Fresh funding has been announced to entice employers into offering T Level placements – following the failure of previous sweeteners to get businesses on board.
The Department for Education this morning revealed that a £12 million fund will be available to help employers offering placements in the 2023/24 financial year, which can be used to cover the costs such as set-up expenses, equipment or staff training.
In addition, all providers delivering T Levels – the flagship new qualifications designed to be the technical equivalent of A-levels – in the 2023/24 academic year will get a one-off grant of up to £10,000 for additional careers guidance for students.
T Levels include a mandatory industry placement of 45 days or 315 hours with an employer.
The DfE guidance confirmed that any employer offering a suitable T Level placement is eligible to claim for “legitimate costs” for placements that start from April 1, 2023.
Placements that start before then are not eligible.
The money is set to be paid via T Level providers for their students. The guidance said that T Level providers will be allocated a sum of the cash based on their T Level student numbers.
Employers will then be required to provide basic information about their business, and submit a declaration form that includes evidence of the costs they are claiming for.
The providers will then be responsible for validating claims from employers, making the payments to employers either once a start date has been agreed or a placement begins, and then report back the claims paid out via a DfE online tool.
Full guidance will be published in March 2023 – just weeks before eligible claims can begin.
The DfE would not be drawn on how much a single employer can receive, explaining that full details will be published in the coming weeks.
In November, FE Week reported that just £500,000 from a previous £7 million employer support fund – 8 per cent – was used during its previous run from 2019-2022.
That scheme offered firms £750 to cover tangible placement costs in four regions of England, upped to £1,000 per placement in 2021/22.
An evaluation report published last year found that just 843 placements were supported against a target 32,466 with the fund.
Research from earlier in 2022 found that three quarters of employers had not heard of T Levels and only 7 per cent of employers not interested in offering T Level placements would change their mind if offered a £1,000 incentive.
Employer bodies, such as the Federation of Small Businesses, have however called for the reintroduction of employer cash bonuses for T Levels.
Skills minister Robert Halfon said: “As the cohort continues to grow year on year, it is great news that extra support is being delivered to schools, colleges and employers to enable them to meet this increasing demand and provide the highest-quality training to their students.”
He added that T Levels will “set them on the path to success” regardless of whether students choose to go on to higher education, apprenticeships or employment.
On the careers guidance support, the DfE confirmed that all providers delivering T Levels in the 2023/24 academic year will get the one-off grant to ensure students understand T Levels and the T Level transition programme offering.
It said that larger providers will receive £10,000 while smaller providers will get £5,000, although it has not yet been made clear what the threshold will be between small and large providers.
The DfE added that providers will not need to do anything to claim the cash, but a grant letter will be issued in the future with details about how much they will get and how the funding will be paid.
The announcement, made on the inaugural T Level Thursday, follows last month’s 16-to-19 funding band confirmation which included a 10 per cent uplift in funding bands for T Levels for 2023/24.
Jennifer Coupland, chief executive of the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education, which oversees the design and rollout of T Level courses, said government needed to ensure employers and providers are “fully supported to deliver outstanding results for students in schools, colleges and through the substantial work placements,” which “really make them stand out from other qualifications”.
She added: “This extra funding will provide a big boost to training providers and businesses. T Levels are the new gold standard for classroom-based technical education.”
Cath Sezen, interim director of education policy at the Association of Colleges said that the funding announcement will be welcomed by colleges, and hoped businesses will be engaged to offer placements that in turn will help meet their own skills gaps.
Sezen said the 10 per cent funding uplift will help with staff recruitment, but warned that “to make real impact funding needs to be a permanent fixture”.
She added: “Funding alone will not address college concerns that T Levels will only meet the needs of those young people who have achieved good GCSE grades at 16, rather than those who have lower starting points but flourish on current qualifications which are going to be defunded.”
As Interim Chair of the Social Mobility Commission and a college principal, I am acutely aware of the value of high-quality technical and professional education and training. Further education colleges provide huge economic and social value to their communities, but their qualifications are sometimes not as well-known and less frequently recommended to students. There can also be a lack of reliable information about how the qualifications translate into value in the labour market. This is something that needs fixing.
