Blooming brilliant City of Bath College student scoops bronze medal at flower show

City of Bath College floristry student Hannah Lee has scooped a bronze medal at the Chelsea Flower Show.

Hannah took bronze in the Young Florist of the Year category, which puts her up there with the best young florists in the country.

The theme for the event was Diamond Jubilee and each competitor had to design a chandelier made from fresh flower materials. Hannah got her inspiration from researching the history of the chandeliers at Buckingham Palace.

Her winning design was a chandelier which included Phalaenopsis orchids, muscari and hyacinths pips.

Hannah, 19, who is studying Floristry Level 3, said: “It’s a fantastic feeling – I can’t believe it.

“To win one of the top awards at an event like Chelsea is a huge achievement and I’m so proud.

“I was going up against some really talented people so I wasn’t that confident before the competition. Then when I found out I’d got a Bronze medal – and that I was only one mark away from the silver – I just couldn’t believe it.

Louise Rawlings, Hannah’s tutor, said: “This is a fantastic achievement by Hannah. She has done so well and deserves this success – we are all extremely proud of her.”

Coleg Gwent College staff win TA challenge

Staff at Coleg Gwent College were crowned winners of an ‘Employees Challenge’ event organised by the Territorial Army in Newport.

Teams from organisations across South Wales were put through their paces at the event, which tested leadership skills using physical and mental challenges.

College staff faced stiff competition from organisations in the region, but finished with top scores in tasks ranging from commanding to problem solving.

One of Coleg Gwent’s competitors, Sarah Williams, a learning mentor, said: “It was a great day, we enjoyed working together on the activities and the partnership links that we developed at the event are invaluable. Big thanks go to the TA for organising such a successful event.”

Captain Gareth Dibble, event organiser, said: “It was a real pleasure to see so many willing volunteers from Coleg Gwent during this event, which was billed as a physically and mentally challenging day.

“We look forward to seeing Coleg Gwent back at Raglan Barracks next year competing to retain their well-deserved winning team award.”

Raising awareness at City College Plymouth

Students at City College Plymouth participated in an afternoon of fun to raise awareness of Paralympic sports.

College students and the local community came together to compete in mixed ability teams for sports such as basketball, tennis, and badminton. Sport and media students were also on-hand to film the event.

Special guests included Sarah Piercy, a long distance wheelchair racing star and winner of the 2000 London marathon women’s wheelchair competition, and Josh Steels, a junior wheelchair tennis star.

The College was also delighted to welcome Mark Blackler, who launched ‘Sonic Tennis’ for the visually impaired in March 2009. Abi Gee, learning support manager at the College, said: “The event has been fantastic. We organised the event to raise awareness of disability sports in the local area, and encourage people to integrate with students of all abilities.

“We are thrilled at the outcome and would like to thank all the students and athletes for participating on the day.”

Graham Hoyle, chief executive, AELP

“My father gave me two pieces of advice: ‘don’t do shift work’ and ‘join the civil service,” says Graham Hoyle, of his early careers education.

Growing up in Barton Hill, a “tough, inner-city” area of Bristol, he wanted to join the police force, but years of watching his father work long, unsociable hours at the local chocolate factory put him off the idea. He dropped out of grammar school at 17 to join the civil service.

Hoyle, now chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP), spent the next 20 years in the employment service, starting as a trainee on a scheme that was “in every shape or form an apprenticeship.” And despite being fresh out of school, he was placed straight on the front line.“As a 17-year-old, I was sat giving unemployed people advice on their next job,” he recalls. “One has to smile slightly at that.”

The experience made him grow up quick, opening his eyes up to a different side of life, he says. He experienced verbal abuse, had knives drawn on him – and in one unforgettable incident – was threatened by a man who had just been released from prison for manslaughter.

As a 17 year-old in 1964 – a time of “almost full employment” – he was surprised to come across people who didn’t actually want a job. “I quickly realised that many clients were unemployed at a time – and I’m generalising now – when there was no reason to be unemployed, so it opened my eyes to what you would almost call an underclass.”

