Will Torrent, confectionery consultant, Waitrose

 At 26, Will Torrent has achieved more than many chefs could ever dream of. He’s worked with celebrity cook Heston Blumenthal at the Michelin-starred Fat Duck restaurant, won a host of awards, including a WorldSkills medal for his chocolates and desserts, and is the pastry consultant for the supermarket Waitrose.

He’s recently finished his first book, Patisserie at Home, which is out next year, is working on his own brand of products, and will be hitting television screens this December on a cookery show he’s presenting with Jamie Oliver. And it all started with a cake made by his grandmother, Kath.

“My nan always used to make the best chocolate cake,” says Torrent, who is organising the confectionery and pastry competition at this week’s Skills Show.

“Chocolate Victoria sponge, chocolate fudge icing and chocolate buttons on top. We had it for every birthday.

“I remember vividly that moment of not quite reaching the workbench, mixing the cake together, eating the raw mixture off the wooden spoon, and knowing that we’d always have this chocolate cake to look forward to. “If I have chocolate cake now and the flavour’s right I can instantly be transported back to my fifth birthday. That’s the power of food — that it’s exciting. And that hit me from an early age.”

Torrent grew up in Iver, Buckinghamshire, with younger sister Sophie. His mum, Anne, and dad, Peter, both music teachers, encouraged him to cook, but it was a week’s work experience with Blumenthal at 16 that ignited his determination to become a top chef. A teacher at his school knew a waiter at Blumenthal’s restaurant and used the connection to arrange work experience for him.

“It completely changed my life,” he says. “I was absolutely petrified when I walked in as I’d never been in a professional kitchen before. The restaurant had bought me pristine whites and I was absolutely on the edge of my seat. But Heston was still cooking and took me under his wing. At 8am on the Monday he got everyone together and said ‘this is Will. Be nice to him’.”

One of his first jobs was making mustard ice cream. “That childlike experimentation with food really made me go wow, this is cool. The week went on and I absolutely loved it. I began to understand the science behind food,” he says.

On his last day at the restaurant, Blumenthal told him that if he wanted to be the best, he was the only person who would stand in his way “so go on and do it”.

From that moment, Torrent immersed himself in cookery books and programmes, and dedicated himself to experimenting with food and refining techniques.

The British press could tell things were going wrong. They saw me sweating with my workstation in a complete mess”

When he finished his GCSEs he was tempted to go straight to catering college, but decided to stay on at school and complete his A levels in case things didn’t work out.

At 18 he went to the University of West London to study culinary arts management, achieving a first-class degree and specialising in chocolate, desserts and pastry.

“I had this amazing tutor, Yolande Stanley. She was so encouraging and warm, and brilliantly talented,” he says.

“Our first lesson was strawberry tarts. For me, this meant jam tarts, but here was this ex-pastry chef at the Ritz making a beautiful strawberry tart. It was the first time I’d ever been shown proper desserts.

“The next class was gutting fish and I remember thinking, I’m covered in fish tails and I stink, or I’m covered in chocolate and flour. No contest.”

It was also his tutor who suggested that he compete to be part of the UK team for WorldSkills, billed as the biggest international skills competition in the world.

He was selected to be part of Squad UK and after two years’ training, flew to Japan to compete in the pastry and chocolate heat at WorldSkills 2007.

The first two days of the competition went brilliantly he says, but then came day three. “It was one of the worst days ever for me.

“In the extreme awfulness I felt like I was being eaten up from the ground, but when I finished I felt on top of the world”

Something went wrong in the afternoon, which had a domino effect on everything else I was doing,” he recalls.

“It spiralled and I couldn’t get myself out of the mess. The British press could tell things were going wrong. They saw me sweating with my workstation in a complete mess. People were gathering round and the judges were coming to check what was happening.”

“I was making a pistachio chocolate. But it wasn’t setting and I could feel my shoulders coming over the top of me and this massive dark cloud appear. I had a card with symbols in case something went wrong and I pointed to the exclamation mark that meant you were ill. My time stopped and I was rushed off pale and shaking.”

He was taken to the judges’ office where team leader Bruce Robinson tried to calm him down.

