Exceptional funding review: Care apprenticeships boosted by a third

Two popular adult care apprenticeships have received a 33 per cent funding uplift this week, but training providers have warned that won’t be enough to keep up with rising costs. 

Skill minister Robert Halfon revealed the long-awaited outcome of the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education’s exceptional funding band review (which has been beset with delays) at this week’s Association of Employment and Learning Providers national conference in London. 

Announcing funding increases for ten apprenticeships standards, Halfon said: “We know that inflation is hurting our whole economy, and I know this is putting pressure on you as you deliver high-quality training. It is affecting the costs of energy, materials, food, and tutor salaries.

“We are alive to the cost pressures you are facing to deliver high-quality apprenticeships, and I hope I’ve shown we will take action to support you,” he said.

Twenty apprenticeships were initially in scope for funding uplifts through the exceptional review when it was finally launched in January, having been originally announced last November. IfATE then passed its own planned end date for the review. It was supposed to have concluded in May. 

AELP said lessons must be learned over the process.

Simon Ashworth, director of policy, said “The increase in adult care level 2 and level 3 by a third is most welcome. However, there are still lessons that must be taken from this process. It has simply taken far too long to get an outcome to a process that was meant to enable a speedy decision to be taken against the backdrop of unprecedented inflation rates.”

In March it was revealed that 10 of the twenty apprenticeships were opted out of the review by their employer-led trailblazer groups who instead wanted a full review including content, funding and assessment. 

One of those that had opted out was the level 3 heavy vehicle service and maintenance technician apprenticeship. However, that apprenticeship, alongside the level 2 adult care worker and level 3 lead adult care worker, received one of the largest funding increases this week. 

From Monday, when the announcement was made, funding for heavy vehicle apprentices increased from £15,000 to £20,000 and the two adult care standards increased from £3,000 to £4,000.

Apprenticeships for production chefs, senior production chefs and commis chefs were increased by one funding band. As were other popular apprenticeships, such as the level 2 engineering operative, level 3 motor vehicle and maintenance technician, and the level 2 large goods vehicle driver.

IfATE chief executive, Jennifer Coupland, said while the funding uplifts “should have a positive impact on providers and learners” she was “sorry the process has taken longer than anyone would have hoped for.”

It was also revealed that trailblazer groups for two of the remaining ten standards have opted out entirely because “they decided they didn’t need funding” according to Coupland. 

Those are the level 2 maritime mechanical and electrical mechanic apprenticeship and the level 2 autocare technician, both funded at £12,000. 

HGV apprenticeships funding row

Heavy vehicle service and maintenance was a surprise entry, considering it had been removed by its employer trailblazer group from the exceptional review in favour of a normal review. 

An IfATE spokesperson told FE Week that this apprenticeship had completed a full standard review “at pace” alongside the other ten standards.

“This sector literally keeps our economy moving. It is right that we mitigate the significant cost increases it is facing, and recognise the critical contribution it makes to productivity,” Halfon said. 

However, one training provider said it was “hugely disappointed” that the apprenticeship didn’t receive a larger increase to account for the standard being subjected to under-funding “by mistake” for the last four years.

Sue Pittock, chief executive of Remit Training, told FE Week that the funding band should be £26,000, similar to other advanced engineering apprenticeships, to run “a quality HGV programme safely”.

Pittcok also took aim at the minister’s claim that funding for that apprenticeship was increasing by 33 per cent. 

“The funding band for HGV was in fact £18,000 back in 2010, but was reduced to £15,000 in 2019, based on an error which IfATE acknowledge it made. In reality, at £20,000, we are behind where were back in 2010 once you add EPA costs and inflation.

“Things have changed materially in the 13 years since 2010 and our costs of delivery have increased exponentially,” Pittock said.

An IfATE spokesperson said that the organisation is “satisfied that its published processes were followed at all times and the decision to reduce the funding of HGV tech in 2019 to £15,000 was based on the evidence presented.”

However, in 2022, the spokesperson added, IfATE “became aware some of the information put forward in 2019 could have been inaccurate.”

“The most appropriate response was to re-run the funding band process using refreshed evidence, which has now been concluded,” they added.

