Hats off to green thinking college students

Students in the South West have been putting their thinking caps on in record numbers to raise awareness of the environment and sustainability.

More than 1,500 students and staff from across Wiltshire College’s 10 campuses donned specially made paper hats in an attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the most people wearing recyclable hats simultaneously across multiple locations.

Students produced a range of creative designs including berets, top hats, crowns, bonnets and a pharaoh’s headdress.

Principal Di Dale wore a lily pad hat made for her by level three art and design students Cheralynne Rendell and Emma Downs, both from Chippenham.

She said: “I was delighted with my hat and feel the students have all been absolutely brilliant during the whole record attempt.”

She added: “Today was without any doubt a true college-wide team effort of which we can be proud.”

It will be up to six weeks before the college finds out if it has broken the world record, which currently stands at 972.

A capital in crisis?

Tumbling inspection grades over the last two years have begged the question ‘is London learning?’ Chris Henwood looks at what’s happening to the capital’s big colleges.

Are London colleges failing city learners? It’s a simple, but critical question based on a “worrying” trend in Ofsted judgements over the last two years.

Of the nine inspections that have taken place at the capital’s 14 biggest colleges, six have resulted in downgradings — and a couple of these were down two whole grades.

As far as these colleges inspected since 2011 go, the city has been left with an inadequate establishment, five that require improvement (or were rated as grade 3 and therefore satisfactory before September), and just three good ones.

Or, more importantly, nearly 50,000 learners are at colleges that Ofsted said were heading in the wrong direction.

The picture was so different before 2011 when, of the big colleges re-inspected since 2011, the capital boasted an outstanding college along with eight good ones – not a single grade 3, let alone any inadequate ones .

The situation, predictably, is a cause for concern.

Sean Harford, Ofsted director of the college watchdog’s newly-formed London regional office, said: “We are concerned about the performance of colleges in London. Specific issues come down to the college level, but it can’t be right that the capital has more grade 3 and 4 colleges as a proportion compared with the rest of the country. That’s what we’re concerned about at the moment.”

Just three months ago the government was urged to “shine a spotlight” on England’s FE sector with a damning annual report from Ofsted boss Sir Michael Wilshaw.

He pointed to a boom in the number of colleges branded inadequate last year — up to 13 compared to four the previous year.

But, in fairness, there do appear to be positives in the capital.

Barnet and Southgate College, for example, is rated by Ofsted as good, and in Newham College, Uxbridge College and also City and Islington College London has three outstanding establishments.

But not one of these has been inspected in the last two years.

And then again Kingston College, last inspected in October 2010, was a grade 3.

That’s not to say grades will slide further at next inspection, but there have been college grumbles over Ofsted’s new Common Inspection Framework (CIF) and the number of downgradings since it was introduced in September.

Crucially though, five of the aforementioned six downgradings took place before the new CIF.

Toni Pearce, NUS deputy president, said: “These figures start to show a concerning crash in performance from London colleges, and if that trend is mirrored nationally then ministers need to urgently investigate the reasons why.

“Ofsted has been changing their inspection framework and we know that colleges were giving their attention to areas that are no longer a priority for inspectors.

We are concerned about the performance of colleges in London”

“Regardless of whether this is a national or London only issue it is still very worrying and it’s important that Ofsted and ministers urgently investigate its cause.”

Stephen Twigg, Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary told FE Week: “There are real challenges in the quality of learning in some colleges, as highlighted by these figures.

“Principals need to address this challenge with focussed support from government. We need the same focus and rigour for colleges that Labour applied in government to improve London schools.

“Labour would work with businesses to accredit vocational courses, and raise the number of high quality apprenticeships.

“And we would give young people a clear path to progress, to a gold standard Technical Baccalaureate at age 18.”

FE Minister Matthew Hancock said: “The majority of further education colleges have a high standard of provision, with 66 per cent of colleges across the country rated as good or better.

“But we know more needs to be done, which is why we have set up the Independent Commission on Adult Vocational Teaching and Learning, are introducing the FE Guild and we are setting minimum standards that measure performance consistently across all 16-18 institutions.

“Where there are cases of a decline in performance but no swift action to improve, the Government will intervene.”

So action is needed, but is London a special case with specific problems to address?

