Time for government to end racial inequalities in apprenticeships

At Action for Race Equality, we have campaigned over the past twenty years for apprenticeship starts and achievements to reflect England’s ethnic diversity. We have worked closely with successive governments via task forces and advisory groups, but race disparities continue.

Tragically, the latest statistics show that Black, Asian, and mixed-ethnic people continue to be under-represented in apprenticeships for yet another consecutive year. Meanwhile, high-value sectors such as construction and engineering who are suffering from well-publicised skills shortages continue to be dominated by White males and remain impervious to the benefits of ethnic and gender diversity.

Amid stagnating growth in starts this year, new apprenticeship places continue to be lowest in geographical areas where ethnic minority populations are highest, such as Birmingham and London. Nationally, ethnic minority people account for only 14 per cent of apprentice starts, compared to a population rate of 18 per cent.

And while more politicians point to apprenticeships as key to meeting the country’s current and future skills needs, few make the case that making them accessible to everyone is vital to improving them.

Concerted action is necessary to remove the systemic ethnic bias in the labour market, and ending racial inequalities in apprenticeships must be part of that strategy. This National Apprenticeship Week and Race Equality Week, Action for Race Equality calls on the government to take swift action.

Make it a priority

First, ministers should introduce a ministerial apprenticeship race equity taskforce to drive up participation in key regions and sectors. This taskforce should learn from previous government and sector-based race equity initiatives such as Five Cities, and must have multiple partners including employers, Jobcentre Plus, local councils, FE/HE institutions and race equality practitioners.

Incentivise positive action

Second, employers should be incentivised to recruit and train people a more diverse range of social backgrounds through the apprenticeship levy. We recently called on chief executives to utilise positive action to support more young Black men in London, who are up to three times more likely to be unemployed than young white men aged 16 to 24. The government should adapt the levy to incentivise more employers to do the same, especially in high-value sectors and in regions with the lowest start rates.

Empower local partnerships

Third, partnership working is key to achieving success. We know this from experience. Our work with educators, employers and employability organisations through our flagship ‘Moving on Up’ programme, a ten-year positive employment initiative for young Black men, and our Youth Futures Foundation-funded ‘Building Ethnic Diversity in the Youth Employability Sector Programme’ proves that creating pathways into apprenticeships for under-represented groups is possible when there’s a will.

Local authorities have a particularly important role to play when it comes to ending the race disparities in apprenticeship starts; they are well placed to connect employers with local employability organisations working with Black, Asian, and mixed-heritage people.

Be transparent and accountable

We also know through our ‘Moving on Up’ programme that having a degree-level education doesn’t necessarily translate into better economic opportunities. Another key move to tackling racial disparities in apprenticeships is the publication of data on degree-level apprenticeships, with breakdowns in application, start and completion rates by gender, age and ethnicity.

Government should then require all employers with 50+ employees to monitor and publish information about apprenticeship applications and appointments by age, gender and ethnicity. This will allow for disparities in apprenticeship application success rates to be tracked.

Next year, the growth in apprenticeship starts must not remain stagnant. Key to vibrant growth will be positive action to drive supply in the least-served regions and for the least-represented groups.

There are clear actions that the government, local authorities, employers and providers can take to reduce this disparity, and we look forward to working with partners to achieve this.

To register for Action for Race Equality’s ‘Strengthening Education to Employment Pathways for Black, Asian & Mixed Heritage young people’ conference on 22 February, visit https://bit.ly/3SPLble

The numbers don’t lie; apprenticeships are a success story for opportunity

We have a lot to celebrate this National Apprenticeship Week. And not just the huge number of people now participating in apprenticeships and climbing the ladder of opportunity. This has taken place against a backdrop of rising standards in apprenticeship training and assessment.   

In 2009/10 there were fewer than half a million people doing apprenticeships. There was no requirement that training must last at least a year, and no minimum amount of guided learning it must include.

Last year, over 750,000 people were participating in apprenticeships, training to the rigorous, industry-designed standards we introduced from 2014.

