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Dr Fazal Dad: principal, Ofsted inspector and ex special constable

Dr Fazal Dad lives in a terraced house just 174 steps from his office at Blackburn College. The proximity reflects just how important it is for this chief executive to be at the heart of his campus community.

In his last job, as Walsall College’s deputy principal, he would get the bus to and from his home – despite owning a car. Even his close family questioned his logic.

“I used to say to them, I travel to work with the real people. I suppose that’s just me.”

Despite leaving school at 16 with just one O level (in metalwork), once Dad caught the learning bug, he couldn’t stop. He spent the next 36 years in part-time education, while climbing the career ladder in FE, which culminated in his PHD aged 50.

That workload came on top of being a police special constable for 18 years, a Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) reviewer for 15 years and an Ofsted inspector for the last five years.

The Principal of Blackburn College remains as grounded now as he ever was, making sure he uses all the local shops and getting to know what “really matters” to people. “I know what it feels like to be a Blackburnian.”

Dr Fazal Dad at Blackburn College

Doing the dirty work

But Fazal’s dedication to his community is matched by the high expectations he puts on his staff. He isn’t afraid to hold them to account when they fall short.

“If you don’t offend people, you never make any changes.”

Shortly after arriving at Blackburn College in January 2019, he had to make some unpopular decisions.

The previously ‘outstanding’ college had had two consecutive ‘requires improvement’ ratings and its finances were rocky. In 2019-20, Blackburn reported a yearly drop in its net assets from £11.8 million to £2.2 million, and had £12.3 million of long-term debt.

He arrived “with the remit of getting quality right”.

His “forensic systematic approach” involved “removing some colleagues” and bringing in “people with the right attitudes and behaviours”.

Covid hit Blackburn hard, with longer lockdowns than anywhere else.

Dad kept a close eye on standards throughout. For example, he would “randomly ring students up” to check that their teachers were doing their duty by keeping in touch with them.

He trimmed his workforce from 688 in 2019-20 to 550 in 2023. Dad believes principals “don’t get paid to do just the good things” or to “do the job from the back seat”.

He chastises some principals for “always handing out the presents at the awards”, but “not wanting to do the dirty work”. He conducts “protected conversations” when they’re needed with staff himself.

But he’s also quick to stand up for colleagues when it’s called for.

A month after he arrived in Blackburn, the FE Commissioner was seeking “ammunition” to remove his board’s chair and vice chair. Dad objected as he felt no ill will towards them; “they were fantastic people”.

However, the commissioners made it clear that when they returned later that year, they expected the board to have new chairs. Dad relented but ensured they left with integrity and were thanked for their “years of hard work”.

It was “the most difficult challenge” he had to face in his career.

Wake-up call

Dad credits his father [a foundry worker] and his mum [a housewife], both first-generation immigrants from Pakistan, with keeping him “level-headed”. “You appreciated whatever was on the table for tea.”

But as a teenager growing up in Birmingham, he was more into watching Liverpool Football Club play than applying himself academically.

His “wake-up call” came because his one O level meant he had to take a level two electrical engineering course at Dudley College of Technology, rather than a level three like his friends.

Dad is also an Ofsted inspector and was recently sent back to Dudley to inspect it. Walking down the same corridors he’d walked as a teen was an “ironic full circle”.

Dad did an electrical apprenticeship and has continued to sit exams regularly since then which he could use to grant him access to work on a construction site. However, he has not practised the trade for 30 years.

As an electrical apprentice, his geeky fascination with electrical regulations prompted him to “wrongly or rightly embarrass” colleagues on construction sites by quoting regulations at them.

Superhuman work ethic

Dad was promoted to contract manager on construction sites, and in the evenings started teaching electrical engineering, maths and regulations at Walsall College. He also taught classes at Stourbridge College.

Those were the “good old days” of adult education.

“Car parks were rammed” most evenings with adult learners studying a “whole portfolio of qualifications”.

The classes were life-changing for many. He recalls one ex-student, a bricklayer who now runs his own electrical company. He reflects how “very naïve” it is of the government to have cut the adult education budget for such programmes, “then complain years later that we have a workforce issue”.

After four years he secured a full-time teaching position at Stourbridge College where he spent the next 11 years, rising to head of construction and then assistant principal.

Doctor Dad

FE gave Dad a “lifeline”, and he still pinches himself sometimes over the fact he now has a PhD in middle management leadership in Further Education (as well as a CertEd and a Master’s in education).

So what drove him to spend all that time studying?

He wanted to “prove that I could learn at that level”. Plus, it was “great fun”.

He also volunteered as a special constable, rising to inspector ranking.

