The big conversations in FE at the moment are all around functional skills. Most providers are positive about the qualifications, and arguably they are more rigorous than the key skills qualifications they have replaced.

Every year, the CBI bemoans the English education system – employers keep telling us that young people are leaving school with arms full of GCSEs, but they can’t function in the areas that employers need.

Universities often echo these concerns around A-level results’ time, saying that with the “amount of top grades awarded to students, they can’t tell the best from the rest”, so GCSE results come into play again.

“Functional skills have to be taught. They are not course-specific, they are totally generic

It seems both sides are searching for something different to GCSEs; could functional skills be the missing piece of the puzzle? Will the revised GCSEs, which now include “functionality”, improve the situation? That remains to be seen.

Whilst most providers are positive about functional skills, colleges, private training providers and employers are worried that they are unable to get learners through.

Time, it seems is the great enemy. Gone are the quick multiple-choice questions at levels 1 and 2 that could be retaken, time and again. Room for guesswork has been eradicated.

Functional skills have to be taught. They are not course-specific, they are totally generic. And they are not portfolio-based either. They are taken under controlled conditions and competency cannot be demonstrated through activities related to students’ day-to-day vocational experiences.

They are particularly challenging to fit into apprenticeships, especially if a student only has one day a week at college, and during that time is learning the technical and underpinning knowledge to support their apprenticeship. Now they have to study maths and English too.

It’s a bit of an anomaly, but we have found that younger students, who have achieved their GCSEs in English and maths, are not necessarily able to pass their level 2 functional skills, without additional tuition.

The main reasons for this seem to be that a skills assessment has questions that are all at the same level and require the learner to work through open, often unstructured problems, drawing on a range of information to reach a conclusion. Decision-making and providing justifications for choices are key elements too.

The Wolf report tells us that students should achieve GCSEs at grade C or above in maths and English and must continue to study the subjects up to the age of 18, although functional skills are allowed as a means to support the learner to progress towards this goal. But how often do students who resit their GCSEs show significant improvement, and how disheartening is it to resit time and time again?

Analysis of our results shows that the older the student, the better their results in functional skills. This may be due to their life experiences; functional skills rely on the student’s ability to solve problems and these are skills that we learn through experience.

These are the skills employers really want, but are providers ready to deliver? We’re already working with a number of apprenticeship providers as they transfer from key to functional skills, including centres that deliver apprenticeships for the Army and Royal Navy, large training providers that deliver across the country and small training providers who need significant support.

Change for change sake in the FE sector is something that we’ve all grappled with, and it could be easy to see functional skills as just another “change”. But they are here to stay and we can help.

We have recently developed new qualifications that will enable providers to concentrate on filling gaps in knowledge in maths or English skills; these will be available shortly.

Functional skills are a big change, but the way I see it they bring three major benefits:

1. Functional skills will improve the quality of teaching, they will have to, otherwise students will not pass.
2. They will help to improve the reputation of the FE sector; it will be seen as providing the qualifications that employers are really looking for – qualifications that prove a student has the English and maths skills for the workplace.
3. Learners from the FE sector will be better prepared for the world of work.

 

Graham Hasting-Evans, chief executive of NOCN

Great teaching and learning, the third in a series of publications commissioned by the 157 Group and the Institute for Learning (IfL), has captured the mood of the sector to focus on high-quality teaching and learning and, we hope, steered a stimulating sector-wide debate.

The first, Leading learning in further education, found that providers should allow space for reflective practice and enter into a debate about great teaching and learning.

Leading learning and letting go, the second, suggested that great teaching and learning comes from innovation and from the creation of what Professor Lorna Unwin describes as ”expansive learning environments”, with enough space and time for teaching professionals to share and learn. It suggested that cultural change would be necessary, nurtured and supported by good leadership.

Now, Great teaching and learning, our latest piece of practitioner-based evidence and action research, adds another dimension to understanding the features that assist or hinder greatness in teaching.

It suggests that teacher professionalism is crucially about broader relationships, respect and networks, as well as the teaching and learning expertise directly used with learners in the classroom or workshop and workplace settings. The continuing development of these “soft” and critical skills requires nurturing – and recognising – by college and sector leaders.

As the Commission on Adult Vocational Teaching and Learning continues its work, and as Ofsted continues to have an increased focus on the quality of teaching and learning in colleges, this thought piece is timely. It provides, we believe, a picture of what those who matter the most – teachers and learners – believe great teaching and learning is about and how best it is nurtured.