As part of the competitors’ mental training they’d been told to imagine they had a monkey on their shoulder telling them that they couldn’t do it — something that they needed to ignore.

“I came bounding out of the room, did the best chocolates I’ve ever done, got my highest mark of the competition, and finished on time to applause,” he says.

Torrent, who is managing confectionery and pastry competitors at the Skills Show, says he often tells young chefs this story.

“It encapsulates so much. In the extreme awfulness I felt like I was being eaten up from the ground, but when I finished I felt on top of the world.”

He won a medallion of excellence and when he came back to England, moved to a Swiss patisserie in Surrey where he stayed for two years.

Three years ago he decided to set up his own consultancy business, Will Torrent, and as well as working for Waitrose, is advising restaurant chain Zizzi’s.

He says that one of the best things WorldSkills gave him was the chance to encourage young people. “It’s such a joy when you see them do something right. Their eyes light up, and it’s ‘yes, I’ve done a good job, I’ve impressed the judges’,” he says.

“I know what their strengths and weaknesses are, how they compete under pressure, what makes them tick. I’m there to say to them you can be the best, you can do what I did. If you don’t know what possibilities are out there, you don’t know what to strive for it. It gives you ambition, determination, drive.”

It’s a personal thing

What’s your favourite book?

The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien

What did you want to be when you were younger?

Either a footballer for Chelsea, a singer or a chef

What do you do to switch off from work?

Play football with the boys, play the piano or chill out in front of the television

Who, living or dead, would you invite to dinner?

Frank Sinatra

What would your super power be?

Fly — my childhood hero was Superman

Report casts shadow on apprentices

Careers guidance should be boosting apprenticeships, says shadow minister Gordon Marsden 

The BIS Select Committee has provided a detailed and disturbing commentary of this government’s handling of apprenticeships and highlighted a number of persistent shortcomings.

The committee came down hard on the government for lacking a coherent over-arching strategy for apprenticeships as well as highlighting continuing concerns that they should be a pathway to new skills, rather than accreditation of existing ones.

This remains an unresolved challenge for ministers and officials, but something that one can expect Doug Richard to pick up on in his forthcoming report.

It’s that lack of coherence and progression the report highlights — and the potential waste of money and impact it implies — that needs to be tackled urgently.

Part of this must be the importance of maintaining quality, an issue FE Week has rightly highlighted and which the committee’s report re-emphasised.

It was also good to see the committee underlining the vital role careers guidance plays in supporting young people towards apprenticeships.

But, as Jason Holt in a report the Department commissioned recently pointed out, changes that came about following the abolition of Connexions and the DFE-led axing of ring-fenced funding and statutory guidelines have seen guidance, that could promote apprenticeships among schoolchildren, drastically scaled back.

Guidance that could promote apprenticeships among schoolchildren has been drastically scaled back”

The pressure is rightly building on both DfE and BIS ministers over this — especially given the final data for 2011/12 which showed 16 to 18 apprenticeships falling by 2 per cent in comparison with last year — at a time where youth unemployment remains at its highest level for generation.

The detailed statistics on the numbers of apprenticeship starts falling in key areas like engineering and construction only reinforces that.

The new FE minister, Matthew Hancock, needs to tackle that gap in support and funding with action. Jason Holt, the National Audit Office and now the Select Committee have all rung the warning bells that the government still has work to do to.

It could start by implementing our sensible proposals to boost apprenticeships, which we launched earlier in the year.

These included using public procurement to ensure government contractors offer apprenticeship placements and encouraging larger companies to buddy-up with smaller ones in their supply chain.

But it has so far refused to engage with these practical suggestions.

The government’s done little so far to make it easier for small to medium-sized enterprises to take on apprentices — or to work out ways to get local enterprise partnerships and FE colleges more connected to them — on top of their hands-off attitude to proactive vocational guidance in schools.

Progression must be the backdrop to balance age range, quality and outcomes in the apprenticeship programme with improved pathways to progress from levels two, three, four and beyond — but also into university.

The government’s done little so far to make it easier for small to medium-sized enterprises to take on apprentices”

I am particularly concerned that changes UCAS has come forward with for changing the university tariff system should not leave apprenticeships and vocational qualifications at a disadvantage.