This academic year we’ve already seen 130,830 apprenticeship starts between August and October, up 7 per cent on the same period the previous year. Among those, the number of young people under 25 starting an apprenticeship is up by 6 per cent, at 78,960 starts. And the number of achievements is up 22 per cent so far this academic year, with 37,400 people passing their apprenticeship.

This is a huge achievement – brought about by the businesses, training providers, colleges and universities that worked with the government to get this right. There are now over 690 high-quality apprenticeships in roles ranging from forestry to data science. Most importantly, each now delivers the skills businesses need, helping them grow their turnover and contribute to economic growth.

The Ronseal levy

The apprenticeship levy has been a huge part of this success story. I think of it as the Ronseal Levy because it does what it says on the tin: supports employers to take on more apprentices and invest in the high-quality training needed for a skilled workforce.

There are calls for flexibility to spend the levy on other types of staff training, but its funds have contributed massively to the proliferation of apprenticeships. Diluting its use would significantly decrease these opportunities. Allowing employers to use half of the fund for other skills training last academic year could have resulted in a near-60 per cent reduction in apprentice starts.

Cutting red tape

Small businesses are the levy’s great beneficiaries. It subsidises 95 per cent of a small employer’s training costs, rising to 100 per cent for the smallest firms who hire apprentices aged 18 and under.

We want to encourage SMEs to make the most of this funding, and I’m determined that they’re not put off by paperwork. That’s why we are slashing red tape for these employers by ending the limit on the number of apprentices they can hire and reducing the steps needed to do so.

 A social justice mission

But it’s not just about total numbers. We also want to find more ways to support groups that are underrepresented in the programme. That is why we have begun a pilot scheme to help training providers offer quality mentoring to disabled people starting an apprenticeship. This will give participants tailored support from someone who understands the programme as well as their individual needs and circumstances.

Apprenticeships also serve social justice by offering new routes into professions traditionally reserved for graduates. The Teacher Degree Apprenticeship announced at the start of National Apprenticeship Week will allow trainees to earn and learn, while gaining an undergraduate degree and qualified teacher status.

It’s a win-win for everybody, helping schools to recruit the highly-skilled teachers they need and opening up the profession to more people. This could include teaching assistants and other staff already working in schools. Degree-level apprenticeships like this one have been incredibly popular since their launch in 2015, with over 218,000 people starting on these prestigious training pathways.

There is still more to be done to build a world-class skills system in this country. But this National Apprenticeship Week, I’m looking forward to getting out and about to celebrate the progress we’ve made. And the best sign of that progress is the success of individual apprentices, who are putting in the hard yards of rigorous training to climb the ladder of opportunity and build a better life for themselves.

We must ensure functional skills are fit for the future

Functional Skills qualifications (FSQs) have long been the subject of animated debate across our sector.They were designed to offer second-chance opportunities for those who may have previously not succeeded using traditional educational pathways such as GCSEs. However, reforms to content in 2019, and standstill funding since 2014, have led to a situation where learners increasingly see FSQs as a barrier to progress rather than a help, and providers are finding them unviable to deliver.

FSQs now appear in many ways indistinguishable from English and maths GCSEs, which many young people have already spent 11 years struggling with to no avail. Given these difficulties, providers and employers alike are beginning to require them on entry to apprenticeships to avoid the cost and difficulty of delivering them, with all that implies for reductions in social mobility and equal opportunities.

With the backing of both Gatsby Foundation and Edge Foundation, AELP have brought together an extensive study of both the content and costs of FSQs. Alongside our partners, Warwick University Institute for Employment Research and the Association of Colleges, we conducted a range of interviews, focus groups and deep-dive quantitative analysis of the cost of FSQ delivery, to produce “Spelling It Out, Making It Count”. The report proposes seven recommendations to improve FSQ pass rates whilst maintaining their robustness and differentiation to traditional GCSE examinations.