The Association of Colleges’ (AoC) London region director, Caroline Neville, talks of having to educate “some of the most disadvantaged students in the country, as well as some of the most demographically diverse,” while Munira Mirza, London’s deputy Mayor for education and culture, mentions the city’s “difficult circumstances”.

“There is work to be done to ensure that all London colleges are the best, particularly as they deliver to some of the most disadvantaged students in the country, as well as some of the most demographically diverse,” said Ms Neville.

She added: “Ofsted’s How Colleges Improve report last year showed that funding challenges can all make improvement more difficult for a college, as can last minute changes to fee support for students and taking on a merger to support another college in difficulty.

“To support improvement, we are taking a lead in London on a good practice project in partnership with Ofsted. This will document what great teaching and learning look like in urban areas, including some of the outstanding practice that we have in colleges in the capital. This will be shared with all.”

Ms Mirza said: “A recent mayoral inquiry showed how critical high-quality education is, and the need to raise standards that equip young Londoners with the skills they need to compete on a global stage.

“Many London colleges are rated good or outstanding and they work in particularly difficult circumstances, but there is no room for complacency.

“It is good that Ofsted and others continue to challenge colleges to do better for students in London.”

She added: “We are pleased that the AoC and colleges are also working with Ofsted to make improvements across the board and will offer support through our own education and apprenticeships work as appropriate.”

So it seems the final piece of the jigsaw is to ask ‘what is being done’ about the aforementioned colleges — who qualified as the capital’s ‘biggest’ with individual total incomes for 2010/11, as declared to the Skills Funding Agency, of more than £30m.

As Ofsted’s Mr Harford pointed out: “We know there are issues, so what are we doing about it?

“We’ve got a programme of seminars and workshops aimed at getting colleges graded as satisfactory under our old framework, and requires improvement under the new one, to good.

“We’re also doing work with colleges on how to observe teaching and learning in lessons.”

He added: “Of course there are challenges for urban colleges, but a good college is a good college no matter where it is.

It is good that Ofsted and others continue to challenge colleges to do better for students in London”

“We have many, many examples of where colleges succeed in difficult circumstances so we want to spread that best practice. We’re trying to be part of the solution to improve things.”

And the Learning and Skills Improvement Service has also put forward its services. Abi Lammas, regional development manager for Greater London, said: “We offer a range of interventions to enable providers to improve. Although most of the colleges identified attained a previous grade of at least two and therefore were not eligible for the improvement and development service, they could have accessed our portfolio of other improvement services.

“However, colleges must approach improvement as something that is sustained in order to gain the desired result. Short, sharp bits and pieces of engagement in standalone — often individual — improvement do not make the necessary impact.

“Colleges that do not access holistic improvement approaches, or wait to do so until the last minute, are more likely to be downgraded at inspection.”

Click here to see the colleges’ comments. (PDF – 2mb)

Priestley College cricket star to play for England

A young cricketer from Cheshire will be stepping up to the crease to play for England this month in a series of matches in South Africa.

Rob Jones, 17 and from Stockton Heath, is studying BTec sports performance and excellence at Priestley College and is one of 18 boys chosen from the England Development U17s to compete against eight South African teams.

Rob said: “I always played just because I love the game, but I never thought I’d be where I am today, playing for England.”

This will be Rob’s second foreign tour having played in India last year.

“India was a fantastic experience and I would go back again tomorrow,” he said.

“We worked with 50 kids from the slums giving them a cricket day with a packed lunch and t-shirts.

“They absolutely loved it and it was one of the most rewarding days of my life.”

Rob hopes to repeat this experience and has enlisted more than a dozen classmates to help raise money to buy pencils and notebooks for South African children to help with their schooling.

Getting up to date with exams modernisation

The cost of exams is a major entry in the expenditure column of a college’s balance sheet, but, as Rob Elliott explains, moves to simplify the current FE exams process could lessen their financial impact.

Different awarding bodies in the FE world currently require candidate data to be sent in a multitude of different formats from good old-fashioned paper, to spread sheets or via online portals and independently-developed electronic data interchange (EDI) systems.

Add to the mix that a general FE college can deal with up to 50 of the 100-plus existing awarding bodies and it is little wonder we have an exams system that many find confusing and ultimately costly to operate.

But, after a number of attempts to rationalise the existing exams system, change is finally on the horizon.