If we truly want to maintain apprenticeships as a gold standard alternative to the academic route, then it must have the same structures for progression as the latter.

What the select committee says about the danger of 19 to 24-year-olds falling through the funding gap is also worrying.

It is a group we need to focus on as strongly as 16 to 18-year-olds because they often have false starts at school and elsewhere. We owe it to them — as we do older learners — to see they have the best chance of securing apprenticeships second time around, but the looming shadow of FE loans threatens a substantial fall-off in adult apprenticeships.

The government needs to engage with what Richard says to ensure that, as the select committee warned, quality does not get lost in the drive for quantity. There is no point chasing ever-inflatng numbers if at the end of the day, you let down the very people taking up apprenticeships in the hope of better future prospects and life chances.

Gordon Marsden MP, Shadow Minister for Further Education, Skills and Regional Growth 

Fears over conflict of interest

The qualifications watchdog is “developing its thinking” on whether providers of apprenticeships should also be awarding bodies after a government report criticised the practice.

An Ofqual spokesperson said it was looking at “potential conflicts of interest and will be saying more about our thinking in due course”.

 “We do not believe it is desirable for training providers and awarding bodies to be owned by the same group or individuals. The government should look critically at this serious issue.

It follows an 11-month review of apprenticeships, chaired by West Bromwich West MP Adrian Bailey, that called on the government to look critically at joint ownership.

The report of the review, carried out by the Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) Select Committee, was released last week.

It said: “We do not believe it is desirable for training providers and awarding bodies to be owned by the same group or individuals. The government should look critically at this serious issue.

“We accept that the practice of joint ownership is not unusual, but learner experience is key and should not be put in jeopardy.

“Robust mechanisms must be put in place to prevent any conflict of interest impacting the learning experience of the workforce.”

Committee members heard evidence from Ged Syddall, the boss of Elmfield, about his company’s contract to provide apprentice training to supermarket giant Morrison. They also heard that he owned awarding body Skillsfirst Awards Limited.

“I set up Skillsfirst because I thought there was a gap in the market for a good, customer-centric, employee-focused awarding body,” Mr Syddall told the committee.

“It is now a very successful awarding body.

“It deals with 30 organisations, including us, so it is a competitive, out-in-the-market business.”

An Elmfield spokesperson said: “It is common practice for awarding organisations and training providers to be owned by the same organisation.

“The two biggest vocational awarding organisations, Pearson and City & Guilds, also receive funding for apprenticeship delivery. As far as we know, Ofqual does not consider this to be a conflict of interest.

“If it is decided that this is not acceptable, we would be happy to restructure accordingly.”

A Pearson spokesperson said: “We work with a range of training providers and awarding organisations and are confident in the high quality and integrity of teaching, learning and assessment we deliver. We welcome a dialogue to provide reassurances.”

A spokesperson for City & Guilds declined to comment.

Ofqual’s spokesperson said: “We have an interest in apprenticeships and, in particular, issues around quality, qualifications design and responsiveness, and the qualifications market.

“We are continuing to develop our thinking about market issues and potential conflicts of interest, and will be saying more about our thinking in due course.”

The qualifications watchdog is also investigating Pearson, which publishes textbooks and hands out academic qualifications as Edexcel. It said its aim was to preserve “confidence in the exam system”.

The Pearson spokesperson added: “We have robust conflict of interest processes and work with a full range of publishers, not just our own imprints.”

Ofqual’s investigation into Pearson, which includes a review of the wider qualifications market, launched around a year ago is expected to take 18 months.

See inside for more on the BIS Select Committee report.

Exclusive interview with BIS committee’s chair

With the Business, Innovation and Skills Select Committee report highlighting a number of apprenticeship issues, FE Week deputy editor Chris Henwood met chairman Adrian Bailey MP to discuss where he thinks the government is getting it wrong.

Are you critical of the government’s aims on apprenticeships?
The government has interpreted this programme as being a numbers-driven game so that it can proclaim it is improving the skills levels of the country.

However, what is hasn’t done is to ensure that the apprenticeships programme is of the quality that is needed and that it is focused on areas where there are skills shortages. And by not doing that, it is in danger of wasting a lot of public money.