Our key findings make clear that the non-applied nature of much of the FSQ exams are increasingly no longer in line with their vocational intent, presenting a barrier to learners on vocational and apprenticeship programmes. Moreover, with funding unchanged for nearly a decade, FSQs are simply unviable, and in the current massively constrained fiscal environment, they present a possibly existential threat to many providers who continue to deliver them.

No wonder increasing numbers of apprenticeship providers are instead making them an entry requirement. And this is happening without complaint from employers, who themselves struggle to accommodate study for maths and English under rules that prevent their being classed as off-the-job training.

FSQs no longer serve the purpose for which they were designed

Our work looking at costs of FSQ delivery is, as far as we can tell, some of the first (if not the first) of its kind – a surprising fact in itself. The level of losses being incurred in FSQ delivery is however staggering. Prior to the recent equalisation of funding for FSQs in apprenticeships to the level paid for AEB, losses could range up to £440 per qualification. Even with the move to £724 for all FSQs, we are still looking at average losses of £35-40 per qualification, and that’s before the additional costs of delivering in an apprenticeship setting and an average cost per resit of around £35 are taken into account.

Our findings show that FSQs in their current form and at the newly revised funding rates no longer serve the purpose for which they were designed. We believe the reforms have in fact undermined the intended purpose of FSQs, disadvantaging thousands of young people and adults by diminishing choice of the way they can demonstrate their literacy and numeracy skills.

Our report makes seven recommendations that need urgent consideration and implementation to help to improve this situation:

  1. Ensure the differentiated purpose of functional skills is maintained in practice
  2. Increase exam question contextualisation
  3. Review the structure and spread of Level 2 functional skills maths questions
  4. Promote diverse assessment methods and improve recognition of partial success
  5. Incorporate English and maths components of apprenticeships into the off-the-job apprenticeship training definition
  6. Review the role functional skills qualifications should play in the award of apprenticeships
  7. Uprate funding for functional skills qualifications by at least 10 per cent

It is clear that providers cannot and will not sustain the rate of losses incurred in delivering qualifications that bear increasingly little relevance to the workplace scenarios they were designed to map to.

Post-reform FSQs unhelpfully blur the lines between academic and vocational learning styles, diminishing choice and opportunity for learners and diverging from employer workplace needs. Change is needed, and it is needed now.

Four recommendations to build construction’s workforce

I have been involved with training for the construction industry for over 30 years, both in the UK and overseas. Although some challenges such as net zero are being addressed in many countries, the UK faces a range of very serious challenges that are home-grown.

The construction and built environment sector provides the critical infrastructure, housing, repairs and maintenance to support the UK’s economy and communities.Its output is over £216 billion per annum, and it provides around 8.8 per cent of the UK’s jobs. 

On net zero, it needs to upskill the workforce to support the UK in constructing the low-carbon world to support our economy and communities into a stable future- all while cutting the carbon emitted during the construction process.

In addition, the industry faces three other major challenges.

First, a major skills shortage of circa 250,000 skilled personnel up to 2027. 

Second, a significant requirement to upskill the workforce to improve productivity through digitisation, different materials, new products and new methods of working.

Third, arising from Grenfell, to ensure compliance with the legal requirements of the Building Safety Regulator (BSR) in DBT by improving the level of competency of the workforce.

All this against a background of 10 years of changing skills policies from DfE, as well as the impact of devolution. There are green skills initiatives from the department for energy security amd net zero, such as the Solar Task Force Skills Group. There’s the need to design new UK-wide skills competency frameworks with the building safety regulator in the department for business and trade. Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales obviously have their own policy initiatives.And there is also a UK-wide review underway of the future of construction industry training board and its engineering counterpart, which is expected to report soon.

It is no wonder the medium and small contractor companies find this array of government departments, quangos and differing and changing systems bewildering. They struggle to see how to address the major challenges.

This array of departments, quangos and differing and changing systems is bewildering

Recognising these massive challenges, we carried out a review, with the support of the Construction Leadership Council (CLC), of what employers thought was the way forward to boost employment in the sector.