Today, the Social Mobility Commission has released a report looking at the effect of pursuing a further or higher education qualification on a student’s earning potential. The evidence clearly shows that further education qualifications in general are associated with an increased income, and that this is true at each higher level of FE qualification.
The data by subject is less easy to access. HE qualifications have better data overall, but our report shows that some university courses seem not to boost incomes at all, implying that some students may be better off going to FE than HE.
The fact that FE qualifications in general are associated with higher earnings needs to be more widely disseminated in schools. These qualifications should be an option that more students actively consider and society celebrates.
However, our survey of current students shows that one-third of those considering an FE qualification did not know whether information about typical earnings they could expect after studying a particular course was available, and that this information would be an important factor in their decision about what and where to study.
This lack of information is preventing students from making informed decisions, based on the factors that are important to them. This is a problem which affects everyone.
Those from lower socio-economic backgrounds may be less likely to have strong networks to help them navigate education and career choices, and are impeded from understanding which courses and institutions offer the best opportunities for higher earnings later in life, and the chance to improve social mobility. But even those with supportive networks may struggle if the path they are considering is different to those of family and friends.
Lack of information is preventing students from making informed decisions
Our research clearly highlights a relative lack of evidence about further education qualification outcomes. This is different from the evidence relating to the earnings by level of study.
There are large-scale graduate surveys looking at the careers and salaries of recent higher education graduates which provide robust data on their average earning outcomes. The same does not exist for further education, limiting the data we have available.
The significant changes made to further education qualifications in the past decade have also had a detrimental impact on the usefulness of historical data for prospective learners. With the creation of many new qualifications and the reform of existing ones, we lack consistent information on comparable outcomes. The huge variety of courses also means that information is incredibly fragmented and sample sizes can be too small to provide statistically significant conclusions.
It is essential that we find better ways of collecting and representing data on the value which a particular further education qualification adds to earnings. This will allow students considering a further education qualification to make better, more informed decisions and make further education qualifications feel like a realistic and attractive prospect for an even wider range of students.
Our aim at the Social Mobility Commission is to use this report as a springboard to encourage the production of better data around labour market outcomes for further education qualifications, in order to help learners make more informed decisions, and help them better understand the link between individual qualifications and career progression.
Through this work, we want to break out from a narrow focus on a small number of learning pathways and highlight the many opportunities available to help learners find and apply their skills.
A Catholic sixth form college has been awarded a third straight ‘outstanding’ rating by Ofsted.
Manchester-based Loreto College was granted the top rating across the board in a report published today, 13 years after it last achieved the feat.
Since the college’s last inspection, Ofsted has introduced an enhanced inspection framework which places less emphasis on exam results and instead focuses on the quality of teaching and curriculum, in addition to a new skills element which assesses how well colleges meet the regions skills needs.
At the time of this inspection there were 3,591 students aged 16 to 19 who were following a fulltime study programme with most students studying A-levels across 34 subjects.
Inspectors praised a culture of “continuous improvement” suffusing the college at all levels, alongside “passionate and committed” governors and “high-quality” education.
SEND provision was lauded throughout the report, with inspectors finding that the programme is planned “carefully and incrementally” to enable students to develop “independence and advocacy” skills.
The curriculum for those with high needs and SEND has been “developed ambitiously enough” and parents of students with SEND feel their child is “safe and happy”.
This provision was hailed as enabling students to “become confident young people who can contribute to society very successfully”.
Elsewhere, inspectors praised the high priority placed on staff mental health and well-being which includes workload. The report notes that “staff can access counselling services, chaplaincy support, and the employee assistance programme, including physiotherapy, financial advice and mental health support”.
In addition, the watchdog found that the curriculum is planned and taught very effectively by teachers so students can develop the skills they need for the future.
“For example, they work with local universities to ensure that the mathematics curriculum prepares students for their next steps in mathematics, such as integration by substitution, early in the programme. As a result, students practise these skills to ensure fluency and to prepare them for pure mathematics components at degree level.”
