Labour’s Ofsted plans ‘logical evolution’, says Spielman

Labour’s plans to ditch Ofsted grades in favour of a report card could be the “logical evolution” of how school and college performance is communicated, Amanda Spielman has said.

The chief inspector told FE Week it was “completely rational for a potential alternative government to be thinking about things like this”, after shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson set out her reform proposals at the weekend.

Labour has said it will consult on scrapping the current system of four grades, opting instead for a report card that shows what schools, colleges and training providers do well and what they need to do to improve.

The party has not said what metrics will feature on the card.

Quizzed on the proposals this week, Spielman said it sounded “mainly presentational”, putting information in a different way.

“It sounds like a sort of logical evolution of everything that gets drawn together in performance tables at the moment.”

Spielman said she “constantly talks” about the purposes of inspection “and that how both the inspection that you design – and how you report it – depends on what those policy purposes are”.

“It’s completely rational for a potential alternative government to be thinking about things like this. I don’t think anybody has the slightest discomfort about that.”

But she said “we have overall judgments because of the different purposes that inspection is serving”.

“There’s been… a strong perception that parents want the simplicity and clarity of an overall judgment in schools, for example, and that governments want handles to justify both incentives…and legitimacy for interventions with poor performers in FE.

“I’m sure that Labour will be thinking about how they would want those to work in a new system. But there are many aspects of inspection that are determined by those policy purposes. So it is rightly for ministers to determine what those policy purposes are.”

Spielman leaves the watchdog at the end of this year after seven years at the helm.

Labour’s proposed changes will therefore be left to another chief inspector to implement, but Spielman said she was glad to see education issues debated.

“I feel we’ve had so many years when, between Brexit and Covid and cost of living, there’s been little space for people to think and talk about moving education forward.”

Labour has long pledged to re-assess how education providers are graded with Ofsted expected to turn its focus to improvement under a Labour government. The length and frequency of inspections is also expected to be up for review.

Announcing the party’s proposals at the annual conference of the Association of School and College Leders in Birmingham at the weekend, Phillipson said Labour would “bring a wind of change … and drive forward reform of education and of childcare as part of our mission to break down barriers to opportunity”.

She said Labour would consult “very quickly” on the changes if it formed the next government.

Single awarding body model for T Levels to stay

Ministers have doubled down on a contentious decision to use a single awarding body for each T Level, FE Week can reveal.

Jennifer Coupland, chief executive of the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education, told this publication that following discussions about the model, it will be taken forward in the re-procurement for the first wave of the qualifications set to take place this year.

Using a single awarding organisation (AO) per T Level was a recommendation by Lord Sainsbury in his review of technical education, which the Department for Education agreed to take forward. However, its own researchers warned that with no alternative to step in if problems arose with a contracted body, there was a “risk of system failure”.

Exams regulator Ofqual also “advised on the risks related to the single provider model” ahead of their launch.

Last week, education secretary Gillian Keegan announced a one-year delay in the rollout of three T Levels to be offered by awarding body NCFE from September 2023 in hair, beauty and aesthetics, in craft and design, and in media broadcast and production.

Another in catering, being developed by awarding body Highfield, has been delayed to 2025 at the earliest.

Keegan said quality issues needed to be addressed.

Last year, problems with the health and science T Level, also awarded by NCFE, led to results for over 1,000 students being regraded.

During an interview with FE Week at this week’s Annual Apprenticeship Conference, Coupland said the idea of using a single body, which differs from the multi-AO policy for A-levels, was to “ensure quality in the system”.

The first T Levels that were launched in 2020 – education and childcare delivered by NCFE, and Pearson’s design, surveying and planning, and digital production, design and development – are up for re-procurement in the coming months.

Coupland told FE Week: “Those contracts are coming up for review again, and that is going to continue to run a single licencing model, following discussions with the department on the policy. They [DfE] want to continue that approach.”

The complexity of T Level design and accountability has come under the spotlight in recent months amid the health and science delays.

Coupland said the delivery system for the flagship qualifications is “complex”.