A big sector push was crystallised by a non-partisan paper, written by Capita, that gained support from more than 100 colleges as well as other MIS suppliers.

It called for a new industry standard of electronic data transfer, open to all awarding bodies to adopt, and emphasised the desire to see full and transparent fee information in the transactions.

Concurrently, there was a meeting between the major awarding bodies who form the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) — AQA, Edexcel, OCR, WJEC, CCEA and City & Guilds — where they realised that their existing EDI systems needed to be replaced with new electronic formats to cope with future exams and assessments.

They decided to work co-operatively to design a new system, available for all awarding organisations to adopt.

Led by JCQ, the A2C Data Exchange Project (Awarding Organisations-to-Centres), a full-scale restructuring initiative, is now underway.

Although the new system will be initially for these key awarding bodies, the hope is that others will follow suit — indeed many are already showing an interest.

Better quality data will reduce late entry fees”

Overall, the new system will lead to greater clarity during planning and accountability in the reconciliation process.

Certainly a reduction in interfaces will make the process more streamlined, requiring less effort to run a more efficient system.

Each awarding body will provide their own product catalogue, containing all the normal, late and very late fees. In effect, colleges will have a cash register of entries, allowing them to manage invoices from different examining bodies more efficiently.

An increased transparency in the cost of exams might lead to a more competitive market, and may well see colleges making different choices as to which exam board they use.

Having integrated student records and exams systems that share common data also improves the quality of exam entry data, helping colleges keep a tighter rein on expenditure.

For example, Edinburgh’s Telford College recently adopted a fully integrated student and exams system and dropped their error rate from 20 per cent of data entries being rejected by the Scottish Qualification Authority (SQA) to 0.1 per cent. Non-certification of students also dropped significantly from 15per cent to less than 0.1 per cent, giving a saving of around £60,000 in the first year.

Better quality data will reduce late entry fees — an avoidable expense — and ensure no student who has changed or withdrawn from the course is entered for an exam.

When you consider that the second largest expenditure for colleges after staffing costs are exams fees — which can be more than £1m — this could add up to substantial savings.

Michael Turner, director of JCQ, sums it up when he says that the A2C is an excellent example of how awarding organisations, in cooperation with MIS providers, are working together to improve data sharing.

“Although the programme won’t be finished completely until 2014, the benefits are already being realised,” he said.

“We will see improvements in what data is shared so that there is a harmonised system across general and vocational qualifications, and a reduction in the bureaucracy of administrating examinations. It really is a system for the 21st century.”

Rob Elliott, product manager at Capita Further and Higher Education

Work hard, play harder

The Industry Apprentice Council with FE Minister Matthew Hancock.  From left: Louis Chinea, 24, Jonathan Sixsmith, 22, Drew Reidy, 20, Sam Dutton, 19, Matthew Hancock MP, David Ferguson, 21, Jordan Philips, 18, Sam Ball, 20, Jack Stearn, 19, Natalie Harris, 18, Elizabeth Moffatt, 19, James Turner, 24, John O’Driscoll and Hal Willis, both 20

Thirteen apprentices have come together with a mission to raise the profile of apprenticeships throughout the country.

The group, selected from companies such as BAE systems and Vauxhall and with ages ranging from 18 to 24, has formed to become the first Industry Apprenticeship Council (IAC) and met with FE Minister Matthew Hancock at the House of Commons to canvas him for support.

The IAC joined an All Parliamentary Party Apprentices Group meeting to discuss the government’s apprenticeship strategy following the publication of the Richard Review and raised issues such as schools not pushing apprenticeships and encouraging a perception that vocational routes were secondary to the academic pathway.

The group aired solutions they had come up with such as starting a national advertising campaign to promote the more affluent lifestyle apprentices, they said, could lead compared to their peers and asked Mr Hancock if he would meet with them to take on the proposal.

“How could I say no?” he replied.

Electronic engineer at MBDA Sam Ball said: “We want to start a campaign to show the great experiences we have had like owning a house, speaking in the House of Commons and going on TV. Some of my apprentice friends have driven £120,000 cars.”

The 20-year-old from Bolton added: “We want to encourage the strapline ‘work hard, play harder’.”

Business administration apprentice at Vauxhall Lizzie Moffatt, 19 and from Luton, said: “We want to tell the stories of people from the inside, such as managing directors who started out as apprentices, looking at where they are now.