But there were valuable lessons to be learnt, he says, the most important being that there is no silver bullet for unemployment. “You learn that lesson in a dramatic and extreme way but you learn it quickly; there are things that have to be sorted out before you can get to the real agenda…until you have somewhere to live, income, support for your family, the basic requirements that people like you and I take for granted…you can’t even begin to tackle the issues of finding a job.”

When Hoyle was embarking on his career, in the early 1960s, he had little doubt that “many of those avoiding paid employment were doing so because they were already in unofficial paid work.” The recession that followed in the 1970s changed everything.

It is a truism that the government of the day only starts taking a real interest in the cost of unemployment and the need to tackle it during a recession”

And while he is keen to point out that many politicians do have genuine determination and integrity, having spent almost 50 years in the sector, Hoyle believes the government’s enthusiasm to tackle the issue is largely driven by economic forces. “When unemployment goes up, the proportion of the unemployed who don’t actually want to work drops dramatically, yet there is suddenly more talk of the ‘workshy.’ It’s not party political…but it is a truism that the government of the day only starts taking a real interest in the cost of unemployment and the need to tackle it during a recession. The government brings in harsher rules for the unemployed jobseeker at a time when there are no jobs…and as there are more jobs, the pressure comes off. It is totally explainable, but it is slightly worrying because it does tell you that that is driven by government expenditure, far more so than the sort of rather more high-minded aspirations.”

A “proud Bristolian,” Hoyle “resisted, one might even say refused, the career-enhancing move to London” and, after more than 20 years in the employment service,transferred to the training agency, where he ran youth training and other employment schemes in both Plymouth and Gloucestershire.

Hoyle is defensive about YTS, widely criticised at the time for for allowing businesses to benefit from cheap labour for unskilled jobs, saying: “YTS was a product of unemployment and the economic cycle. It was an unemployment relief programme… and one thing that has frustrated, and occasionally annoyed me is that there are too many people who now retrospectively rubbish the weaknesses of the predecessor, when in actual fact they were often effective and the best offer available at the time, and invariably were developed and improved.

“The whole of the environment, the employer… business was contracting, manufacturing was being closed down, and no one had identified that the service sector and apprenticeships were in any way shape or form on the same agenda. The whole environment meant that you had to come up with short-term job replacement schemes, YTS, community programmes…so I do get upset when people retrospectively rubbish programmes of 15, 10, 5 years ago. I prefer to say that it was the best we could come up with under the circumstances.”

After being made redundant in 2000, Hoyle spent two years working as a freelance consultant before joining AELP in 2002. And as he reflects on his time working in the sector (Hoyle is due to retire next year), he says he is most proud of his work on apprenticeships – not least authoring the first proposal paper for the introduction of modern apprenticeships, introduced under a Labour government in 1994.

Today’s school children are not being prepared properly for their entry to the world of work”

His initial proposal called for the introduction of a range of apprenticeships from pre-entry to Level 5 – ideas dismissed by the government of the time and the shadow cabinet – now in government – which later began to embrace the idea. So does he feel like thumbing his nose and saying ‘I told you so?’ “Not at all,” he says, mildly “I’m just pleased those ideas are now accepted.”

After almost 50 years in the sector, Hoyle is still passionate about work-based learning., The speech he will deliver at next week’s AELP conference will centre on the need to value vocational skills and give all young people access to independent careers advice and guidance. “Most of us will learn more in the workplace about our jobs than we will ever learn anywhere else, but the reality is that today’s school children are not being prepared properly for their entry to the world of work.”

Ensuring all children have access to independent careers advice and guidance means changing the perceptions of teachers – the vast majority of which are university educated – about all the opportunities available to young people, including work-based and vocational learning.

Hoyle says: “It’s important to say that many schools do a good job, but too many are still not giving pupils the information they need to make informed decisions. It’s only when we start changing mindsets that we can really begin to make progress.”

College’s shameful disregard for the rules

The findings in the Tenon report feel a little unsubstantiated in places. However, what the FE sector should be worried about is the underlying message and detailed data manipulation methods.

Changing the ends dates of courses retrospectively, removing overseas or work-based learners from their ILR return and using transfer codes to remove students from specific lines of data are not ‘mistakes’. They’re a blatant disregard for the rules.