He recalls having to arrest a former student of his, which “couldn’t get any more embarrassing”.

The role helped with his “ability to communicate” with his students. It also taught him the need to “connect with people before you correct”.

He saw “parallels” between the criminal justice and education sectors, as “some individuals can exhaust the system. We don’t know what to do with them.”

Dr Fazal Dad when he was a special constable, with his family

Many mergers

Dad has witnessed many mergers [and near mergers] throughout his career.

As deputy at Walsall College, it merged with the Walsall Adult Community College, then tried to merge with Rodbaston College. The deal went to the “nth degree” before the board “decided it was not going to invest in a college in Staffordshire”.

While he believes mergers are almost always financially driven, they “have to create a win-win situation”.

Blackburn pulled out of discussions about merging with nearby St Mary’s Catholic College in 2020 because it had no assets and a large deficit, which Dad was “not willing to accept”. St Mary’s, which was England’s smallest sixth-form college, closed for good in 2022.

The proudest moment in Dad’s career came when Walsall went from Ofsted ‘good’ to “straight grade ones” in 2013.

In the final feedback meeting with inspectors, he “just couldn’t look up” after becoming teary-eyed. He went out and sat on a bench in the car park on his own for a while to take it in.

Five years later, just before joining Blackburn, Dad became an Ofsted inspector himself.

But being in that role means he puts even higher expectations on his own college.

When in 2022 Blackburn went from ‘requires improvement’ to ‘good’, “everyone else was over the moon”. But Dad was disappointed. “To this day” he asks himself the “burning” question: “why didn’t you get it to grade one?”

Healthy competition

Dad describes himself as having “relaunched” Blackburn in the last five years.

He says achievement rates were hovering in the 70s when he started – now it gets 90 per cent.

He launched a new A-level centre which has “worked a treat”, providing 23 subjects to 250 learners.

It puts the college in direct competition with local sixth forms for learners. “We now compete with the big boys on our patch,” he says jokingly.

But Dad is no stranger to competition; in the West Midlands, it was “dog eat dog” between colleges. “But you have to get on with your job.”

Blackburn also has a new hybrid and electric automotive training facility, one of only a handful in the country. It has revamped its construction facility, created a hospital ward in its university centre and now boasts a cyber security training unit set up to feed a pipeline of workers into the National Cyber Security Centre the government is opening in nearby Samlesbury.

It’s been “difficult” to recruit teachers because such IT sleuthing skills are in high demand.

Dad also secured £33 million from DfE towards the £36 million refurbishment of its listed technical college building, which stands proudly as one of the town’s architectural crown jewels.

It was key to Dad that with all the uncertainty about the future of qualifications and the skills agenda, its new rooms would have “built-in flexibility” to adapt to different courses and class sizes.

Blackburn students celebrating A Level results in 2021 with Dr Fazal Dad

Zero tolerance approach

Dad introduced the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme at Walsall and then at Blackburn and is a big fan of how it connects pupils from different qualifications and walks of life. Dad credits the scheme for “equipping our young people with a broader understanding around teamwork and problem-solving”.

He believes that such schemes are more needed than ever, against a backdrop of rising incidents of poor behaviour and mental health needs.

“Sometimes a college lecturer is the guardian, social worker, nurse and confidant, never mind the teacher, because of the challenge that individual is going through.”

Dad operates a zero-tolerance approach to drugs at Blackburn, as he has in his previous colleges.

He recalls in a previous role having “arguments” with his local police chief inspector for insisting on permanently excluding a student caught with cannabis. So far this academic year, he estimates having permanently excluded around 10 students.

He is concerned over how nowadays some public areas “reek of cannabis”, as if “almost we’ve accepted” the drug being smoked publicly. But he insists that “on my college grounds, I am responsible. The students know now – you have drugs at Blackburn College, you’re going home… you have to draw the line somewhere.”

The carved board with a message of gratitude from a former student of Dr Fazal Dad

Open door

The door to Dad’s office, which is next to the library at the heart of its campus, is “always open”. He sees himself as “old fashioned” in that he’s still “out on the door” from 8.30am welcoming students.

He shows me a board containing a message of gratitude, which a former student had carved in her native African homeland.

She gave it to Dad for helping her to “climb another ladder in education”. After passing her level two in health and social care, she could not afford the BTEC extended diploma she had her sights set on. Her teachers pleaded with Dad to let her do it for free. As a “unique one-off”, he relented.

Now, the learner is in her final year studying midwifery at university.

Looking at the board still brings a tear to his eye.

His father was unable to educate himself in his lifetime but impressed upon him the value of education. It’s a lesson which stuck with him.