“We want to show that higher education can be achieved through apprenticeships too.”

Drew Reiddy, an engineering manufacture apprentice at BAE, said the profile of apprenticeships needed to be raised throughout companies themselves with more of a chance for children to go into work places to show them where they could be in a few years’ time.

Sam Dutton, a 19-year-old manufacturing engineering apprentice for KMF, said the value of apprenticeships needed to be promoted to parents as “they were the ones helping to make the important decisions”.

“This could be achieved by going down a commercial route having adverts on websites such as car manufacturers so when a parent was looking at buying a new car they could see a banner pop up promoting apprenticeships,” he said.

Miss Ball added: “It’s important teachers understand the benefits. When I was at school I was told I would waste my abilities doing an apprenticeship.”

From left: Sam Ball, electronic engineering apprentice at MBDA and Drew Reidy, engineering manufacture apprentice at BAE | Photos by Nick Linford

Of the 13 group members just one said they were encouraged to take their chosen career path by their school.

Miss Ball said she only became aware of her chosen vocational route because of research she did herself.

“I went to a good college but they were only interested in the university route,” she said. “I didn’t really enjoy the classroom experience anymore so I started looking on websites like NotGoingtoUni.co.uk and found out about it myself.”

She said she liked knowing she made a “contribution” to her organisation and getting involved in groups such as IAC as well as having the chance to do charity work. She was also able to complete a first aid course.

I was told I would waste my abilities doing an apprenticeship”

Jordon Phillips, an 18-year-old mechanical and electrical engineering apprentice at Nestle, said: “I came across Nestle when looking for a two-week work experience placement. They told me about the apprenticeship scheme and I went straight from school to college for a year but through the scheme. It was really good knowing I had the security of a job at the end of it.”

Hal Willis, a 20-year-old aeronautical engineering apprentice for Airbus, told Mr Hancock he felt there was a “lack of information at schools about careers”.

Mr Hancock said: “The best experience people can have is by having information available to them but information is not enough. It is about the quality of that information and being able to navigate your way through the system.”

He spoke of the advantages of destination data, introduced by the government last year to track young people’s chosen paths, and the importance of apprenticeship graduation ceremonies to add value to the achievement and getting young people out into the workplace.

“Research shows that if you have had four interactions with employers, whether that is work or an interview, you are then half as likely to be unemployed as before,” he said.

He said in the future the duty would be on schools to provide careers advice and guidance.

“We will find out from Ofsted how much they are doing with their new duty,” he said.

Mr Hancock added that big companies such as Cadburys should “step up to the plate” and design apprenticeships and pass on the templates throughout the industry.

The IAC has been convened in partnership between EAL, the specialist awarding organisation for industry qualifications, and IMI, the leading awarding body for the retail motor industry.

Ann Watson, managing director of EAL, said: “The members of the council will also become ambassadors for apprenticeships in their sectors, raising their profile and promoting the opportunities to young people at school.

“The IAC members are enthusiastic,
highly skilled, determined and intelligent individuals – superb examples of the standard of industry apprentices.”

ADVERTORIAL: New app helps students to learn smarter

Learning Smarter is a revolutionary new web application using the latest mobile technology to improve learners’ experience in colleges, schools and training providers. Learners use technology already in their possession – their smartphone or tablet (or any device that can access the web) – to ask and answer questions, and also to evaluate and reflect on learning. This improves the quality of teaching, learning and assessment.

It has been developed as a joint venture between Smartphone Media and Protocol’s College Leadership Services (CLS), who work closely with colleges and other providers to help them improve their provision, particularly related to teaching, learning and assessment.

Deborah McVey, Head of Observe and Improve at Protocol, came up with the idea for the Learning Smarter app as a solution to the lack of evaluation and reflection on lessons and learning.

An ex-teacher and experienced inspector for Ofsted, Deborah has worked with Smartphone Media taking Learning Smarter from initial idea to finished product. Deborah states, “We wanted to create something simple to excite and engage learners and improve communication.

As a teacher with little ICT skills, I also understood the importance of making something that all teachers could have the confidence to use.

We know that one of the key ways to create enthusiastic, motivated and independent learners is by helping learners to assess and reflect on their learning. It is the immediacy of responses that encourages group discussion, allowing teachers to respond and change lessons instantly, according to the feedback they are getting.”

