While news emerges of a new Covid-19 variant, in the education world, we are also getting a reminder of the ongoing effects of the pandemic. This week, GCSE results were released from the summer 2023 exams. In England, this is the first year since 2019 with pre-pandemic grade boundaries. And understandably, there is plenty of debate about whether this is fair or the right time.
Whatever your view, the return to ‘business as usual’ has brought the ongoing impact of the pandemic on education to the surface. Pre-pandemic, while pass rates were not high enough, results for 16- to 19-year-olds retaking GCSE English or maths in post-16 education were steadily increasing year-on-year. This reflected the ongoing efforts of teachers and leaders in further education to continue to develop effective strategies to support the specific needs of this cohort. But this year, the pass rate has fallen below the pre-pandemic level by 4.8 percentage points in GCSE maths and 4.4 percentage points in GCSE English.
Why would there be such a significant difference in the performance of two year groups, just four years apart? Comparing the results of 2023 and 2019 suggests that taken as a whole, the cohorts of young people moving through secondary and post-16 education are not yet at the level of their peers who sat similar exams four years ago pre-Covid.
This doesn’t mean that the cohorts don’t have the same potential. But it does mean, unsurprisingly, that missing significant amounts of education does affect how much a young person knows and performs in exams at 16. The 16- to 19-year-olds who received GCSE results this week, were in years 8 to 11 when the pandemic first hit. Over the next two years, large blocks of school or college were missed. Even now, without any lockdowns or restrictions in place, attendance levels have still not fully recovered. Across the last academic year, almost a quarter of pupils in England missed at least 10 per cent of available sessions. While everyone hoped that all children and young people would quickly catch up to where they would have been if the pandemic had never happened, we can now see that for many this isn’t the case.
This demonstrates that the impact of the pandemic on education is not a quick problem to fix. It would be foolish to think that with the return to pre-Covid grading in England, and other devolved nations from next year, the education system can now forget that the pandemic ever happened. Instead, we should be concerned by the reports of ongoing poor attendance. And we should worry that the government’s catch-up policies are currently set to end in August next year. I don’t think the government really wants this gap to become their legacy in education. Rather than let catch-up policies come to an end, they should consider how efforts to close gaps for the ‘Covid generation’ of children and young people could be scaled up.
However, it is possible to end on a positive. Although the overall pass rates are down, the number of students achieving a GCSE in English and maths in post-16 education is increasing. These young people will have achieved a pass this year, after not achieving it last year when the grade boundaries were more generous. For these young people, this is incredible progress. The Association of Colleges estimates that 87,000 young people achieved a grade 4 or above in English or maths in post-16 education this academic year. And as their director of education policy, Catherine Sezen, put it yesterday, “colleges should be proud”.
A group of training providers has agreed to lift a “suspension” that was placed on national adult education budget procured contracts after it launched a lawsuit against the government.
New court documents show the Education and Skills Funding Agency sought consent from Learning Curve Group to remove an injunction that prevented the ESFA from entering contracts with the winners from its recent tender, which were due to be issued on 1 August.
Justice Fraser, the judge in Technology and Construction Court, has now ordered for the “automatic suspension” to be lifted with “immediate effect”.
The automatic suspension was triggered as per public contracts law on August 3 when Learning Curve Group and its seven affiliates launched legal action against the ESFA for allegedly “unlawfully” evaluating its failed AEB bids.
This meant that whilst the ESFA is being sued, it previously could not enter into the AEB contracts with the 54 training providers that won in the £75 million tender.
FE Week understands that several contracts had not yet been issued at the time that the legal challenge was launched.
According to law firm Capsticks, an automatic suspension is in place to allow the opportunity of the procurement being altered or re-run if a legal challenge succeeds.
In Learning Curve’s claim, it demanded a re-run of the national adult education budget procurement plus a payout of damages and legal costs.
A blog on Capsticks website states that if an automatic suspension under public contracts regulation is lifted, “the court does not have the power” to set aside the contract between the contracting authority and the preferred bidder aside at the end of trial.
