Nobody more than college principals knows the wide-ranging effects of an Ofsted rating. Lynne Sedgmore makes the case for a review of what it means to be considered a successful college.

LeSoCo is the fourth college to voluntarily resign from the 157 Group having been rated by Ofsted as inadequate and it is with sadness and regret that I accept on behalf of members.

Upon membership, an honourable agreement is reached that if a college is rated inadequate by Ofsted then it will voluntarily leave the 157 Group.

Previously, City of Bristol College, City of Liverpool College and Lambeth College have left the 157 Group in this way, for this reason.

Such a complex and difficult decision is not something carried out lightly by either party. Members have put a great deal of thought into membership and at what point, if any, members might leave.

We accept the resignation of a college with a grade 4 profile with dignity, respect and regret alongside a genuine offer of ongoing support.

We recognise too that following a grade 4 profile it is reasonable and useful for a member college principal to step back from the 157 Group in order to focus on internal college improvement.

The notion of success is currently complex, disputed and highly contentious. This is an issue for the whole sector, within which 157 membership is a part and which currently acts as a catalyst for debate.

The notion of success is currently complex, disputed and highly contentious

What I am most interested in is initiating an open and transparent debate on the complex issues of how large urban colleges are judged to be successful, or not, both within and beyond the confines of Ofsted criteria.

The 157 Group, with the full engagement of all our principals has challenged consistently the limitations of Ofsted grading, offering our own solutions to a broader redefinition of success.

The perception that Ofsted grades reflect the whole college is prevalent but mistaken. We know that large urban colleges who may suffer a grade 4 profile continue to offer immense and valuable services to their learners, employers and communities while significant improvements are being made, particularly in teaching and learning.

The 157 Group was established in 2006 following the publication of Sir Andrew Foster’s report Realising the potential, a review of the future role of further education colleges. Paragraph 157 of that report talked about,

“a greater involvement of principals in national representation, in particular those from larger, successful colleges where management capacity and capability exists to release them for this work — there is a strong need for articulate FE college principals to be explaining the services they give to society and how colleges can make a significant contribution to the economy and to developing fulfilled citizens.”

This focus on thought leadership, policy influence and practice improvement remains at the heart of why 157 Group continues to flourish.

The rationale of the 157 Group was, and always has been, to seek to represent, through our members, the whole of the college sector on a national stage — to showcase the best of what we do and to use this to influence the thinking of those who do not understand how important colleges are.

We are also involving ever more colleges — and other providers from across the sector — in our work. Our Great Teaching and Learning event was attended by more than 70 people, almost half of whom were not from 157 Group colleges.

The vast majority of our work is done in partnership.

Our aim is always to influence to positive effect, either privately or publicly, those who have a hand in the future of FE.

We use the experience of our members — past and present — to inform intelligent, challenging and innovative discussions. When necessary we campaign vocally and powerfully to bring benefit to the whole sector. We will continue to do so with passion and the utmost commitment on behalf of all learners.

Lynne Sedgmore,
executive director, 157 Group

Abandoning the term dyslexia could have far-reaching consequences. Catherine Davidson looks at the situation for college learners.

It is not just important that dyslexia is recognised in FE, it is essential.

When students attend FE, they often choose vocational subjects where they have a passion, ability and determination that they have never before experienced.

When students show this kind of talent in hands-on subjects, but struggle with the theory side, tutors notice that something is acting as a barrier to their learning and this is often when they receive a dyslexia assessment for the first time.

Even in academic subjects, such as A-levels, students often find a voice and find it easier to express their concerns as young adults who are taking ownership of their learning.

Middlesbrough College has assessed an average of 12 students per week so far this year and the majority of these are being informed that they might be dyslexic for the first time.

At Middlesbrough College students are offered a variety of support options.

A new additional learning support model means that students are offered support in a small group, delivered by specialist dyslexia tutors; support in class is delivered by a specialist dyslexia learning support assistant or a drop-in service, which is open to everyone and staffed by specialists.

The group support is as much about developing students’ strengths as overcoming their weaknesses.

Often students have been through other educational systems feeling left behind and de-motivated, despite their obvious potential

The emotional impact of dyslexia is also addressed, as often students have been through other educational systems feeling left behind and de-motivated, despite their obvious potential.

Part of the support process is to recognise the positives of dyslexia, concentrating on strengths and abilities alongside the difficulties with reading, spelling and memory that so often stop people from achieving.

Initially, the college’s new model offered support to students on a six-week basis, but the majority of students who have accessed the support have chosen to stay for the full year.

Students are also offered assistive technologies which may enable them to work to their full potential.

