There’s Gecko-mania at Sparsholt College

There are three new additions to Sparsholt College’s animal management collection following the successful breeding of their Crested Geckos. Three eggs were incubated and hatched to produce the tiny lizards which have proved an instant hit with staff and learners alike.

The Animal Management Centre at the College houses three adult Crested Gecko’s which consist of the breeding pair and one lone male. The hope is that the newly arrived baby Geckos will turn out to be female (currently too young to sex) so they can be introduced to the lone male to hopefully produce more eggs.

Native to New Caledonia, the Crested Gecko (Rhacodactylus ciliatus) was thought to be extinct until it was re-discovered in 1994. Despite this relatively recent discovery, the Crested Gecko has been extensively bred by breeders and as a result is now one of the most commonly kept pet species of lizard.

The baby Geckos will join the 600+ animals from over 100 species the College has on site to provide practical training for their Animal Management and Veterinary Nursing students.

City of Bath College stonemasons help restore local mansion

Trainee stonemasons from City of Bath College are continuing to play a key role in the restoration of Woodchester Mansion.

The most recent contributions to the long-term restoration project at the 19th century Victorian Gothic property are two Medieval-style grotesques.

One was carved for display inside the visitors’ area of the mansion so the public can view the old and the new side by side, while the other has been installed on the apex of the mansion.

The new carvings are ‘hunky punks’ – a term given to grotesque stone figures carved to ornament corners and break up straight sections of stonemasonry.

They were carved by stonemasonry students Sam Flintham and Phil Windley.

Sam said: “I was inspired to create the carving by a badly weathered monkey grotesque which was removed from the top of the west gable at Woodchester Mansion.”

Olympic inspiration at Havering College

London 2012 chief Lord Sebastian Coe praised the cast of the Havering College Inspiration show for getting involved in the Cultural Olympiad.

Three thrilled teenagers – Tristan Embleton, Matt Latimer and Sam Loughlin – were selected to represent the college when Lord Coe visited Hornchurch Sports Centre.

The event organised by the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) and Havering Council was an opportunity for Lord Coe to meet young people inspired by the Olympics.

The welcome group included divers from Havering Cormorants Diving Club, potential 2016 athletes, 2012 ambassadors, Mascot Dancers , winners of the borough’s Talented 30 scheme plus Havering College students ahead of their performance at the London Palladium.

Tristan, Matt and Sam, who are National Diploma Music Performance students, make up rock band Dead Baby Birds.

Lord Coe said: “This is really the living testimony as to why we all set off on this journey something like ten years ago now with the dream that we might bring the Olympic Games home locally for the first time after 64 years.”

Barnet and Southgate College football stars

Two lucky football students at Barnet and Southgate College met first team players from Tottenham Hotspur at an exciting event.

The football students, Ryah Vyse (19) and Siobhan Wilson (17) both recently qualified for the BCS (British Colleges Sports) Ladies England squad; the national team recently played against and beat Wales to win the coveted Anglo Welsh Shield. As well as playing for the BCS team, Ryah also plays for Middlesex County and Tottenham Hotspur Ladies first team, she has been with the club since she was 10 years old and Siobhan also plays for Tottenham Hotspur Ladies under 21’s team.

The event was held to congratulate the girls and raise awareness of the Tottenham Hotspur Foundation’s (THF) Education and Football Development Centre programme in conjunction with Barnet and Southgate College.

The girls met with the club’s first team squad and even practiced alongside the likes of Gareth Bale and Louis Saha (picture).

College principal David Byrne said: “Ryah and Siobhan have demonstrated that investing in hard work and training really does pay off.”

Truro and Penwith College apprenticeship event gets visit from The Apprentice winner

A major apprenticeship event at Truro and Penwith College featured The Apprentice winner Lee McQueen who gave a fast paced and motivational speech.

This special meeting of the college’s Cornwall Business Club was compered by Daphne Skinnard from BBC Radio Cornwall.

More than 180 business people from all over the county attended the event held at Truro College’s Fal Building.

Apprentices organised and hosted the event, with 12 studying their Professional Cookery framework at The Seafood Restaurant making and serving fabulous canapés.