Any remedy for a successful challenge is then “limited to damages”, the blog said.
ESFA ‘extremely opaque’ to unsuccessful AEB providers
Learning Curve Group’s legal challenge claims it was “deprived of a real chance of winning a contract” and the agency had “unlawfully failed to create or retain lawful, sufficient contemporaneous records of the reasons for the scores awarded”.
Simon Ashworth, director of policy at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP), told members in a newsletter today that the ESFA is regularly “extremely opaque” about the procurement process to unsuccessful AEB bidders.
“In our feedback to the ESFA, we have been clear there needs to be a timely process, the scoring system and feedback needs to be clearer and more transparent and there is a need to properly recognise prior track record,” he said.
“After every ESFA-led procurement outcome I can remember, the agency continues to be extremely opaque about the process for unsuccessful providers to lodge any form of appeal or ‘complaint’. This needs to be clearer.”
He added that it was “disappointing” that nearly 40 per cent of AEB tender winners are either Ofsted ‘requires improvement’ or have not had a full inspection, even though this is the minimum requirement threshold.
“On reflection, this threshold was set too low,” he told members.
Learning Curve Group and the ESFA could not comment on its legal challenge while proceedings are live.
Conversations around air pollution and the dangers and health risks attributed to it have been commonplace for several years now, with many regulations already in place to lessen its dangers. In comparison, its counterpart of indoor air quality is a largely under reported and under researched topic – until now.
Most recently, the UK’s Chief Medical Officer’s, Professor Chris Whitty, annual report published in December 2022 highlighted the importance of prioritising indoor air pollution as an obvious next step after the improvements made to outdoor air pollution[1]. Paired with the fact that people spend 80% of their time indoors, indoor air quality has become a far more prevalent topic in the current news cycle – especially considering that indoor air pollution can be up to five times more polluted than the air outside.
Moreover, the importance of ventilating indoor spaces to prevent the spread of disease has been emphasised over recent years which has led to the general public’s heightened awareness of the air circulating in their indoor spaces, whether communal or private.
With this in mind, keeping windows open to allow natural air flow through an indoor space is often the most common solution. However, this can come with its own risks and problems as outdoor air is not necessarily cleaner or more hygienic and can carry in allergens, especially as we head into warmer months and pollen begins to be released into the air. The issue therein lies with the particles in the air itself: viruses, pollutants, and allergens being amongst some of the main harmful particles[2].
Therefore, simply opening a window and letting the outside air flow through an indoor space is not always the best answer. As we come into the warmer months of the year, airborne allergens are more common and, as summer temperatures rise, so can pollution levels [3]. More action is needed to improve air quality in the spaces we are able to control in order to mitigate the effects of pollutants.
For example, at this time of year, with the weather being warmer, and of course flowers in bloom – a time of year many look forward to. However, for the 26% of adults in the UK who are diagnosed with hay fever[4], this means allergy season is upon us. As an airborne allergen caused by pollen from trees and plants, the outdoor air is filled with these particles that cause harm to those that suffer from the allergy. In addition, 49% of people report experiencing hay fever symptoms[5] – from itching noses and burning eyes, the symptoms are not only uncomfortable but can impact quality of life, affecting everyday life and lowering quality of sleep. Furthermore, hay fever is not just a once off: hay fever season usually lasts several months starting in March through to September[6], and this year it has started earlier than ever in February[7].
For those who struggle during this period, simply opening a window to ventilate their indoor spaces is clearly not an adequate solution. The allergens do not just stay outdoors: pollen can be carried on hair and clothes indoors. Keeping the windows and doors closed may seem like the pollution is being shut out – but it is just being trapped in.
The air purification solution
Removing and destroying the particles themselves to purify the air is one of the most efficient solutions to tackle the problem. Air purifiers are amongst the best ways to trap and destroy the pollutants in indoor spaces we can’t see whilst circulating clean air back out. HEPA filters can capture 99.95% of particles as small as 0.1 microns[8], preventing them from leaking back into the air and the activated carbon in air purifiers can absorb gases, odours and chemicals[9].