The college makes a ‘reasonable’ contribution to meeting skills needs, according to Ofsted.
Inspectors flagged that leaders do not use external expertise well enough to “develop education programmes tailored to local, regional and national skills needs.” Alongside this, leaders and managers do not involve “employers sufficiently in the design of the curriculum for supported internships”.
Although the report also highlighted how students benefit from “relevant and high-quality” career advice and guidance from their personal tutors and college careers advisors.
Principal Michael Jaffrain said “We are extremely proud to serve our local community and the region of Greater Manchester and we are delighted that our long tradition of excellence and success is reflected in our most recent Ofsted report. We would like to thank all students, staff, parents and carers, governors and all those who have contributed to our Loreto community for their support.”
Staff at the Department for Education and Ofsted will go on strike on the day of the government’s spring budget, in a second day of action over pay and job security.
The strike coincides with the government’s budget day and planned National Education Union teacher strikes in England.
DfE and Ofsted staff walked out last week, joining teachers in the biggest co-ordinated strike for a decade.
Civil servants on the picket line told FE Week that “morale is at an all-time low” and issues had been “building up” for years.
The PCS is in dispute with the government over pay, pensions, redundancy terms and job security.
In the ballot announced last month, 911 DfE staff, or 88 per cent of the 1,031 employees who cast a vote in the ballot were in favour of industrial action.
The 1,816 PCS members at the department equate to 24 per cent of its total workforce.
Of the 161 Ofsted employees who voted, 88 per cent were in favour. In total, 291 staff members – 16 per cent of the inspectorate’s workforce – were entitled to vote.
Staff at the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education, as well as workers at the Office for Student will also strike next month.
Mark Serwotka, PCS general secretary, said members are “suffering a completely unacceptable decline in their pay.
“Rishi Sunak can end this dispute tomorrow if he puts more money on the table. If he refuses to do that, more action is inevitable.”
Exams dominate the UK’s education system. They have come to define what is taught, how it is taught, and young people’s educational experience. The grades race exacerbates inequalities and detracts from developing the kinds of qualities and skills that young people need to thrive in learning, work and life.
Education leaders and employers are increasingly looking beyond exams, considering how to provide a well-rounded education for their learners and how to find out more about an employee’s potential and what kind of person they are.
ASDAN has an established history of developing young people’s competencies and personal qualities to build their confidence, wellbeing and personal resilience. Through advocating personal and social effectiveness, ASDAN is driven to inspire confidence in young learners and prepare them for the challenges and opportunities ahead.
In response to the abrupt changes in education and society that 2020 brought, ASDAN began updating their personal effectiveness courses. Continuing the focus of preparing young people for their futures, they developed new qualifications to meet their needs in an uncertain world.
The Personal and Social Effectiveness (PSE) qualifications were designed to develop modern and future-facing competencies in communication, collaboration and emotional intelligence. Aimed at learners aged 14 to 19 working at Level 1 and 2, the PSE qualifications offer a unique and personalised approach to enabling individual progress, assessed by a portfolio of evidence.
The ASDAN Award in Personal and Social Effectiveness covers three skilled-based units at Award level:
• Developing myself and my performance
• Working with others
• Problem solving
Learners can advance to the Certificate in Personal and Social Effectiveness by delivering a project linked to a topic covered in one of the three units. These cover a wide range of topics such as health and wellbeing, science and technology, the environment and independent living.
By selecting to study topics that interest and motivate them, learners can create experiences they find meaningful. Their positive engagement with the subject matter provides a solid framework for developing the targeted skills, attributes and values of the core units. This approach to learning can help improve behaviours and grow confidence, crucial for young people’s future development.
The qualification was created in close collaboration with education practitioners and ASDAN members, incorporating their input to guide its development. Employing this pedagogical approach to feedback, ASDAN’s PSE evaluation project continues to gather rich insights to reflect on and help shape learning processes.
Offering a unique flexibility for teachers, the course is equipped with intuitive and adaptable resources to design their curriculum in a way that reflects and meets the needs of their learners. The Scheme of Learning provides support in planning and managing the course delivery, and accompanying resource packs include over 30 hours of robust teaching resources.