Time to care

Inadequate funding for adult care apprenticeships has long been criticised by the health and training sectors. Several training providers that have specialised in care training have gone bust in recent times, notably Qube Learning, Quest Vocational Training, and GP Strategies Training

News of the £1000 funding increase this week was welcomed by the sector, but some have said it is still not enough. 

Ian Bamford, chief operating officer at Paragon Skills and an AELP board member, told FE Week the adult care uplift was “really positive for the sector” but suggested a further increase to £5,000 was needed.

“We’ve had to increase staff salaries, so we’re now having to pay probably in the region of £28-£30,000 for an adult care tutor. A year to 18 months ago, that was £24-25,000, and we’ve had to swallow that cost. 

“We’re also looking for a more digitally rich and innovative curriculum. On £3,000 you just can’t do that. So, this [uplift] allows us to be able to put investment in our programmes,” Bamford said.

Bamford said he believed there are discussions about a further review for a new care apprenticeship standard being pitched at a £5,000 funding band, “which is where it needs to be.”

Another large training provider in the care training sector, Lifetime Training, said the increase was “a step in the right direction.”

Matt Robinson, Lifetime’s commercial director, told FE Week that the “increased funding bands will greatly benefit our apprenticeships, allowing us to invest in delivering high-quality programmes despite mounting inflationary cost pressures”. 

Apprenticeships funding band review outcomes

AELP chief Jane Hickie to stand down

Jane Hickie will officially stand down as chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers at the end of this week.

A statement confirming Hickie’s departure was read to delegates at AELP’s national conference, which began in London today, on behalf of the association’s board.

According to the board’s statement, Hickie has decided to stand down to “pursue new opportunities”.

It comes a month after FE Week revealed she had been suspended pending an investigation.

[UPDATE – FE Week has since learned the AELP investigation was dropped following Hickie’s departure from the organisation.]

Hickie’s seven-year tenure at AELP, two as CEO, will come to an end this Friday, June 30. 

The board’s statement said: “We announce that after seven years of service, Jane Hickie has taken the decision to step down from her position as chief executive at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers on 30th June 2023 to pursue new opportunities.

“We are grateful for her contribution to the success of the organisation over recent years.

“We thank her for all her work and wish her well in her future plans and endeavours.”

FE Week reported that Hickie had been suspended from her role, pending an investigation, on May 23. AELP did not comment on the suspension at the time, confirming only that Hickie was taking “a short leave of absence”.

Since then, AELP chair Nichola Hay and vice chair Rob Foulston have been supporting the association’s remaining senior leaders.

Plans to appoint a new chief executive have yet to be announced.

Hickie was approached for comment.

Ofsted slams apprenticeship provider for training ‘more akin to CPD’

An apprenticeship training provider for eye healthcare specialists is “astonished” at its “inadequate” Ofsted rating after inspectors claimed its training was “more akin to CPD programmes” and therefore “not sufficient to claim public funds.”

The Association of Health Professions in Ophthalmology, which had 14 adult apprentices studying the two-year level four healthcare science associate apprenticeship, was handed the rating after an inspection at the end of March.

Ofsted shed doubt over the association’s ability to claim public funds for an apprenticeship, as the apprentices “do not develop substantial new knowledge, skills and behaviours” beyond what they knew before they started, as many have already worked as ophthalmic technicians for five years.

“The knowledge that they do acquire is not sufficient to claim public funds for an apprenticeship and is more akin to continuous professional development (CPD) activities that should be funded by their employer,” the report added.

Ofsted said the association’s apprentices “do not receive any teaching” during their apprenticeship, and they pass at the end of their apprenticeship “due to their extensive experience and knowledge of the sector” accrued before the apprenticeship began.

Inspectors gave the association “inadequate” ratings in four of the five judgements. Behaviour and attitudes scored a “requires improvement”. That gave it an overall “inadequate” rating.

The association has appealed against the rating, saying that it was “quite frankly astonished that Ofsted inspectors, who do not have knowledge, skills or experience in our sector, believed they were competent to determine the training of staff in our sector”.

