Only one company can claim to have the official apprentice team of the year, but the benefits of the Brathay Apprentice Challenge go far beyond awarding a title, writes David Way

In just two years, the Brathay Apprentice Challenge has become one of the highlights of the apprenticeships, calendar. This year, plastics manufacturing firm Innovia Films beat joint second place teams, facilities management company Norse Group and 2012 winners Cobham, to the title.

But while the focus this week is on the winners, it would be wrong to think that the benefits of running the Brathay Apprentice Challenge stop there.

Supported by the National Apprenticeship Service (NAS), the challenge tests non-technical work skills and the personal attributes of competing apprentices.

The 90 teams that entered back in January have made well over 300 school visits. Some, such as Unilever, went into schools in South East England to encourage young people to consider higher apprenticeships instead of a university course.

East Midlands Housing Group apprentices passionately described how, as they were delivering their talks, teachers and parents
(as well as young people) were visibly converting to the idea of apprenticeships.

Plymouth Council, winners of the ‘awareness raising’ final, held jobs’ fairs, open days, business breakfasts and VQ Day events to spread the word about how apprenticeships help young people to earn while they learn in a real job, gaining a real qualification and a real future.

The communication, teamwork, planning and logistical skills they had to develop will stay with competitors throughout their careers”

The teams also generated hundreds of pieces of media coverage. Burnley Borough Council’s team even persuaded journalist and commentator Alastair Campbell to turn his blog over to apprenticeships, while Innovia took over BBC Radio Cumbria for the day with one apprentice presenting its Breakfast Show.

The £35,000 that the teams raised for charity is an amazing sum. Team BCTS raised money for guide dogs; Cobham for Help for Heroes; while other teams worked with a range of local hospices and food banks.

This community activity has impressed us so much at NAS that we asked the apprentices at the finals to come up with recommendations to look at how we can ensure more young people and apprentices get more involved in their local areas — we’re looking forward to their report due in the autumn.

Finally, what do the teams get out of the challenge?

Members of each team had to demonstrate the same work skills that they needed to be successful in their careers; the same skills that are valued by employers as the key to their success.

While we provided the toolkits, the structure and the setting for the challenge, the communication, teamwork, planning and logistical skills they had to develop will stay with competitors throughout their careers.

Time and time again during the six months of the challenge, we heard from teams how they had developed as individuals and as a group

While the Brathay Challenge may ultimately recognise one team, employers, communities and individuals have all benefited.

It is not the only challenge we have to look forward to. At the beginning of July, our best young apprentices and employees will compete as Team UK at WorldSkills against the ‘best of the best’ from all over the world.  This is our opportunity to show how talented our young people are — and that can only be good for the future and the quality of apprenticeships.

For a report on this year’s contest, page 10

David Way, executive director, National Apprenticeship Service  

Succession planning is a key leadership challenge. So perhaps it’s time that the sector looked beyond senior management and encouraged middle management and lecturers, says Nikki Gilbey

I am 27 and I want to be the principal of an FE college. I know that this is a long-term goal, as I am at the start of my teaching career. I also know that it is something that I will only achieve by setting a series of short-term targets.

When I attended the recent Gazelle Future Possible event (I’m an academic staff governor), I found myself surrounded by the principals of some of the best FE colleges in the country. They inspired me, all of them individuals whose lives were dedicated to improving the lives of others.

I am at the frontline of supporting students with a range of ages and abilities to achieve their goals and to widen opportunities. But lecturers can only be as good as the colleges that they work in; they need the support of management and the financial and physical structures to enable them to do their jobs as well as they want to.

I may have an impact on the lives of 50 students a year, but principals and their colleges impact on thousands of individuals every year. I am a great believer in doing a job that makes a difference. Becoming an FE principal is the ideal way for me to have the biggest impact on the greatest number of people that I possibly can, in a sector that I am passionate about.

In a recent edition of FE Week, Mike Hopkins talked about how tough the job is, but surely that is a given? Any position at the head of a large organisation isn’t going to be easy. Yes, there are challenges of accountability and measurement of performance, but these processes and procedures are there to ensure that provision is of a high quality.

The brightest and most ambitious staff should be supported by a sector-wide structure to enable them to focus their careers on future leadership”

I am surprised that fewer people are applying for principal posts. I can only imagine that in a society where leaders must be held fully accountable and where downfalls are accelerated by the media, potential principals are wary of losing what they have worked so hard to achieve if they are judged not to be meeting expectations.

The Principals’ Professional Council report, Further Education Colleges: Rising to the leadership challenge, suggested that there are “concerns regarding a lack of new talent coming through . . .  something should be done to encourage more vice-principals and deputies to aspire to become principals.”

That is not enough. We need to look beyond senior management and encourage middle management and lecturers.