Susannah Harlow of ASDAN is a co-author of the PSE qualifications and notes how they are “incredibly flexible and adaptable and can be tailored to a variety of curriculum models in education settings.” She adds how PSE can motivate and assist with existing studies, giving “learners the personal effectiveness to transfer into their core subject GSCEs.”
Carolyn Rolleston, Head of Department (Vocational) at Katharine Lady Berkeley’s School, Gloucestershire, was one of several members who collaborated with ASDAN to ensure the qualification met the needs of both teachers and learners. She noted how the PSE qualification engaged and motivated her learners, as well as increasing confidence.
“The personalised learning aspect is crucial for learners’ future development,” Carolyn said. “It is totally a unique course that is valued by the learners, their parents, and the staff delivering it. I value it immensely.”
If you had a serious accident and your life was suddenly in the hands of a young NHS doctor, you’d probably want to know they’d had the most extensive training possible. That is why the government has taken a cautious approach to rolling out the country’s first medical doctor degree apprenticeships: the stakes are high if they get it wrong.
Around £10 million of government funding has just been confirmed for the first 200 medical degree apprentices to train as doctors over the next two years, marking what ministers claim is a vital step in making careers in medicine more accessible.
After all, it currently takes up to 15 years of training to become a fully qualified specialist doctor, including five years at medical school at a cost of up to £50,000 a year in fees. NHS bursaries only cover up to £2,643 a year of that (£3,191 in London).
Little surprise then that only about 4 per cent of doctors come from working class backgrounds.
However there are suspicions within the NHS that cost cutting, rather than improving access, is the real motive behind the apprenticeship pilot.
Some doctors believe a better way of opening the professions to the less affluent, and of easing NHS pressures, would be to boost bursaries and provide more places within oversubscribed medical schools.
In the latest round of medical school applications, just 16 per cent of applicants to medicine or dentistry were offered one of the 7,500 places available – down from 20 per cent in 2021.
Flexible learning
It is thought that there are no medical colleges in the world – and certainly none in the UK – offering part time courses to become a doctor. The apprenticeships are designed to take about five years – the same as a standard undergraduate medical degree – but, crucially, NHS teaching hospital providers will be able to offer the apprenticeship programmes part-time over more years, allowing for flexible learning.
NHS Employers believes the apprenticeship may suit those with clinical experience who are “now ready for the next step to becoming a doctor”. For graduate entry apprentices who already have experience in the field, the course could be shorter. That could include midwives and nurses, says Arundi Mahendran, director of the Institute of Health Studies Education at Queen Mary University of London.
Professor John Alcolado, executive dean of medicine at Chester Medical School, says that with so many medical students already working throughout their degrees – more than three quarters (75.7%) according to the latest British Medical Association survey of medical students – “it is already possible to earn while you learn on a traditional course and have the flexibility to work for you, doing what you want and what suits you”.
And those student jobs are not just in bars or supermarkets; the BMA found nearly half (45 per cent) of first year students surveyed had worked in a paid position in the NHS, with a further 12 per cent volunteering in the service.
Queen Mary University, London
Funding fears
Up to £50,000 will be made available to employers for each apprentice, with an upper limit of £27,000 of government apprenticeship funding to support delivery. But there are doubts as to whether that will be enough to sustain the model.
Alcolado, who also sat on the national implementation group for the apprenticeship, believes the model makes it “significantly cheaper” for the government to train more doctors, and “there is concern this is just a way of getting more doctors for less money”.
“There is nothing wrong with that if it works, but it would be more honest to say that is the driving force, rather than say it’s about widening participation – there is no evidence it will do that.”
One medical school currently exploring apprenticeships is Queen Mary University of London. The director of its Institute of Health Sciences Education, Arundi Mahendran, says medical schools are cautious about adopting the model because “it’s very complicated, and very costly to train a doctor”.
“The apprenticeship levy offers a much smaller amount of money to train somebody, so trusts and medical schools have to work out how to make the model work,” she says.