They said the National School of Healthcare Science, part of the NHS, had designed the apprenticeship’s curriculum, and that prospective apprentices always have a “comprehensive skills scan” before they are accepted onto the program to show they do not yet have the required knowledge, skills and behaviour which they would then learn as an apprentice.

But in its appeal to Ofsted, the association said only three of the 14 apprentices had completed the first year of the apprenticeship at the time of the inspection meaning “these comments are unsurprising” as it delivers the ophthalmic-specific skills in the second year of the apprenticeship.

They said apprenticeship standards specify “we should develop apprentices as independent learners and we have designed our delivery accordingly”.

A spokesperson for the association told FE Week that they were “dumbstruck” by Ofsted’s comments. They said there is a difference between being able to press buttons on a machine, as any apprentice would be able to do before the apprenticeship, and “knowing how to assess the quality of the test result, how to identify patient difficulties and artefacts, and how to identify unexpected outcomes and report these to a more senior member of the team.”

But, since the inspection, the association has “introduced recorded reflective reviews” after every unit of teaching so that a learner’s progress can be recorded at every stage of an apprenticeship, to address some of Ofsted’s concerns. They also accepted that “our data collection [on the strengths and weaknesses of the apprentice] has not been perfect and requires improvement”.

The association joined the register of apprenticeship training providers (RoATP) in 2018.

Ofsted rejected the association’s appeal, but the organisation is preparing to appeal against any apprenticeship ban, as is often the case when a provider gets an “inadequate” rating.

Skills and training: the centrepiece of Brabin’s northern project

Tracy Brabin greets me with a broad smile and bubbly manner that masks the fact she is a political force to be reckoned with.

The first mayor of West Yorkshire Combined Authority spent much of her life playing on-screen personas in shows including Coronation Street, Eastenders and Emmerdale, which has given her a knack for wearing a big smile at opportune moments – also an advantage in her political life.

Our interview is around one of her priority areas, the skills agenda, but she has to resort to paper notes as backup when the technical details evade her. This is understandable, given the wide scope of her mayoral role; her combined authority oversees regional transport, housing, planning, finance and policing matters, as well as controlling the adult education budget.

But she is keenly eyeing more levers of power.

Despite being the current chair of the M10, a cross-party group of English metro mayors who work together on policy issues, she watched from the sidelines as fellow mayors Andy Burnham and Andy Street, of Greater Manchester and the West Midlands respectively, recently clinched even more powers in their new landmark “trailblazer” devolution deals.

Brabin pulls no punches as she warns there will be “hell on if we’re not next” for such a deal.

Brabin reveals that the M10 mayors have approached the government with an “off the shelf” trailblazer option for the other combined authorities that are “mature enough” for it. They could then have “further conversations about particular bolt-ons” which she believed the government could feasibly sign off this year.

Brabin would like to get her hands on a single funding settlement for skills, which is currently split into five different streams: skills bootcamps, AEB, Multiply, Skills Connect and the UK shared prosperity fund.

But those enhanced trailblazer deals, which act as blueprints for other areas to follow, did not extend Burnham and Street’s powers that far. They did gain sway over which level three ‘free courses for jobs’ and skills bootcamps they can lay on in the future, rather than being dictated to by the government on such matters.

Brabin indicated she would use flexibilities to address chronic care worker shortages.

“We’re told we have to run a [skills] bootcamp within certain restrictions when we know that locally, there’s a real crisis in recruitment for care workers. Let us get on with what we need to deliver for our communities,” she says.

Burnham and Street can also now form post-16 skills “joint governance boards”, which Burnham hopes will facilitate the launch of his proposed ‘MBacc Greater Manchester Baccalaureate’ of technical qualifications to meet local skills gaps.

Brabin “agrees with the principle” behind Burnham’s MBacc proposal but would not commit to such a move herself.

Tracy Brabin

Achievements so far

Brabin claims that having devolved power over her region’s £65 million adult education budget has provided “strategic thinking” to “ladle [funding] between communities and identify areas of deprivation for big interventions”.