“He said, ‘son, your wife can run off. You can lose your car in an accident. But one thing you’ll never lose is education.”

DfE scales back ‘free courses for jobs’ offer

The government has rolled back on its “free courses for jobs” offer by restricting access to adults who are paid less than £25,000 – in a move branded as “short-sighted policy control”.

Education and Skills Funding Agency rules for the incoming adult skills fund in 2024/25 introduce an “earnings threshold” to the flagship post-pandemic offer that aims to help people retrain and get into work.

The scheme, launched in 2021 as part of then-prime minister Boris Johnson’s “lifetime skills guarantee”, has enabled adults to study one of more than 500 level 3 courses (equivalent to two full A-levels) for free if they do not already hold one regardless of what they are paid.

Before it was rolled out, only 19- to 23-year-olds were fully funded for their first level 3 qualification, while anyone older had to take out an advanced learner loan to pay for the course.

Department for Education officials have decided to limit the offer to adults earning below £25,000.

A DfE spokesperson said the eligibility criteria has been restricted so that funding is “better targeted to support those further down the earnings spectrum or who are unemployed to gain the skills they need to get a good job”.

Ten mayoral combined authorities that have devolved powers over adult education funding including free courses for jobs (FCFJ), which account for 60 per cent of the country, are deciding whether to adopt this change or stick with the current criteria. London, the West Midlands, Greater Manchester and Liverpool told FE Week they have no plans to introduce the earnings limit.

The Learning and Work Institute (LWI) estimates that two-thirds of employees earn above £25,000 and would be ruled out by the ESFA’s threshold.

LWI chief executive Stephen Evans pointed out the UK has “far fewer people qualified to level 3 than many comparator countries, and the number of adults gaining these skills has more than halved since 2010”.

He said this new earnings threshold is “short-sighted spending control that risks further holding back already weak economic growth”, adding that the government should be transparent about how many people it expects this restriction will affect.

Funding expert Steve Hewitt criticised the move. He said: “It’s very disappointing to see one of the most progressive changes introduced by this government rolled back without consultation or warning.

“This will limit opportunity for many people who didn’t have the chance to get a level 3 qualification when they were younger and don’t want to get themselves in debt via a student loan.”

Government data shows there have been 57,300 enrolments on the FCFJ offer from people who did not already hold a full level 3 qualification between April 2021 and January 2024.

Enrolments are 61 per cent higher than on equivalent courses in 2018/19, according to the DfE. But of those starters, just over half have achieved the qualification.

Sue Pember, director of policy at adult education provider network Holex, said take-up of the offer has been “lower than planned so we are disappointed that DfE is limiting the offer”. She told FE Week: “We also understand that retention is low, and we believe that is because many students are encouraged to enrol even when they haven’t level 2 in English or maths and therefore struggle with the course.

“We would prefer students to be offered a vocational level 2 with maths and literacy confidence courses before they start the level 3.”

AoC hikes large college member fees to £57.7k

Multiple large colleges are reconsidering their Association of Colleges membership after the organisation suddenly upped their fees by more than 20 per cent to £57,700.

At a recent meeting, the AoC board voted to retain the body’s subscription rate at 0.1 per cent of a college’s turnover but decided to increase the membership fee cap, set at £47,700 since 2019, by £10,000.

It means any college earning more than £47.7 million will see their annual fee rise in 2024/25, up to a maximum fee of £57,700.

About 30 of AoC’s 178 general FE college members are set to be impacted by the move, which could increase the membership body’s income by about £200,000, or 3 per cent, depending on member retention.

The hike comes at a difficult financial time for colleges that have dealt with more than a decade of government underfunding and high inflation, which has prevented many from offering staff suitable pay awards to cope with the cost-of-living crisis.

AoC chief executive David Hughes said: “With more mergers since then [2019] and high inflation, [AoC’s] fee income has been flat despite rising modest overall college sector turnover. We know this is not an easy time to be asking for more when college finances are so pressured, but after five years with no increase we felt it was necessary.”

Membership numbers for AoC have shrunk slightly from 221 in 2019/20 to 202 in 2023/24, mostly caused by mergers. The company represents 98 per cent of all general FE colleges and has 24 sixth-form college (SFC) members – 55 per cent of all SFCs.

Hughes said the fee cap has made it “harder to maintain services to members and work on influencing and campaigning” in recent years.

‘It’s important that we demand value for money’

Most affected leaders of large colleges who spoke to FE Week said they understood that to maintain a high level of service the fees must be reviewed. They spoke of the importance of the sector speaking with one voice through the membership body and several praised the quality of service they get in return including through strategy groups.

Nottingham College principal Janet Smith also lauded the AoC for “excellent support” when her college was under threat from industrial action.