Alcolado says the apprenticeships do provide some financial benefit to employers as it gives them the ability to get back some of the apprenticeship levy they are charged – “but overall it massively cuts resources for clinical placement tariff”.
Alcolado also believes apprenticeships represent a “fundamental shift in the status quo” when it comes to trainee responsibility.
At present, medical students are students of the university, which contracts out the clinical placements to NHS placement providers in return for payment of around £30,000 per student each year. But the apprenticeship model “turns this around,” with the student being an employee and the NHS trust contracting out their academic studies to a medical school.
“It’s about which direction the money flows…it’s just that there is a lot less of it for apprenticeships,” he says.
Prof Alison Leary, chair of Healthcare and Workforce Modelling, London South Bank University, echoes these sentiments. She is concerned the doctor apprenticeship could create a “second tier workforce” as employers have to “backfill highly knowledge intensive occupations – you can’t do it on day release”.
“Employers have to pay the salary of the apprentice and also employ someone when the apprentice is not there,” she says.
While employers can draw on the apprenticeship levy, Leary is hearing from them that “it does not meet the costs”.
“It’s essentially ideological and pushing more [costs] onto students and employers,” she argues.
Alison Leary
Plugging the gap as doctors quit
It is also hoped the apprenticeships, set to start in September 2023, will help stem the exodus of doctors leaving the NHS; a recent survey by the British Medical Association found four in 10 junior doctors are actively planning to quit as soon as they can find another job.
The BMA is also warning that 13 per cent of secondary care doctors and 18 per cent of GPs are reaching minimum retirement age in the next one to 10 years, meaning a loss of over 25,000 doctors.
But the BMA does not believe the solution lies in creating apprenticeships. It is calling on the government to instead increase medical school foundation programmes and specialty training places, as well as to expand training centres.
Raymond Effah, and Lara Akinnawonu. co-chairs of its medical students committee, believe the medical education system and those running it are “currently overstretched, with clinical placements often overcrowded”.
“It is therefore difficult to see the justification in using £10 million to support an alternative unproven medical education route.”
Will apprenticeship really widen accessibility?
Health Education England said last year that doctor apprenticeships “could make the profession more accessible, more diverse and more representative of local communities”.
Medicine is already a diverse workforce in terms of ethnicity and gender; 44 per cent of NHS medical staff are non-white, and 47 per cent of registered doctors are female according to the latest government data.
And a handful of UK universities currently already provide access courses for school leavers to widen participation.
There is evidence that the high cost of medical school fees over several years makes it harder for less well-off students to complete their courses; the recent BMA survey found 44 per cent of medical student respondents said they were likely to run out of money before the end of the academic year. Less than a third (31 per cent) felt their tuition fees represented value for money, and 5 per cent were planning on leaving their course in next 12 months.
Evidence from existing degree apprenticeships suggests the take-up is more from middle class than deprived communities. A report published in December by the Sutton Trust, social mobility charity, found only five per cent of those starting degree apprenticeships in any subject in 2020/21 were from lower income areas, compared with 6.7 per cent of those going to university.
Effah and Akinnawonu believe there is “little evidence” to support the assertion the apprenticeship will widen participation, “while there are a number of proven methods of supporting students into and through traditional medical degrees”.
And Leary points out that widening access to medicine “isn’t just about medical school”.
She says “people from modest socio economic backgrounds remain disadvantaged even on qualification”, and blames this on factors such as low junior doctor pay, and the cost of post graduate exams.
The roll out
After nursing degree apprenticeships were introduced in 2017, they were generally perceived as having been a success– by May 2022, more than 6,000 students had enrolled.
Six other apprenticeships in health-related fields have been launched since May 2021, including most recently optical assistant, mortuary technician and peer worker at level 3, and medical statistician which, like the doctor apprenticeship, sits at level 7.
Doctor apprenticeships were first proposed in February 2021, with employers and medical schools working with Health Education England (HEE) since then to thrash out a format.
Like with any apprenticeship, the trainee doctors will have to spend time in off the job training. Alcolado claims the doctor apprenticeship would have to be “very different” to what “most people would recognise” as an apprenticeship, with “more like four days at university and one day working for an employer” rather than being more workplace focused.
