She will compete against three other nominees, all from universities: Saira Weiner, a Liverpool John Moores University lecturer and member of UCU Left, Vicky Blake, a past president of the UCU, and law professor Ewan McGaughey.
Each will have received at least 50 nominations to stand for the role, which has a five-year term. It is advertised with an annual salary of between £111,723 and £125,745, plus £5,058 of London weighting.
UCU members will be balloted between January 25 and March 1, 2024.
Jo Grady
Grady was an employment relations lecturer at the University of Sheffield when she ran for the job in 2019. She won after securing 64 per cent of the vote, almost double that of Matt Waddup, UCU’s national head of policy and campaigns, who received 33 per cent of the vote in second place.
Jo McNeil, president of the University of Liverpool UCU branch, also ran in 2019 but was knocked out in the first round of voting.
Prior to Grady’s election, the UCU had positioned itself alongside college leaders in the fight for more funding for the sector, specifically in campaigning to close the widening pay gap between school and college teachers.
Since then, relations with college employers have soured as annual pay awards offered to teachers and lecturers fell far short of the union’s demands.
Most recently, the UCU balloted 89 colleges over strike action this month, but members at just eight made it to the picket line. Half of those balloted failed to reach the legal turnout threshold, while many others secured pay rises of around 6.5 per cent, to match what is being offered in schools.
In a video posted on X, formerly Twitter, Grady said UCU members “need and deserve [her] full attention” and that she would set out her manifesto in “due course”.
“I will set out my vision for the next five years, and I will campaign on the basis of being the best candidate possible to lead our union,” she said.
But first she said she needs to “be on picket lines with our further education members”.
Saira Weiner
A senior lecturer in education early childhood studies at Liverpool John Moores University and secretary of her university’s UCU branch, Weiner threw her hat into the ring soon after Grady announced her intention to re-run.
She is also vice-chair of the union’s regional committee for the north-west of England, and used to be a member of UCU’s national executive committee.
She criticised Grady’s decision to suspend university strikes in February after the UCU said it had made “real progress” in negotiations with employers over pay, conditions and pensions.
Weiner told FE Week that members “need a union that ensures that, when members take industrial action, they are in control of disputes”.
She also said she would push to “scale up our industrial democracy for multi-institution disputes” rather than just sticking to local strike committees.
Vicky Blake
A widening participation officer at the University of Leeds, Blake put herself forward as an independent candidate after finishing her term as president of the UCU in June 2022. She is currently honorary secretary of the university’s UCU branch and is a former branch president.
In comments on her website, she said “mixed results” in FE balloting had left many members “disenchanted and dissatisfied with the distance between the rhetoric used during campaigning and what actually happened”.
She added: “I believe that we need an urgent change of approach. When we obtain reduced turnouts or even miss a ballot threshold at branch or aggregated level, we need to ask serious and thoughtful questions.”
Ewan McGaughey
McGaughey, a law professor at King’s College London, has pledged to “reverse the real terms 13 per cent pay cuts in further education since 2019” in his bid for the top role at UCU.
He was president of the UCU branch at his university from December 2020 to September 2023.
He also committed to bringing “democracy to every workplace with governing bodies majority-elected by staff”, and to boost the UCU’s legal department “to defend all workers’ rights”.
He has also backed equal-paid parental leave of 26 weeks after his campaigning boosted parental leave at King’s College, and committed to banning zero-hours contracts which he called a “scar on our sector”.
FE Student Support Champion, Department for Education
Start date: November 2023
Concurrent Job: Assistant Principal – Safeguarding and Inclusion, Kirklees College
Interesting fact: Polly is the first person to hold this new role advising ministers and the FE commissioner on how to support students to complete and succeed in their studies
Dan Howard
Deputy Chief Executive, Springfield Training
Start date: January 2024
Previous Job: Post 16 education and skills consultant, DHC
Interesting fact: Dan has recently discovered he a descendent of Queen Elizabeth I’s private secretary and privy councellor Lord Thomas Wilson
The chancellor has drawn up plans to restrict the use of levy funding for degree-level apprenticeships, FE Week understands.
Multiple sources have said that Jeremy Hunt is concerned about the affordability of the levy amid a huge rise in the number of costly level 6 and 7 apprenticeships for older employees, while spending on lower levels and young people falls.