We found that employers use a range of existing training routes to bring people into industry, They see it as essential that all these routes are retained and properly funded. To ensure full competency of the workforce and comply with the Building Safety Act is a challenge for employers.

For example, there are 442,000 people with only a labourer card (level 1 or no qualification). So the sector’s priority is to get people to competency level 2, but this is at odds with governments’ policies focusing on level 3 and above.

In the view of employers, over the past ten years skills policy and the skills system have become more fragmented. This is aggravated by a decline in skills funding.

The industry has used the single carding scheme (CSCS) as the mechanism for verifying competency, but it needs to be better re-integrated into the overall skills system. This point is not fully recognised by governments’ policies.

Based on this information gathering, the report proposes four key recommendations:

  1. Retain and improve through modularisation of training and best quality assurance all the existing routes into the sector, i.e. apprenticeships (including levels 2 and 3, higher and degree), vocational competence qualifications (NVQs) and bootcamps, where these are of a high-quality (with appropriate training to facilitate entering employment). 
  2. Industry needs to work with governments and other key stakeholders to establish a common consistent UK skills system for construction which is based on a common core for each occupation with built-in flexibility for national and regional variations.
  3. Develop the CSCS scheme to support the new verification of competency under the Building Safety Act and ensure it is integrated into the UK skills system and policies.
  4. As set out in the CLC Industry Skills Plan, industry needs to take a leading role on diversity and enhancing the various approaches currently being used with the co-ordination of a single coherent, focused and powerful message of the benefits of working in construction; under-pinned by an agreed approach to EDI.

What is clear from our review is that the major skills challenges of the construction sector are significantly different to those of others and therefore it requires skills policies and a system that are fit for purpose for it.

Could you be the next NCG Leader?

I am extremely proud to lead NCG, one of the country’s largest college groups. We’re made up of seven colleges across a national footprint, with over 2,500 colleagues supporting more than 40,000 learners towards a successful future across the country.

With a mission to enable social mobility and economic prosperity for all our learners and communities, having the right people with the experience and talent to lead our colleges and our colleagues is absolutely crucial. Finding talented leaders, helping them to develop and enabling them to drive the success of our colleges is something that I am particularly passionate about and it’s something we’re really focused on at NCG.

Right now, we have five rare and exciting opportunities to join our colleges as Assistant Principals. These roles are part of new ambitious plans to strengthen our college leadership teams, providing the support and challenge for our colleagues that will help us to achieve the ambitions we have set for ourselves in our Strategy Towards 2030.

So, what does being a leader at NCG really mean?

It means being dedicated to helping people fulfil their ambitions. It means working in an innovative way and within a unique structure and culture that provides opportunities you may not find elsewhere.

Our national footprint is both NCG’s biggest strength and challenge. Our seven colleges are focused on the specific needs of their different communities and the economies around them, but all our talented and passionate team of colleagues work together as ‘One NCG’, working collaboratively in some way to share expertise and support each other. Our colleagues may work with different learners in individual colleges, but the work we do together is what helps us make a difference to people across the country.

For our college principalship teams this means providing leadership at their local colleges and working as part of the broader leadership community across our Group; a network of colleagues in the same role at other colleges in our Group. This model provides opportunities to work closely with peers and a support network for those new to the role.

We know that opportunities in Lewisham are very different to those in Carlisle, and that there are different economic priorities in Kidderminster to Newcastle. But having an extended team of colleagues spread across the country is a fantastic resource to have – drawing on each other’s different backgrounds and experiences to offer each other a real support system. That’s something that can often be hard to find in smaller, standalone colleges.

It’s a fantastic set-up for innovation and progress too. Our college-based leadership teams lead projects right across our Group – whether they are supporting students’ mental health, developing part of our curriculum, or focusing on a community initiative.  They collaborate, communicate weekly and innovate to share best practice and ensure students from all our colleges can benefit from great initiatives that start as an idea in just one of them.