We believe as a committee that the government should define exactly what its objectives are in spending money on apprenticeships, and then back that up with the appropriate policies designed to achieve those objectives.

Which recommendation would make the most difference?
That’s a difficult question because they’re all interrelated, but the crucial one is on the quality and definition of apprenticeships.

Once you have a tight definition and ensure that an apprenticeship course is perceived as having quality, then you are far more likely to get people aware of it and willing to take one on.

Were you surprised by the lack of definition?
Yes. I hadn’t realised the range of courses that were described as apprenticeships when, in fact, the public does have a fair idea of what apprenticeships should involve: a certain length of time, training both on and off-the-job and appropriate accreditation to ensure that whoever has taken one of these courses has genuinely learned something and enhanced his or her ability to take on further jobs.

Did the inquiry hold any shocks or surprises for you?
Yes, there were a couple of things. First, the lack of awareness in schools — we heard of a survey that demonstrated that only something like 7 per cent of young people in schools were aware of apprenticeships as a possible career choice.

That is quite frightening. Further investigation demonstrated that this was very much because schools are judged and geared to delivering A-levels and university entrants. If we are ever to get our best and brightest into vocational pursuits, then we’ve got to raise the status of apprenticeships.

The National Apprenticeship Service has to take responsibility for promoting them in schools and schools need to refocus slightly . . . they have to be judged in part on how many young people they deliver into apprenticeships.

The second thing that came as a shock was the excessive profiteering of one or two operators in the market. When the chief executive of a company, in this case Elmfield, says he has been overpaid by the government, that is a matter of real concern. The government needs to introduce processes to prevent it from happening in the future.

What would you consider a fair profit margin?
I would have said 15 per cent is on the high side. One of the concerns the committee had was that you’ve got this pot of money and you’ve got a delivery chain — and different bodies at different stages in the chain make a profit.
But if they’re all making 15 per cent, it doesn’t leave much for the actual delivery at the workface, which is why the committee recommended the delivery chain needs to be streamlined.

There are too many operators and it appears, in some cases, they are taking too much money out of the programme. That inevitably impacts on the ability to deliver the number and quality of apprentices at the workface.

Do you think there are lots of providers with high profit margins?
The committee didn’t carry out a wide-ranging investigation into this, but certainly evidence has been put forward that there is some abuse.

I wouldn’t say it was widespread. It’s not just a question of abuse. There are legitimate companies — some of them doing a very good job — but there are so many of them and the supply chain is so long that you’ve got to ask ‘couldn’t we organise this delivery of skills in a more cost-effective way?’

That is not to blame individual companies and accuse them of not delivering or taking excessive profit, but just to get a system that gets money to where it needs to go quickly and with fewer people involved.

The government has introduced the Richard Review, which is a belated recognition that it didn’t get it right when it introduced the apprenticeship programme. The committee’s findings will no doubt be reflected at least in part by that review.

Given the combination of the likely outcome of this review and the committee report, to which it’s got to reply, I do think BIS will take the inquiry seriously and hopefully come up with some sort of recommendations or actions to implement these changes. At the end of the day my report has aroused a lot of public interest — the government recognises it has to respond to that concern.

Were there any positives for apprenticeships?
Yes. First, there is an undoubted government commitment to skills and that is shared across the party divide in the Commons — a recognition that there is a need to raise skill levels in this country.

Second, the government recognises that it didn’t quite get it right and needs to change some of its delivery. But there is now a greater awareness among both businesses and young people of the potential of apprenticeships. That is positive, but it’s been a long hard road to get to where we are and we need to go a lot further.

The report is critical of the number of official bodies involved in apprenticeships. Do you see a future for the Skills Funding Agency and National Apprenticeship Service in their present forms?

The committee was inclined to think the SFA and NAS should be merged and I think the government may well look at this again.

There was disagreement among witnesses at the inquiry, but instinctively we felt you would be taking out one link of the long chain delivering apprenticeships and, above all, making it simpler for would-be providers to have one port of call. My feeling is this should happen and probably will happen.

The number of apprenticeships recently topped 500,000. Would you question the validity of any of those?
I would question whether they are apprenticeships in the terms that we would want them to be defined. Something like 70 per cent of the increase has been in provision for those over 24, mainly in the retail sector, and I believe these are mostly people employed already.