However, Mahendran says her team is “in discussions with trusts” to see if there is “flexibility around off the job requirements, and if more time is spent on the job, what that would look like”.
Because doctor apprentices will be able to progress without having to leave their healthcare employment, Professor Liz Hughes, medical director for undergraduate education at HEE, believes this will provide them with “the security of a job while fulfilling their potential”.
But Alcolado sees this as a potential downside, as it “risks constraining students to work for a single employer”.
Will medical schools be keen to embrace the model?
Doubts are being raised over how willing medical schools are to embrace the current model; Leary says she is “unsure”, as medicine courses are “still oversubscribed”.
Mahendran explained how the challenge for medical schools is that their course curriculum has to be redesigned to enable apprentices to obtain the knowledge and skills they need, while also fitting studies around their jobs.
But while Mahendran has reservations, she feels the apprenticeships model is “definitely the future” for healthcare. “If you can widen access to medicine that can only be a great thing,” she added.
Young people will soon be able to search and apply for apprenticeships alongside degrees on UCAS, education chiefs have announced today.
The Department for Education and UCAS said the service will be expanded this autumn so people can see “more personalised options” that will include apprenticeships, allowing them to see different pathways into careers side-by-side.
From autumn 2024, students will then be able to apply for apprenticeships alongside the usual undergraduate degree applications.
According to UCAS, around half of students that register on the site say they would consider an apprenticeship but not enough vacancies are being advertised.
Clare Marchant, UCAS chief executive, said: “Presenting students with all their choices in one place will not only transform the apprenticeship offering but create real parity by putting these options side-by-side with undergraduate courses. “
She said that with almost half of UCAS users interested in the apprenticeship route, which equates to “hundreds of thousands of potential apprentices,” the service would be able to meet that demand by “showcasing all post-secondary opportunities”.
The UCAS service will share vacancy information on the government find an apprenticeship website which already advertises vacancies, the DfE confirmed.
It said that employers will be able to manage applications for their vacancies through the service as well.
UCAS is not receiving any additional funding to deliver the service, FE Week has learned.
However, the DfE is keen that as many apprenticeship vacancies as possible at all levels are advertised on the UCAS hub, meaning it will not just be degree apprenticeships advertised.
It comes as part of a wider ambition to develop a “one-stop-shop” for education and training options that will include apprenticeships, T Levels, skills bootcamps, higher technical qualifications or degree apprenticeships.
The Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education has been tasked with mapping career routes to feed into that.
Announcing the news in National Apprenticeship Week, education secretary Gillian Keegan said: “I hope more people learn about the incredible opportunities available in everything from engineering to accountancy, healthcare to gaming software development. Whatever career goals you aspire to, they can be achieved through an apprenticeship which go up to masters degree level.”
The news has been welcomed by the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, whose chief executive Jane Hickie explained that accessing information on apprenticeships could be “confusing and complicated at times”.
“This could be a gamechanger, and alongside an enhanced talent finder function for employers, is much needed,” she said. “It also shows how apprenticeships are a really valuable option for learners and employers alike.”
AELP has urged training providers and employers to work with UCAS to showcase their opportunities and ensure the service becomes “a real success”.
Vanessa Wilson, chief executive of the University Alliance said that UCAS is the “natural choice” to deliver information and opportunities on apprenticeships.
But the Association of School and College Leaders warned that, while welcoming the steps being taken to include apprenticeships on UCAS, the “fragmented system” of careers advice in schools and colleges needed to be addressed.
Kevin Gilmartin, post-16 specialist at ASCL said: “In order to make this work there needs to be more resources and support for schools and colleges to be able to deliver guidance from expert careers advisers who are familiar with the complex apprenticeships landscape.”
UCAS had previously said it would act as a “digital Baker clause” to ensure students were aware of apprenticeships as a potential option for their future, as the government looks to beef up student awareness of options beyond A-levels and university.
The more stringent Baker clause measures came into effect last month, which requires secondary schools to provide at least six encounters with further education providers.