However, multiple colleges have taken issue with the size of the cap increase and questioned whether they are getting value for money.

John Evans, chief executive of Cornwall College Group, said: “I’m struggling with it [the rise]. I fully recognise the role that AoC do and the voice that they give the sector. But at a time when we are struggling to give pay awards, I’m having to weigh up whether it’s the right thing to use that money for.

“It’s quite difficult when you’re denying people a cost-of-living rise when you’re paying that to the AoC. They [staff] will question what they get back for it. I think the sector needs a voice, but it’s how effective the voice is, I guess.”

A source close to another large college, which did not wish to be named, said leaders were “unhappy” with the hike and are now “looking at our future membership”. “There is frustration among the leadership. We may end up staying in, but our team are split about what value we get.”

Some colleges raised the point that £57,700 could pay for two full-time staff members, while others questioned the effectiveness of drives such as the Love Our Colleges week. A couple also took issue with the cap rise being communicated without consultation.

One college boss, who also did not want to be named, said: “There are a few of us thinking about the effectiveness of AoC and for the bigger colleges, this increase is going to make that debate more acute.”

A spokesperson for NCG, the country’s largest college group, said: “We are very keen to have a strong representative voice for the sector and AoC is the strongest voice we have at this time. As part of the public sector, it’s important to us that we demand value for money from any membership organisation. We will continue to support AoC while working closely with them to ensure that they are serving the sector and NCG well.”

Elsewhere in FE, the Sixth Form Colleges Association charges members a flat fee of £10,100, while the Association of Employment and Learning Providers charge between £700 and £12,150 a year, depending on how many learners the provider has.

In the higher education sector, where most universities record more than £100 million turnovers, Universities UK charges fees of between £30,000 and £70,000, depending on size.

‘Increasing the cap aims to maintain impact we have’

The AoC’s latest accounts, for the year ended March 2023, stated that the association will “remain financially strong going forward”.

Hughes, whose salary has remained at £185,000 for the past two years, said his organisation’s latest satisfaction survey found almost 90 per cent of its members were either “satisfied” or “highly satisfied” with the AoC’s service.

AoC, which employs 145 staff, recently downsized its office in London to save costs.

Hughes told FE Week: “There’s a real desire among members to ensure that our voice is heard in the next 12 to 24 months, before and after the general election. We’re increasing our policy work, which we think is biting and is having a big influence. Increasing the cap aims to maintain what we do and the impact we have.”

UCU: Most FE staff back alternative to ‘traumatic’ Ofsted inspections

“Distracting and anxiety-inducing” Ofsted inspections should be axed and replaced by a peer-led model to improve education quality, according to the University and College Union.

A survey of more than 1,000 further education union members found that just one in five believed Ofsted raises standards and nine in ten backed “an alternative model of improvement/challenge”.

Ofsted has come under increasing pressure to reform its inspection regime from all sides of the education sector following the death of headteacher Ruth Perry last year.

Last month, the National Education Union (NEU) reported that nearly two-thirds of its member schoolteachers believe inspections have caused them mental ill-health and four in five want Ofsted replaced. NEU has advised its members not to work as inspectors or to display their school’s judgments on publicity materials.

The education watchdog is in the final weeks of its ‘Big Listen’ exercise, with new chief inspector Sir Martyn Oliver repeatedly vowing “nothing is off the table” when it comes to reform.

“College staff are clear that Ofsted inspections need to be abolished,” UCU general secretary Jo Grady said.

“Our members say inspections are traumatic and, especially after the tragic death of Ruth Perry, we need an end to the stress and anxiety they induce,” Grady said.

UCU’s report reveals just over three-quarters of college teachers believe the Ofsted term ‘inadequate’ is “not acceptable terminology” with the union recommending simpler ‘satisfactory’ and ‘requires improvement’ judgments instead.

The government last week rejected calls from MPs to ditch single-word grades, justifying that the grades provide “a clear basis for taking action” to improve underperforming institutions.

“It is simply unacceptable for the government to rule out replacing it before Ofsted’s consultation has even finished,” Grady added.

The Labour Party pledged in January that a Labour government would end single-word Ofsted judgments and bring in report cards with annual safeguarding and attendance checks.

UCU’s survey found that 83 per cent of college staff agreed that Ofsted visits caused anxiety and stress. Nine in ten teachers said inspections were an additional workload burden and detracted from teaching.

To combat this, UCU said Ofsted should consult on removing the notice period on colleges ahead of an inspection. Colleges should also be required to publish how much they spend on inspection preparation, including consultancy.

Teachers said their colleges dumped “excessive and unnecessary” paperwork to prepare for Ofsted inspections which took priority over teaching.