“We’ve got a range of organisations with responsibilities with different aspects of delivery. So, at IfATE we contract with the awarding organisations, they draft the qualification, Ofqual is the regulator of those awarding organisations, Department for Education has got responsibility for industry placements, and for the workforce elements and providers.

“When you understand the system, you can see all how these organisations have got a specific role to play that plays to their strengths. But for someone looking in, it does look complex.”

Coupland rejected the idea that the number of organisations that have a role to play was a “contributing factor” in last week’s decision to delay some T Levels, or the health and science problems last year. “It was slightly more complex than that,” she said.

Hunt’s ‘returnerships’ are just marketing, DfE admits

The chancellor’s “returnerships” scheme has been slammed as “all spin and no substance” after the government confirmed it will only be a marketing brand to signpost older workers to existing courses.

Jeremy Hunt told the House of Commons during Wednesday’s budget that education secretary Gillian Keegan “will introduce a new kind of apprenticeship targeted at the over-50s who want to return to work”.

“They will be called returnerships, an offering alongside skills bootcamps and sector-based work academies,” he added.

However, Treasury documents indicated that rather than offering a new course, “returnerships will promote accelerated apprenticeships, sector-based work academy programme (SWAP) placements and skills bootcamps” – programmes which have been available for years.

The Department for Education confirmed to FE Week that “returnerships” will simply be the term used, through its Skills for Life marketing campaign, to encourage over-50s to take up existing courses.

Accelerated apprenticeships are shorter (by at least three months) than the typical duration of the standard, based on the apprentice’s prior learning. Minimum requirements of an apprenticeship must still be met, including the legal 12-month minimum duration rule.

Skills bootcamps offer free, flexible courses of up to 16 weeks with a job interview at the end, while SWAPs are administered by Jobcentre Plus and involve pre-employment training, a guaranteed job interview and a work placement to help prepare those receiving unemployment benefits for new jobs.

Shadow minster for further education and skills Toby Perkins said: “The government’s announcement on ‘returnerships’ is typical of their approach to skills: it’s all spin and no substance.

“Our country needs a coherent, joined-up skills system which enables all individuals to make the best use of their talents.”

Jane Hickie, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, added: “Ultimately, we’re disappointed at the lack of detailed plan to meet the chancellor’s aim to get more people back into work and achieve the stated aim of skills being the catalyst for economic growth.

“If the government are serious about supporting more over-50s and those in receipt of universal credit back into work, this will need significantly more investment in skills training.

“A rebranding and promotion of accelerated apprenticeship under the guise of ‘returnerships’ won’t cut it. If this is a budget for growth, it’s a budget for growth without skills.”

Ofqual’s new deadlines to avoid repeat of BTEC results delays debacle

Ofqual has set stringent results deadlines for level 3 vocational and technical education awarding bodies in an effort to avoid a repeat of last summer’s delays.

Awarding organisations must also have a senior designated contact for exams at every school and college to quickly resolve issues.

The regulator told awarding organisations in guidance issued on Thursday that they must have agreed with schools and colleges by May 26 which students expect to receive grades on level 3 results day in the summer.

June 23 is the latest date awarding bodies must agree with school and colleges what remaining evidence or information is needed for each student.

The deadline for issuing VTQ results to schools and colleges is August 14 – three days before the level 3 results day when thousands of students find out their A-level, T Level and other level 3 results like BTECs.

In December, Ofqual said it would introduce a checkpoint midway through the summer term to check up on missing units, which is the June 23 deadline, and said it envisaged that final results would be issued to centres about a week before level 3 results day.

Ofqual has also said that awarding organisations must collect and maintain details of senior contacts responsible for delivering exams in schools and colleges, so that errors, issues or clarifications can be addressed as quickly as possible.

It is unclear how many awarding bodies already had this provision.

Awarding bodies will also be required to work with the university admissions service UCAS to track students applying for higher education courses to ensure a smooth transition.

Ofqual said it will shortly launch a VTQ “information hub”, which will bring together key information – including the new deadline dates – in one place.