The college offers several drop-in sessions during the week and an open door policy in the Support Hub if students find themselves struggling with any aspect of their course and they would like help or just someone to talk to.

Students do not need a label to attend the drop-in and staff are welcomed here too if they have any questions or concerns they believe a specialist may be able to answer.

In my experience, the majority of students welcome a label and request an assessment; this often gives students the confidence to approach staff about their difficulties, to disclose where maybe they would not have done.

For mature students, it is even more vital.

Invariably the label of dyslexia offers an explanation for a lifetime of difficulties.

The label of dyslexia is what determines the funding for this support.

Without the label students would be unable to access these support services which so clearly work.

Last year, 90 per cent of all Middlesbrough College students who accessed dyslexia support achieved on their course, and in a growing Additional Learning Support Team which supports all students in the college, dyslexia is still the most accessed support service.

Whatever support students are offered it should be individual to the student themselves; characteristics of dyslexia are individual so support should reflect this.

The Additional Learning Support Department states in last year’s Self-Assessment Report: “We recognise that everyone’s needs are unique, we work with students to identify any barriers that exist and make every effort to overcome them.

“The college wants all students to have the same opportunities to achieve their full potential.”

The current trend for arguing against the term dyslexia does nothing for the hundreds of students of different age groups, educational and social economic backgrounds that access FE.

Whereas providing students with support offers them an opportunity to excel in their chosen vocation, to succeed academically or simply to have more confidence in themselves and their ability and surely this is worth recognising.

Catherine Davidson, dyslexia support coordinator, Middlesbrough College

Chartered Status has been on the cards for FE for more than a year with Skills Minister Matthew Hancock having appointed Lord Lingfield to head a panel that would dish out the award. The Tory peer provides his first update on Chartered Status progress.

In March 2013 I was asked by Skills Minister Matthew Hancock to take on the task of creating a new royal-chartered institution for FE.

I accepted with pleasure, as the establishment of such a body had been advocated by myself and my colleagues [David Sherlock CBE, Dawn Ward OBE and Daniel Wright] who wrote the 2012 report professionalism in further education for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS).

During the past two years I have had the privilege of visiting many excellent FE providers. One of the ways in which the government hopes to improve quality across the whole of the sector is gradually to identify the very best among them, to give the professionals who run them, and those who govern them, as much autonomy and freedom from government control as possible in order to allow them to flourish and spread best practice throughout the country.

There are around 1,100 providers within FE serving more than four million learners.

One of their strengths is that they are a ‘mixed economy’, dealing with FE, full cost work for UK and foreign customers, and, in the case of most colleges, higher education as well.

As Ofsted inspects only part of their work and the Quality Assurance Agency only their degree courses, there is, at the moment, no single quality assurance organisation for them, and we hope that the royal-chartered institution for FE will endeavour to be that.

David Sherlock and I began our work last year with the creation of a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee.

It is this body which has petitioned The Queen via the Privy Council for a royal charter.

The acquisition of a charter is not a swift process and many criteria have to be fulfilled before the Great Seal is added to it, bringing it officially into being.

We expect negotiations to be completed within months.

The acquisition of a charter is not a swift process and many criteria have to be fulfilled before the Great Seal is added to it, bringing it officially into being

In the meantime we have had many useful discussions with BIS officials, we have prepared business plans and received seed corn funding and recently acquired the lease of premises in Victoria Street, in Westminster.

Earlier this year we appointed Ed Quilty, a senior civil servant on secondment, as our chief executive and since then his task has been to create and furnish our new office and to move the project forward.

I know that he has already met many senior people within the sector and looks forward to further discussions.

In January, I wrote to around 80 large and small providers, both public and private, setting out our vision and consulting them on possible subscription fees.

I was very heartened by the positive response. There were clearly many leaders within the sector who saw a need for such a new body and who felt that it could perform the same worthwhile task as other royal-chartered institutions.

We have decided to enlist the help of a small group chosen from among the respondents to help to develop and refine the criteria for admission to membership.

It is our intention that these providers should be ‘guinea pig’ applicants themselves and form the body of founder members of the institution.

Like other chartered institutions it must, as it develops, be governed by people drawn from among the professionals in the sector themselves.

The criteria for admission will encompass very high standards. Success for the new institution will come when all this country’s providers are able to meet them and be welcomed into membership.

I very much hope that the institution’s armorial device, which members will be entitled to display, and which is already informally approved by Garter King of Arms, will be recognised as a mark of the highest quality for students and employees alike.

The new institution will offer its members collectively a status akin to that which universities have, and give them the prestige and recognition which has long been the hallmark of royal chartered bodies in this country.