Allergens are of course not the only indoor air pollution particles to be worried about – most harmful particles cannot be seen or smelled but can definitely affect both our physical health and cognitive performance. Alongside pollen and other allergens, particles such as bacteria, industrial emissions, chemical emissions, and other ultrafine particles can all be present in a wide range of indoor spaces; and the smaller the particle, the bigger the problem.
With children expected to spend a minimum of 32.5 hours in education settings[10], it is of vital importance that users of shared education facilities are not being negatively affected by the polluted indoor air.
Air purifiers are the most clear-cut way to trap most of these particles and replace them with clean air, ensuring the health and performance of those in the space. It is important for educational settings to not only be aware of the issue but show that they are doing all they can to provide an adequate solution, signposting to its users that they are putting the health and safety of its students and staff first.
Just 16.4 per cent of students resitting GCSE maths in England passed with at least a grade 4 this year – down 4.8 percentage points on pre-pandemic levels.
Pass rates for English resits meanwhile hit 25.9 per cent, down by a similar level of 4.4 percentage points on the year before Covid-19 hit.
This is the second year that exams have returned since 2019 when the pandemic prompted a temporary switch to teacher-assessed grades.
Entries to maths and English GCSEs for post-16 students this year rose by 19,000 and 13,000 respectively compared to 2022, as they continue to recover to pre-pandemic levels which led to a big drop in entries.
The Joint Council for Qualifications said that results for students aged 17 and over are “more variable” compared to results for school-aged pupils, but this is “not surprising” because it “reflects a more changeable cohort”.
For maths, the proportion of the 154,023 post-16 students achieving a grade 4 – equivalent to a C in the old system – in 2023 is 16.4 per cent. The pass rate for 2022 was 20.1 per cent, and in 2019 it was 21.2 per cent.
There was no major difference in the GCSE maths resit pass rate by gender: it was 16.4 per cent for females and 16.3 per cent for males.
In English, the proportion of the 117,155 post-16 students achieving a grade 4 in 2023 is 25.9 per cent. The pass rate for 2022 was 28.4 per cent, and in 2019 it was 30.3 per cent.
The gender gap in pass rates was more noticeable in English: 31.3 per cent of female resit students achieved a pass while 22.1 per cent of males did the same.
Catherine Sezen, director of education policy at the Association of Colleges, said: “English and maths resits present a complex picture.
“A larger resit cohort this year means that although overall percentage achievement has fallen, the number of studentsachieving a GCSE in English and maths post 16 has increased on 2022; colleges should be proud that 55,000 students have achieved a grade 4+ in English or maths as a result of post-16 study in summer 2023.”
More resits will put pressure on ‘stretched’ post-16
Education experts have warned more young people will have to resit English and Maths in post-16 education next year, because of the overall fall in GCSE grading.
FE Week analysis estimates that 38,000 more students will have to continue studying English compared to last year after failing to achieve a 4 or above. This is a 28.6 per cent rise – above the 3.3 per cent rise in entries both subjects.
Nearly 22,000 students will have to continue maths compared to 2022 – a 14.9 per cent rise.
Professor Becky Francis, chief executive of the Education Endowment Foundation, said the post-16 sector is “stretched” and “as things stand, many are unlikely to achieve a pass even through resits.
“This has serious implications for individual students’ life chances. It is likely that those from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds will be most affected, so the attainment gap must be carefully monitored, and support targeted towards pupils in greatest need of it.”
Sezen added: “The growth in the year 11 cohort, combined with a fall in 4+ achievement mean that we estimate there will be considerable additional demand for post-16 English and maths resits at a time when colleges are facing staff recruitment challenges.”
But Ofqual chief regulator Jo Saxton told FE Week that college principals will be “delighted” with more resit students.
She said: “From conversations that I have with leaders in FE, lots of them found it really difficult in the pandemic years where they didn’t get the intake that they would normally get. So certainly, my experience on the ground is that principals are delighted to have more students. I don’t think that that’s something that they see as a problem.”