A three month pilot at City of Westminster College found that students using the app communicated better and more frequently. The app helped teachers get to know their students and better understand their needs. A high value was placed on the instant responses of every single learner in the room and knowing exactly who each response came from.

The app has five features, each offering different functions:

1. Open questions – teachers input their own questions, which learners respond to with text answers.

2. Closed questions – teachers input their own questions, which learners respond to with a set of fixed, closed answers.

3. Set question checkpoints – designed to encourage reflection, helping learners to consider not just what they are learning, but how they will use it.

4. Set evaluation questions – to check understanding at the beginning, middle and end of learning and gauge the extent to which the lesson was successful.

5. Ask a question – learners ask the teacher a question. The teacher can then put this question back out to the group for all learners to answer themselves.

A robust reporting system allows teachers and college management to analyse the results and identify trends, so teachers can reflect.

Colleges will be able to purchase an annual license for the Learning Smarter app with costs dependent on the size of the organisation.

For further information visit
www.learningsmarter.co.uk or contact Lakeisha Dawson, Learning Smarter Administrator on 0115 911 1111. 

Getting our priorities right

After a lukewarm reception, the guild project seems to be picking up steam. As the consultation period begins and the guild’s future hangs in the balance, Peter Davies reflects on how far they’ve come and how far they still have to go.

It has been a hectic 11 weeks since the launch of the guild project and my start on November 21.

At that stage there was a general idea of the possible role, covering teaching and learning, leadership and governance and related professional skills.

But exactly what this meant, how it could be achieved and how it could add value was still pretty vague.

We were not even sure if the sector really supported the concept. That was partly why we immediately set up an online survey, which was really well supported with 404 responses, but more importantly showed 50 per cent of respondents supported the concept and only 8 per cent did not, with the rest being neutral pending more understanding.

Even more encouragingly, 69 per cent felt that if set up well, the guild could add value to the sector — a better level of support than many expected.

There were also some good indicators about specific roles with 87 per cent support for including qualifications and standards, even if that is a bit obvious.

Equally, together with feedback from focus groups, it became evident that we needed, with the sector, to identify much more clearly what the guild’s potential role and value might be.

If the stats are anything to go by, I think we certainly generated wide interest, with 2,700 blog views and 2,000 website visits, viewing over 6,600 pages.

Based on project papers, we had very positive steering group discussions, settling on some top level aims around ensuring the best possible learner experience and outcomes; enhancing the reputation of the sector; articulating provider best practice for the workforce; and making the sector an attractive place to work.

We then postulated that “the most important enabler for the achievement of these high level aims is to have a professional, motivated, respected and highly effective workforce… underpinned by effective governance and accountability.”

Defining the key aims allowed us to focus on the main areas of relevance supporting professionalism, which I hope people will identify with when they read the consultation document.

I hope I am not deluding myself in thinking that there has been an increasing level of enthusiasm for the guild”

It suggests that the guild might be responsible for qualifications and standards, continuous professional development and networks of professionals, underpinned by research and sharing best practice, definition of the wider personal qualities and characteristics associated with professionalism, definition of the attributes required for a world class workforce, and understanding of how a professional workforce contributes to overall sector reputation.

We also proposed options for governance, accountability and operational structures, which align with being ‘sector owned’, a premise supported by 86 per cent in the survey.

This is not just about legal niceties, but also finding mechanisms to ensure that the sector really can decide what the priorities are for the guild, both strategically and operationally.

In recognition of the resource pressures being felt across the sector, we have also suggested adopting a lean operational model, which relies much more on working with and through other bodies, as well as sector supported, committee structures to ‘run’ the show.

With the pressure on people’s time, I don’t underestimate the challenge, but equally I hope the proposed structure really does empower the sector to take charge of this very important part of our business and engender a real commitment to be involved.

Personally, I hope I am not deluding myself in thinking that there has been an increasing level of enthusiasm for the guild as people understand more about its potential.

We know that we have a shorter consultation period than is ideal, but our commitment to full consultation remains and I am really looking forward to hearing people’s views on the proposals in the consultation document, which we need to help define the implementation plan due at the end of March.

Interested parties have until February 22 to return views on the document, which is available for download at www.feguild.info together with the response form.