This approach seems to be working. In the year after the combined authority was formed in 2021, it boosted adult learner numbers by six per cent to 43,000, partly by expanding free training access to those on the real living wage rather than the minimum wage.

Adult learners in the most acutely deprived neighbourhoods rose from 37 per cent to 41 per cent.

West Yorkshire has also saved money by cutting back on subcontracting which, before devolution, took up £9 million a year of AEB funding.

Monitoring and scrutiny was ramped up, saving £1.4 million in management fees in the first year which was “woven back into delivery”. But Brabin is not totally averse to subcontracting, claiming it can “help us with that community base”.

Tracy Brabin at YouTube Hub event, Bradford

Devolution and dinners

Brabin, whose region covers Bradford Wakefield, Huddersfield, Halifax and Leeds, has “regular dinners” with local college principals.

The decision by West Yorkshire to raise its AEB funding rate for providers by 10 per cent in line with inflation “came out of our last dinner” as Brabin was told “really vividly about the challenges facing colleges, given their underfunding for decades”.

But because AEB funding from the government did not rise accordingly, money earmarked for future projects had to be used to pay for it.

When asked if the uplift has led to a lowering of overall learner numbers, Brabin responds “let’s hope not”.

Level two courses have seen growth this year, with demand coming through particularly strongly in employability programmes and English and maths.

Tracy Brabin at Mayors Big Bus Chat Afghan Womens Group

Distance dilemmas

The combined authority wants to ensure that in giving the uplift, a “quality provision” is being provided.

Now, provision which is mainly online receives the same funding as classroom courses where resource and staffing costs are much higher. The combined authority has been concerned that some providers are running courses with significantly lower guided learning hours than recommended.

Last July, Ofsted denounced some providers for retaining remote learning after the pandemic. West Yorkshire raised the issue in its discussions earlier this month with the Association of Employment and Learning Providers.

Brabin is concerned some providers are providing “100 per cent distance learning provision … where a learner has no contact with a tutor”, with even marking being automated.

Her combined authority is preparing a paper for its members to vote on proposals to ensure funding matches the number of guided learning hours being provided.

Multiplying difficulties

Brabin has been “really pressing the government to be next in line for the trailblazer deal” because of her frustration at having to roll out prescriptive national schemes like the £559 million Multiply scheme to improve adult numeracy rates, which have mountains of red tape attached to them.

“We’ve got to have that autonomy, we can’t be left behind picking up the 19-year-olds, trying to resolve problems from Multiply that come from the centre,” she says.

West Yorkshire was allocated £12.4m across three financial years, with its spending plans approved in June 2022 and accepted by DfE in August.

But part of a £3 million pot allocated for ‘business focused activity’ was held up because a tender open from December to January was unsuccessful and had to be republished, leading to an £816,000 underspend for the programme’s first year.

West Yorkshire asked DfE to rollover the unspent funds to the second year, but it has not agreed to this.Other areas are understood to face the same issue. “That’s a big issue beyond us. It’s a national issue, and it’s been frustrating,” says Brabin.

“We’re held to account as mayors. Yet we can’t press government to be timely in delivery.”

She doesn’t “think the centre understands” how much work is required to get learners “ready for learning”, with “so many who are so far away from even stepping into the classroom”.

Just under 2,000 people engaged in Multiply in its first year in West Yorkshire, which was under target. But Brabin is “really confident” of hitting targets for years two and three.

Female students at Leeds College of Building

Women and girls

Perhaps it is because she is England’s first woman to be elected as a metro mayor that Brabin has made championing the rights of women and girls a key theme of her leadership.

West Yorkshire recently helped fund a project which saw 300 women come together to build a barn as part of Leeds’s first WOW (woman of the world) event, only half of whom already had construction experience, to help encourage more women to consider a career in the trade.

Construction courses run in the barn afterwards were five times oversubscribed, and Leeds College of Building is now looking at putting on women-only construction, painting, decorating and plumbing courses after an upsurge of interest from them, according to Brabin.

Some women offered their services to teach at the college, which is currently bearing the brunt of an acute nationwide shortage of construction teachers.