In all of this Tenon Education Training and Skills Limited has been awfully quiet. The report has a lot to say, and yet the organisation has refused to comment on it publicly.

Similarly the report, described as being “strictly confidential”, is yet to be published or made available on the internet. It all feels rather hush-hush.

So why are Tenon not willing to back the report? Do they know their evidence is insufficient? Or is it because they don’t want to cause too much of a furore, thereby jeopardising their relationship with potential clients? We may never know.

The Tenon Education Training and Skills College Forum is a peculiar beast as well. The report suggests the group, designed to give “a voice” to member colleges in responese to government announcements, was created directly from the issues concerning success rates.

“Many college Principals feel cheated on how a number of other colleges had achieved their continuous improvement in success rates and the results published by the LSC and Ofsted confirmed what many had suspected for a long time, that there were others within the Sector who did not honestly represent success rates,” the report reads.

Shrouded in mystery, the purpose of the forum seems to sit somewhere between the Freemasons and an outspoken think tank.

This is exemplified by the ‘entry criteria’ needed to register. What on earth are they judging these colleges on? Is there some kind of initiation process for each principal? It’s like something out of a Dan Brown novel.

What’s more frightening is how blase the government appears to be about the issue. Presumably because it deals with data, they’re assured parents and the wider public won’t find out or care about it. Or, which would be far worse, the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) are just blissfully unaware that it’s even happening.

“The Skills Funding Agency is assured that data manipulation is not widespread in the sector,” an SFA spokesperson said.
“Since 2009 we have only uncovered one case of data manipulation. This was uncovered through audit and appropriate steps were taken.”

The survey by Lsect seems to corroborate the findings in the Tenon report. Whatever your thoughts are on how ‘widespread’ data manipulation is, multiple sources have confirmed that it’s happening. That’s significant, and it’s about time the FE sector did something about it.

Auditors need to up their game. If colleges are found to bending the rules, they should be named and shamed. No exceptions. If needs be, data returns should be published online with all known tricks highlighted and condemned. Over the top? Perhaps.

But if it makes senior management and MIS teams embarrassed enough to change their ways, it’ll be worth it.

For those who are playing by the rules, my thanks. FE Week Agitator is pleased to hear that some colleges are prepared to be credible and face the consequences of changing success rates – both good and bad. It’s the only way we’ll start reversing this shameful trend.

Ofsted risk-assessment under spotlight

Declining Ofsted grades were at the forefront of the ‘FE & Skills Inspections’ Westminster Briefing conference, with recent statistics showing a drop of one or more grades at 65 per cent of colleges since January this year.

Matthew Coffey, the director of development, learning and skills at Ofsted, said the fall in grades is because of a more risk-based approach to selecting colleges for inspection, due to limited resources.

The director strongly emphasised that the downfall is not reflective of “the state of the nation”.

“If we’re targeting our inspectors at those providers that we’ve got the most concern about, we’re going to see a picture like this,” he said.

“But the state of the nation is that around 70 per cent of providers are ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’.”

He added that it is “unfortunate” that this point has been “lost” in the dialogue about grades. “Without the bigger picture [people are seeing] a declining sector. And I really want to reinforce that it’s not the state of the nation you’re seeing at the moment.”

Mr Coffey believes that the landscape will begin to “balance a little”. He said that resources mean Ofsted will do “a little bit less” of the risk based approach and “much more” work looking at providers that ‘require improvement’. He hopes this will mean there will be an “upward trajectory” and a “much more pleasant picture in the shift of the graph”.

All we ask for is fairness, openness and transparency”

The event was chaired by Nick Linford, the managing editor of FE Week. He led audience voting on a number of issues, from the grades slump to success rates. Despite reassurances from Mr Coffey, when asked why they thought there had been a decline in grades 42 per cent of the audience cited ‘Ofsted have moved the benchmarks’ as the reason. (You can find further details about what the audience thought on the graphs to the right.)

The new Common Inspection Framework (CIS) was also discussed by Mr Coffey. Ofsted had said it was due to be published by last Friday, but the director announced that it is now likely to be released this Tuesday. “It’s important it’s published at the same time as the schools framework,” he said.