Treasury officials have now floated the idea of limiting the use of levy cash that can be spent on the highest-level apprenticeships, but the Department for Education is understood to be resisting ahead of next week’s Autumn statement.
Proposals include removing some apprenticeships – such as the popular but controversial level 7 senior leader standard – from the scope of levy funding, introducing age restrictions and demanding larger employer contributions.
Networks of training providers and universities contacted the Treasury this week to plead with the chancellor not to cut access to the courses, who claim the move is “political posturing” to appeal to certain parts of the electorate.
Those involved in delivering the courses have also argued that the majority of level 6 and 7 management apprentices are in public services and “critical for the productivity agenda and fiscal sustainability”.
Experts have called on the government instead to increase the apprenticeships budget in line with the level of levy receipts the tax brings in. The government was accused of short-changing employers in September after FE Week analysis revealed the Treasury failed to distribute around £415 million paid into the levy by employers in the 2022-23 financial year.
Ciaran Roche, public affairs manager at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said his membership body understands that the government wants more levy funds to be spent on level 2 to 5 apprenticeships, but the “best way to do this would be to increase the apprenticeship programme budget to match the increased apprenticeship levy take”.
Roche added that, while the details are still being negotiated, the proposed changes to level 6 and 7 apprenticeships “could introduce more complexity to an already complex system”.
Restriction plans are ‘political posturing’
The levy was introduced in 2017 and forces employers with a wage bill of £3 million or more to hand over 0.5 per cent of their annual wage bill to fund apprenticeships across the UK.
The government’s apprenticeships quango, the Institute of Apprenticeships and Technical Education, and spending watchdog the National Audit Office warned in 2018 that the scheme was not financially sustainable as the average cost of training apprentices hit double the figure that was expected when the levy was designed.
Ministers then began considering “hard choices” about ways to limit levy spending, but pressure eased when the Covid-19 pandemic hit in March 2020 and the number of new starters fell.
However, figures for 2021-22 and 2022-23 show that 99.6 per cent and 96 per cent of England’s apprenticeships budget was spent respectively. This was despite starts dipping overall compared to the early years of the levy, and down to of soaring numbers of higher-level apprenticeship starts.
Skills minister Robert Halfon, who has made boosting the number of degree-level apprenticeships one of his top priorities, batted away concerns about the affordability of the budget this year in an interview with FE Week. He insisted there were no talks about imposing controls on levy spending.
FE Week later revealed that, since the levy was introduced, spending on level 6 and 7 apprenticeships has risen from £44 million in 2017/18 to £506 million in 2021/22 – hitting £1.325 billion in total over that period. It now accounts for over a fifth of England’s annual apprenticeship budget.
Levy spending on those aged 25 and over more than doubled between 2017/18 and 2021/22, growing from £460 million to £934 million. At the same time, spending on apprenticeships for young people aged 16 to 19 fell by £60 million, or about 10 per cent, from £686 million to £626 million.
The most popular degree-level apprenticeship is the level 7 accountancy/taxation professional, which racked up 9,470 starts in 2021/22 and 41,370 in total since 2017. With an upper funding band of £21,000, this standard could use up to £870 million of the levy pot from the starts already recorded.
The second-most popular degree-level apprenticeship is the level 7 senior leader standard, which has had 25,200 starts in total since 2017/18. With an initial funding band of £18,000 before being cut to £14,000, it means that up to £420 million could be used to fund this training.
However, starts for this particular apprenticeship have begun to drop since the government removed its controversial MBA component from the scope of levy funding.
A final decision on whether to restrict levy funding for degree-level apprenticeships could come as soon as next week.
Employers are calling on the government to raise awareness of the cash incentives available for T Levels after more than two-thirds of a £10 million industry placements fund went unspent.
FE Week can reveal that the Department for Education clawed back £6.75 million of the cash that was on offer from May 2021 to July 2022.
Employers could claim a £1,000 cash boost for every T Level student they hosted on a 315-hour industry placement. There were no stipulations about how the money should be used, but it was designed to aid set-up costs, buy additional equipment and train staff on how to supervise placement students.
The DfE told FE Week, through a Freedom of Information request, that the £3.25 million distributed under the scheme supported 3,241 incentive payments through 1,628 employers.