‘Dispiriting cycle of resits must end’
Introduced in 2014, the government’s resits policy forces students who have not achieved a pass in English and/or maths GCSE by age 16 to continue to work towards achieving these qualificationsas a condition of their places being funded.
Students who achieve a grade 3 have to retake their GCSE, while students with a grade 2 or below can either take a functional skills level 2 or resit their GCSE.
Today’s results have reignited calls for this controversial policy to be reconsidered.
Sarah Hannafin, head of policy at the National Association of Head Teachers, said: “Students who need to continue their learning in maths and English post-16 should not be forced into repeated resits which can lead them to feel disillusioned and disengaged.
“They should be able to take the qualification which they and their school or college deem most appropriate, be that a GCSE, or a functional skills or other relevant qualification – enabling them to move forward with their education, training or employment.”
A construction training provider has pulled the plug on apprenticeships ahead of a damning inspection report which said its apprentices were “at risk of harm”.
SB Skills Solutions, which offered level 2 construction apprenticeships, was hit with an ‘inadequate’ report published today, following an inspection back in June.
Training providers typically have their contracts terminated by the Education and Skills Funding Agency following an ‘inadequate’ inspection outcome. But leaders at SB Skills Solutions said it had already begun to exit the apprenticeships market before the inspection took place, citing significant staff shortages and rising costs.
Inspectors slammed the provider for its “disregard for the training, development and well-being of their apprentices” after it gave little notice before ending its apprenticeship provision.
SB Skills Solutions, which is based in Skelmersdale in Lancashire, had 69 apprentices spread across level two standards in groundwork, plant operations, highways maintenance and bricklaying.
It also had fewer than five learners on a plant skills bootcamp at the time of the inspection – which it will continue to offer after Ofsted gave its adult learning programmes a ‘good’ rating.
But it scored ‘inadequate’ in the quality of education, leadership and management, and apprenticeships, with ‘requires improvement’ grades for behaviour and attitudes, and personal development. That gave it an ‘inadequate’ rating overall.
‘Backed into a corner’
Inspectors said the quality of the apprenticeship provision was “poor” and that “too many apprentices lack the motivation and enthusiasm to continue their learning due to a high turnover of staff”.
They also flagged that some tutors had “insufficient knowledge” of their subject areas, meaning “too many” apprentices leave their studies before completion.
Ofsted said the provider told apprentices and employers it was stopping apprenticeships on the day it was alerted to the Ofsted inspection, and that they had “received no prior notice”.
“Apprentices and their employers told inspectors that they were disappointed and frustrated because leaders had taken the decision to cease apprenticeship training,” the report said.
But the provider’s operations director, Neil Beaumont, told FE Week it had no other option after most of its staff left without completing their notice periods just before the inspection.
“We were literally left with no delivery staff. What other option did we have when we had no staff left to deliver that provision? I was backed into a corner, it’s ridiculous.”
‘Ineffective’ safeguarding arrangements
Inspectors also flagged “ineffective” safeguarding arrangements at the provider, which they said failed to replace the safeguarding lead who left weeks before the inspection.
That left its apprentices, two-thirds of whom were under 18, “at risk of harm”.
But Beaumont said that was “far from” the truth.
“Learners weren’t at risk, there was a minimum number of days where we didn’t have the safeguarding lead,” he said. He added that the safeguarding lead for apprentices had had a mini-stroke and could not be replaced straight away.
‘Serious weaknesses’
Inspectors warned that “all learning materials” for apprenticeships were out of date, that the provider did not work with employers to sort out on and off-the-job training, and that most progress reviews were “significantly” overdue.
“Although managers recognise serious weaknesses in the quality of the apprenticeship provision, they do not implement sufficient and coordinated quality improvement actions to ensure that apprentices receive an acceptable quality of training,” the report adds.
