we have LeSoCo, too.

Is there a trend? It’s certainly the case that in each college Ofsted saw extreme shortcomings on teaching, learning and assessment.

Perhaps this is the truly shocking part of all this — that any college should get an inadequate grading on what is essentially a bread-and-butter task.

But what exactly has been changing at these colleges? An obvious question surrounds size — are they too big? Or maybe there are growing challenges presented by the city environment?

Certainly London has an issue, as Ofsted conceded in FE Week last year, and the LeSoCo result adds further fuel to that fire.

It would be unfair to say Skills Minister Matthew Hancock is reluctant to act having created the office of the FE Commissioner (although to learn there’s even a possibility David Collins may not be sent in to LeSoCo seems somewhat a dereliction of duty).

Investigation is needed to get under the bonnet to find out if there is a common, and hopefully rectifiable, denominator in all or just a few of these crashing colleges.

Chris Henwood, editor

Members of the Education Select Committee could probe controversial government plans to cut funding for full-time education for 18-year-olds.

Committee member Pat Glass said she would be calling for an inquiry into proposals to fund 18–year-olds by 17.5 per cent less than 16 and 17-year-olds.

It comes as she and fellow committee members await an impact assessment on the funding rate cut that was promised in mid-December by Education Secretary Michael Gove.

And House of Commons education questions on Monday, January 6, saw Skills Minister Matthew Hancock come in for tough questioning on the matter — and the issue of the impact assessment was raised.

Ms Glass told FE Week: “The 18+ funding was the main topic of conversation, raised by loads of Labour MPs, me included, and the impact assessment was promised but no date given.

“I intend to talk to Graham Stuart [Education Select Committee chair] and suggest the committee does a short inquiry just into cuts to 18+ funding — keeping it short and limited.”

Labour’s Clive Eltham was one of the MPs to question Mr Hancock in the Commons, saying: “The Association of Colleges has said that young people from disadvantaged areas and black and minority ethnic groups will be hardest hit by the cut of 17.5 per cent in the funding for 18-year-olds.

“That is borne out by the assessment that has been carried out by my local college, Greenwich Community College. Why have the government not issued an impact assessment on this proposal, given the severe impact that it will have on disadvantaged groups?”

Mr Hancock told MPs that he had seen the impact assessment and that its findings would provide reassurance about the funding rate cut.

He said: “This is a difficult decision and not one that we will take lightly, but the alternatives are also difficult, and 18-year-olds have already had two years of study post 16 and, indeed, they often study for fewer hours than 16 to 17-year-olds.”

He added: “We will publish the impact assessment very soon.”

But Eddie Playfair, principal of Newham Sixth Form College in East London, told FE Week that he remained sceptical.

He said the proposals as they stand would affect 550 of his learners in 2014/15, creating a financial impact of just over £500,000, around 3 per cent of the college’s £16m budget.

Mr Playfair said: “We are all looking forward to reading the impact assessment because evidence suggests that disadvantaged students will be hit harder.
“In a sense the very fact that it will be third year students who will be hit is worrying because they are more disadvantaged as low achievers.

“The second point Mr Hancock made about these students needing fewer hours is something I just do not understand. They are doing exactly the same courses, sitting in exactly the same classes. They are exactly the same as their peers so this is just a funding cut.”

Meanwhile, in response to a written question from Shadow Junior Education Minister Rushanara Ali about a lack of consultation on the funding rate cut, Mr Hancock said: “We wanted to inform colleges and schools of the decision as soon as possible, to support planning for the 2014/15 academic year.
“It has been standard practice under various governments not to consult on funding rates.”

A spokesperson for the Department for Education said there was no date for the release of the impact assessment, but said it would be put online after the select committee had seen it.

More than 520 providers under-delivered on their August 2012 16 to 18 apprenticeship allocations by a total of £241.5m.

Research by FE Week into figures released by the Education Funding Agency, shows 769 colleges and independent learning providers (ILPs) were initially going to be funded with £826.9m for the programme.

In spite of these difficulties we revised our plans at the end of the first quarter, when we had a better indication of market conditions, and delivered at a similar level to the previous year.”

But 524 providers delivered less than their initial allocation by a total of £241.5m come the end of last academic year. And, while the funding allocation for all providers’ under-19 apprenticeships delivery had been revised down to £663.8m by July last year, the Skills Funding Agency still paid out £46.1m less than this.

It comes after FE Week reported in June last year how Simon Judge, the Department for Education’s finance and commercial director, wrote to the Education Select Committee to explain why the budget for under-19 apprenticeships in the current financial year had fallen nearly 20 per cent to £684.3m.

He said the removal of poor quality provision explained some of the under-spend, but increased competition from applicants aged 19-plus, funded by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, was also a factor.

And figures published before Christmas, in the statistical first release, showed the number of under-19 apprenticeship starts fell from 129,900 in 2011/12, to 114,500 in 2012/13. However, across the sector, 245 providers over-delivered on their August allocation by a total of £32.3m.

Nevertheless, the largest under-delivery was by Pearson in Practice Technology Limited, which was allocated £46.5m in August 2012 but was given £1.4m. A spokesperson said Pearson in Practice “closed down” a year ago, but declined to comment further.

The second largest under-delivery was by JTL, another ILP, which was allocated £17.4m for under-19 apprenticeships, but given £11.1m.