An Ofqual spokesperson said: “The chief regulator, Jo Saxton, came to this post committed to parity of esteem between general and vocational and technical qualifications, and with students as her compass. The deadlines announced today provide key milestones towards delivering this.

In August last year, around 21,000 BTEC and Cambridge Technicals (CTEC) results were issued late, leaving students in limbo.

Ofqual figures published in December revealed that 12,346 level 3 results were affected, and 8,573 level 2 results.

Affected students received blank results slips, triggering a barrage of calls to the awarding bodies.

The regulator launched an investigation and shortly before Christmas published an action plan to avoid a repeat of the failures. They included a hard deadline for VTQ results and a taskforce of senior sector leaders to work on new requirements and refine existing processes.

Ofqual’s action plan also set out provision for bespoke training for exams officers, administration and academic staff.

Pearson, the awarding body for the BTECs, and OCR for the CTECs were members of that taskforce but also published their own internal investigations into the summer results failure.

The reviews found that most delays came from missing or incomplete data from colleges and schools on students’ coursework or exams that had not been spotted earlier, as well as more complicated administration processes as a result of adaptations from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Also published in the latest guidance is a list of 14 awarding bodies which have pledged their commitment to the new rules.

According to Ofqual, all awarding organisations delivering high stakes performance table qualifications that attract UCAS points and operate claims-based systems have signed up to the deadlines.

Tom Bewick, chief executive of the Federation of Awarding Bodies – one of the taskforce members – said that he welcomed the action plan and Ofqual’s announcement on the deadlines.

“Inevitably it means some significant changes to ways of working but we’re confident the plan being put in place is one of ensuring expectations are managed properly; there is clarity about what is required, by whom and by when; and that AOs are able to communicate with centres and stakeholders in a manner that will ensure every student who is eligible for a result is able to receive one without delay,” he said.

Bewick added that in addition to Ofqual’s work, the federation and Joint Council for Qualifications had set up an operational communications group of awarding bodies involved in the summer results to ensure that communications processes were aligned.

York College closed after suspicious object investigation

York College remains closed today after its campus had to be evacuated last night over reports of a suspicious object – but normal service is set to resume on Friday.

North Yorkshire Police were called shortly after 4pm on Wednesday to the college in response to reports of a possible suspicious object on the campus.

Officers and college staff evacuated the area and closed Tadcaster Road to put a cordon in place, advising members of the public to avoid the area.

The force said that a search of the campus was completed and nothing was found.

Officers re-opened the road at 7.15pm and the cordon to campus was lifted shortly after 9.30pm.

Police said that an investigation is underway to establish the full circumstances, which the college confirmed it was supporting them with.

The college confirmed that it remains closed today but expects to re-open as normal tomorrow.

In a statement issued on Twitter, the college said: “Having worked closely with the emergency services, we can confirm that the incident concluded late last night, and the building was cleared for safe occupation.

“After a thorough search, no items of concern were found. Any information circulating to the contrary is untrue.

“Our incident response arrangements kicked in swiftly, and we worked with relevant emergency services to resolve the matter quickly and efficiently. We elected to close our campus today as a precautionary measures but are pleased to confirm that we will be open as usual tomorrow.”

While the college was closed today, students were able to attend to pick up any personal belongings. It confirmed that the college day will run as timetabled tomorrow with normal attendance expected.

Budget 2023: A competent affair but with glaring missed opportunities

I can’t be the only one who found this week’s budget a refreshingly competent and much-needed return to serious government. For education and skills, it was very apparent this budget wasn’t a fiscal splurge but about targeted interventions that either reduce the cost of living or grow the economy. Or in the case of the generous childcare announcement, both

It’s worth remembering that the autumn statement had already delivered an extra £2.3 billion for schools and that the previous spending review committed to a £2.3 billion increase in the 16-18 education budget between 2019 and 2024. Many will argue this simply isn’t enough, but public finances remain stretched.

So what does it all mean for skills?

Holding firm on the levy

Groups like the CBI have been expending huge political capital on trying to dismantle the apprenticeship levy, often on the premise that ‘billions are handed back every year to the treasury’. When the policy was introduced there was indeed an underspend, but that’s simply not true now. Indeed, we have a serious shortage of apprenticeships so reducing funding by diluting the levy into a ‘Flexible Skills Levy’ would be misguided.