They also said the “lack of a stable workforce” meant apprentices would often repeat the same lessons, and that tutors do not give enough guidance on how to improve work, or correct mistakes.
Beaumont, the operations director, said the provider “does take [the criticisms] very seriously”, and said the criticism “didn’t come to any surprise”.
But he pointed to significant recruitment problems over the last year and a half, and rising costs in apprenticeship delivery as reasons for their decision to halt apprenticeship provision. For instance, in the groundworks provision, he said costs “have gone through the roof” while the funding has remained the same.
Beaumont also reiterated the provider was “still committed” to delivering its boot camps, and that they “intend to grow” those courses. The skills boot camps received strong praise from Ofsted, which said learners leave their courses “well prepared” to work in the sectors they trained for.
Thirty-one local authorities have been selected by ministers to pilot key SEND reforms through a £70 million “change programme”.
The Department for Education has also confirmed seven new special free schools, which will open in areas with SEND budget black holes, bringing the total number of new special free schools nationwide up to 41 amid a critical shortage of special school places.
The seven extra schools – totalling over 1,000 places – have been approved through the “safety valve” route, a £1 billion programme where councils make sweeping changes in exchange for government bailouts to plug high needs deficits.
Selected local authorities will create local area inclusion plans and help inform the development of new national standards, key planks of the government’s SEND reform agenda.
Coutinho
One of the few post-16 policies in the SEND plan was an £18 million pledge to double the number of supported internships to 5,000 by 2025.
Writing for FE Week, families minister Claire Coutinho said the DfE will be “rolling out a pilot from autumn to test supported internships with young people with SEND who do not have EHC plans, so even more can benefit from this opportunity.”
Pilot councils to ‘work closely’ with families and young people
Most regions will have one lead council working in partnership with up to three neighbouring councils. The exceptions are the south west and the east midlands where each selected council will be joint leaders.
These local partnerships, known as change programme partnerships, will “work closely” with families and young people to “ensure they are involved in the teaching, learning and development” of the reforms.
They will “bring together education and health services” to develop new inclusion plans.
The DfE said an example would be “making sure a child with special educational needs who is behind in reading is quickly assessed and given the right support.”
“This addresses feedback from families that the current system is often fragmented with agencies not working together.”
Reforms to the SEND system were criticised earlier this year by FE and post-16 specialist colleges for not addressing issues that were particularly prevalent in post-16 settings, such as access to capital funding and specialist staff.
Specialist college body Natspec told FE Week it has joined forces with the Association of Colleges (AoC) to offer “16-25 focused support” to the DfE and/or change programme partnerships directly.
The offers include data sources and report suggestions to support 16-25 planning as well as suggested strategic objectives and actions. Both organisations are also encouraging partnerships to “fully engage” with FE partners locally and have at least one strategic objective focused on 16-25-year-olds or post-school provision.
Partnerships will receive “extensive hands-on support and expertise” from the DfE’s delivery partner, a consortium called Reaching Excellence and Ambition for All Children (REACh).
PA Consulting will lead the consortium, which includes consultancy IMPOWER, the Council for Disabled Children (CDC) and Olive Academies.
The delivery partner role could be worth up to £9.8 million, according to previous contract documents.
More schools for cash-strapped areas
The government announced 33 new special schools in March, as well as a new special free school in Bury as part of the safety valve programme.
Today Norfolk, Kent and Cambridgeshire have been granted two new schools each while Merton has one.
It means that 18 of the 41 new schools will open in areas with “safety valve” deals. A further 21 schools are in areas under the lower tier of government intervention, called the delivering better value in SEND programme.
These schools are on top of a further 49 already in the pipeline.
The DfE say once all are complete, it will almost double the number of special free school places available across the country – from around 8,500 to 19,000.
However, these schools can take years to open, as FE Week’s sister publication Schools Weekrevealed last year.
The schools are funded through the £2.6 billion high needs capital funding, allocated in the 2021 spending review.
The deadline to run one of the 33 schools closes next week while organisations will have until November 3 to apply for the seven new latest schools.