That doesn’t mean that’s a bad thing . . . there’s a good argument for raising the skill levels of people in employment so that they can enhance their prospects.

But a lot of work needs to be done to demonstrate that in terms of the money that has been invested, the actual benefits do accrue to both the individuals themselves and the economy as a whole.

We also need to know whether that money might not be better targeted to other groups who may enhance their training more and contribute more to the economy.

Supporting Improvement

Download your copy of this free 16 page special supplement, produced in partnership with LSIS, via the link below:

Supporting Improvement supplement

Introduction to supplement

A host of knowledgeable contributors have made this Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS) supplement,
put together by the team at FE Week, an invaluable source of advice and guidance on provider improvement.

Contained within are relevant and upto-date news items, pieces from industry insiders, along with features and coverage of events to provide inspiration as to what those in the learning and skills sector might do to better their institutions.

Of course, these are the well-known aims of LSIS and so where better to start the indepth nature of this supplement than with a full analysis of the recently-produced How Colleges Improve report.

Based on inspections of more than a dozen colleges, it was commissioned by LSIS and Ofsted and highlights the
importance of strong governance at colleges.

The report and reaction to it from within the FE sector from the likes of Ofsted national director for learning and skills Matthew Coffey, LSIS chief executive Rob Wye and Association of Colleges director of education policy Joy Mercer, are featured on page 4.

This is preceded by two news items on page 3 that will be of interest to anybody who deals with Ofsted. The first item centres on concerns about Ofsted reports issued under the new common inspection framework (CIF). It looks at whether colleges are getting the feedback they would want.

The second news item reveals the extent to which colleges see Ofsted’s recentlylaunched Learner View — billed as a Trip Advisor-style measure of success or failure — as offering a useful aid in the quest to raise standards.

But getting back to in-depth coverage, this supplement delves into the work of LSIS on page 5, where the reader will find an interview with Abi Lammas, one of LSIS’s regional development managers (RDM). The role of RDM involves working with providers who want nothing more than to improve their service.

Our experts’ section kicks in from page 6 and features Chris Thomson, principal of Brighton Hove and Sussex Sixth Form College, Rebecca Yeomans, Operations Director at B2B Engage, Michele Sutton, principal of Bradford College and Richard Atkins, principal of Exeter College.

Further expert pieces come from David Sykes, director of The Skills Network, Tony Lau-Walker, chief executive of Eastleigh College, Rob Wye, LSIS chief executive, and finally, Ofsted’s national director of learning and skills, Matthew Coffey.

Chris Thomson gives an insightful account as to how Ofsted inspections are seen as a distraction to his main concern — meeting the learning needs of students, and Rebecca Yeomans explains the improvement journey her firm made in just 11 months to go from satisfactory to good Ofsted gradings.

On page 7, Michele Sutton talks about how her college coped with inspection despite the absence of a key member of staff, and while it may well sound nightmarish, but a 21-minute Ofsted inspection warning was exactly what Richard Atkins got — and yet his college emerged with outstanding ratings. On page 10, where David Sykes covers just what providers can expect under Ofsted’s new CIF. The need for a truly critical self-assessment is then made clear by Tony Lau-Walker.

The How Colleges Improve report returns as the subject of pieces from its two authorising bodies, with Rob Wye, from LSIS, and Ofsted’s Matthew Coffey highlighting its implications and recommendations.

Coverage of two key sector improvement events completes this supplement. The first, across pages 12 and 13, is
from a Westminster Briefing debate on professionalism in FE that took place just a day after Lord Lingfield’s review into the issue was released.

The second event, on pages 14 and 15, was an LSIS funded event on preparing for inspection under the new CIF that was led by Megan Whittaker — an additional Ofsted inspector of more than 10 years. So there you have it — plenty to digest and plenty to discuss.

But no matter where you as a provider are placed in terms of Ofsted’s gradings, all here at FE Week wish you the very best in achieving improvement.

Teachers unskilled to provide careers advice

The fifth annual Colleges Week has kicked off with the publication of a report that shows schoolteachers and parents are struggling to give youngsters the right advice to prepare for the world of work.