“There was a huge amount of paperwork unnecessary in my opinion that I was expected to redo even though it was perfectly adequate. Going in on days off and the weekend were expected prior to the visit which just increased the stress and anxiety for all the staff,” one UCU member said.

Another member said her college rolled out initiatives “purely” to achieve a good grade at inspection and had “very little focus” on whether learners were benefitting from them.

In place of Ofsted, UCU has said the FE sector should be funded to run a “co-designed, collaborative, peer improvement model”, which it claimed would be “valued and trusted” by staff and the public.

Speaking at the Schools and Academies Show earlier this week, Oliver described the existing inspectorate as “a peer-reviewed system” because the “vast majority” of its workforce were serving principals and headteachers.

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “Ofsted’s independent inspections are vital to ensuring students are safe and receive the education they deserve. We are looking forward to conclusion of the Big Listen, which will help inform us of the steps needed to continue to raise standards for children and young people across the board.”

Let’s get serious about AI and personalisation in apprenticeships

With a growing imperative around upskilling and reskilling, it’s never been more important to challenge our thinking about the tools and approaches we employ in pursuit of personalised, timely and effective learning.

It’s clear that the appetite is already there for workplace learning that blends study with practical experience. But there’s still a long way to go to realise the full potential of apprenticeships – not least because of the perennial ‘perception problems’ they conjure of being unduly complex, inflexible, and admin-heavy.

Rightfully, the discussion about meaningful return on investment (ROI) continues among employers and the education sector alike. To get to meaningful value, however, we first need to address how and where apprenticeship programmes are put to work. Get the approach right, and the ROI takes care of itself.

Emerging technology holds the very real possibility of taking the apprenticeship format to the next level – departing from the traditional, ‘linear’ learning model; improving user experience; and working ever-smarter within funding parameters.

Breaking the mould

Advancements in technology – particularly GenAI – will continue to disrupt and reshape the way we live, work and learn.

Importantly, the true value that emerging technology has to offer learning isn’t in the gimmicks of creating more content, quicker; It’s about considered, contextual use that augments and elevates the richness and relevance of learning and unleashes the human potential that’s currently muzzled by the process.

It’s true that bleeding-edge technology and the apprenticeships don’t naturally go hand in hand. In fact, it’s no secret that a large portion of the conversation in the education space has centred around scepticism and concerns about plagiarism.

However, with a shift to see opportunity instead of obstacle, the possibilities extend beyond simple applications in platform augmentation. There’s an opportunity to deliver learning in an adaptable, hyper-personalised way to deliver value to learners and their businesses alike, in step with the changing demands of the modern workforce.

For example, in a recent pilot programme with Obrizum utilising their market-leading adaptive learning technology, we embarked on a mission to define an entirely new breed of apprenticeship programme with AI. Together, we set about reimagining the way that learning is constructed, consumed and measured.

AI has the power to unlock and apply datasets to provide a holistic view of learner progress. It can help deliver a superior learner experience by broadening or reducing exposure to certain knowledge themes based on competence and confidence dimensions, as well as empowering skills coaches to support learners in a far more personalised way.

In other words, such technology enables true personalisation by continuously adapting the learning journey based on individual performance and providing actionable insights to learners and skills coaches.

A new era

When ‘done right’, the apprenticeship format is all about balancing technical skills development with the confidence and behavioural attributes to create self-aware, well-rounded individuals. Ultimately, the goal of intelligent technology deployment is to support and augment the human aspects of that work, not to replace it.

The results of our recent pilot programme speak for themselves: 94 per cent of learners on the adaptive learning pathways felt the learning was highly personalised to their specific needs, leading to a 1.5x increase in speed to competency.

Moreover, we’ve seen a 25 per cent increase in learner satisfaction versus the non-adaptive pathways, and a 28 per cent increase in overall learner confidence. The programme was also awarded the ‘Best use of AI in Learning’ by the Learning and Performance Institute, recognising its application of AI-driven adaptive technology to enhance learning outcomes.

The role of education is to provide learners with the skills required to take them to the next step of whatever journey they’re on. Within apprenticeships, this encompasses both technical skills and the essential soft (or ‘power’) skills to build confident, competent and future-ready individuals.

AI-enabled apprenticeships have a significant role to play in contributing to a workforce that is better prepared for the challenges of today and tomorrow. Getting it right – and going beyond superficial applications to unlock true value – requires bold adoption and considered thinking about the opportunities the technology presents.

The Staffroom. Strategies to unleash your green changemakers

In December, the government updated its sustainability and climate change strategy, specifically noting that the area in which the DfE has “the most work to do is reducing our environmental footprint”. Its efforts are not yet adding up to the wave of change we need.