The SEND change programme partnerships (lead councils are in bold):
East Midlands: Leicester, Leicestershire, Rutland
East of England: Bedford, Central Bedfordshire, Luton
London: Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Islington
North East: Hartlepool, Durham, Gateshead, Stockton on Tees
North West: Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Trafford
South East: Portsmouth, Brighton, East Sussex, West Sussex
South West: Gloucestershire, Swindon
West Midlands: Telford and Wrekin, Herefordshire, Shropshire
Yorkshire and Humber: Wakefield, Bradford, Calderdale, Leeds
Around 17 per cent of pupils are now identified as having a special educational need (SEND), and this figure is only rising.
Across the country families, teachers and special needs staff have been working tirelessly to meet this area of need and ensure every child gets the opportunity of a great education.
Often though, this job has been too hard.
I have travelled the country from Ipswich to Bolsover learning about teachers’ and parents’ experiences.
Parents often recount to me the moment after diagnosis when they feel alone, concerned about the battle ahead and worry about what this means for their child’s life prospects.
Too often families tell me that despite their best efforts, they struggle to get the educational assessments and services their child needs.
Support is often fragmented, and families face a postcode lottery in whether they will get good quality support for their children.
At the heart of these plans is early identification and ensuring children’s needs are met as early as possible so that they don’t escalate.
We began to prime the system to deliver these transformed outcomes by making sure the right resources were in place – almost doubling the pipeline of new special free schools alongside £2.6 billion capital funding, and injecting significant investment into the high needs budget.
From the time that the prime minister was chancellor until now, high needs funding has increased to record levels. (Editor’s note: pupil numbers are also at record levels).
And there will be a further increase of £440 million in 24-25 to bring total funding to £10.5 billion – an increase of over 60 per cent since 2019-20.
Today we’re announcing new partnerships with local authorities across the country to test and refine the reforms we set out in the Improvement Plan.
The change programme, backed by £70 million, will find the best ways to improve SEND and AP provision, and how to make support consistent across schools and specialist services.
‘Finding the right school can be daunting’
It will also look at a range of issues within the system that need reforming, from creating a standardised format for education, health and care (EHC) plans, improving the application and assessment processes in place to diagnose children, to creating stronger partnerships between health, schools and family services to create more seamless EHCP processes.
This work is vital to producing the successful, sustainable reforms that will carry generations to come.
Parents tell me that searching for the right school for their child with SEND can be daunting, as many are oversubscribed.
To respond to this demand, today we are building on the 33 new schools we announced earlier this year, and announcing a further seven new free schools for children with special educational needs. This is a welcome boost to SEND provision where it’s most needed, as the schools chosen specifically meet the needs and shortfalls of their local areas.
I’m particularly proud to announce two of these schools will be built in Kent, where more and better provision is so clearly needed.
‘Supported internships are a brilliant next step’
When the time comes to move on from school, I want young people with SEND to be ambitious about their futures.
Work builds young people’s confidence, self-esteem and social life – all things that parents want for their children in adulthood.
Supported internships provide a brilliant next step for young people with SEND, offering a way into work. They are work-based study programmes for 16 to 24-year-olds with an EHC Plan.
I’m really pleased that we’re rolling out a pilot from autumn to test supported internships with young people with SEND who do not have EHC plans, so even more can benefit from this opportunity.
This builds on our £18 million investment to double the number of supported internships from around 2,500 to 5,000 by 2025.
When I meet the families of young people with SEND, I am always amazed by their love for their children, shown in their efforts to get them what they need to succeed in life.
I want government to match that love with an equal dedication to getting things right, first time, for every child.
Today’s updates will help develop these reforms, so we can bring about the changes that families urgently need.
Three “elite” sixth forms proposed by a partnership between Eton College and Star Academies are among 15 new free school bids given the go-ahead by the government this week.
Twelve of the 15 new schools have been approved with post-16 provision, including two new University Technical Colleges (UTCs).