Peter Davies CBE, FE Guild Development Project lead

Paul Phillips, principal, Weston College

Wrestling fan, booker of TV celebrities and former disco promoter — it’s a picture of North Somerset principal Paul Phillips that not many will recognise.

Mention instead the honorary doctorate of letters from Bath Spa University for promoting higher education in FE, an Ofsted additional inspector’s post, or the 13 years he’s spent at the helm of Weston College and the 55-year-old is more likely to come into focus.

If not, then talk of his 2011 OBE should mean the name springs to mind. Phillips got the honour for services to FE and the voluntary sector, but almost missed out.

“I had a letter from Her Majesty’s office before saying I was being considered for an award but I hadn’t actually opened the letter straight away — it looked to me as though it might be a tax demand,” explains the father-of-two.

“It certainly looked like it could be a bill, so I put it to one side and didn’t open it for a few days, not that I don’t open bills.

“I was in shock when I opened it. I showed it to my partner, Julie, and she said ‘wow’.”

The revelation is one of the rare moments that Phillips slows in interview.

Forthright and forthcoming on, for instance, how his college has just won a £10m prison learning contract for 13 institutions across the South West, he becomes more reflective, but no less informative, when covering matters closer to home.

Having appeared in the press positively over stories such as the prison learning deal and the college’s new autism centre, he’s also made it into newsprint as the man behind college job losses and so could reasonably be expected to be cautious.

But the slowing down has more to do with pride at the award of the OBE and the keeping in check of emotion over his grandfather, Bert Lasseter, and father, Kenneth Phillips.

“My grandfather would have said that OBE stood for ‘other bugger’s efforts’,” he jokes.

“But I was pleased and very touched by it. I’m not touched by very much to be honest, but I was touched by that.”

He continues: “I wish my dad had been alive to see it really, because he was definitely an inspiration for me.

“He was trained as a carpenter and decided he wanted a career in dentistry so went to night school and did his A-levels and became a dental technologist at the University Hospital of Wales.

“He would have enjoyed my OBE because, really, he should have had that. It was a very poignant moment in my life.”

The underlying modesty is likely a family trait.

I appeared on the front page of the local newspaper week after week with people questioning what I was doing”

It was Phillips’ “down-to-earth” grandfather — the man behind Phillips’ ongoing love of all things English wrestling and the superstars-of-their-day such as Giant Haystacks and Big Daddy — who said of his PhD in cost benefit analysis: “What’s that? Paperhanging and decorating?”

The qualification — preceded by a Cardiff University degree in maths, statistics and economics, and a masters in economics and law of education — was followed by a job at the Ministry of Defence where he worked on computer-aided command systems.

But while there he was asked to “help out” teaching maths in a local technical college.

“I was pretty committed that I wasn’t going to go into education and that I was going to be in the world of industry, but I did it for a couple of weeks and I got absolutely hooked — line and sinker,” says Phillips, who lives in Penhow, between Chepstow and Newport.

It was a turning point and soon he applied for — and got — a maths lecturer post at Coleg Gwent’s campus in Pontypool, just north of Newport.

Eight years later, in 1990, and having risen to the post of senior lecturer, Phillips became vice principal at the college’s Ebbw Vale campus.

“If I ever lost sleep it was over that job,” he says.

“There was significant unemployment in the valley and the college was dilapidated to say the least.”

He adds: “One of my first jobs was getting the community in, but I remember thinking ‘how do I do that?

“At the time we had Gladiators on the TV so I managed to get in touch with the TV programme and they agreed they’d send one along, and I got hold of Timmy Mallett from TV. We also got one of the cast of Eastenders in, all for an open day celebrating what the college was doing.

“In addition, I brought wrestlers in, but unbeknown to me the company who organised it decided to bring female wrestlers, so the local paper ran a story along the lines ‘scantily-clad women encouraged into learning environment’.

“But it served the purpose and even more people flocked down.”

The college “turned around,” before Phillips moved onto become overall vice principal of Coleg Gwent in 1994.

“It was probably the job I enjoyed least because I was vice principal of a college that had five campuses with at least 30 miles between some of them – it brought the message home to me that big isn’t always beautiful,” he says.

“Sadly, my marriage was breaking down at the time and probably the job had a lot to do with it. I was having to put phenomenal hours in.”