Business representatives said the figures were “disappointing” and blamed DfE officials for failing to properly promote T Levels to businesses and entice them to offer placements.
A similar scheme that ran from 2019 to 2021, which offered employers a payment of £750 for each T Level placement, suffered from the same problem and led to just £500,000 of a £7 million budget being spent.
While this was during the Covid years, DfE researchers found examples of T Level providers and employers being “hesitant” to use the £750 grants because of the “risk that some of the funding could be claimed back, and also because of a lack of awareness of how the programme could be used”.
Robert West, head of education and skills at the Confederation of British Industry, said the latest employer incentive figures “highlighting high underspend are disappointing”.
He told FE Week: “The drivers behind this trend are clear: firstly, low awareness of available government support for business engagement, and secondly, a lack of clarity on the benefits of T Levels for firms.
“The government has made some progress on developing targeted information and guidance that explains the logistics around the work experience placement element. It is now necessary to highlight the value of T Levels for individual businesses.”
Jane Gratton, deputy director of public policy at the British Chambers of Commerce, said T Levels were “still quite a new phenomenon”. Her members say it can take up to a year for businesses to find out about schemes, five years to engage with them and 10 years to build confidence in their effectiveness.
“With the impact of the pandemic and a host of other economic shocks to contend with as well, there are clear reasons why not every business has been able to get involved in T Levels,” she added.
‘We need to see better promotion’
One of the biggest barriers to the success of T Levels – the government’s flagship qualification launched in 2020 designed to be the technical equivalent of A-levels – is finding enough employers to host the mandatory 315-hour, or 45-day, placements.
Business bodies have long called for financial incentives to encourage employers to get involved.
Despite the low take-up of the incentive schemes in previous years, the government has created a £12 million T Level industry placement fund to be used in the 2023-24 financial year.
Employers can claim for costs up to a maximum of £25,000 across all placements they are hosting and through all providers they may be working with.
Federation of Small Business policy chair Tina McKenzie said: “Overall, we’re supportive of T Levels and do encourage our members to host placements, but they need to be better promoted – awareness among small businesses is still low.
“We’ve called for the financial incentives to be brought back – an FSB report published in 2022 found that 22 per cent of small businesses would be encouraged to host a T Level placement if there was more financial support. So, we need to see better promotion and financial incentives, with a simpler way to access that.”
The government wants Ofsted to review the prime minister’s signature maths scheme for adults amid spending concerns, FE Week understands.
Multiply offers free courses for adults who did not achieve a grade C or above in GCSE maths or an equivalent level 2 qualification.
Around £560 million has been committed to the programme across three financial years to the end of 2024-25 from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.
But, in its first year of delivery, £30.3 million of the £81 million awarded was clawed back by the Department for Education and returned to the Treasury, according to data obtained by local government expert Jack Shaw through a Freedom of Information request.
FE Week understands that officials are concerned about oversight of the programme, including a lack of understanding over who the providers are that are delivering the scheme.
The DfE is currently in negotiations with Ofsted about conducting a thematic review this financial year. Such a review, which is likely to mostly involve a survey, would not include judgments for providers but would provide an overall view of how the programme is running, its contents and who the deliverers are.
The DfE is separately planning its own evaluation reports for Multiply.
Prime minister Rishi Sunak announced the scheme in October 2021 when he was chancellor. He tasked officials and councils with rolling it out by the start of the 2022-23 financial year, but delays led to the funding not being released until around October 2022.
Despite the delays, around 45,000 people participated in Multiply in its first year.
Ofsted and the DfE said they could not comment on the proposed thematic review as discussions were ongoing.
The early years sector is facing debilitating staff shortages. Jessica Hill speaks to sector leaders about how reforms to training could help, or hinder, flagship childcare reforms
Qualification reforms intended to train more early years workers could spell a “dumbing down” of the profession and will still leave the sector drastically short of the number needed to deliver the government’s landmark childcare plans.
A vital element was missing when the chancellor announced plans for a childcare “revolution” in March. With 30 hours of “free childcare” proposed for working parents of every nursery-age child, there were nothing like enough early years staff to implement the plans.