The Eton Star 16 to 19 free schools will open in Dudley, Teesside and Oldham, with the government hoping to push up education standards and get more pupils from the north and midlands into Oxbridge.
But the Sixth Form Colleges Association (SFCA) has warned the move could lead to existing “high-performing” provision being “unnecessarily disrupted”.
Eton, the £50,000-a-year private school that educated the likes of Boris Johnson, David Cameron and princes William and Harry, will provide financial and extra-curricular support to the new sixth forms through its partnership with Star.
Headteacher Simon Henderson said the new schools had the “potential to be transformative both for the young people who attend and for the wider communities they will serve”.
Neil Thomas, principal and chief executive of Dudley College of Technology, which neighbours a new Eton sixth form, told FE Week he was disappointed that a new “exclusive” sixth form will be opening on his doorstep:
“The borough of Dudley is already home to a number of fantastic A-level providers. I am sure these providers, including Dudley Sixth, would have welcomed the opportunity to work collaboratively with Eton College to enhance this existing provision to support our local community.
“It is therefore disappointing that the decision has instead been to spend public money creating a stand-alone competitive and exclusive centre.”
The government committed to opening “a number” of “high-quality, academic-focused” 16 to 19 free schools in education investment areas (EIAs) in its levelling up white paper.
“We want to make more good school places available to families, and these 15 new free schools will bring brand new opportunities to young people from Bradford to Bristol,” said education secretary Gillian Keegan today.
New UTCs among successful bids
More than 60 applications to the latest wave of the DfE’s free school application process were revealed back in January. It was known only one in four would be approved.
Two University Technology Colleges, as well as secondary and primary schools are among the accepted bids. A proposal for a new UTC in Southampton was led by UTC Portsmouth while UTC Doncaster secured a new health sciences and green technology centre.
The UTCs are the first to be approved in five years. It comes against a backdrop of closures, with 13 having ceased operation since their inception in 2010.
But Lord Baker, chairman of the Baker Dearing Educational Trust, said the move was “further proof of the success of the UTC concept”.
“I greatly appreciate the well-founded faith that the Department for Education has now placed in the UTC programme,” he added.
The government announced over the weekend that the prominent BRIT School – a performing arts college in London – was also among the successful bidders with its application to open a sixth form in Bradford.
However, plans to open more elite schools have proved controversial, with fears their selective nature could exclude disadvantaged students, and that they could “destabilise” existing provision.
Funding capital costs for the new free schools could cost the DfE around £250 million, according to estimates by the Association of Colleges deputy chief executive Julian Gravatt.
“It is right to focus on education investment in disadvantaged areas but the practical impact of these new institutions will be more A level places at a time when there is a need to shift the focus to technical education, and greater competition for scarce teaching staff,” Gravatt warned.
Fears for existing provision
Bill Watkin
Analysis by FE Weeklast year found there were already 1,414 sixth forms and colleges in the 55 education investment areas. Of those, 303 teach fewer than 200 students, the DfE’s benchmark for a financially viable sixth form.
Bill Watkin, chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges Association, said he had pressed the DfE to ensure decisions were based on “detailed evidence” demonstrating local need. “It doesn’t make sense to double up on what is already,” he added.
He also pointed to the fact “some high-profile examples” were trailed in the media “before applications had even opened, and long before evidence could be gathered”.
“The result is that some new, untried and untested, free schools are set to open in communities where there is already sufficient, high-quality provision, while areas with much greater need of additional high-quality sixth form places continue to be neglected.
“This presents the risk of existing and high-performing sixth form provision being unnecessarily disrupted.”
But Watkin welcomed the establishment of new comprehensive 16-19 free schools “in the context” of a rise in 18-year-olds this decade, “in areas where there is an identified need”.
There has also been concern about the clustering of new free schools in certain areas of the country. Three of the 15 successful free schools will open in West Yorkshire.
In February, five colleges from the West Yorkshire Consortium of Colleges wrote to the DfE’s free school assessment team opposing a series of planned new free schools in the region that they claimed would be “destabilising”.