But in 2000, Weston beckoned the rugby-loving Welshman.

“I wasn’t that keen at first as I was happy with my lot, but as vice principal I could never really set an individual journey for an institution,” says Phillips.

“But the challenge was there — Weston wasn’t doing particularly well financially and it didn’t have a good reputation in the community and the curriculum construct was very poor.

“I decided the only way to deal with the problems was a complete restructure. I removed seven of the eight heads and started from scratch.

“There was significant publicity and I appeared on the front page of the local newspaper week after week with people questioning what I was doing.

“I’m sure there are still some people out there who would rather I had never come to Weston because there were very difficult decisions that had to take place.

“But we’ve grown significantly ever since — from an £8m turnover to about £32m this year and next year we’ll be £43m to £45m.”

The success sees Phillips now head a 7,500-learner college looking at opening a fourth campus in the near future, that Ofsted rated as good in 2008.

But achieving outstanding isn’t necessarily next on his radar.

“I could make Weston very easily a tertiary college and very easily achieve outstanding, but that wouldn’t be what the community wants,” he says.

“The community wants everything. It wants that outstanding provision for academic, but it also wants the same for vocational and it also wants the bespoke learning for those who haven’t had the same chances that I, and others have had. That’s what the outstanding college is to me.”

He adds: “In my younger days I thought I’d seen all aspects of life and nothing was going to shock or change me.

“I ran a disco in Cardiff and had loads of other jobs and thought I’d seen the world, but when you go into some of the deprived areas with massive learning difficulties and you go into the prisons, you see how privileged your upbringing was and you see what these people do and you see them succeed, it’s just fantastic.”

 

It’s a personal thing

What’s your favourite book? 

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham

What did you want to be when you were younger?

A steam train driver

What do you do to switch off from work?

I enjoy going to watch the rugby and professional wrestling

If you could invite anyone to a dinner party, living or dead, who would it be?

Cheryl Cole, Alex Ferguson, The Queen, Norman Wisdom, Morecambe and Wise and my dad

What would your super power be? 

I would like the ability to look at somebody and immediately assess their potential — in fact, I might already have this super power

The AELP calls for funding change

Independent learning providers are calling for an end to a dual funding system that sees them denied overpayments while colleges get to keep cash despite underdelivering on education.

Graham Hoyle (pictured), chief executive at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP), said he wanted to see the system changed so that either his members could also keep overpayment or that both colleges and his members couldn’t keep overpayment.

“The big problem is not with colleges getting overpayments, it’s with there being two different systems — one for colleges and one independent learning providers,” he said.

An AELP spokesperson said the issue had come to the fore with recent funding changes meaning AELP members were getting paid more — but thereby reaching their Skills Funding Agency allocation sooner than expected.

The clash of two incompatible funding systems has come to the fore.”

He said a number of AELP members were “having to turn demand away, and even reduce capacity — including making front-line staff redundant — as the otherwise welcome retrospective funding for functional skills, etc, has placed them in an overspend position”.

Mr Hoyle said he wanted college funding, where excess is identified, to also be considered for redistribution among his members.

“The clash of two incompatible funding systems has come to the fore, with employers and the unemployed losing out as the providers have to turn them away, and even contemplate closing their delivery doors for good,” he said.

“Despite their support and goodwill, I do not believe the agency has the tools to get the money quickly to where it is needed. We will be writing to the FE Minister to engage his help.”

It comes just weeks after the agency revealed it had allowed underdelivering colleges to keep around £85m of taxpayers’ money for which no education had been delivered.

Mr Hoyle added: “The agency is totally sympathetic and anxious to do whatever it can to move money around from providers with unused cash.

“This is routinely done between independent providers who have always argued for in-year reconciliations as the only way to make a reality of demand-led responsiveness.

“Sadly the annual grant system used for colleges denies independent learning providers this flexibility — until the next funding year.”

A spokesperson for the agency said: “We published figures for the end-of-year performance position for colleges and training organisations for the academic year 2011/12 in December.

“Where the published data shows that a college or training organisation has funds against which it has not delivered, the agency is in discussions with each provider about the use or return of any funding not delivered.

“The agency continues to ensure funding is used for the direct benefit of learners and employers.”

The agency has said it could be asking for some of the overall overpayment last year to be handed back.