Lord Lingfield, chair,
Institution for Further Education

The FE sector has been hit hard by tightening Treasury purse strings, prompting 157 Group policy, PR and research director Andy Gannon last week to call for a new defence against further cuts based on a moral dialogue. His argument has won the backing of Martin Yarnit.

Andy Gannon from the 157 Group wondered last week whether FE people should talk more about why they do what they do and take a moral stance on the purpose of education itself.

I wholeheartedly agree — that’s the starting point for the current review of the future of education led by Compass, the progressive campaigning group, and the National Union of Teachers.

The FE sector is a complex mystery to most people, including its students and policy-makers (who have rarely experienced it first hand), unlike schools and universities whose role is clearer.

Yet, as the political climate becomes more welcoming to discussion about social mobility and social cohesion, FE has a great story to tell about young people and adults.

It is also the embryo for a coherent system of lifelong learning for anyone aged 14-plus — surely the educational goal of a modern, civilized society?

But that story must begin with the values FE espouses and the kind of society it wants to help create, we would argue.

Increasingly, we find ourselves no longer alone in arguing for the social as well as the economic value of learning and in making the case for FE’s distinctive contribution

That — rather than endless tinkering with funding formulae and qualifications — has to be the basis for a reforming vision for FE.

Central to this is a new division of labour between government — responsible for setting a strategic framework and national priorities — and local partners, most notably FE institutions and private training providers, determining the best way of meeting local needs, with the active involvement of students, staff and employers.

Alongside this are recommendations about local democratic accountability, funding, curriculum and qualifications and professional development.

Of course, there is only so much that can be done to compensate for the deficiencies of the labour market and industrial policy, but this would be a useful starting point for improvement.

Our aim has been to set out new directions which make sense for students and employers as well as the practitioners and even the policymakers.

We need a compelling case for investing in education when the prevailing winds have a dangerous cutting edge.

Increasingly, we find ourselves no longer alone in arguing for the social as well as the economic value of learning and in making the case for FE’s distinctive contribution.

The Coalition is still relentlessly utilitarian in its approach and Labour seems fearful of anything smacking of a moral stance but it is being left behind. But the Confederation of British Industry, for example, sets a different tone.

According to its 2013 report Tomorrow’s growth: New routes to higher skills, “While our changing economy makes higher skills levels an economic imperative, raising skill levels is also central to tackling inequality and promoting social mobility…investing in skills is far less costly in the longer run than meeting the bill for the poorer health, lower incomes, unemployment and social exclusion associated with lower skills.”

Two years ago, when we began our review, we were very much a lone voice, but now there is a growing chorus of voices calling for serious investment in FE and the development of academic and vocational routes of equal standing.

Martin Yarnit,
Compass lead on local education governance

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Mr Yarnit describes Compass as a “democratic left group that campaigns for a good society based on social justice, sustainability and equality”.

Karleen Dowden outlines her attempt to persuade school leaders, at the Association of School and College Leaders’ two-day annual conference in Birmingham this month, why higher apprenticeships should figure highly in their careers guidance.

With more than 1 million young people not in education, employment or training (Neet) and 51 per cent of businesses claiming they are not confident they will find sufficient recruits, we have significant skills mismatch between the skills of young people and those required by the UK economy.

Between 2001 and 2011 the proportion of young adults Neet, educated at degree standard increased by 53 per cent (from 29 per cent to 39 per cent), with 47 per cent of recent graduates working in jobs that do not require a degree.

The UK Commission for Employment and Skills’ Employer Skills Survey reported that 46 per cent of ‘hard-to-fill’ vacancies were caused by the low number of applicants with the right skills.

It could be argued that many of the degrees young people choose to study do not provide them with the right qualifications or skills required by UK employers, yet despite this the proportion of 18-year-olds applying to university has reached its highest ever level.

At the Association of School and College Leaders’ (ASCL) annual conference I discussed the benefits of higher apprenticeships to a number of school leaders.

Although they were a little bit of a mystery to many of them, by the end of the session most were sold on the idea that they could be a viable alternative to higher education.

Although still in their infancy, only being introduced in engineering and IT in 2009, the government’s 2011 ‘plan for growth’ and £25m higher apprenticeship fund has contributed to more than 40 higher apprenticeship frameworks being made available.

New frameworks are continuing to emerge, with just this month the introduction of higher apprenticeships in space engineering and nursing.

Despite this there remains a significant shortage of higher apprenticeships — making the competition to secure one, fierce.

Aside from short supply there are a number of other challenges preventing higher apprenticeships becoming the norm, equal to higher education.