Colleges Week bosses are hoping students and lecturers will take part with a host of events up and down the country and are calling on event organisers to tweet what’s happening using #collegesweek as a hashtag.

The theme of this year’s week, which ends on Sunday, is employability and work readiness.

“This study shows that teachers, in particular, recognise they are struggling with this challenge.

Research released by the Association of Colleges (AoC) to mark the event suggests that 82 per cent of teachers felt that they didn’t have the appropriate knowledge to advise pupils on careers.

The research further claims that 44 per cent admitted giving a pupil bad or uninformed advice in the past, and that 82 per cent wanted better guidance on advising pupils about their options post-16.

Twenty per cent of parents felt out of their depth advising their children about careers, while 32 per cent said they only felt comfortable talking about jobs they knew.

Joy Mercer, AoC director of policy, said: “Overall parents and schoolteachers exert more influence on a young person’s education choices than a school careers adviser.

“This study shows that teachers, in particular, recognise they are struggling with this challenge.

“Careers advice is a professional discipline that requires training and development, and we know that many school budgets cannot stretch far enough to fund this resource.”

Colleges Week is supported by The Skills Show, the UK’s biggest careers and skills event, which takes place at the NEC Birmingham from Thursday to Saturday.

A Colleges Week spokesperson said: “The idea of the week is to showcase the vital role that colleges play in providing young people, adults and businesses with the opportunities they need to succeed. This year’s theme aims to highlight how colleges can improve people’s chances of getting into work and help businesses to grow.”

She added: “It is supported by The Skills Show, and much of the materials developed have been designed to complement Skills Show activity. For instance, we created a guide for colleges to engage schoolteachers with have-a-go events.”

New Facebook application Quizl has also been launched to mark Colleges Week. It is for 14 to 18-year-olds and aims to get them thinking about their future.

Available from www.quizl.co.uk, it has been developed in with careers advice experts from Babcock Lifeskills.

Send a write-up of your Colleges week event, including pictures (with captions) for inclusion in FE Week to news@feweek.co.uk. The best five contributions will win an FE Week mug full of sweets.

Where have all the students gone?

More than a million students could not be traced by researchers wanting to find out what happened to them when their courses finished.

Just 12.9 per cent of 1,455,746 students could be reached in a study by GfK NOP Social Research on behalf of the Skills Funding Agency (SFA).

Researchers were hampered by a host of contact phone number problems, including incomplete numbers, no answers, engaged lines, barred numbers and numbers directing through to computer and fax machines.

The problems meant that just 188,259 learners completed the interviews, although the report does not go into detail on what happened to them.

“Even after heroic efforts by the researchers the output is unlikely to be of much help to potential students.

Mick Fletcher, visiting research fellow at the Institute of Education and member of the Policy Consortium, said the report highlighted the difficulty faced by providers in determining learner destinations.

“Even after heroic efforts by the researchers the output is unlikely to be of much help to potential students.

“They are not very likely to be interested in the average performance of those who started on a whole range of courses at different levels the year before last, and most unlikely to look into the details of how the indicator was produced.

“If the aim of the exercise is to help real people make choices rather than help quangos to rate institutions, money would be better spent on more detailed local analyses of what happens to students on specific programmes.”

Matt Dean, technical manager at the Association of Colleges, said: “It’s very difficult for colleges to track learners’ destinations.

“Mechanisms to contact students by the details provided are there, but there’s no guarantee these will remain correct or that students will be willing to participate.

“Once a learner leaves, it’s extremely difficult to track them. It’s easier to track learners who go into higher education through UCAS and universities themselves, but tracking learners who go into employment is a real struggle.

“There are protocols preventing even government departments sharing this kind of data – and it would be a huge amount of data to manage. It would require high-level policy discussions to solve and involve the Departments for Education; Business, Innovation and Skills; Work and Pensions; The Treasury and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. We would have to see all these bodies sharing coherent, consistent and accurate data, and for it to be kept in a robust system.”

An SFA spokesperson said it was handling an FE Week query on the cost of the research under the Freedom of Information Act.