The brightest and most ambitious staff should be supported by a sector-wide structure to enable them to focus their careers on future leadership

Rather than staff relying on their own colleges to ensure that their continuing professional development (CPD) is relevant to their future aims, wouldn’t it make sense for wider programmes of development, akin to those in finance and business or the public sector, as in the Prison Service?

In terms of my own development, I have a supportive line manager who is aware of my ambitions and who is helping me to find ways of accessing CPD relevant to my future goal. I have also used Twitter (#futureprincipal) and a blog to open up the conversation with others, and through that have had offers of guidance and mentorship from chief executives, principals and deputies.

My #futureprincipal journey has just begun. I have yet to gain any prolonged management experience, but every expert was once a beginner. Maybe that is a concept we should consider in the discussion of developing future leaders.

Nikki Gilbey teaches at
Highbury College, Portsmouth. 

Now that Learning and Skills Improvement Service funding has ended, the Education Training Foundation must continue to support the Black Leadership Initiative, says chief executive Rajinder Mann.

Since 2002 the Network for Black Professionals’ (NBP) Black Leadership Initiative (BLI) has worked in FE to address the under-representation of black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) staff, especially in leadership roles.

The work is a direct result of the Commission for Black Staff in Further Education, which identified the main barriers that BAME staff face in their FE careers. As the sector welcomes the Education Training Foundation, the NBP, and many of those who support its work, wonders how the BLI’s work of the past 11 years will be supported now that LSIS funding has ended.

With the change in demographics confirmed by last year’s census, it is critical the sector continues funding the progression of BAME staff through targeted succession planning, ensuring that learners have the role models that they need. Our work has had a major impact in diversifying the FE workforce, as evidenced by the increase in the number of senior managers and leaders in colleges — up to 15 black principals compared with four in 2002.

All these principals have benefited from the NBP’s activities; 13 have participated in the BLI programmes and, in turn, have supported aspirant BAME staff in the sector. The social return on investment from BLI sets a standard that no other part of the public sector can match. Currently, for example, the police service is lobbying for a change in the law to tackle its failure to recruit, retain and promote a representative workforce.

How will the Black Leadership Initiative’s work of the past 11 years be supported now that LSIS funding has ended? ”

The BLI won the British Diversity Award in Education and, more recently, a Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Award for its mentoring scheme. It has been cited in a wide range of reports, as a model of good practice, and its success enabled us to develop the Ofsted shadowing programme in the schools sector in partnership with the National College for Teaching and Learning. We have adapted the approach with the Women’s Leadership Network and with the University of the Arts, London. This is a tried and tested approach with real impact.

A third of college principals actively support the BLI, as do many chairs of governors who give their time freely as mentors and champions for equality. Its track record and reputation has the confidence and trust of BAME staff and the college sector, and represents a compelling case for a national strategy to build on its success.

The risks of allowing this work to wither away for want of funding are clear — a loss of momentum and a failure to provide the representative workforce that our learners need and deserve.

The NBP’s approach has been to work with the sector in leading and promoting inclusivity and supporting the sector to define, deliver and assess its own standards for race equality. The case for diversity not only in the workplace but also at board levels was eloquently addressed at the recent Women’s Leadership Network conference.

There is an unanswerable case, to paraphrase the front cover of the commission’s report, for the sector to continue leading the way by building on the good practice of the BLI and for the new Education and Training Foundation to make good on its aim of ‘promoting and championing equality and diversity across the sector’ by funding its work.

Rajinder Mann OBE, chief executive, Network for Black Professionals

A changing labour market makes the National Careers Service vital for both young people and adults in middle life, says David Hughes

An Aspirational Nation, the first report from the National Careers Council, comes at an opportune time.

On the one hand, the Commons Education Select Committee has captured a cross-party consensus that careers education and support for children and young people has failed to improve since the demise of the patchy Connexions services.

At the same time, unemployment, under-employment and a changing labour market mean that the need has never been greater for adults to have access to impartial information and advice about learning and careers.

The report is best discussed in two distinct but linked parts: the analysis and recommendations about what needs to be done for young people up to the age of 16, and the need to ensure that the National Careers Service (NCS) is doing all that it can to meet the needs of adults.

Leaders from colleges and training providers, in particular, will know that devolving responsibility for independent guidance to schools has already generated a lot of debate, something that this report picks up on.

By their late teens, young people need to have a good understanding of the world of work”

For instance, I have lost count of the number of times I have heard the case for better engagement with employers, for ensuring that advice is truly impartial and for careers advisers to better understand the new world of work. The report clearly sets these out.

Achieving progress is not as easy, however, and it is clear that the report’s writers felt frustrated that the NCS does not have a funded role in helping to implement change.