To make the difference, the government has provided funding to train staff in FE settings to become Green Changemakers. The aim of this effort is to support professional development that will upskill colleagues and empower them to influence the green skills culture of their organisations.

Having undertaken the Green Changemakers programme, I feel it’s important to share some of the thinking, talking, and listening strategies I have learned to enable other FE staff to make these vital changes.

The thinking environment

As Time To Think founder Nancy Kline has written, “The quality of everything we do depends on the quality of the thinking we do first. The quality of our thinking depends on the way we treat each other while we are thinking.”

Kline goes on to outline ten components of thinking environments that, individually and together, favour high-quality thinking and action. One of these is ‘feelings’, and when it comes to climate change it is particularly important to acknowledge people’s genuine and valid fears.

But it is equally important to convert those fears into what Susan Hoyle calls constructive hope. To do that, equality (valuing each contributor’s voice as expert in their field), positive encouragement and a sense of place. Creating a shared sense that we are making a difference means showing appreciation for every success along the way, no matter how small.

Kline’s ‘Ten Components of a Thinking Environment’ are a great place to start to ensure your climate action has a transformative impact – on attitudes and on your college’s carbon footprint.

Thinking councils

So how can we go about creating the sense of community Kline talks about? After all, colleges are not run like cooperatives.

For that, we can turn to an example from the NHS ‘Learning handbook’ on supporting systematic learning before, during and after project activity.

Among its recommendations is the use of ‘learning councils’. These are “similar to a focus group and can be used either to inform future work or to tackle a specific problem that is experienced in a project”.

Their aim is not to upend hierarchies but to “pass knowledge and experience from a group to the person in need of support”, in this case the college’s leadership team.

In conjunction with Kline’s ‘ten components’, learning councils begin to outline a strategy to empower smaller actions at the classroom level while informing better decisions at the leadership level.

Both, however, rely on providing genuine opportunities for colleagues to share their ideas and feedback without fear of interruption or judgement. Not all will be accepted or taken forward, but only in this context will truly creative solutions and solid consensus arise.

Facilitating the experts

The bigger issues around climate change can appear insurmountable. The key to a successful strategy in your college is to stay focused throughout on how each of us can be part of the solution, by providing essential information on local or departmental issues, suggesting steps to implementing our shared goals and communicating about the potential positive impacts taking those steps could have.

Here, The Knowledge Academy’s Sienna Roberts offers invaluable insights on specific facilitation techniques to guide groups through decision-making processes.

When choosing a method to facilitate decision-making on climate action in FE, recognising the audience is key. Open, respectful conversation about green matters will only occur with appropriate support, guidelines and role modelling.

A top-down, one-size-fits-all approach is unlikely to work, especially in the diverse context of further education. However, once a method has been successfully utilised in one area, the mix of a positive thinking environment, formal methods for collective decision-making, and the right facilitation will all but guarantee ripple effects across the organisation.

‘Green Changemakers’ aims to ripple across the sector. Accordingly, our shared knowledge is shared openly and open to growth and challenge. The more of us there are, the greater the chances that the ripples will add up to a wave.

Practitioner research isn’t enough. FE must embrace a research ethos

Last weeks’ article by Catherine Gray in these pages shows the importance of research is recognised ever more widely in the sector. Twenty-seven years ago, when the Learning & Skills Research Network (LSRN) was founded, only a small band of enthusiasts and a few larger colleges were engaging with it and little infrastructure existed to support it. Things have improved, but there’s a way to go.

Among the positive developments, we can cite that over twenty LSRN convenors across England and Wales organise activities for hundreds of active practitioner-researchers. In addition, colleges committed to research have combined to form the Research College Group, the Association of Colleges has set up the Research Further initiative and the Society for Education & Training encourages research engagement through its Intuition magazine. Research activity in the sector is thriving.

Sadly, interest elsewhere about research in the sector seems to be dwindling. The current ESRC Education Research Programme hardly mentions FE at all and the Education Endowment Foundation, now a major research funder, restricts its work largely to schools.

In the university sector, academics who focus on FE, adult education and skills seem in short supply. This relative neglect should act as a clarion call for the sector to stand up, define its own expectations of research and start making demands upon the wider system.

The rise of research interest amongst practitioners is good news: it’s essential if a culture of research-use is to develop across the sector. Skilled researchers and infrastructure that supports them are important.

To convince leaders and funders to invest in research, however, requires more than a cohort of individuals pursuing their separate interests. It requires a connected system to produce sound evidence on pertinent questions, make it useful and then ensure it is put to use.