“Learner destinations is one of four performance indicators on the FE Choices comparison site that aims to give learners and employers clear and consistent information about colleges and training providers to help them to make better, more informed choices about where to learn or train.

“This report was one part of the work GfK NOP commissioned . . . to establish the learner destinations performance indicator scores for providers for the 2009/10 destination year.”

Group chair appointed to steer FE Guild

An independent chair has been appointed as proposals to create an FE Guild take shape.

David Hughes, chief executive of the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE), has been appointed chair of a steering group.

His appointment follows a meeting of Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) chief executive Graham Hoyle and Association of Colleges (AoC) chief executive Martin Doel.

“I am certain we can develop a new organisation that advances professionalism, improves leadership and governance and helps to deliver even better learning opportunities across England.”

Mr Hughes said the guild — a single body to set professional standards and codes of behaviour as well as develop qualifications — provided a great opportunity to enhance the status and reputation of the sector.

“We need employers and practitioners, and the organisations that represent them, to come together to make this work on behalf of the adults and young people who are served by the sector.

“I am certain we can develop a new organisation that advances professionalism, improves leadership and governance and helps to deliver even better learning opportunities across England.”

He believed he was invited to become chair because of the “unique” place and purpose of NIACE; it did not represent any interest group, other than learners.

“Second, I hope I have a reputation for getting things done . . . and there is a lot of work to be done to build consensus about the purpose, role, structure and governance of the FE Guild. I hope to be one of the people driving that forward over the coming months.”

He said the steering group now had to meet employers, practitioners and representative bodies to debate and discuss what the guild should focus on, how it should be set up and what the governance arrangements would look like.

“That debate and discussion needs to be thorough, professional and intense. Our aim has to be to have the guild up and running in mid-2013, starting to develop its role and its activities and having an impact in the next academic year.”

It is understood that one of the steering group’s first tasks is to develop a list of functions for the guild.

An AELP spokesperson said: “Following the ministerial announcement accepting our bid with the AoC to create an FE Guild, Graham Hoyle and Martin Doel invited all the key players who supported the bid to a meeting to consider next steps.

“The group asked Graham and Martin to set up a small project team of four to act as a steering group for the project.

“Notwithstanding the agreed need to develop a guild that was employer (provider)-led, it was felt that an independent chair would be both helpful and appropriate.”

The AoC declined to comment.

———————————————————————————————————————————-

Editors comment

Mission Impossible 

It’s a tough job but somebody’s got to do it.

And with David Hughes in charge of the steering group, the FE Guild has got a chance.

It was always going to take a brave man, or woman, to try to match up the seemingly competing interests of the two leading bodies.

The AoC’s marriage to AELP could be one fraught with troubles — public sector interests pull in one direction, while profit motives pull in the other.

Experience and knowledge of the sector will be required to strike the right balance. And David has both.

So FE Week would like to publicly wish him the best of luck in matching up the demands of the AoC and the AELP.

And that’s before you mention the plethora of other bodies involved.

Nick Linford, editor

Provider network event: An inspector calls time on lack of CIF preparation

Ofsted’s new common inspection framework came under the spotlight when providers met for an expert guidance session led by inspector of more than 10 years’ experience Megan Whittaker.

Around 35 representatives from a range of providers, including colleges and subcontractors, were at the conference entitled Preparing for Inspection with the new Common Inspection Framework.

The event, which took place at the Goldsmith Centre, in Letchworth Garden City, Herts, opened with an exploration of the differences between the old inspection framework and its successor.

“The main changes are the emphasis on the quality of teaching, learning and assessment and on how effective the strategies of improvement are,” said Mrs Whittaker, director of Quality for Excellence.

“Teaching, learning and assessment [TLA] have become a limiting grade, with inspectors spending more time reviewing TLA both in traditional classrooms and outside and talking to learners with their work or independent learning providers; and the grade three descriptor is now improvement required.

“There is also strong focus on outcomes relating to progress and progression of different groups of learners; and, a strong focus on destinations into employment and higher level qualifications.”

The new inspection framework was introduced from September following Ofted’s Good Education For All consultation that ended in May.

The framework includes a reduced inspection notice period from three weeks to two days and there will normally be a re-inspection of providers ‘requiring improvement’ within 12 to 18 months and providers with the grade twice in a row can be judged inadequate on their third inspection if they haven’t improved.