Furthermore, Brabin’s apprenticeship levy transfer scheme, which helps apprenticeship levy-paying employers transfer up to 25 per cent of their apprenticeship levy funds to smaller businesses and training providers, has seen Asda’s unspent levy pivoted to training up police community support officers to work on buses, helping to ensure the safety of women and girls.

Brabin also claims she “persuaded” local bus companies struggling with recruitment to take on part-time drivers, to attract more women into the profession.

Michael Gove © Russell Hart/Alamy Live News.

Labour agenda

With forecasters hedging their bets that the next government will be a Labour one, Brabin has one eye on the shadow cabinet’s plans. Brabin believes there is now a “devolution arms race” taking place, “led by Michael Gove and the Labour Party”.

Labour’s commission on the UK’s future, led by Gordon Brown, published a landmark report last year which advocated merging centrally run adult education funding streams such as Multiply with the existing AEB budget, as well as giving mayors more powers to decide which FE courses should be funded.

Ben Houchen

LSIPs

Local skills improvement plans also came in for criticism from Labour’s commission for “side-lining democratically elected local leadership in favour of local Chambers of Commerce”. Brabin would agree.

She has a good relationship with her region’s two chambers of commerce. But the combined authority “talks to businesses all the time” and the chambers are “often coming to us for the knowledge, because we store the data”.

“It just feels like another lack of understanding. We could help the chambers with [LSIPs], we could work together. But it feels like it’s a disconnect with what’s happening on the ground.”

Brabin points out with a note of sarcasm in her voice how “it wouldn’t be fair for me to say” whether Conservative mayors currently get a “seat at the table” with government (Tees Valley’s Ben Houchen, who often appears to hold the ear of ministers, was recently handed a peerage in Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list).

But, under a Labour government, Brabin might hold similar sway with ministers.

She clearly already holds influence within Labour. She was “able to feed back” to her party how on a recent India trade mission, and she could guarantee a “talent pipeline” through her AEB budget to “co create a programme” in return for investment.

She has also spoken to Ed Miliband and Rachel Reeves about the party’s Green New Deal.

Two days before it was announced that Labour had watered down its commitment to invest £28 billion a year in green industries upon becoming elected, Brabin seemed already aware of the move, warning that it is “going to be important … for Labour that we have a focus on the green economy”.

West Yorkshire is a staunch Labour stronghold with its five Labour-controlled councils and Labour MPs, and Brabin believes they can “get a lot done” together if her party wins power nationally.

“If we had the resources that are in the South for research and development, or for infrastructure, West Yorkshire could turbocharge the national economy. We just need that investment, and that flex to deliver for our community.”

Apprenticeships in pharma are on the up. Here’s how to make sure they stay that way

Apprenticeships are a powerful tool for bridging the skills gap in the pharmaceutical sector – essential if we are to keep one of the UK’s most innovative industries globally competitive.

With constant advancements in technology and medical research, the skills required within the industry are always changing and evolving. The demand for skilled workers has never been greater, and apprenticeships provide a win-win solution.

They allow employers to access a skills development pipeline across a wide range of roles, including those where priority skills gaps have been identified. At the same time apprentices get an opportunity to ‘earn while they learn’ and further their journey in a fulfilling career.

Traditionally, apprenticeships have been associated with skilled blue-collar or artisanal jobs. However, in recent years, the apprenticeship model has been gaining traction in many professional services roles and in the science and technology sectors, including pharmaceuticals.

Through a combination of on-the-job training and classroom learning, they provide a unique and flexible opportunity for people to develop relevant skills while directly contributing to the workforce.

Research by the ABPI has shown that the number of apprentices hosted by the biopharmaceutical industry in 2022 had increased year on year since 2015 (287.5 per cent) over that period. And encouragingly, apprenticeships are being delivered from level 2 to level 7 across a range of disciplines, and with increasing flexibility on duration.

This highlights increasing sector employer confidence in using apprenticeships, although to develop a skilled workforce for the future it is crucial we align skills supply with employer demand to secure have a talent pipeline suitable for the industry. To do this, we need closer collaboration between industry, educational institutions and policymakers.

