Students show what they’re made of

London fashion students displayed their talents on a market stall at a new designer street market in Soho.

The Barking & Dagenham College fashion students sold a range of textile accessories they had made over the past few months at the market that aimed to bring together all of London’s creative talents in one place.

Anisah Yasrin, 16, from Manor Park, said: “Being at the market was a great experience. I enjoyed communicating with customers, seeing what they were looking at and what
they wanted to buy.”

Items for sale included necklaces, soft
toys, bags, cushion covers, key rings and summer scarves. The group took more than
£200 on the day.

College art and design curriculum manager Gail Glazier said: “It gave them the opportunity to not only showcase their fashion and textile skills but also helped them to gain more entrepreneurial skills.”

Featured image caption: From left: Barking & Dagenham College student Latifat Akande 57, fashion course leader, Jo Price, and fellow student Anisah Yasrin, 16

A battle against each other and the elements

Eight teams compete in the Lake District for top honours in a national contest for apprentices

Scores of youngsters descended on the Lake District last week to take part in the gruelling finals of a national competition aimed at boosting the profile of apprenticeships.

Eight teams from as far afield as Plymouth, Norwich and Burnley rowed, paddled and orienteered against each other — and the elements — in the grounds of Brathay Hall in Ambleside.

The two-day Brathay Challenge was the culmination of six months’ hard work in which the teams raised funds and visited schools to promote vocational learning. More than 90 teams entered the competition, now in its second year, which is organised by the Brathay Trust charity and supported by the National Apprenticeship Service (NAS).

A team of engineers from Innovia Films, Cumbria, were this year’s victors, fighting off stiff competition from last year’s winners, Cobham  who were pushed into joint second place with Norse Group.

“I cannot put into words how happy I’m feeling right now,” said Aidan Harrison, 20, a member of the winning team.

“We didn’t think we’d do this well — it’s incredible.”

The electrical engineering apprentice from Wigton said that his team took the charity element “very seriously”, winning the round with a race night and auction that netted £6,275.

Everyone was apprehensive. But we stepped it up a gear . . . it was great team building”

“Winning or not we were so proud to raise that much,” he added.

Teammate Sam Ogle, 19, also from Wigton, said: “We raised money for a heart machine for a hospital in Newcastle after my mum had surgery there. It meant a lot to me.”

Other teams came from East Midlands Housing Group, Unilever, Plymouth City Council, Burnley Borough Council, and BCTS, a team from small Norwich businesses trained by Broadland Council Training Services.

Between them they raised £34,000 for charity and made around 300 school visits.

Jaine Bolton, NAS director, said: “The real point of this event is to showcase what apprenticeships can do. To get out the message about the diversity of the young people involved. The community work they have all done is amazing.”

Plymouth apprentices topped the awareness-raising element with a careers’ fair. Other teams went along to school assemblies while some held CV workshops.

Although Cobham was the first side to power over the finish line of the whaler boat race — a nail-biting final element, fought in driving rain — Unilever was the victor after the team picked up bonus points for strategically stopping at markers along the way.

Innovia after the whaler boat race

Alex Hunt, 19, a Unilever chemistry apprentice, said: “Everyone was really apprehensive until we got into a rhythm — but then we really stepped it up a gear. It was a great team-building exercise.”

Godfrey Owen, chief executive of the Brathay Trust, said: “The competition was of a high standard this year and we are pleased to recognise Innovia Films as the apprentice team of the year.”

Skills Minister Matthew Hancock said: “The competitors in this year’s challenge are an asset to their companies and an inspiration to other young people.”

Eleanor Radford goes on the ropes at this year’s Brathay Challenge

As Team Cobham’s war cry echoes around the shores of Lake Windermere you’d be forgiven for thinking a herd of stags is in the surrounding woods.

Not lads on a pre-wedding weekend or on tour, but a herd of the real stuff.

Their macho call “ouwooo”, shouted in unison, makes me realise how seriously these young apprentices are taking this competition.

Armed with megaphones and some wearing false moustaches, the support teams are pretty ferocious, too. Innovia Films, for instance, has chartered a yacht where executives loll, cheering on their team.

I am in the Lake District to catch up with the teams and “have a go” at the challenges they face on the two-day Brathay Challenge final.

It is relentless. Two days of orienteering in the Lake District fells while attempting challenges such as balancing 14 nails on top of a single one. How does anyone do that?

Then there are gruelling stints of rowing, canoeing, and balancing on high wires, all between non-physical activities such as assembling puzzles and guiding each other through tests, blindfolded, into the night. It doesn’t stop . . . breaks are used to plan strategies for the next stage.

Elliott Dobbs, 19, from Marlow and a member of the Cobham team, takes me under his wing to have a go on the high Vs, a tight rope strung about 30ft up in trees.

We scramble up rungs on a pole, then hold hands and lean against each other to prevent ourselves falling off. We are in harnesses, but it is nerve-racking stuff.

The electrical engineer immediately puts me at ease, guiding me along as his teams mates calmly shout tips of support. We complete it, almost.

Eleanor Radford takes to the trees (right) with Elliott Dobbs

What comes through strongly is how friendly and open all these apprentices are.

I’m not sure that I’ve come across such a self-assured, confident, bubbly, yet professional, group of young adults. And I believe this comes from the vocational pathway that they have chosen.