While the levy could be improved in many ways, it’s inescapable that it has doubled the funding available for apprenticeships over the past decade and created stability. It’s also driven up quality through the 20 per cent-off-the-job requirement and new employer-crafted standards.

The actual elephant in the room is that employers’ investment in training continues stagnate and is now half the European average. Less than 20 per cent of 25- to 64-years-olds hold a vocational qualification and off-the-job training (a good proxy for quality) has declined for years. This is a key cause of our long-standing low productivity and growth and leaves millions stuck in low-skills jobs and low job satisfaction.

A missed opportunity

The budget contained a £27 billion tax cut for business through ‘full expensing’, allowing companies to claim a 100 per cent deduction from their profits when they invest in capital like machines, offices, or vehicles. This is combined with a £500 million package of tax deductions for research and innovation.

The apprentice minimum wage remains a major barrier

Imagine how powerful this approach would be if it applied to investing in the workforce. For larger employers, it is not the upfront cost of training that acts as a barrier but the need for a solid, long-term business case. Generous tax credits would drive employer investment to the levels we desperately need, incentivise employers to look to colleges and training providers for short courses and maybe, just maybe, end efforts to dismantle the levy.

Smaller firms face a different challenge: cash flow. Upfront grants to take on apprentices or invest in high-quality training could make all the difference here. As Chancellor, Sunak established a £3,000 cash incentive to take on an apprentice during the pandemic. Between 5,000 and 10,000 apprentices were taken on each of the 18 months the scheme was in place. This relatively small investment should return, and a similar scheme could have been transformative.

Returners, retrainers and the minimum wage

While I’m not convinced returnership is going to catch on as a term, the concept is spot on. A lot of detail needs to be worked through but ‘earn while you learn’ works as effectively at 16 as it does at 60. For this reason, a ‘retrainership’ for those wishing to change careers would have complemented the ‘returnership’ idea well.

Meanwhile, the apprentice minimum wage remains a major barrier. At just £5.28 per hour from April for the first year of an apprenticeship regardless of age, it rules out adults without independent means. The living wage for everyone else over 23 from April is £10.42. A nearly 50 per cent pay cut rules out swaths of potential returners and retrainers. The apprentice minimum wage should have gone, replaced with the living wage every other worker earns.

Overall, what this budget lacked in vision and funding, it made up for in focus and stability. There is scope for much more, and not all of it dependent on the treasury, but in the meantime sector leaders will be pleased to see inflation – and their costs – decline.

The FE sector has a key role to play to support gender equality in the workplace. Here’s how

In the wake of International Women’s Day, it’s important to remember the debates, conversations and celebrations of this one day should inspire us to continue striving to resolve the societal inequalities faced by women. Bringing about positive change is year-round work. In the further education sector, we work with many young women during crucial, formative years as they develop skills and forge careers. This means we have a great potential and opportunity to influence their lives for the better and promote a more equal society.

Certainly, there’s still plenty of progress still to be made. Our recent research, Youth Misspent, surveyed 5,000 18- to 24-year-olds and found that despite having high ambitions, young women are often left trailing behind men when it comes to achieving them. And this only entrenches as time progresses. Structural barriers embedded into our current careers, employment and childcare systems limit the earning potential of women and their ability to achieve their ambitions.

Our research found that amongst 18- to 24-year-olds, inequalities are already emerging. While young women (23 per cent) are more likely to already be working than young men (20 per cent), men are more likely than women to have already purchased their own home (11 per cent vs 6 per cent), and are more likely to already be earning above the average salary of £28,000 (17 per cent vs 8 per cent).

There are many reasons why these inequalities start to appear so early on in young women’s lives and careers. One area the FE sector should pay close attention to is the tendency for women to choose lower-paid industries compared with young men pursue careers in higher-paid sectors such as financial services and construction. This has a huge impact on future careers and salaries and exacerbates the gender pay gap.