The paper does not set out to consider any particular type of learning – “vocational” or “academic”, for example. Indeed, it would tend to suggest that there are many similarities in the fundamental elements involved, whatever the setting or focus. It does, however, establish and examine the distinctiveness of great teaching and learning in a vocational context and we will share this with the Commission, which is chaired by Frank McLoughlin.

We hope that college leaders will arrange similar “great teaching and learning” events in their own organisations, and have written the report to help them do this. We hope they will take the overarching threads from our publications and synchronise them with their own strategies. We know that many leaders and practitioners have already acted on our recommendations and found that they work, which we are delighted about.

The 157 Group and IfL will continue to lead thought in this vital area, in partnership with other sector membership bodies and with the support of the LSIS. Here is a flavour of what we have planned:

• Replication of the event in organisations around the country – feedback from the day suggests that it has already been a powerful motivator for change in a number of settings
• A follow-up seminar with the Institute of Education to examine specifically the leadership of vocational learning
• Embarking upon work with respected research and policy organisations to look further at the role played by effective continuing professional development, the development of innovative curriculum planning skills and the involvement of learners in curricular debates

The coming year will see more activities in these areas, so do watch out for them. If your organisation would like to run an event similar to the one described in the report, please contact andy.gannon@157group.co.uk or rachel.cooke@ifl.ac.uk. Even better, if you have a suggestion for something we should be doing or looking at in more depth, then let us know.

One thing is clear in the report; teaching and learning becomes truly outstanding when we share our knowledge and expertise in a professional way and truly serve the needs of our learners to benefit from excellent teaching and to succeed.

 

By Lynne Sedgmore and Toni Fazaeli

Jason Holt’s review sets out what we can do to encourage many more smaller businesses to become involved with apprenticeships; it is a chance to refresh and streamline the service that we provide. In particular, the report has highlighted that we need to make businesses more aware of the support that the National Apprenticeship Service and others can give to make taking on apprentices much easier.

Eighty per cent of apprentices in the UK are currently employed by businesses with fewer than 200 employees. These businesses are great advocates and deliverers of skills training and have given many young people life-changing experiences as they enter work.

They recognise that apprenticeships are an extremely effective way for employers to tap into raw talent, up-skill their staff and grow their business, as well as offering young people high skills levels and life-changing career opportunities.

However, many smaller businesses are missing out on these opportunities: 99 per cent of businesses in the UK are small and medium sized (SMEs) but only about 10 per cent currently employ apprentices.

The Holt review gives us the opportunity to match a new cohort of businesses and apprentices by bringing them together on our free apprenticeship vacancies online system.

Too few businesses know about NAS and the excellent work that we do. This was a decision taken at our launch three years ago; that we would promote the apprenticeship brand itself, rather than NAS, the organisation behind the brand. We recognise that now is the time to promote our services too, so that businesses of all sizes have a better understanding of where they need to go for information.

We plan to enhance our marketing activity aimed at smaller businesses, including publishing a simple guide to show exactly what help is available to access apprenticeships.

We have already started to implement changes, such as making it easier for more SMEs that recruit young apprentices to access the £1,500 apprenticeship grant (AGE 16-24). This incentive scheme is designed to help up to 40,000 more SMEs to employ apprentices aged 16 to 24; we are expanding the scheme and simplifying the payment process. There will now be a single (rather than staged) payment and the grant will now be available for up to 10 apprentices per employer.

Although smaller businesses are still the priority, the grant will also be extended to businesses with up to 1,000 employees and businesses that have not employed an apprentice in the past 12 months.

We also recently established a dedicated small business team. We try to respond to every enquiry within two days, with many employers being called back the same day. However, this is only a small part of the equation. The wider FE sector – apprenticeship training providers and colleges – also has a vital role to play.

The review is part of the bigger apprenticeship picture. We also need to consider extending Group Training Agencies (GTA) and Apprenticeship Training Agencies (ATA).

GTAs are employers who work together to organise their apprenticeships, sharing training processes, facilities and costs. Some smaller businesses can be deterred from taking on apprentices because they are not confident that they will have enough work or resources to support the apprentice for the whole of their apprenticeship. The key feature of the ATA approach is that apprentices are recruited and employed by the agency, but then work in host businesses where they can achieve the work-related elements of their apprenticeship.

The Holt review helps us to ensure that apprenticeships are widely recognised as the gold standard of vocational learning and to effectively fulfil the needs of businesses and young people.

 

David Way, chief executive, National Apprenticeship Service