More pharmaceutical standards

First, there must be consultation to identify the specific skills and competencies that the pharmaceutical industry needs, and where the skills gaps exist. The ABPI’s latest skills gap report analyses the skills gaps and trends within the UK pharmaceutical industry based on survey data from over 30 different employers.

The report includes past examples of using the apprenticeship route to take action on identified skills gaps, including the development of the Level 7 Bioinformatics standard, and of the Level 7 Clinical Pharmacology Scientist standard which launched in September last year.

So we know that actively involving employers in the design and delivery of apprenticeship programs is our best bet to achieve the outcomes we need. It ensures that teaching plans align with industry needs and that apprentices are actively prepared for the roles and challenges they will face in their careers.

What we need now is to replicate that work for more of the sub-sectors within the pharmaceutical industry, and to target efforts where there are the greatest shortages first. We also need clearer pathways to those Level 7 apprenticeships, so that younger people can understand more about  their route into the industry earlier.

More flexibility

Next, the skills sector must be agile and responsive to the evolving demands of the industry. That means that any new and existing apprenticeship frameworks and qualifications must be flexible enough to quickly incorporate emerging technologies and research breakthroughs.

Employers would also like to see the government do more to increase flexibility in how the apprenticeship levy can be used to ensure that businesses of all sizes can benefit.

And if apprenticeships are going to deliver on their promise, they need to recognise the greater flexibility of today’s workforce too. We need a clearer and more coherent careers guidance system, and its focus can’t be only on young people as has traditionally been the case. Adults increasingly need careers guidance too, and we need to reach those sections of the population who tend not to see the sector as accessible to them.

Addressing the skills gap in biopharmaceuticals is vital for the UK’s continuing place as a sector leader and for our continued economic prosperity. We welcome the Department for Education and the Office for Life Sciences’ support for employers to tailor apprenticeship delivery to meet the needs of employers and their apprentices’.

There is a lot more work to be done to ensure our system competes with the best.

Complaints about racism must be heard and acted upon

The Student Commission on Racial Justice will soon publish its 2023 Manifesto for Action. Over five weeks, its commissioners will set out its five key priorities and recommendations exclusively for FE Week.

Since becoming a commissioner on the student commission for racial justice last year, I have been working to bring about change in the way colleges address and tackle racism. One of the key ways they can either support or hinder that work is in how they manage and resolve complaints. Accordingly, a key recommendation in our manifesto for action is for colleges to review their complaints structures and processes and to involve students to increase trust in their effectiveness.

As part of our work for the commission, our research found that students from minoritised ethnic groups are less likely than white students to report the race-related incidents they experience or witness. Some say it’s because they don’t feel safe, and only 58 per cent believe appropriate action would be taken.

When I spoke with students about the changes they want to see in their settings, it was clear to see the reality behind those statistics. A great number told me about the biases they experience. This included a number of instances, for example, of security guards not letting students onto campus, which they felt could only be due to their ethnic background as they weren’t causing problems or being rude. 

Sadly, I also had to witness unfair treatment first-hand when a student tried to speak out about racism. With courage, they decided to give the voiceless students in the room a voice. They put their foot down and called out someone in the room who, during an assembly, who had boldly used a stereotype to slander Indian people. 

The student who spoke out was reprimanded and told they should leave the perpetrator alone. Meanwhile, the perpetrator got away with it. The student who had spoken on behalf of the South Asian community felt publicly shamed for doing so, and the perpetrator faced no consequences, let alone any expectation that they should take responsibility for their actions.

In this context, is it any surprise students believe it’s easier to ignore race-related incidents? Speaking out about racism is just as important as asking for help when you don’t understand your assignment. Every individual should be treated with dignity, respect and have the right to feel safe.

When a student speaks out, they should be listened to

Students spoke to us about how there should be more diverse ways to raise concerns when it comes to race-related incidents. They said they would benefit from having an anonymous drop-box or an email form. They want to be able to speak about their concerns and get a response that is quick and effective.

An example of a positive response is to have a mediation session where both parties involved explain themselves and show understanding. The mediator can then see whether the perpetrator is genuinely remorseful, whether the victim needs further support, and bring the situation to an end that satisfies everyone.