But four of the seven proposals in the region were not successful, including the iExel Elite STEM Sixth Form for Females, which would have been based in Bradford.
The Consortium, made up of Leeds City College, Keighley College, Wakefield College, Leeds College of Building, Kirklees College and Bradford College, has said it wasn’t consulted on the free school applications in its area:
“We are frustrated that throughout the application process, we have not been consulted and our concerns around duplication have not been addressed.
“Our view remains that the free schools that have been approved will be a potential waste of taxpayer money and could lead to some providers being forced to close.”
Two other bids for elite sixth forms were also turned down – the Cornwall Academy of Excellence and Mercian Sixth – The Queen Mary’s Partnership in the West Midlands.
Opening dates for the 15 new free schools are not yet known, but the usual trajectory of a free school from winning a bid to opening is around three to four years.
Wave 15: The successful free schools
Eton Star, a 16-19 school in Dudley
Eton Star, a 16-19 school in Teesside
Eton Star, a 16-19 school in Oldham
BRIT School North, a 16-19 school in Bradford
Great Stall East Academy, an all through school from ages four to 16 in Swindon
Lotmead Primary School in Swindon
Dixons Victoria Academy, a secondary school in Manchester
Dixons Wythenshawe Sixth Form, a 16-19 school in Manchester
Eden Girls’ Leadership Academy, a secondary school in Liverpool
Bolsover Sixth Form, a 16-19 school in Derbyshire
Cabot Sixth Form, a 16-19 school in Bristol
New College Keighley, a 16-19 school in Bradford
Thorpe Park College, a 16-19 school in Leeds
UTC Southampton
Doncaster UTC – Health Sciences and Green Technologies
Derby-based training provider Althaus Digital has scooped an ‘outstanding’ rating in its first Ofsted report.
Inspectors lauded the provider for its “high-quality, structured and organised” training in an inspection back in June, which was published today.
The provider works with adult learners and apprentices in digital marketing, IT and cybersecurity, across the Midlands.
At the time of the inspection, it had 211 adult learners on skills bootcamps and 57 apprentices on level three courses in IT solutions and digital marketing. It does not work with any subcontractors.
The provider welcomed the rating and said its mission is “to unleash the digital leaders of tomorrow”.
“We only do that by quality of delivery that matches up to ever-evolving industry demands. This report not only showcases how we’re equipping learners with the skills that they need now, but also how we are providing employers with talented individuals to meet the needs of their businesses in the future, too,” it added.
The report also comes as Althaus Digital records 1000 learners across its programmes for the first time.
‘Well prepared for their next steps’
The report followed a positive monitoring visit in February 2022, and highlighted a “very high” standard of work among the learners and apprentices.
Inspectors said the high standard of courses means learners are all “quickly equipped” with technical skills they can use in the workplace, and that many apprentices stay with their employer at the end of their studies or are promoted. Many of the apprentices also get distinction grades in their studies.
The provider also received praise for its “judicious” management of the “well planned and logically sequenced” curriculums, and its decision to focus on specialisms which its staff are experienced in. Inspectors also highlighted a push to check understanding and commit knowledge to long term memory in the report.
Trainers at the provider are meanwhile “highly experienced” and provide bespoke and specialist online training resources, Ofsted said.
Leaders at the provider were praised too for their “very high expectations and ambitions for staff, learners and apprentices”. Ofsted also pointed to “extensive links” between the provider and employers, which they used to tackle local and regional skills gap. That relationship led to Althaus Digital offering level three courses in cybersecurity after a gap was identified.
Confidence and resilience
Ofsted also highlighted Althaus Digital’s career guidance programme which meant adult learners say they feel well prepared for their next steps. But inspectors also said apprentices do not always receive enough information about their own career progression.
But guidance and support from staff at the provider means learners and apprentices all develop “confidence and resilience” while on their training.
Safeguarding at the provider is also “effective”, while learners know who to go to with any concerns.
On its website, the provider says its aim is to “to become the UK’s number one digitally focused talent solutions provider.”