Our positive culture, our ethos of ‘One NCG’ and the shared goals of colleagues across the Group to provide high-quality education to our learners were all highlighted in our last Ofsted report too. So, we know it makes a real difference to our learners and our outcomes.

Because it’s so important, we really believe in developing talent from within. That’s why we launched our own Leadership Hub, a development programme for NCG colleagues that aims to instil a supportive and inclusive culture across our Group and support our strategic objectives. I am thrilled with its success and so far, we’ve had more than 300 colleagues complete the programme.

How do we know this approach works? 

Well, many of the colleagues in our existing college leadership teams have progressed from elsewhere within NCG – a really great example of how a Group like ours can create and provide opportunities that smaller, standalone colleges may not.

Our current Executive Principal of People and Culture, Gerard Garvey, joined the Group as Principal of Newcastle Sixth Form College in 2015 and was seconded to Lewisham College for 18 months before moving into his current role, where he focuses on developing our people and making NCG a fantastic place to work.

One of Newcastle College’s Assistant Principals, Lisa Hoseason – who has been with NCG for almost 20 years – recently moved to head up West Lancashire College. Lisa started working in classroom support and studied her teaching qualifications at Newcastle College alongside her job. Her leadership journey at NCG is a wonderful success story that really highlights how we value and develop our colleagues.

“I’ve been offered so many opportunities working at NCG and I’ve always been really supported and encouraged to develop and progress. Now, working to support colleagues and learners at West Lancashire College, I have really felt the benefits of the way our college leadership teams work together. I’ve not only felt supported in the change, but I’ve really been able to see the wider impact that the work we do together has on our learners and our communities. It’s brilliant.”

Lisa Hoseason

Joining one of our college leadership teams means being part of a local community, supporting and responding to local people, employers and stakeholders. As part of NCG, you will have the support, autonomy and accountability to meet these local needs at the same time as delivering Group strategies and priorities, and helping us to achieve the objectives of our Strategy Towards 2030.

The most exciting part of being an Assistant Principal at NCG is the chance to work collaboratively with colleagues up and down the country, leading on ambitious initiatives that will create life-changing opportunities for our learners, with the freedom to grow, develop and feel truly supported as you do your best work.

Having worked in education for more than twenty years, I absolutely know that there are talented further education leaders with the vision and passion for excellence that would be the perfect fit for NCG.  So, if we sound like something you would love to be part of, we want to hear from you!

First apprentices awarded ‘professional status’ post-nominals

Sixteen apprentices are among the first to receive post-nominals through a new “game-changing” professional recognition scheme.

The Association of Apprentices (AoA) and the Chartered Institution for Further Education (CIFE) launched the post-apprenticeship recognition scheme (PARS) in November to “elevate the societal and industrial cachet” of apprenticeships and help to increase retention and achievements.

Successful apprentices are awarded a “professional status” and post-nominal designations through the scheme depending on their apprenticeship level.

Post-nominal designations are typically awarded for graduate-level qualifications, honours or professional body memberships, but have today been awarded to apprentices for the first time. 

Jason Holt, co-founder and vice-chair of AoA, said at the scheme’s launch last year it “will be game-changing for apprenticeships, elevating the recognition and value of vocational education and raising parity of esteem with other learning routes”.

CIFE and AoA have run a pilot of the scheme and said all 16 applicants were successful. The 16 apprentices range from level 2 to level 7, are the first in the country to be awarded the new professional status. 

The apprentices were announced this afternoon at a joint AoA and UCAS event at Mansion House in London during National Apprenticeship Week (full list below).

Speaking at the event, Dawn Ward, vice chair of CIFE and chief executive of Burton and South Derbyshire College, said: “I want to pay special thanks to a group of 16 amazing former apprentices who have taken part in the PARS pilot programme. I’m excited to announce that as of today, they are able to use their post-nominals.

“They are the trailblazers – first in the country – for many more qualified apprentices to follow this route. Congratulations.”