In cases where perpetrators don’t take responsibility for their actions, students in our research suggested the reasonable second step of requiring the perpetrator to complete an awareness course on the impact of racism, with a threshold pass mark for returning to college. Students should be supported to learn and understand, but safeguarding must surely require some proof that their potential victims are safe from further harm.

It speaks highly of the student body that, while some felt strongly that racism should be severely punished, most want to see a response focused on education to break cycles of behaviour.

And in the end, that willingness to learn must apply to teachers too. When a student speaks out about racially motivated unfair treatment, they should be listened to. There should be a clear process to follow that re-builds that student’s confidence and trust.

If we really mean to deliver racial justice in education, then we must break the vicious cycle of complaints being ignored. That means all teachers must be appropriately and adequately trained to fight racism as an integral part of their important role in shaping the next generation.

MOVERS & SHAKERS: EDITION 430

Debbie Gardiner

Managing Director, Learn Plus Us

Start date: May 2023

Previous Job: Chief Commercial Officer, Learn Plus Us

Interesting fact: Debbie ran her first fundraiser when she was just 10 years of age; a jumble sale in her garage. It was a massive success, raising a whopping £20 (a lot of money in 1970) and it set the scene for her future voluntary and fundraising work.

Ken Merry

Deputy Principal and Deputy Chief Executive, York College & University Centre

Start date: June 2023

Previous Job: Vice Principal – Quality, Barnsley College

Interesting fact: Ken once travelled to Iceland with the sole purpose of seeing the Northern Lights. Despite perfect conditions, he did not see them but, while in Iceland, the lights were visible each night in York

David Akeroyd

Principal & Chief Executive, Barnsley College

Start date: August 2023

Previous Job: Deputy Principal, Barnsley College

Interesting fact: David spends his weekends looking after his Miniature Shetland Ponies – Dinky and Calypso – in the beautiful Yorkshire Dales

How we’re rethinking teacher development for sustainability

In January 2023, I took on the role of head of teacher development and quality improvement at Suffolk New College. I’m determined to think differently about the teaching landscape to empower my colleagues to be innovative for our learners, and for me, one of the key factors driving us towards a new paradigm of education is the desperate need for more sustainable lives.

When the ETF announced the new teacher professional standards in 2022, an amendment caught my eye. PVA2 called on teachers to ‘promote and embed education for sustainable development (ESD) across learning and working practices’.

I was bemused. What does this even mean? Is this about using less paper? Recycling bins in classrooms? More digital lessons? And how could I teach this authentically to trainee teachers and my peers if I didn’t know? And with that I went on a journey.

I’m still on that journey, but at this juncture I have concluded that ESD isn’t just about green skills, climate change and the environment. It’s about developing, promoting, and eliciting the knowledge, skills, values and attributes we need for a different society altogether.

That sounds like a big ask, but the truth is that the solutions are mostly already here. We just need to tap into them, and that’s a question of engaging everyone in the effort. Our staff don’t need CPD on sustainability for their subject specialisms; they are already living and breathing their industries. They don’t need external ‘experts telling them what they already know. They need time to connect with each other to develop what they do.

To deliver sustainability education, we have to deliver education sustainably, starting with teacher education. So my team and I have been planning a whole day of CPD activity to model that.

We have a floor full of escape rooms for staff to crack, aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and exploring themes such as poverty, health and education. Staff will be able to make artistic sustainability pledges to display to students. There’s a workshop dedicated to gamification tools to use as building blocks to engage individuals in solving problems and drive sustainable behaviours. And our last workshop has definite Mission: Impossible vibes, but the message it delivers will be most definitely not self-destruct.

To deliver sustainability education, we have to deliver education sustainably

This is about long-term change, and creating a culture of change. The solutions we develop now can’t become a new status quo. They will need to continuously evolve and refine, and the biggest challenge to that is that humans are creatures of habit.

Sadly, this includes some educators for whom inertia is comfortable and who meet change with resistance. The measure of our success will be whether our sustainability-led approach to teacher education and CPD can bring them along on the journey.