The entitlement will be introduced in stages: 15 hours from next April for two-year-olds and from nine months upwards from next September; then 30 hours for all under-fives from September 2024.
The investment represents over £8 billion a year by 2027-28. But it comes at a time when workforce recruitment and retention in the early years sector “appears to have reached a tipping point”, according to the Local Government Association.
Fewer than one in five nursery managers surveyed by the Early Education and Childcare Coalition said they could offer the extended “free hours” entitlement because of the recruitment crisis, with more than half of nursery staff considering quitting in the next year.
The early years sector is understood not to have been consulted ahead of the announcement.
To widen the recruitment pool in which childcare providers can fish, the Department for Education (DfE) is watering down early years qualification requirements and tweaking apprenticeship standards. But there are concerns these measures will reverse the substantial progress on the quality of provision made in the past 30 years.
Neil Leitch, chief executive of the Early Years Alliance
Will ‘revolution’ need a revision?
Recruitment and retention is a problem across the public sector but it has been particularly devastating for early years settings. DfE data for 2022 shows 334,000 early years workers, down 10,000 (3 per cent) from the peak in 2019. Childminder numbers have fallen by one-fifth since 2019.
In 2019, one in four parents asked by the department said the availability of local 0-4 childcare places was “not enough”; by 2022 it was one in three.
The National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA) said 651 settings closed in 2022-23, up 50 per cent on the previous year.
The coalition report found that if all those children aged nine months to two years currently using informal childcare sought to move into formal childcare arrangements in light of the government’s plans, settings would need to boost places by 17 per cent and hire 38,726 more workers next year. A further 71,267 would be needed in 2025, of whom 43,042 would require level 3 qualifications.
The DfE promised a national recruitment campaign earlier this year, but this has been postponed until January.
Even before its childcare reforms are introduced, the recruitment crisis (and particularly the challenge of recruiting level 3 qualified staff) is already cited as a cause of a decline in the quality of staff. This comes as young children are showing increasing signs of complex needs and developmental delays, which require greater expertise.
Neil Leitch, chief executive of the Early Years Alliance, warns that there is “a real risk that [the government’s plans] will result in a de-professionalisation of the workforce at a time when the need for quality care and education is as high as it has ever been”.
No need for maths
The prime minister recently described maths as being “every bit as essential as reading”. But, with more students failing GCSE maths this year (39 per cent, compared with 35 per cent in 2022), his government has been forced to row back on GCSE maths requirements for early years staff.
It recently pledged to remove the need for level 3 early years staff (excluding managers) to have level 2 maths to count in staffing ratios.
Most (67 per cent) respondents to a recent consultation on reform of the early-years foundation stage statutory framework supported removing the maths requirement, which the government said “may have discouraged some practitioners from completing their level 3 childcare qualification”.
The move was also welcomed by awarding body NCFE, which provides around 80 per cent of the qualifications. Julie Hyde, its director of external and regulatory affairs, described it as “hugely significant” as it would enable “many early years practitioners… previously unable to practise at level 3” to be “recognised in their rightful roles”.
There are also calls for the government to go further. Hyde said the maths requirement should also be “removed from the apprenticeship rules, as it has already been with the T Level and other vocational full and relevant qualifications”.
The Local Government Association is calling for the requirement for English GCSE to be dropped too, with some local authority leads suggesting that “not enough focus is placed on empathy or skills in working with children”, according to a paper to its board.
But not everyone agrees with the direction of travel. Dr Iram Siraj, professor of child development and education at the University of Oxford and a judge of the 2024 Khalifa International Award for Early Learning, described scrapping maths requirements as a “dumbing down” of entry into the early years sector.
“It is a really complex situation where all the government is caring about is shoving people into nurseries to do childcare when early education has been a huge part of the drive since the late 90s,” she said. “And we’ve been winning on that – this is a backward step.”
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak
T Level troubles
From 2024, nine early years qualifications will be defunded because they overlap with T Levels.
On the face of it, the T Level in education and early years introduced in 2020 has been relatively successful. But Siraj warns there is still “poor understanding” in the sector as to what T Levels are and “what it means for the salaries and future” of those learners.
Nevertheless, T Levels are slowly gaining traction. The number of students taking the early years qualification more than doubled from 462 in 2021-22 to 989 in 2022-23. More students achieved a distinction or above (34.5 per cent) than in any other T Level subject.