The college’s principal David Walrond said: “It was a great success in terms of the levels of interest and engagement from businesses and the quality of the discussions, including the many informal networking conversations that surrounded the presentations.

“We want more and more businesses to take on board the idea of employing apprentices and the feedback from this evening is really encouraging.”

Walsall College students have a laugh with Lenny Henry at performing arts workshop

It certainly was a laughing matter when comedian Lenny Henry held a workshop with Performing Arts students at Walsall College.

It was aimed to help him finalise the script for his latest play, which will be performed as part of the National Theatre’s Connections festival.

The workshop was organised by the National Theatre following the success of last year’s New Connections Festival, where Walsall College students were one of only 10 groups selected to perform, from 500 institutions that applied.

Lecturer Kerry Downing, said: “We have developed an excellent working relationship with the National Theatre, as a result of the hard work and dedication shown by students in their performance last year.

“It was an incredible and very rewarding opportunity for our students to work with an established artist like Lenny Henry, and to also put their ideas forward for his consideration.”

Lenny Henry said: “The students were very forthcoming in the workshop and it was great to hear their opinions about the play, as well as the general issues affecting younger people in today’s society.”

Chesterfield College students measure up

Construction students have linked with the town’s iconic church to measure how much the crooked spire has moved during the past year.

The Chesterfield College students have been taking measurements since the early 1970’s to help with the church’s monitoring process.

They carried out this year’s orientation survey using the latest in theodolite laser technology to see how far the spire had moved in any direction.

Setting up a triangular laser from the base of the spire inside the church to outside in the church’s courtyard, right up to the tip of the spire, the students were able to work exactly how much the spire has moved.

As in recent years, the spire has only experienced minimal movement, a little over 10mm, within the safety limits.

Witnesses say look again at employer fees

Martin Doel, Chief Executive of the AoC and Tom Wilson, Director of Unionlearn and TUC giving evidence to the committee

Apprenticeship funding rates and employer contributions were two of the biggest issues raised by Martin Doel, chief executive of the Association of Colleges (AoC), at an evidence session held by the Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) Select Committee for their inquiry into apprenticeships last week.

Mr Doel, speaking at the Houses of Parliament alongside Tom Wilson, director of unionlearn, said he was particularly concerned with the reduced funding rates for apprentices aged between 18 and 24, as well as the number of businesses offering none of their own investment.

“With the presumed 50 per cent contribution from employers – which is not a cash contribution but can be handed in kind – and the tendency for providers to be led into a process of undercutting each other below that presumed 50 per cent contribution from the employer…that must be, I think, an incipient threat of quality,” Mr Doel said.

The AoC chief executive said the further education sector, including the National Apprenticeship Service (NAS), needed to
“get to grips” with the issue quickly.

However, he later added it wasn’t as simple as introducing mandatory match funding, equivalent to a 50 per cent contribution from the employer.

“We need to pause and think about the most effective way to see that funding rates are effective,” Mr Doel told the Committee.

He also suggested looking again at the “Independent review of fees and co-funding in Further Education in England”, carried out by Christopher Banks CBE in July 2010, which encouraged co-investment from individuals and employers in conjunction with the quality and responsiveness of provision.

“It would be good to return to some of that thinking in this particular area,” Mr Doel said.

In my view it’s out of control and that’s disadvantaging  16-24 year-olds”

“Otherwise I think a couple of things would happen, either quality would be affected or some providers will begin to say, I can’t deliver at the rates employers are prepared to pay for this, so I just won’t do it.

“I can only for a certain period of time cross subsidise it from my other work, and then you’ll have a flattening off of opportunities for 18-24 apprenticeships because providers can’t deliver at the quality and the rate of providers.”

The Committee asked Mr Wilson if the issue of employer contributions was linked to concerns about deadweight; the idea that the government was funding vocational training which would have occurred regardless.
“Oh yeah, absolutely,” Mr Wilson said quickly.

The idea of deadweight has come to the fore since the apprenticeship programme at Morrisons, delivered by Elmfield Training, was questioned on a BBC One Panorama programme last month, entitled “The Great Apprentice Scandal”.

Mr Wilson said: “The kind of practice which was revealed by Panorama was broadly at the margins, but I would add it can very quickly become a major problem.