Perennial issues of practice and leadership in FE need a strong base of evidence: teaching methods in vocational areas, course design, employer engagement, college structure, patterns of governance and countless others.

Our relative neglect should act as a clarion call

To develop this requires collective effort, both within and beyond the research community: teachers, support staff, leaders and other intermediaries all have a part to play in identifying priorities, designing and commissioning studies and interpreting and using their findings.

It’s time for the sector to pull together to define its specific knowledge requirements, rather than just accepting generalisations from school research or the absence of good evidence.

These systems exist in other sectors. Health and social care have the National Institute for Health and Care Research). Manufacturing has the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre.

In one inspiring governmental initiative, called for by Sir Paul Nurse and Sir Patrick Vallance, the Transforming Evidence network, is working with policymakers to identify Areas of Research Interest across government departments to help decision-makers in public services put clear knowledge requirements to research councils and other funders.

Not only could the FE and skills sector take the initiative by spelling out areas in which it needs better knowledge, it could also build up its own approach to research production. Iterative, multi-disciplinary studies could focus on the practical knowledge the sector needs to drive improvement. This could entail teachers and leaders working closely with researchers to specify project designs and modify, adapt and apply the results in real time.

FE has a proud tradition of imaginative development work: bringing on new courses, new learner groups and new assessment methods. It already has expertise in many fields that carry out research in this way: agriculture, healthcare, automotive engineering and the performing arts, for example. With a research stake in so many sectors, why not extend the ‘R&D’ approach to education research too? Good examples already exist in colleges, albeit on a small scale.

The pay-off for such engagement would be better and more convincing proposals for research funding. Greater investment in research is more likely when high quality, use-directed research proposals are put forward – a potentially important additional revenue stream to drive classroom improvements and learner outcomes.

With an ever-growing cadre of trained and skilled practitioner-researchers available, it’s surely time to develop the infrastructure and systems needed to capitalise on their individual capacities for the wider benefit of the sector.

These little-known providers could drive apprenticeships success

Following last month’s St Martin’s Group report on apprenticeship outcomes and destinations, it’s clear to me that a little-known part of the system could in fact be key to improving it.

The report found that wrap-around support, extra care and attention and all-round employer involvement were lacking – all things which Flexi-Job Apprenticeship Agencies (FJAAs) specifically provide.

FJAAs are organisations that recruit and employ apprentices directly, place them with host businesses and offer additional support for the duration of their apprenticeship. I believe their role is more crucial than ever.

A recent article by Mesma CEO, Lou Doyle responding to the report in these pages questioned the current model of putting employers ‘in the driving seat’ of apprenticeships. They make better co-pilots, she argued, and providers should be at the wheel.

I agree, but the barrier is that many independent providers, colleges, and employers simply don’t have the time and resource to commit to this at the level that is required. FJAAs do, and they do so by design. A good FJAA will always do all that they can to support the apprentices’ needs, no matter the obstacle. It is their sole purpose.

This support extends to periods when a change of host employer is required, as the flexi-job agency model recognises that the short-term nature of some roles will require this. In fact, we are increasingly being asked to support individuals who find themselves without an employer part-way through their apprenticeship. In other words, what we do is vital in supporting apprentices to completion.

Of course, this doesn’t come without a price. At the moment, most FJAAs fund their work only by charging the host employers they serve. Some have had the benefit of short-term funding from a variety of sources to grow and add value, but a clear barrier is that most of the sector doesn’t know we exist, let alone what we do.

TrAC is the lead partner in FutureIN, a public-private sector partnership that was awarded the Construction News Workforce Awards Apprenticeship Initiative of the Year for 2023.

What we do is vital in supporting apprentices to completion

FutureIN supports young people at risk of homelessness in Greater Cambridge into jobs and apprenticeships in the construction industry.

We work with property developers, building contractors, the Department for Work and Pensions and local training providers to create jobs and apprenticeship opportunities which are then specifically allocated to FutureIN candidates.

TrAC employs all FutureIN recruits and places them within its partnership businesses, initially for a pre-apprenticeship period of up to six months before moving them onto an apprenticeship pathway.

All programme participants receive wrap-around pastoral support and care from their TrAC account manager, who also supports the host company staff where required. We arrange and coordinate the training and reviews, maintaining a proactive approach and nipping any emerging issues in the bud.

The number of partnership organisations stands at 15, and it is growing. In addition to the income from host company placements, we have also been successful in obtaining grants from charities and local authority partners, as well as securing invaluable long-term support from the Department for Work and Pensions.

All of these funders understand that the wrap-around support we provide can, by necessity, be very intensive. But more than that, they value that work because they know retention and completion matters – not to meet a target, but for the benefit of all concerned.