In Ofsted’s thematic review of T Levels this summer, “many providers” said the education and early years course had “significant similarities” to previously offered qualifications. It also praised providers for their creation and use of how providers had created early years classrooms and even sensory rooms.
Hartlepool College targeted 12 learners when it rolled out the T Level in September 2023 and got 14. Its chief executive, Darren Hankey, said finding work placements – which has proven problematic with other T Level courses such as construction – had been “not too much of a barrier”.
But others are less impressed with the qualification. Cheryl Hadland, founder and chair of Tops Day Nurseries, a group of 33 nurseries along the south coast, believes that selling T Levels to young people who want to work in nurseries is an “unforgivable thing” to do. She pulled out of the DfE’s consultation over the T Level because she felt it was “not fit for purpose”.
Hers is one of five nursery chains on this year’s top 100 national employers of apprentices. She objects to how the two-year T Level qualifies students to run a nursery room, whereas her apprentices require “probably three and a half years’ worth of study and practice” before they can do the same.
She said nurseries in the south-west now “don’t have enough apprentices”. This is “probably” because learners are taking T Level courses. Her message to colleges offering the qualification is: “please don’t, you’re taking our intake”.
To T Level graduates applying for supervising jobs, her message is also clear: “Sorry, sweetheart, but you are not anywhere like ready. You can be, and we would love to support you, but […] you’ve used all your funding doing T Levels, so we can’t put you on an apprenticeship.”
Dr Imam Siraj of the University of Oxford
Experience-based route
As a result of recent qualification reforms and a proliferation of online courses, there is now some ambiguity around what qualifications are actually required to work in the sector.
Concern around a “lack of clarity” was raised by the LGA, which decried the fact that “numerous training providers” make it “difficult to navigate who is offering high-quality training and who is not”.
But things could get even more complicated because the DfE has just pledged to introduce an “experience-based route”. This would mean that those, for example, in the care sector could have their similar level 3 qualifications count as a childcare qualification.
Three-quarters of consultation respondents agreed with the proposal, with some expressing “frustration” that, without a formal qualification, some “highly competent and experienced” staff members cannot be counted towards statutory staffing ratios.
The department is also allowing students on long-term placements and apprentices to be counted in ratios at the level below their level of study, allowing trainees to “build more valuable experience so they can flourish in their early years career”.
For example, a level 3 apprentice judged by their manager to be performing well could count within the level 2 staff/child ratios.
However, the DfE acknowledged there were “concerns raised around ensuring quality” as a result.
Leitch said that the question of “which qualifications are considered ‘full and relevant’ by the DfE” – and will allow a member of staff to count in ratios – has “long been a cause of confusion for many in the early years sector”.
He added: “All too often, we hear of educators spending time and money on courses and training, only to discover further down the line that the qualifications … hold little, if any, value in real terms.”
Julie Hyde of NCFE
Apprenticeship reforms
The DfE also hopes in the longer term to remove barriers to entering the sector by introducing new “accelerated” apprenticeship and degree apprenticeship routes, so that “everyone from junior staff to senior leaders can easily move into a career in the sector”.
Changes are also afoot in the assessment of the early years educator apprenticeship.
The proposed end point assessment changes to the standard by the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE) are prompting concerns from NCFE, as they would require face-to-face external assessment.
At a time when the recruitment crisis means assessors are in short supply (or already overloaded), there are concerns that this would further strain the system by causing delays to apprenticeship completions.
Siraj objects to more “on-the-job assessment” because it can be “a way of just getting people through qualifications, rather than ensuring that they had a more rigorous understanding of both child development and practice”.
Funding calls
More than anything, the early years sector says it needs more funding to attract the staff it needs.
The government is boosting childcare funding rates this year and next, for which it is providing an extra £492 million. But the Institute for Fiscal Studies said the uplift fails to address previous years of underfunding.
Siraj believes the reason early years staff are leaving in droves comes down to more than just money, however.
“The sector is exhausted. People prefer not to have the stress of dealing with small children who aren’t toilet-trained and have behaviour issues. They are going to Asda and Tesco because life is just easier.”
A record number of UK further education colleges have been awarded the Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education.