“Even if it is at the margins, if that is something that you’re competitor is getting away with, then you’ve got to do the same otherwise you’re going to get driven out of business.

“So you have to kind of deal with it very quickly and effectively, to stop is spreading from the margins.”

He later added: “On the deadweight point yes, I think the issues around Train to Gain and the 50 per cent the National Audit Office (NAO) found were real and those are big issues for us.”

A significant theme from the evidence session was the pressure on the NAS to deliver both quality and quantity in equal measure Mr Wilson suggested that NAS had in fact done both by ensuring good quality was delivered first.

“NAS perhaps have suffered a bit from a sense that quality and quantity have been slightly opposed to each other and that the one is pursued at the expense of the other,” Mr Wilson said.

“Actually that is the opposite of the truth.

“I think NAS’ greatest success in more recent times has been because it pursued quality as much as quantity, thereby assuring employers that this is not some kind of cheap second rate qualification.”

Mr Doel added that the growth in new apprentices was “not to be sneered at”, although there was still more that could be done by NAS.

He said: “Quality I think is an abiding concern for all of us, to actually continue to have growth with quality and I think that the NAS needs to think in those regards.”

The NAS holds a dual role both as a marketing arm for apprenticeships as well as a regulatory body.

Adrian Bailey MP, chairman of the Committee, asked the pair whether they felt there was any conflict of interest between these two opposing functions.

Mr Doel responded: “There is a potential conflict and there needs to be very clear accountabilities within the agency, as well as externally, about which people are responsible for quality, for auditing the actual quality of provision and which of those are responsible for actually marketing and generating the demand in the first place.”

He added there should be “some internal checks and balances” in NAS to make sure the conflict of interest didn’t manifest itself.

Mr Wilson said he agreed entirely with the AoC chief executive.

“There are two clear distinct roles, and perhaps there needs to be much a clearer, public articulation of where those two roles are organised within NAS and the way in which they work,” Mr Wilson said.

Unionlearn, the learning and skills organisation of the TUC, supports more than 220,000 learners, including apprentices, and has trained more than 22,000 union learning representatives.

The Committee were keen to ask Mr Wilson whether union involvement had an effect on employer engagement and the quality of delivery.

“Our experience is that where unions are involved, employers report twice as much take up and interest, satisfaction and quality and progression amongst their apprentices,” Mr Wilson told the Committee.

“Similarly the apprentices themselves, who are members of course, report to us that they’re much more likely to get a high quality level of training then were they working in a company which isn’t union recognised.”

He added: “So we’re strongly of course of the view where there is union involvement and engagement and presence, that is a real parcel force for good, and that has been recognised I think from top to bottom across the entire system.”

The Committee asked Mr Doel if further education colleges could play a similar role in protecting the quality of the apprenticeship programme.

“Colleges are in their community for the long term,” Mr Doel said.

“They have no interest or benefit from actually providing low quality apprenticeships either to the individuals or to employers, because their reputations depend on long term relationships.

“They’re not for profit and therefore they’re not in it to make a buck, they’re in it to serve their communities and through what is a very strong and I think actually very impressive way of learning while you’re working.”

The debate was quickly followed by a second session which called on Nick Linford, managing editor of FE Week and managing director of Lsect to give evidence publicly to the Committee.

Mr Linford said that while the government had been “incredibly successful” in boosting the number of apprenticeship starts, they had also “lost control” of the growth in new apprentices aged 25 and above.

“The Skills Funding Agency (SFA), the body that actually pays for these courses – or the experiences as I call them – I think is getting quite nervous about the significant growth on 25+,” Mr Linford said.

He later added: “The numbers that we’ve seen this year show, in my view, that the government have lost control actually of the significant growth on 25+. The numbers this year show more than 100,000 just in the first half of this year for 25+.

“That’s a 45 per cent increase on the same period last year.”

The editor of FE Week then quoted from a briefing note published by the SFA on March 12.

It reads: “We expect to see a greater focus on the recruitment of young people aged 19 to 24, rather than a maintenance of current recruitment levels for those aged over 25.

“This will be supported by the roll-out of the new incentive payment for employers recruiting apprentices aged under 25 years.”