Apprentices recognised through the scheme can use post-nominals that correspond to the level of their apprenticeship:

  • CSA (Certificate of Standard Apprenticeship) – level 2
  • CAA (Certificate of Advanced Apprenticeship) – level 3
  • CHA (Certificate of Higher Apprenticeship) – level 4/5
  • CGA (Certificate of Graduate Apprenticeship) – level 6+

Employers signed up to the scheme to date include the BBC, Royal Mail, Amazon and training providers Umbrella Training and Lifetime Training.

The AoA and CIFE are now evaluating the PARS pilot and said the programme will be open for applications in “early summer”. There will be a fee to apply.

To be eligible, apprentices need to have passed their end-point assessment and have their application supported by their employer or an industry sponsor. 

Applicants also need to provide examples of how their apprenticeship has “helped them to make a positive impact”.

Care apprenticeship provider slated for focus on diploma rather than OTJ and EPA

An adult care apprenticeship provider has been hit with an ‘inadequate’ rating after Ofsted found unsupported off-the-job training and “uninspiring” teaching.

Geoseis Consultant Limited, which trades as Geotraining, was also criticised for focusing on the achievement of a diploma qualification that is only part of the apprenticeship while failing to make apprentices aware of their end-point assessment.

The provider started delivering apprenticeship training in April 2020 but today received Ofsted’s lowest possible judgment in its first full inspection. The firm now faces likely contract termination from the Education and Skills Funding Agency.

Geotraining had 55 apprentices on adult care programmes from levels 2 to 5 based in the Midlands at the time of Ofsted’s visit in November.

Too few apprentices have achieved their apprenticeship and hardly any have completed it on time, according to the inspectorate’s report.

The watchdog found that too many apprentices do not receive their full entitlement to off-the-job training, which should be a minimum of six hours per week. Most Geotraining are also required to learn in their own time and are “not supported” by their employer.

Ofsted raised concern that level 2 apprentices “learn in noisy workplaces”, or through online meetings with no practical opportunities.

Inspectors took aim at Geotraining leaders for not ensuring that the basic requirements of an apprenticeship are promoted to and implemented by employers.

The report claimed that too many employers are “only interested in their apprentices achieving the diploma qualification, which is only part of the apprenticeship, rather than the knowledge, skills and behaviours that the apprenticeship standard prescribes”.

Apprentices are “often unaware of the requirements of the end-point assessment or the requirements of the broader apprenticeship”.

The government is currently implementing reforms to align qualifications within apprenticeships with end-point assessments after discovering this was a key reason why nearly half of apprentices drop out before completing their programme every year.

Ofsted had found Geotraining making ‘reasonable progress’ in an early monitoring visit report published in November 2022. But since then, the firm’s director has reduced the size of permanent staff, according to today’s full inspection report, and the remaining managers and team members “do not have the knowledge or skills to manage, monitor and improve the quality of training that apprentices receive”.

The few tutors that remain “do not have the time or skills to provide effective training to apprentices”, Ofsted added.

As a result, too many apprentices “do not receive timely and regular reviews of their progress, receive a poor standard of training and make slow progress on their apprenticeship”.

Apprentices also reported feeling “frustrated by constant changes in tutors which has slowed their progress”.

There is no external independent oversight of Geotraining’s leaders, who fail to systematically review and evaluate achievement, retention and attendance data, Ofsted said.

The watchdog concluded: “Leaders’ oversight of the quality of education is not fit for purpose. Their assessment of the quality of education that apprentices receive is too positive and does not identify the many weaknesses at the provider.”

Geotraining did not respond to requests for comment.

Birmingham sixth form college awarded ‘outstanding’ second time running

Birmingham’s only sixth form college has received its second consecutive ‘outstanding’ grade from Ofsted.

Joseph Chamberlain Sixth Form College (JCC) was given top marks again by inspectors for its ambitious curriculum, highly structured governance and skilful teaching.

In the watchdog’s report published this morning, inspectors found learners were “extremely positive about their learning” and make “substantial and sustained progress from their starting points”.