Seven colleges were honoured this evening at a special reception at St James’s Palace, alongside 15 universities.
The awards, launched in 1994 and held every two years, are described as the “highest national honour in education” by organisers The Royal Anniversary Trust. Winning applications were signed off by the King on the advice of the prime minister.
Applicants must prove that they offer “very high quality and an example of the best the UK can do” in a particular subject, field or discipline, according to the trust.
No more than six colleges have been awarded the prize in any of the previous 14 award rounds. These latest winners bring the total number of UK colleges holding the prize to 59.
Sir Damon Buffini, chair of The Royal Anniversary Trust said: “The Queen’s Anniversary Prizes for Higher and Further Education are an integral part of our national honours system, shining a light on the ground-breaking work taking place in universities and colleges across the UK.
“All 22 prize-winners demonstrate excellence, innovation and impact, with many tackling some of the toughest problems we as a society face today. They are to be commended for reaching this pinnacle of achievement in the tertiary education sector.”
Winners are presented with a silver-gilt prize medal, a certificate signed by the King, a special logo to use on college materials and are invited to an investiture presentation at Buckingham Palace.
Here is a run-down of this year’s college winners in England:
Loughborough College has been awarded the prize for its space engineering programme, run with the National Space Academy. Aimed at aspiring engineers, physicists and astronauts, the programme combines A levels in maths and physics with the BTEC national diploma in engineering to create a “unique and world-class” course for 16 to 19-year-olds.
Jo Maher, Loughborough College principal, said: “We are so proud to have received the Queen’s Anniversary Prize for our outstanding space engineering programme.
“Space engineering is our most academically demanding course and the destinations of our outstanding students are a testament to the success of this programme, which prepares them for the rigours of studying and working in the thriving aerospace industry.”
Bridgwater and Taunton College has been recognised as the first FE college to run nursing degrees in response to Somerset’s critical NHS workforce shortages.
Principal Andy Berry said: “By delivering nursing degrees right here in Somerset, we have not only expanded career horizons for our community but also made a significant impact on the health and wellbeing of our residents.
“This initiative demonstrates our dedication to meeting local workforce demands and retaining local talent.”
Also among this year’s winners is City College Plymouth for the work of its Centre of Higher Technical Innovation and Maritime Skills and its “international reputation for excellence” in the maritime sector.
Principal Jackie Grubb said she was “proud and delighted that the college’s expertise and commitment to developing skills has been recognised as an example of excellence”.
Hopwood Hall College and University Centre’s “trauma-informed approach” to widening participation has contributed to a growing number of traditionally disengaged and marginalised young people entering and succeeding in FE.
Principal Julia Heap said she was “so proud of the professionalism of our staff teams in embracing this nurturing framework and the impact it has had on widening participation for marginalised young people”.
She added: “This prestigious award only fuels our determination to keep removing obstacles to accessing education and making sure that all young people – regardless of the social and mental health issues that may have affected their life chances – have the opportunity to reach their potential and truly thrive.”
Plumpton College’s programmes for the English wine industry spanning nearly 40 years caught the attention of the selection panel. Courses now include apprenticeships, introductory wine academies, CPD courses and degrees.
The college has its very own vineyard and winery, and its graduates produce “a real competitor to champagne and sparkling wines”.
Julie Dougill, chair of Plumpton College, said she was “deeply honoured” to receive the prize. “It is a testament to our unwavering commitment to excellence in wine training and education as leaders in this field,” she added.
Lakes College West Cumbria received the prize for its approach to training higher-level technicians in the UK’s nuclear and low-carbon sectors. The college said its “innovative and transferable” training model, accredited by the National College for Nuclear, is being used across a growing network of providers across the UK.
Principal Chris Nattress praised the “hard work, creativity, dedication and talent” of his staff, as well as “learners, employers and partners who continue to support us in our first-class endeavour”.
The government is considering making sex and relationships education compulsory in colleges.
The Women and Equalities Select Committee called for the move in July, arguing that doing so would help more young people avoid “potentially harmful and dangerous situations”.
Currently, relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) is mandatory in secondary schools up to the age of 16.
The Department for Education today revealed it is now weighing up applying the same rule to post-16 education, in its response to the committee’s recommendations.