The framework will give details of three headline grades – outcomes for learners, quality for teaching, learning and assessment, and the effectiveness of leadership and management – which will lead to an overall effectiveness grade.

The ‘satisfactory’ grade will be replaced by ‘requires improvement’. “I accept [that this is] an uncomfortable use of terminology”, Mr Coffey said, “but I think that Sir Michael is very clear that satisfactory just isn’t satisfactory anymore.”

He said that it will be made clear in inspection reports that colleges are on a trajectory and that Ofsted will “invest in coming back even sooner so that [they] can celebrate that [colleges have] become good”.

The importance of self-assessment reports (SAR) were highlighted by the director, who said they are partly needed to assess risk, which can not only be determined using data. He explained that they “help to mitigate the story that might be invisible on raw date”. The director also asserted the significance of inspection nominees, which have an “even more important role” to play with the introduction of two day notice inspections.

During the conference Mr Coffey made it clear to the audience that Ofsted has a complaints process and that people “must complain” if they think there is a problem with how their inspection was handled.

Tim Eyton-Jones, the principal of John Ruskin College, said that it took “confidence” to have this robust conversation, particularly when newly appointed to a role. Mr Coffey agreed, stating that the confidence of newly appointed principals and senior leadership teams is “a really important issue”.

Nick Linford, managing editor of FE Week, Matthew Coffey, national director at Ofsted, Tim Eyton-Jones, principal of John Ruskin College

Mr Jones also said that he has “serious concerns” with the current inspection framework and is “yet to be convinced” that these worries will be addressed in the new framework.

The principal, who has been working in the sector for 25 years, was particularly critical of the disparity he sees in how Ofsted treat different education providers.

He spoke about how John Ruskin College was once given ‘good’ in a number of areas by Ofsted, but was awarded an overall ‘satisfactory’ grade, because there was only evidence of improvement in the last year. Later on he saw that an academy had been awarded ‘outstanding’ when it had been open less than a year.

“All we ask for is fairness, openness and transparency,” Mr Eyton-Jones said. “We can’t have an inspectorate regime where it’s one rule for one sector and one rule for another.Let’s be honest, the external environment that we’re operating in at the moment is incredible complex, it’s incredibly competitive and there’s every indication that it’s going to get harder in the future.

“That’s not an excuse, but it’s got to be acknowledged.”

The principal added: “If we’re going to take a risk based approach to inspection, let’s have a true clear set of criteria, so that we as a sector know if we’re dipping down… because if we all know, then we might be able to change our approach.”

Click here to download our detailed round up of the delegate voting participation

A diverse HE landscape

The government’s white paper Students at the heart of the system envisages a broader, more responsive higher education landscape in which further education colleges play a full part, alongside higher education institutions and alternative providers, in meeting the needs of an increasingly diverse body of students. The White Paper notes the distinctive contribution of college-based higher education: “colleges have displayed particular strengths in reaching out to non-traditional higher education learners, including mature and part-time students”.

The government has asked the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) to implement reforms to diversify the higher education system, among them the redistribution of student places through the core and margin policy. The aim is to increase student choice and ensure access to higher education providers offering a high-quality education and value for money. For 2012-13, just over half of the 20,000 ‘margin’ places have been awarded to 155 further education colleges, of which 65 are not currently directly funded by HEFCE.

HEFCE has been working closely with these colleges, and with the Association of Colleges and other stakeholder groups, to ensure that they are properly supported in the coming academic year. We welcome the opportunities that this brings, for students and for the sector. We also recognise that these changes are not without their challenges, for us and for those working to provide excellent higher education.

The core and margin process is not simply about redistributing a number of full-time higher education places. We need also to think about how we engage effectively with both a larger number and broader range of providers, and to reflect on what we need to do to maintain appropriate levels of assurance in the use of public funds, while keeping the regulatory burden on institutions to a minimum.

Previously, it was perhaps too easy for us to compartmentalise ‘HE in FE’. We are working to ensure that our thinking about college-based higher education is an integral part of our policy development and implementation. This includes, for example, the evolution of the quality assurance system and the provision of information for prospective students.
We have already made important changes to the way we operate, targeting our funding to secure the greatest public benefit. For example, those FE colleges awarded places through the core and margin exercise will receive HEFCE funding to support their widening participation and retention activity in 2012-13. Our recent consultation on teaching funding sought views on how to support students with Level 5 qualifications (often gained in FE colleges) to progress to honours degrees.