Sustainability demands that we experience the world in a different way, and that means teaching in a different way. In other words, teaching itself must become more sustainable, and what could make it more attractive and enjoyable than to systematically empower teachers’ critical thinking skills and their problem-solving prowess.

After all, how else can we expect them to elicit these same kinds of skills in our young learners? We have a responsibility to teach in such ways that our learners have the knowledge and skills necessary to live responsibly. Designing a curriculum for sustainability involves reviewing the content knowledge we impart, but that’s only part of it. We have to model what we teach to have any hope of truly affecting their perceptions and behaviours.


So I’m grateful to the teacher standards for putting me on this journey and I’m excited to be taking this next step on it to bring more of our staff along on the ride. I hope other colleges and institutions will join us in thinking differently about shaping the next generation of students and teachers to meet the challenge of climate change.

How we go about that will vary across regions and contexts, but the core aims will be the same: creating enabling environments and fostering a culture of change. And the way I see it, that starts with teacher development.

Why colleges are well placed to lead education towards greater neuro-inclusion

I recently underwent a neurodiversity assessment. Finally, at the age of 56, I have a formal diagnosis of neurodiversity and dyslexia. Finally, I fully understand the challenges I’ve always had. I no longer feel like I’m rubbish at certain things; instead, I employ strategies to counteract the challenges I face, and I know what support to ask for from friends, family and colleagues.   

Those challenges are simple but disruptive. Because my short-term working memory is poor, I often forget to do things colleagues have asked me to do unless I write them down. My spelling is not what it should be. And I sometimes find myself stumbling through answers while desperately trying to remember what the question was. In short, my brain functions in an atypical way.

Yours might too. Across the nine domains they measure, Cognassist (who assessed me) estimate that less than 10 per cent of people sit in the ‘average’ cognitive profile range. This suggests that places of work and learning that aren’t assessing for neurodiversity are potentially letting many people down and missing out on many talents.

I loved school and I thrived in many ways – but none of them academic. I had detentions on a weekly basis for my spelling, and I left without an O level to my name. In reality, I was being punished for something I never stood a chance of excelling at. I just got used to people thinking I wouldn’t amount to much.

Of course, neurodiversity and its associated conditions such as dyslexia, autism, ADHD, and dyspraxia weren’t really recognised back then. We’ve come a long way since. Some brilliant work is happening across education, but there’s still so much more we could do.  

When I left school at 16, I went to college. It was transformative. Finally, I was given the chance to learn in a different way – a heavily practical way that really suited me. I started to thrive and people started to believe in me.

Think of all the talented, neurodiverse learners that would bubble to the surface

A pivotal moment came for me a few years later, when one of my tutors suggested I should teach. It was the first time that I’d felt I had something to offer an education setting. Another year later, I became the youngest lecturer ever to have worked at Walsall College. My career since has spanned 35 years in further education, and I have taken my own education to masters level.

I was lucky. I found my way. But the fact remains that I was needlessly pushed to the bottom of the academic pile for years. I always had the ability to learn; I just needed the freedom to do it in a different way. How many talented people have fallen by the wayside because they never found their niche in education?

As chief executive of the Skills and Education Group, I am on a mission to ensure education policies and assessment practice become neuro-inclusive. Any policy or practice that is solely built around the assumption that we all learn in the same way is outdated.  

We need to much better educate our teachers about neurodiverse conditions. Pupils can’t thrive on empathy alone; they need teachers who understand what their diagnosis means, the hidden challenges they present and the initiatives they can deploy to help them. We need to identify these conditions earlier, and we must be ready to support learners with them with every step of their journey.

And we need government policy that supports neurodiversity in delivery and assessment as a mainstream issue. Further education has traditionally provided a much more accessible curriculum for many by default. We can’t put this at risk through qualification reform when we should be codifying that inclusiveness and driving it to greater heights.

Colleges are precisely the kind of inclusive environments our whole education system should be learning from, but the sector can’t stop pushing forward. The collaborative networks of neurotypical and neurodiverse students they create are surely leading to a more understanding and accepting society. 

Think of all the talented, neurodiverse learners that would bubble to the surface if that was the educational norm.