A spokesperson for JTL said: “Increased employer contributions [towards the cost of apprenticeships] in a sector that is only just starting to recover from economy-wide setbacks has meant that many employers have been reluctant to take on a four year commitment.”

Newcastle College Group was originally allocated £7.3m, but received £4m — the biggest drop among colleges.

Chris Payne, group director of planning and performance, said: “Employers were not keen to take on younger apprentices due to the economic climate.

“In spite of these difficulties we revised our plans at the end of the first quarter, when we had a better indication of market conditions, and delivered at a similar level to the previous year.”

A government spokesperson said: “We are radically reforming apprenticeships so that they are more rigorous and responsive to the needs of employers. The small decline in 16 to 18 apprenticeship starts is due to quality improvement measures.”

A number of providers were omitted from FE Week research where they appeared solely in government figures for either August allocations or final funding levels.

Skills Minister Matthew Hancock has been warned against promoting apprenticeships for over 50s along the same lines as those for under 25s after he said the programme for older people could help the country out of recession.

Tony Dolphin, senior economist for the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), said apprenticeships for older people were different to those for younger people and, as such, the programme should even be named differently.

He spoke out after Mr Hancock called for more people, aged over 50 and looking to change careers, to apply for “skilled apprenticeships”. Latest government figures showed 34,050 people aged over 50 started an apprenticeship in 2012/13, which was a slight fall from 34,770 in 2011/12.

Mr Dolphin told FE Week: “As the state pension age increases and people are expected to work longer, more men and women in this [over 50] age group will choose to — or find that they have to — follow a new career and they will need training to help them do so.

“But this training should be geared specifically towards people who have lots of experience in the workforce and need to adapt their existing skills.

“It will, therefore, be very different from the sort of training offered to young people making the transition from education into work.

“It should not be branded as ‘apprenticeships’ — these should be reserved for the under 25s.

“Instead, the government should, in conjunction with businesses, workforce representatives and FE providers, develop a new system of adult education and training appropriate for a labour market in which people are expected to work longer and are more likely to change jobs.”

The most recent statistical first release showed that more than a third — 11,320 — of over 50 apprenticeship starts in 2012/13 were in health, care and public services, with 11,790 in business, administration and law and 5,690 in retail and commercial enterprise.

Another 3,200 started apprenticeships in engineering and manufacturing and 810 in education and training.

It is estimated that by 2020 around a third of the workforce will be aged over 50.

But more than 425,000 over 50s are currently unemployed and half have been out of work for at least a year.

Mr Hancock said improving job prospects for the age group, through improved take-up rates for apprenticeships, could be an important driving force for the country’s economic recovery.

“As we recover from the great recession we need to build a recovery for all,” he said.

“Apprenticeships increasingly help people of all ages get the skills they need to get the new jobs becoming available.

“Our priority is to build on the best of the apprenticeships programme, expanding apprenticeships where they deliver the greatest benefits for employers, apprentices and the wider economy.

“Demand from employers for adult apprenticeships is growing, because they help people of all ages — including the over 50s — to get and hold down skilled jobs.

“There are many benefits for employers of apprentices.  Apprenticeships are a cost-effective way for businesses to harness fresh talent, tackle skills shortages and become equipped for economic growth.

“Research shows that apprenticeships help companies build a loyal and motivated workforce, and that investment is usually recouped within three years.”

Mr Hancock’s comments followed last month’s exclusive FE Week interview with Business Secretary Vince Cable, who revealed the government was “dropping” the troubled 24+ advanced learning loans system for apprenticeships.

With just 404 applications in around seven months, he “accepted” the system had failed, but said non-apprentice FE loans would remain.

A spokesperson for the Association of Employment and Learning Providers said: “This has removed a barrier to older people from applying for apprenticeships.

“It can be a route into management for people who may not have done a degree who have a wealth of experience and skill. It gives them a qualification that’s valued by employers.”

Newham College principal Denise Brown-Sackey has quit after a series of damaging allegations relating to the London college.

She had taken a leave of absence two months ago after it was claimed the college failed to take action over a recording of head of drama Dr Mark Walcott seeming to make homophobic comments about gay teachers.

Meanwhile, the college is currently carrying out an investigation into grade massaging allegations, and the Skills Funding Agency said it “reserved the right” to probe further if it was not satisfied with the investigation.

However, according the college, Mrs Brown-Sackey has now stepped down permanently following “anonymous accusations”.

A college spokesperson said: “In order to allow the corporation board to focus on repairing the reputation of the college, Denise Brown-Sackey has decided to stand down from her post and this has been agreed by the board.”

Dr Walcott’s comments provoked outrage when the recording of the 50 minute-long rant from 2012 was leaked on YouTube in November.

The college then came under scrutiny over allegations that passes had been awarded to students who did not attend any lectures, or had attendance rates of 40 per cent or less — which former lecturers allegedly said should be “impossible”.

A college spokesperson said: “Following a number of anonymous allegations put into the public domain, the corporation board commissioned an independent investigation.

“The corporation board is very focussed on the interests of its learners and stakeholders.”

Mrs Brown-Sackey has served at the college for almost 25 years, starting as a lecturer in 1988 and working her way up to principal, with a brief stint as deputy principal at Havering College between 1999 and 2002.

The college has said an “independent” investigation into Dr Walcott’s comments was also underway.