We understand that for many FE colleges, higher education provision is an important, but small, part of the overall mix of their activities. We are keen to work with colleges delivering higher education to share experience and also, potentially, to seek collective solutions to the particular challenges of providing higher education in colleges.

The more diverse provider base imagined in the White Paper is not easily segmented, and may become increasingly varied as providers respond to the reform of the higher education system. This diversity is, and will remain, a key strength, but whatever business models are developed, the quality of the student experience must remain the priority.

HEFCE is aware that a number of universities and colleges are developing innovative new partnership models, but that in some places, the rhetoric of competition has led to tensions. This is perhaps to be expected, and the most effective universities and colleges will undoubtedly adapt to the challenges posed by these competitive forces.

The government has asked us to report in December on the impact of the reforms on students and the sector, and this will include a preliminary assessment of the impact of core and margin on HE-FE partnership arrangements. We want to retain the benefits of strong partnerships at the same time as delivering reforms to provide greater flexibility. Our emergent proposals for core and margin in 2013-14 take account of this. We will also be looking closely at how the redistributed places are filled – it is not in the student interest to have under-recruitment when there are limits on the number of places available.

The government has this week published its response to the White Paper consultation and the technical consultation on a new regulatory framework for higher education. In considering how we can best implement the next steps in the government’s reform programme, HEFCE’s efforts will be concentrated on working in partnership with students, universities and colleges, and other national agencies to ensure the effective stewardship of public funds, to reduce administrative burden wherever possible, and to maximise the potential of an increasingly diverse sector to provide opportunity, choice and excellence for all those who wish to participate in higher education.

Ed Hughes, Regional Consultant
Higher Education Funding Council for England

An ‘outrageous’ mace-use of funds

Bradford College has stood by its decision to spend £24,000 on a decorative mace for its graduation ceremonies.

The purchase has been described as a “crass bit of judgement” by the lecturers’ union and “offensive” by a member of College staff.

Designed by the upmarket jewellers Fattorini, the mace was approved after the cost was reduced from the initial quotation of £35,000. Minutes from a governing body meeting to discuss whether to buy the medieval club noted concern at the expense, which “would be a sensitive issue in times of budget cuts”.

In response to criticism, the College said the mace was financed by corporate sponsorship and would be “symbolic of the achievements, success and aspirations of the College and its higher education students.”

Maces play a decorative role in graduation ceremonies, providing a symbolic representation of an institution’s authority. There is no legislation stating that they need to be used.

It is ridiculous to spend so much money on such decorations at a time when cuts are hitting students so hard.”

Julie Kelley, regional official for the UCU, which represents 500 lecturers at the College, said: “It’s appalling that the College is spending £24,000 of its income on a bit of bling.”

At a time when jobs are being axed, staff pay is being driven down and lecturers hit with attacks on their pensions, Sally Hunt, the general secretary of the UCU, said this is “an outrageous misuse of funds”.

A lecturer at the College, who would like to remain anonymous, said: “It really is quite an offensive message to send out. When you think that [money] could have been spent on employing a support worker to assist a student through the year.”

The lecturer highlighted that Bradford is one of the poorest cities in the country. “If I was a student coming from one of the inner city wards here, having to scratch around for bus fare, I think I would be quite offended by the College spending money like that.

“We don’t have paper to give out to students, we don’t have pens to give out to students, there are a whole host of other things that could be paid for.”

The lecturer added that there is a “top dressing attitude” at the College, which is focused on making things “look good”.

The College holds graduation ceremonies once a year and Ms Kelley pointed out that it could have commissioned students in its welding department to design and make a mace as a project. Wooden maces can also be bought at a much cheaper cost – from a couple of hundred pounds.

Pete Mercer, vice president the National Union of Students, said: “It is ridiculous to spend so much money on such decorations at a time when cuts are hitting students so hard.”

The union said the money could have been used to provide full £30 per week EMA payments for at least 18 students a year, buy hundreds of text books, or save a teacher’s job.