At the time of the inspection, conducted in December, the college had 2,375 learners studying academic and vocational courses entry level to level 3. JCC also employed one subcontractor to teach 790 adult learners on ESOL courses.

Ofsted praised the college’s “strong” contribution to meeting skills needs. This included prioritising digital skills in adult learning courses and having strong links with employers and higher education providers to improve learning in real-time.

Tony Day, principal of JCC, said: “[The report is] the perfect endorsement of the tireless work we do to educate and support our students.”

Inspectors said that teachers expertly use a variety of teaching strategies and resources as well as using assessment to inform and plan their teaching. They were also commended for teaching learners to use subject-specific technical vocabulary “exceptionally well”.

“Learners develop substantial new knowledge and skills and produce work to a consistently high standard,” the report said.

JCC’s governance was also commended for its “highly coherent structure”. Inspectors said governors, who comprise “experienced practitioners”, provide robust challenge and actively support leaders and staff to achieve their strategic goals.

For example, Ofsted inspectors found the board to scrutinise leaders on performance, teacher retention and equality and diversity at the college.

Regarding its subcontracting provision, the watchdog found the college works “highly effective” with Birmingham Ethnic Education and Advisor Service and has “robust systems to oversee the quality of education that the subcontractor provides”.

Inspectors added that college leaders are actively involved in designing the ESOL course which targets the hardest-to-reach members of the community, including refugees and migrants. It has resulted in learners developing skills to “successfully integrate” within their communities.

In a statement on its website, the college said the report recognised its mission of providing “an exceptional education for all”.

“The recent Ofsted report reveals JCC to be a truly exceptional institution and the first sixth form College in England that has been judged as making a ‘strong’ contribution (the highest possible grade) to the development of skills urgently in demand among the local community as well as the wider country,” the statement added.

Ofsted rejects RAAC inspection exemption call

Ofsted has rejected calls to automatically exempt education providers with RAAC from inspection, but urged leaders to use its deferral policy if they get the call.

In the autumn term, the watchdog removed all schools and colleges affected by the crumbly concrete from its inspection schedule.

But since January, these education providers have been eligible for inspection.

Geoff Barton, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, wrote yesterday to education secretary Gillian Keegan to request an extension of the approach.

He asked “that you instruct Ofsted to continue to avoid scheduling for inspection any school on the published RAAC list until the school is fully operational, unless the headteacher has notified Ofsted that they are happy to undergo an inspection”.

In a statement issued today, Ofsted said RAAC schools would be eligible for inspection this term, “however this will be sufficient grounds to defer the inspection, should the school wish to”.

A spokesperson from Ofsted confirmed to FE Week that this approach also applies to FE colleges.

“We know that the situation with RAAC is still causing challenges for school staff, pupils and their parents and guardians,” the watchdog’s statement added.

“For schools that do not have confirmed RAAC but may still be impacted by RAAC, for example where a school is hosting pupils from schools that have RAAC, we will carefully consider any requests for a deferral of an inspection.”

It comes after Barton took aim in his letter at the pace of government action to address the RAAC crisis in education.

He said the danger of structural failure in buildings where RAAC was used in construction “has been known since at least 2018”.

‘Extremely difficult position’

“The unacceptable length of time it has taken the government to act on a risk of this seriousness has led directly to the extremely difficult position in which many leaders now find themselves.”

He also echoed calls for mitigations to exams for students in affected settings.

Where schools and colleges have had to close specialist provision like science labs, “students in these subjects should automatically be given special consideration for coursework and non-exam assessment (NEA) in any subjects affected”.

This “should be at a cohort level, without the need for centres to apply individually for each candidate, as is currently the case”.

He added that special consideration “should include the maximum extended time to complete the NEA, and the maximum percentage of additional marks available under current JCQ guidance”.

He also called on chancellor Jeremy Hunt to introduce a “new recovery funding stream for all 231 RAAC-impacted schools [and colleges] in the spring budget”, and said government must ensure outstanding RAAC spending by education providers is reimbursed “as soon as possible”.