It later adds: “To support this policy, we will monitor the pattern and volume of 25+ Apprenticeship delivery in-year and will not award any growth for 25+ Apprenticeship provision.”

Mr Linford said this echoed a previous document published by the SFA in June last year.

“We have not been able to agree at this time any additional funding for new 25+ Apprenticeship starts,” it reads.

Mr Linford told the Committee: “In my view it’s out of control and that’s disadvantaging 16-24 year-olds.

“I think the funding body knows that and that’s why they’re repeating again in March this year that they will be looking closely at the numbers.”

Mr Linford also supported the call made earlier by Mr Doel to look at apprenticeship funding rates and employer contributions.

“I think the only way to go, really, is down the route of minimum fees,” he said.

“If the government expects to get high quality the only way is for the employer to contribute and I think the government plays a huge role in changing the culture of employers to put their hand in their pocket and pay for it.

“Employers will expect a lot more when they pay for it and you know they’ll want it and use it well when they’re paying for it.”

Mr Linford also referenced a survey put out to Lsect members (see page 1), which asked them how they felt about a minimum employer fee for 19+ apprenticeships.

“Of nearly 200 respondents, 60 per cent of those who had a view, yes or no on fees, said a minimum fee, you’ve got to do it.”

Why Barnfield College is seeking private investment

Barnfield College is considering seeking private equity investment and maximising the new FE financial freedoms to further enhance our focus on providing an excellent education and training system, which offers students the most choice and best support to ensure success in the future.

By changing our legal form to being a company limited by guarantee there could be greater financial flexibility as the company limited by guarantee could possibly establish a subsidiary, a company limited by shares, which could then seek investment and make a surplus.

Firm plans for the spending of any private investment are yet to be confirmed, however, there are multiple options which include increasing the size of the college, expanding commercial income generation activities, as well as improving facilities across the Federation.

I am certain the students in the classroom would see no difference other than improvements”

Financial backing is being investigated from both banks and private equity investors, but we are focusing more closely on private equity investors as they too would bring their own ideas, commercial expertise and greater support.

The possible change in status will not result in any increased course fees, if anything I am looking to find ways to reduce costs and ensure access for all. Fees are currently prohibitive to many students seeking an education – so wouldn’t it be perfect to remove such barriers?

I am certain the students in the classroom would see no difference other than improvements.

Any surplus generated would be shared between further investment, the college staff and the equity investor, in a manner similar to the John Lewis model. The staff as shareholders would therefore own the college and would be rewarded accordingly for success.

Public funds and assets, such as the college itself, would be protected by the company limited by guarantee and the charitable trust would not be impacted. I am excited about the development opportunities this model will bring. Standing still is the same as going backwards and Barnfield is about moving forwards, creating great schools, offering more choice and widening access for all.

The Federations improvement strategy has been based round the five strategic principles that reflect how we operate – all of which was initially born from the college as sponsor:

• Positive thinking – raising aspiration and not accepting excuses for poor performance;
• The critical essentials – having the right people doing the right things;
• The critical non-essentials – these are the things that will take you from good to great;
• Enjoyment and opportunity for staff and students; and
• No compromise on standards – raise the bar (particularly in relation to leadership, teaching and learning, monitoring and behaviour).

Barnfield has always been about being entrepreneurial and the consideration to turn company status reflects our constant drive to improve standards at outcomes. In September 2011, we continued our leading ways by being the first FE College to sponsor a Free School.

The Federation is now led by the Barnfield Education Partnership Trust – members of the Federation include Barnfield College (16 years upwards), Barnfield South and West Academies (11-18 years), the country’s first FE sponsored Studio School (14-18 years enterprise academy) and of course our most recent addition – Barnfield Moorlands Free School.

I have always embraced freedoms and change and it is for the benefit of every student within the college and all of these academies that I want to find new ways of adding even more value to their experience at Barnfield. And, also, to empower staff even further to realise the wonderful impact their teaching has on our students and to be rewarded and celebrated for the work that they do.

Finally, this is only one of several options being explored by the college board and still in the early stages of development. Once it is more firmed up, appropriate consultation will take place.

Pete Birkett Chief Executive,
Barnfield Federation.