In fact, recent research published by the Living Wage Foundation found that jobs held by women account for almost 60 per cent of all roles paid below the real living wage. Women are also more likely to be on zero-hours contracts, trapped in low-paying, insecure and precarious jobs.

Equal opportunity to education isn’t enough; we need to go further

Providing equal opportunities to education isn’t enough; we need to go further than that. We can and should play an important role to support women into higher-paid careers and industries where they are currently under-represented and unlock their full economic potential. There are several ways we can do this.

First, we should ensure colleges are equipped to provide supportive careers advice and skills mapping to help women understand all the opportunities in front of them and encourage them to defy stereotypes and expectations – considering jobs in better paid but often male-dominated sectors. Providing this early on in their education journeys – and even working with local schools to reach younger students – will ensure they are equipped with the skills and confidence needed to progress and flourish in their later lives.

Second, it’s important to recognise the power of strong mentorship. In colleges, consider reaching out to networks of previous alumni to set up mentorships with current students. These mentors can be male or female – what’s important is that they can be a valuable role model and help aspiring young women by providing advice, counsel and a support network for their development.

Third, we should work with employers to make industries less gendered and support those in typically ‘male-dominated’ industries to make their roles more appealing to female candidates. That could be through careers education events, changing recruitment processes, improving flexibility, offering paid internship programmes for young female talent, or bespoke training opportunities. We can also support employers to put in place specific support for women as they begin new careers in these sectors.

Ultimately, to support women in their careers and tackle these inequalities, we need to think about equity rather than equality. That means recognising the structural barriers women face and ensuring they have access to tailored support to help them to enter high-earning careers, embrace their full potential and balance the gender success scales for a fairer future.

The Staffroom: Making friends and allies to crack the challenge of work experience

“To be a good journalist, make friends.” So were the words of my Sheffield College journalism tutor back in 2005. An old-school lecturer and press hack, the truth is my work experience opportunities relied more on his network than any friends that I could make. A contacts book bulged by years in industry and a course with a strong regional reputation mattered. But, as work experience has now become a major focus in the post-16 education agenda, how can we repeat the trick at a T level scale? I work in education now, but I find thinking like a journalist is a useful skill in this regard.

Immortalised by The Inbetweeners and etched in our own memories, work experience is the rite of passage of the post-16 student. But as the T level requirement for 315 placement hours ups the ante for colleges and students alike, delivering both quantity and quality has become one of the key challenges facing skills education.

General further education might not often claim an alumni society, but its reach stretches into every industry, office and business. If you know where to look and are bold enough to ask, it’s amazing what can be found. Much like the no-nonsense advice of that wizened newshound-turned-teacher, the strategies for success have budged little: committed phone calls, worn shoe leather and a social media presence are the routes to lighting up that network with opportunities.

And it turns out people like helping our students. In our department of business, IT and social sciences, the dedicated work of teaching staff has put together a network of policing, legal and court contacts as well as a plethora of businesses across accounting, marketing and IT services.

That’s a great first step, but the key is to establish a strong range of ‘repeat business’ work experience placements. This comes down to three factors.

Promote your courses

Businesses don’t know your latest offering; why would they? But one LinkedIn post might be all it takes. Broadcasting the talent of our students led us to having a law firm on board, keen to involve our Applied Law group in their work.

They offer advice on the range of careers and routes the profession offers, and they ensure our students make connections alongside their work experience placements, giving them the ‘inside scoop’ on the reality of law with the firm. It helps them too; their assessment speaks for itself: “I don’t why we haven’t started working with you sooner.”

Keep tabs on job opportunities

Firms face a tough jobs market and connecting them to the groundswell of talent at the college produces lightning-quick email responses. Work such as apprenticeships and trainee posts are often cyclical in big companies, so their HR department are the first people to contact.

For example, a chance search brought up 10 trainee posts in one local accountancy company. It took one email to create a connection to real work in a local business our students may never have considered or heard of. On top of that, they came in to talk to our business students about what accountancy is really like, and even gave our Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT) group a chance to hone the applications.

Get out of college

This might be the information age, but face-to-face contact at local business events, conferences and recruitment fairs can’t be beaten for growing your network. The job of good management is to grow those opportunities and crucially find out what skill shortages there are in the local economy.