These include poor perception and reputation, lack of information, advice and guidance surrounding higher apprenticeships and parental pressure.

The latter has been identified by many school leaders as a significant challenge, in particular in relation to students whose parents and grandparents attended higher education.

Steve McArdle, assistant headteacher at Durham Johnston School, explained that they have had to “rebadge higher apprenticeships” in order for young people to distinguish the difference between them and intermediate and advanced apprenticeships, in order to generate initial interest and to encourage young people to consider them as a credible post-18 option.

Many firms such as PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) have already begun opening up alternative routes for non-graduates through higher apprenticeships.

Speaking at the ASCL Annual Conference, PwC partner Sara Caplan talked about their higher apprenticeships in assurance, tax and consultancy and how, after completing a higher apprenticeship, PwC apprentices join the graduate programme, often a year earlier than if they had come through the traditional higher education route.

The future popularity and take-up of higher apprenticeships will largely depend on the information, advice and guidance that young people receive through schools and other influences such as parents and peers, all of which play a role in promoting them as a genuine alternative to higher education.

In many schools, the UCas process begins early in year 12 with a large amount of support and guidance given to students applying to higher education.

In an ideal world, similar practice would take place in relation to higher apprenticeships whereby the cycle for employers recruiting higher apprentices would mirror the timescales for applying to higher education, with young people applying through both systems and then making a final choice on their preferred progression route by the May of year 13.

Karleen Dowden, apprenticeships, employability and information, advice and guidance specialist,
Association of School and College Leaders

The government cull of publicly-funded adult qualifications comes under the critical gaze of Martin Tolhurst
Readers will doubtless agree on two valuable features of FE: its roots being in local communities and its ability to tailor provision to local needs and demands.

Protecting this role and value has never been more important than it is in times of public spending austerity.

In areas like Newham, East London, meeting the needs of employers and individuals, and doing so in a customer-focused way, is vital. Experience has shown that what works in the most demanding and challenging situations, works as the template everywhere, as long as it retains that key element of flexibility.

Also, there is often little point in national prescriptions because these decisions are made too far from the experience and needs of real communities and employers (the majority of whom are small and medium-sized enterprises whose voices are under-valued in national policy making).

Instead, we must constantly develop the training which local businesses need, and which local people demand.

Short and flexible qualifications for adults play an absolutely central part in supporting a more dynamic and demand-led response to the labour market.

They offer numerous advantages. Firstly, they can be tailored to meet precise needs in the local or regional economy in a way which longer, linear qualifications cannot.

We’ll end up with fewer skilled and qualified people, and more people left behind

A credit-based system of qualifications, in particular, enables providers to work closely with employers and individuals to design a bespoke package of education directly relevant to their needs and interests.

Secondly, short or flexible adult qualifications are vital for widening participation (and this applies equally to both people and employers, who are hard to reach).

Although many of our learners could, and do, achieve success on full programmes from entry level to postgraduate, many cannot do so without the facility to build their achievement and success through smaller bites, and often also through a discontinuous, rather than a linear, pattern of learning.

Flexibility, rather than outdated and outmoded large/linear qualifications, is the way forward, as is changing how people learn and the contexts in which they do it.

Our experience at Newham, doubtless replicated across the country, has demonstrated over more than two decades that flexibility and customisation fuel and support learner progression, and engage employers and sectors of employment in qualifications and skills and development.

More urgently, we have a range of important vocational and professional development programmes at levels two to four, which are ‘culled’ next year by the 15-credit cut-off.

Mostly, they’re designed to encourage adults back into skills training and to achieve fuller qualifications and progression to level three.

Their removal will mean that we will take fewer risks with uncertain and as yet uncommitted learners, which means we’ll end up with fewer skilled and qualified people, and more people left behind.

Learners and employers may have had negative previous experiences of education, may find the school year irrelevant to their circumstances, or may be bemused by the demand that learning has to be linear in a world that now favours ‘on-demand’ and ‘just enough and just in time’ as key features of high quality services.

The government is wrong to cull qualifications simply because of their size. Indeed, it is pushing our skills system in the wrong direction.

In proposing such a cull, ministers and their advisers fundamentally misunderstand our sector and its wider role in society.

Skills Funding Agency interim chief executive Barbara Spicer may claim, writing to this paper, that the proposals will ensure “rigour within the offering”.

In fact, the problem is that ‘rigour’ has been misidentified and interpreted on the basis of old models (long, inflexible and linear qualifications), which, despite the rhetoric of ‘gold standards’ are rapidly losing their relevance to the modern world.

Martin Tolhurst CBE, interim principal Newham College (formerly principal of the college from 1991 to 2010)