Helping this cohort of young people can have significant impact and benefit across our society and communities, as well as mitigating the long-term cost to the state. Seventeen per cent of young people leaving care go on to make a homeless application. Care leavers make up 25 per cent of the adult homeless population, and almost 25 per cent of the adult prison population. Nearly 50 per cent of under 21s in contact with the criminal justice system have spent time in care.

These are the people we are reaching and in whose lives’ we are making a positive difference. And if the model works for them, then there’s no reason it couldn’t work to improve engagement for all those who require more support to succeed.

Skills minister backs FE lecturer ‘reservist’ trial

New skills minister Luke Hall has backed a proposal to train industry professionals to become “reservist” FE teachers.

The “FE lecturer reservist” trial, which looks to mimic the armed forces reservist model, will initially recruit automotive technicians and engineers across the West Midlands to undertake a short teaching course, and then be called up to support FE colleges while continuing their industry role.

It is designed to address high teacher vacancy rates in further education as well as skills shortages in the automotive sector.

Developers of the pilot, including the Institute of the Motor Industry (IMI) and Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG), hope to have it up and running before the general election or the next academic year, whichever comes first.

During his first education questions session as skills minister in parliament this week, Hall praised the concept of the scheme and pledged to visit the pilot once it has launched. He attended a roundtable last week to discuss the trial with regional employers, colleges and training providers.

“We had really positive discussions about the exciting lecturer reservist pilot that will run in the West Midlands, bringing together regional employers, colleges and providers,” Hall said.

Recent Office for National Statistics data shows the motor trades industry (representing the automotive repair sector) has 4.1 vacancies for every 100 employees as of March 2024, the highest number of vacancies across all sectors.

The government is also concerned about the teacher recruitment and retention crisis in FE. Latest workforce figures show there were 5.4 vacancies per 100 teaching positions across the sector at the end of the 2021/22 academic year. The West Midlands had an unfilled teaching vacancy rate of 5.1 per 100.

The Department for Education took control of a teacher training scheme, called Taking Teaching Further (TTF), mid-contract last year from the Education and Training Foundation after numbers showed just over half the places available were filled. TTF aims to retrain industry professionals as full-time FE teachers.

Hayley Pells, policy lead at the IMI, said the FE lecturer reservist pilot could provide ‘bi-directional” benefits of lecturers “having closer links with industry” and reservists taking back ideas to the workplace.

“You’ve got your initial benefit of boots on the ground. We need to support our FE lecturers plus our learners need up-to-date experience of the technology that they’re going to be deployed to work on as soon as they qualify,” she said.

Benjamin Silverstone, who leads skills policy and workforce transformation at WMG and is ex-army, said the pilot was born out of a need for a “more sustainable and structured manner of enabling industry to support the FE sector”.

The pilot aims for each college involved to have at least one reservist from a company to test it out.

“It’d be quite nice if there’s a couple to get that internal consistency,” Silverstone told FE Week. “The focal point will be definitely around engineering.”

According to a briefing from last week’s roundtable, attended by Luke Hall, MP Chris Clarkson and former skills minister Robert Halfon, the pilot has the potential for a national rollout if successful.

Career changer programmes are waning after the Now Teach programme – for professionals to retrain as schoolteachers – was pulled by the government just last week.

Now Teach targeted people towards the end of their careers whereas the reservist programme is aiming to recruit motor professionals four or five years into their career who want to “give back” and develop career growth.

The nuts and bolts of the scheme

The granular details of the initiative are still unknown, but the West Midlands Combined Authority has already committed to funding an eight-week course for budding FE lecturer reservists.

After the course, the reservists’ employer and provider should agree the terms of how long and often the reservist would be needed away from work.

“It may well be that the individual is called on for their specialist capabilities to teach a module over 12 weeks or for an afternoon a week,” said Silverstone.

The roundtable briefing illustrated the rights of FE reservists, mimicking the armed forces reservists, their rights of which are enshrined in law.

If agreed by all stakeholders, FE lecturer reservists, like army reservists, could claim financial support of up to £400 per day to cover the difference between their substantive salary and the rate paid by the provider.

Small- and medium-sized enterprise employers could also claim £500 per month when their reservist employee is undertaking FE delivery.

Silverstone added that, under their proposal, “should that employer say, ‘I can’t pay you your full rate’, then the college could pay them and there’d be a top up as there is with the armed forces model”.

Miriam O’Leary, partnerships director at Colleges West Midlands, said the pilot might look completely different across the region, depending on its adoption.

“I think we’re working through the detail of how we work in practice, but we have a great deal of interest in working together to make it happen,” she told FE Week.