Chance conversations are a rich avenue of research and development, whether they lead to work experience, job posts or introductions into industries. One of our ex-students now runs a cybersecurity company. Your alumni will be doing amazing things on your doorstep too, and feed right back into this virtuous cycle.

Our work has always been more than delivering qualifications alone. If a student is qualified with skills an industry needs but doesn’t know where to start, then the job is only half-done. Growing our students’ work experience and their contacts book means they can write their own story once they leave.

Stop relying on more funding. Providers need to solve their own recruitment problems

The recent announcement to raise the FE teacher training bursary level is headline-worthy, but it won’t dent the recruitment and retention problems faced by the sector. Providers should aim to solve their own problems rather than wait for more funding from DfE.

Bursaries are finite in number and locked to subject areas. They’re also laced with qualifying criteria. With the FE sector vacancy rate more than double pre-pandemic levels, the bursary improvement is welcome but it will have a negligible impact.

The FE sector has the evergreen challenge of hiring experienced people from industry. Salaries in FE rarely outpace what is obtainable in industry occupations. The knee-jerk response from lobbyists is to appeal for more funding so that providers can pay higher salaries.

This isn’t achievable across all industries and provision. The toughest vacancies to fill in FE are the same as those in industry; areas of economic demand where there is a lack of experienced candidates.

For example, the median salary for a software developer in the UK is £65,000. According to our platform, however, the average salary for a software development coach or lecturer is £38,039. The average salary for a bricklayer is £53,528, but our website shows the average for a bricklaying lecturer £30,883. The list goes on.

The struggles do not end there; in comparative sectors FE is the poor relation. Secondary teachers earn more than FE lecturers. Those working in learning and development earn 33 per cent more than their FE counterparts in FE. Then, there is intra-sector competition between ITPs, employer providers, colleges and universities.

Now for the good news: The FE sector has bags to offer professionals moving from industry. It just requires a thoughtful and creative approach to unlock this value.

Post-pandemic, there is a huge shift in what job-seekers prioritise. Much of the workforce is unwilling to compromise on work/life balance as they did before.

The bursary improvement will have a negligible impact

With this in mind, increasing the flexibility of working conditions is very attractive. Worth considering are remote or hybrid working, 4-day work weeks and flexi hours. Extended holidays, buy-back schemes and sabbaticals are common in the private sector.

Colleges could utilise existing infrastructure to mitigate living costs by supporting employees with subsidies for things like food or childcare.

Providers could leverage their proximity to industry to forge recruitment partnerships. I loved the recent example in the LEC Report of South Burton & Derbyshire college’s recruitment partnership. Providers could find further inspiration on what is important to job seekers by examining what top employers use to enhance their employer value propositions (EVP).

Social conscientiousness is at an all-time high. Working in FE is a fantastic way to contribute to ‘something bigger’, but I’m often shocked to see how few providers talk about this in their recruitment literature. Few providers invest in EVP enhancers like B-Corp status, despite qualifying.

Finally, lightening the load on lecturers would benefit the sector too. Agile approaches and more efficient organisational structures would make the job more enjoyable. Enabling educators to focus on imparting their knowledge rather than weighing them down in bureaucracy is key to avoiding attrition.

Ideas like these are rarely cost-neutral, so where does the investment needed come from? One option is to stop relying on staffing agencies when direct sourcing is a viable alternative. It’s easier than ever before with advancements in recruitment technology.

There are stark comparisons to draw with the NHS with regards to over-reliance on contract staffing agencies. Like the NHS, diverting agency spending would allow reinvestment into HR resources. We could also improve compensation packages (salary levels or benefits) in problem areas.

This won’t happen overnight and will need an introspective approach. There has to be an appetite to change the status quo rather than waiting for more funding, or outsourcing recruitment by default.

Senior leaders should invest more in their HR and talent acquisition strategy. In doing so, they’d find that their recruitment challenges would dissipate. Over time, both FE job-seeker sentiment and the level of new entrants to the sector would improve.