Gregg Black, a customer service apprentice from Plymouth City Council, tells me that his apprenticeship.

“I did other jobs, I tried college, I tried a degree but it didn’t work for me,” says the 23-year-old.

“What worked for me was learning skills while doing the job.”

The tension mounts before the final results are read out.

Proudly defending their title as last year’s winners, Elliott says Cobham  is “gutted” to come joint second to Innovia.

But after the trophies are given out to jubilant cheers, everyone shakes hands and heads back to work.

Kate signs up for new apprenticeship

A 21-year-old from the North East has become the first person to enrol on a 12 to 18-month apprenticeship in social media and digital marketing.

Kate Veitch, 21, from Gateshead, will cover search engine optimisation and website design, as well as techniques for marketing a business through social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

“I’m really interested in the marketing side of running a business so this course is perfect for me,” said Kate.

The apprenticeship, run by Access Training, will lead to a level three diploma in social media for business.

Managing director of Access Training Malcolm Armstrong said: “There is a requirement for businesses to recruit employees that are keen to work in this area and to develop these skills.”

Featured image caption: Kate signs up for new apprenticeship

Playing their cards right on new course

Students in North East England are odds-on favourites to win careers in the casino industry after completing a new course.

Middlesbrough College’s first level two gambling operations cohort will celebrate its achievement at a glittering event at the Riverside Stadium, demonstrating their new croupier skills to invited guests from Middlesbrough FC, Middlesbrough College and the gaming industry.

The students range from 18-year-olds with no work experience to a former soldier and a former businessman.

They spent six weeks learning how to oversee games of poker, blackjack and roulette and applying for their licence to work as a croupier.

Middlesbrough College head of business development for service industries Anthony O’Donnell said: “It’s been an amazing six weeks and everyone has thoroughly enjoyed it — the course has opened the door to a new life for many of the students.”

Featured image caption: From left: Andrew Cummings, 26 Natalie Rogers, 20 Anthony Peacock, 20 and Shannon Duce, 18 are among the first students to take part in the new NVQ level two gambling operations course at Middlesbrough College

Future shock?

The 157 Group will next week publish the results of a project in which aspiring FE leaders across the sector envisage what the sector might look like in 2020, as Christine Doubleday explains

It seems that everyone has something to say about further education. We must get unemployed people into work; we must repair the economy; we have to cost less and make more; we have to specialise and have a general offer for everyone and every need; we must focus on industry sectors and on geographic regions and on partnerships and on sharing and collaboration and on competition. We must adopt the newest sparkly business methodologies to achieve efficiencies while ensuring that those with the greatest needs are welcomed and supported. We are told often of our failings and shortcomings and given feverish instructions on how we can make ourselves better.

And so sure are those who judge that often they do not allow a mere lack of evidence to get in the way of a doggedly held belief on opinion. Nor do they hold their horses while they are fact-finding or listening, instead charging in with another helpful insight or policy.

So, we decided to seek out opinions and beliefs — and be honest that they are just that. But they are not ill-informed opinions, nor are they from those outside looking in. They are from those actively working in this sector of ours, those who spend their waking hours making sense of what the learner wants and needs and how best to do it. They could be the leaders of our sector in 2020 and beyond.

Our Delphi project is more structured than just asking a bunch of people what they think about the future. It gathers opinions from groups of people, synthesises those opinions, asks for votes on those opinions and comes up with most likely and least likely scenarios across a range of themes. From the beginning, we were clear that this project was led by 157 on behalf of the whole sector.

The work started with FE colleges but, very quickly, workshops for private, third sector and adult providers began. I was never sure if we would end up with four separate reports on how practitioners in a certain part of the sector viewed their future or if it would be possible to find sufficient commonality to put together an overarching report. By the sixth and final workshop, it was obvious that practitioners had distinctive features but that the heart of their work is common  — we really do all care about the learner above and beyond everything else.

It was obvious that practitioners had distinctive features but that the heart of their work is common  – we really do all care about the learner above and beyond everything else”

We lighted upon five main themes: the economy; supply and demand of learning; technology; social inequality and public service reform. We gathered the fears and hopes for those themes and present in the report the most and least positive potential outcome for each. We explored the purpose and mission of FE and offer a framework of business strategies and models that could be adopted, depending on the primary purpose. Finally, we offer an insight into the needs of those working within the sector to give us a fighting chance of steering the positive path. The report is there to be useful, to stimulate debate and to offer a framework to explore and determine our own business strategies.  We know our sector, we are honest about what we can do better and eager to find practical ways of doing so.

It offers a collective view of the possible futures for FE in 2020 and beyond. It is not a representative view, it does not pretend to be an expert view (except that all those involved are steeped in practice), it does not pretend to cover every inch of the sector. But it is the synthesised view of a range of people from across the sector who came together to tell us and each other what the world in 2020 might look like.

Most importantly, it shows that those who could be leading the sector are thoughtful, insightful and care deeply about what learners will need and want in the future. We present their views for you to use as you wish. I suggest that the voices of our practitioners should be listened to, heard and acted upon.

Christine Doubleday, deputy executive director 157 Group

Stepping up to the challenge

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  

Why I want to be an FE principal

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. 

Keeping up the good work

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

Careers advice is an investment for life

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