Matthew Coffey, national director for learning and skills, said: “Ofsted received hundreds of valuable responses to the Good Education For All consultation enabling us to listen and act on any concerns raised.

“Often learners were more positive about the proposals than many of the providers. In shaping the arrangements for inspection Ofsted has given particular weight to learners as the primary users of the services within the sector.”

And at the Letchworth session on the new CIF, which took place on Monday, October 29, Mrs Whittaker, an additional Ofsted inspector since 2000, warned providers to have systems in place to cope with the new framework’s shorter notice period.

“The main problem I expect to see with the new framework is the short notice period of inspection,” she said.

“Therefore providers need to ensure their improvement planning processes are continually updated as part of the quality assurance process.

“The inspection team coming in will be looking for where you are now, where you were and where you are heading.

“Tracking systems monitoring learners’ progress should be kept updated because a judgment will be made in outcomes asking ‘are learners on track to succeed?’

“Providers should also be keeping current information relating to learner numbers, location of learners, types of provision, for example apprenticeships, community learning, details of contractors, subcontractors and employers.

“Having all this information and keeping it up to date sounds a simple and obvious thing, but it can be something some providers struggle with.

The main problem I expect to see with the new framework is the short notice period of inspection”

“Another thing to consider is that in relation to workplace learning, there’s a requirement to put forward a programme of visits for the inspection team to make a judgment on teaching, learning and assessment, so there needs to be a well-kept weekly diary knowing where assessors will be covering what type of activity.

“Two further issues are that firstly stakeholders such as employers and governors will be involved in an inspection and will need to be included in preparations, and secondly, performance management processes will need to be kept updated  at all levels. For example, monitoring of progress against action plans following lesson observation, impact of continuing professional development sessions on teaching practice.”

The event, funded by the Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS) through Keits Training Services, was hailed a success by Mrs Whittaker and organiser Anna Morrison, manager of the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Provider Network.

“The main issues raised by providers in the session related to making judgments around teaching learning and assessment both as an organisational process and as an evidence base to make overall judgments for self-assessment,” said Mrs Whittaker.

She urged all providers to read Ofsted’s How Colleges Improve, from September this year, and also Ofsted’s Ensuring Quality in Apprenticeships, which came out last month [October 2012].

“The providers processes ranged in levels of robustness and improvement planning linked to performance management in some were underdeveloped.

“The session had been designed to provide example material to illustrate good practice and many providers identified this as one of the most useful parts of the session.”

Miss Morrison said: “I think the event went really well.

“All participants left with an action plan of activities they need in place to help them to prepare for the dreaded ‘Thursday morning phone call’ and feedback has been extremely positive.

“Megan, our trainer, did a fantastic job in breaking down all of the different evidence requirements into manageable sized activities.”

Ofsted additional inspector Megan Whittaker’s top five tips for preparing for inspection

1. Self-assessment processes are integral to the organisation and need to include all key processes and areas of work. It should be evidence-based, involve all staff and bring about improvement. Course team management of improvement requires timely information and a good understanding by staff of management information and data.

2. Evaluation of the effectiveness and quality of teaching and learning should be clear, accurate and robust — including any subcontracted provision — and enable swift and sustainable improvements. Review processes to improve teaching, learning and assessment by evaluating and using the views and experiences of learners and employers consistently in planning and delivering teaching, assessment and the curriculum. Be thorough and systematic in sharing and learning from good practice, use information learning technologies (ILT) and their virtual learning environments (VLE) effectively; and make sure learners are on the right course, at the right level, with the right support.

3. Evidence of performance management must be clear and demonstrate impact. Manage underperforming staff effectively by making sure that the college’s performance management systems, including those for measuring competency, capability, or both, are fit for purpose, up-to-date and that all staff are fully trained in these aspects.

4. Record and analyse the progression and destinations of learners systematically in order to measure outcomes and improve the curriculum further.

5.Ensure that good continuing professional development is contributing to the development of an ‘open classroom culture’ and that a wide variety of strategies are being used to develop support and improve practice such as ‘learning walks’ supported experiments, peer observation, coaching, etc.