Careers education in schools and colleges must help to prepare people for adult life. By their late teens, young people need to have a good understanding of the world of work, their prospects, the role of learning throughout life and the resilience, adaptability and self-confidence that come with being a lifelong learner.

I hope that the ministers responsible will engage in the debate about how best to improve the service for young people; the NCC report, the forthcoming Ofsted report, and others, provide good evidence on which to base policy changes.

The NCC report has a number of ideas about how best to improve careers support.

I was particularly pleased to see reference to our pilot project, the mid-life career review, in which we are providing face-to-face and group support to 2,500 people in their 40s and 50s to help them to think about learning, jobs, and how they might prepare for retirement. A reference to the power of family learning to support adults into learning was also sensible and helpful.

One critical issue is the need to allow the NCS to spend money on marketing; the lack of spend has resulted in an NCS that is over-reliant on referrals from a small range of agencies, which means that many adults are missing out.

I cannot over-state the need for more adults to access the NCS. Our 2013 participation survey confirmed, once again, the key divide between those who left school as soon as they could and those who stayed on.

Around one-half (49 per cent) of those who left full-time education aged 21-plus are learning, compared with just one-quarter (25 per cent) of those who left school at or before the age of 16.

The survey also confirmed how being involved in learning is a key indicator of future intentions to learn. In the 2013 survey, 81 per cent of current learners said that they were likely to take up learning in the next three years, compared with 14 per cent of those who had done no learning since leaving full-time education.

I hope that An Aspirational Nation has helped to persuade the government to continue investment in the NCS as it prepares to announce its spending review plans.

David Hughes, chief executive, National Institute of Adult Continuing Education

The T word may strike fear into some work-based learning providers, but help is at hand to make sense of technology and to find out how it has benefited others, Stan Unwin

Provision of work-based learning (WBL) has some way to go in making the most of what advantages the (appropriate) use of technology can bring.

Some applications, like e-portfolios and virtual learning environments, are well known, but often misunderstood by providers and there is a range of supposed barriers that can affect an organisation’s willingness to explore.

For example, technology can be expensive, but it needn’t be. Money can easily be wasted on the purchase of inappropriate technology.

Technology can also be complicated, requiring technical knowledge, but again, it needn’t be. Lack of preparing staff adequately for what is proposed can be a bigger problem. A little bit of training at the right time works.

And technology may not be suitable for a particular sector, but there is usually an alternative that could work. It’s about knowing what the alternatives are.

What is needed more than anything else is a structured approach and a good measure of ‘joined-up thinking’.

Technology on its own will achieve nothing. It’s how and why the technology is to be introduced that will make the difference — and if the wrong technology is used in an inappropriate way the result may make things even worse.

One big factor that affects the wider take-up of effective technologies in the WBL sector is that this level of development often relies on there being the funding to support it.

Technology on its own will achieve nothing. It’s how and why the technology is to be introduced that will make the difference ”

Which leads nicely on to the opportunities presented by the Joint Information Systems Committee (Jisc) FE and Skills Development and Resources Programme.

Introduced last year, the programme offered sector providers and agencies the chance to apply existing resources (from Jisc or elsewhere) to their work and adapt them for their needs; and to identify gaps in these resources or current uses for technology leading to the development of additional resources for the sector.

The programme has supported a number of successful projects nationally, some within WBL and two of which feature in our workshop. The success of these projects owes a lot to the early involvement and support of staff from the Jisc Regional Support Centres (RSCs), who were able to advise and guide both on the project aims and the technology to be used.

Both featured projects will provide other organisations in the sector with valuable feedback on what they have achieved and how they did it, the benefits that have been realised and the lessons that have been learned. Both will also demonstrate that a lot can be done within a modest budget.

An important feature of Jisc-funded projects is that resources developed and outcomes are shared within the FE and skills sector, providing useful information to others who may be planning a similar exercise.

Finding out what others have tried, their successes and failures, their costs and return on investment is invaluable to any provider thinking of taking the plunge.

Promotion within the WBL sector of this willingness to share and to work collaboratively is high on the Jisc RSC agenda. Much of the work already carried out within wider FE and skills to develop the use of technology is already benefiting WBL where much can be done to adapt and adopt ideas for application in a vocational/workplace setting

Jisc RSCs exist to support providers in their consideration, planning and implementation of technological development; to provide information and guidance that will assist in identifying what, how and when to use technology.

To be most effective this advice needs to be sought at the outset and that requires organisations to apply their thinking to the’ ‘what’ rather than the ‘how’. If you have an idea of your targets and what you would like to achieve that is the time to involve your Jisc RSC. We can then work with you to develop the most appropriate plan of action and the best use of technology.

Stan Unwin, WBL adviser, Jisc Regional Support Centre East Midlands