It considered 14 recommendations in total, most of which focus on universities and schools.
The select committee warned in July that the gap between 16 and 18 without RSHE means young people are “unsupported” and “less equipped” with important knowledge on relationships and sex issues.
It followed an inquiry by the select committee into sexual harassment in schools and colleges, after the MeToo movement emerged and after Everyone’s Invited, an online platform set up to document stories of harassment in education, went viral.
The July report warned a lack of compulsory RSHE after 16 “leaves young people making their first steps in the adult world under-supported and less equipped to navigate potentially harmful and dangerous situations and keep themselves safe and healthy in relationships”.
The committee did not, however, hear evidence on how this recommendation could apply to independent training providers.
There is wide agreement that RSHE is needed in colleges, but some sector leaders urged the government to support colleges financially so that they can offer that provision.
Geoff Barton, general secretary at the Association of School and College Leaders, said sexual harassment and violence is “treated as an extremely serious matter in schools and colleges”.
But he warned colleges had received “very little” in the way of support or training for teachers to teach RSHE, and that they “cannot fight this battle alone”.
A spokesperson for the Department for Education said all women and girls “deserve a safe environment, and we expect schools, colleges and universities to take immediate action against sexual misconduct or harassment”. They said they will consider how their guidance and support on delivering RSHE “can be strengthened” as part of the review.
The expectation of college leavers’ tech literacy has changed drastically in the past decade – even the past three years. Previously, a cursory mention of Microsoft Office on your CV was enough to suggest you were reasonably tech literate. Now, we live in a different world.
The usual assumption is that a young person’s tech skills are greater than those before them, as they are viewed as having grown up with tech. This assumption has several flaws.
To begin with, the reality of tech in the workplace is very different to the technologies young people encounter. Social media, messaging apps and gaming won’t get them far. Even when it comes to VR itself, there is a world of difference between a gaming application and its various workplace uses.
This assumption is also based on the idea that every young person has grown up with access to a smartphone and/or a PC as well as the time, data and guidance to explore a range of applications. Educators know that simply isn’t the case. Digital poverty is real. Across NCG (as at all schools and colleges) students from different backgrounds are at a very varied range of starting points. For some, tech is an enabler to education and the workplace. For others, it is a barrier.
For these reasons and more, it’s best not to make assumptions about any young person’s tech skills but to create a more inclusive space with a bottom-up approach to tech literacy.
From remote to virtual learning
Balancing inclusivity with innovation is a constant consideration. In the next five years, virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) are likely to take off in a big way. The biggest opportunity this presents is in making the inaccessible, accessible. They promise to mitigate the cost, health and safety, time and planning challenges of taking students to real work environments like construction sites, factories and labs and offering immersive experiences to all learners, no matter where they are.
At NCG, we’re using these technologies in subject areas like construction where site access can be dangerous and in the automotive sector where the switch from the internal combustion engine to the electric motor is in full flow but access to new, cutting-edge facilities can be challenging.
I sit at the ‘edtech fanatic’ end of the spectrum. I believe fervently that we need to prepare students for the future, not just for the here and now, and that VR/AR will help us do that.
However, we know we are working with a huge range of experiences, preferences and abilities among students and staff. The speed at which we deployed digital learning during lockdown was unprecedented and broadly successful, but not everyone thrives in a digital or remote environment.
Time for reflection
I can absolutely see a future where VR headsets, augmented reality and meeting in the metaverse are the norm, for both teachers and students. Some may see this as a threat to the traditional classroom situation. This is a valid feeling, and it is important to reassure everyone that these technologies are complementary. There will always be times when we ‘switch off’, to make time for face-to-face discussion and ideation, for finding sources of inspiration and using our imaginations.
Delivering this inclusive vision is a matter of small, incremental changes that offer time to pause and reflect. For us, a phased approach means building on blended learning first, for example by using 360 imagery and some immersive experiences from a desktop.
While we do this, we are mindful of workload implications. Indeed, one of the very reasons we are also exploring the adoption of AI is to reduce administrative time to support colleagues to upskill and develop their classroom practices.
Because in the end, a considered, phased approach that takes everyone on the journey, will be critical to a successful digital transformation in education. If only there was a VR simulation of that near future that I could show you.