Government data on apprenticeship starts published last month indicated that new starts fell by 6 per cent overall in the first quarter of 2022/23 compared to the same time last year.
However, degree apprenticeship take-up continued to grow, rising by 10 per cent for that period compared to 2021/22.
How will the website work?
UCAS has confirmed apprenticeships vacancies will not just be an add-on with a link at the bottom of undergraduate course pages but will be fully integrated into its website.
For instance, the personalised ‘for you’ section of the website will show apprenticeship and undergraduate options for the location a student puts in.
The ‘career quiz’ page which helps students identify potential careers that may be suited to them will feature information on the different routes into those careers, while the ‘employer profiles’ pages will include vacancies those employers have. Search functions will also include both degree and apprenticeship options.
Lindsay Conroy, national apprenticeship programme lead at UCAS, told FE Week it will have a number of algorithms to personalise the service for students, for example showing opportunities in and around a certain town or city a user specifies, or showing the various apprenticeship or undergraduate routes in a specific sector, such as engineering.
“It will absolutely feel like any other journey on UCAS when it exists, the idea being is that what we create is if somebody can experience something as a potential undergraduate they can experience the same or the equivalent as the potential apprentice,” Conroy said. “It might be a different journey but still be an equivalent experience.”
For employers, the site will pull in data and vacancies from the government’s ‘find an apprenticeship’ website, although employers will also be able to directly advertise their vacancies on the UCAS website.
Conroy said that more than 70 per cent of the employers it spoke to would welcome a university-style application service for apprenticeships.
She added: “We want to get to a point where a student has a profile and they are able to utilise that profile to populate an application, and then that application gets passed to that employer.”
Leaders at a Sussex sixth form college say they have “worked tirelessly” to secure a second successive ‘outstanding’ Ofsted rating – 10 years after the education watchdog’s last visit.
Brighton Hove and Sussex Sixth Form College (BHASVIC) was handed the top rating in all areas by inspectors in a report published today following a visit in early December – its first since November 2012 when it also scored ‘outstanding’ across the board.
Since the last visit Ofsted has introduced an enhanced inspection framework, meaning inspections place less emphasis on exam results and more on the quality of teaching and curriculum, as well as the skills inspection element which assesses how well it is meeting the needs in the area.
At the time of BHASVIC’s latest inspection, there were 3,420 16-to-18 full time students – 2,592 of whom were on A-level courses, 42 who were on vocational programmes and 747 on a mix of the two.
Inspectors praised the students for their “consistently exemplary” behaviour, while the sixth form’s “challenging curriculum” and “highly effective teaching” were also hailed.
The report said that “students benefit from a stimulating and highly supportive environment that is extremely conducive to learning,” adding that teachers put on “highly effective extension sessions” which resulted in the majority of students achieving well.
Inspectors gave the oversubscribed sixth form a ‘reasonable contribution’ to skills needs, reporting that courses had been introduced to meet the needs in the area, such as English as a second language for young refugees and asylum seekers, as well as qualifications for the green economy. That includes a level 3 in carbon literacy which a “substantial number” of students complete.
Elsewhere, the report said the curriculum is taught “logically and effectively”, and praised the work of teachers who skilfully question students to challenge them, as well as use of effective support plans.
Endeavours supporting students with high needs were also praised.
In addition, the watchdog found “valuable opportunities” to develop skills beyond the classroom, such as by visiting university facilities and taking part in skills-based challenges.
The report also highlighted the sixth form’s one-to-one career guidance and careers fair participation to help students understand their progression opportunities.
Principal (pictured) William Baldwin said he was “so proud of our students, staff and governors who were able to give the Ofsted inspectors and honest and inspiring insight into what being part of our college community is like”.
He added: “We have worked tirelessly since our last inspection in 2012 to ensure that we continued to retain our outstanding ethos and have evolved to meet the changing needs of our students and the wider education and employment landscape.”
In November, FE Week reported that 100 per cent of England’s 44 sixth form colleges had a ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ Ofsted rating, which marked a 13 percentage point increase on the same time the year prior.
Interesting fact: In her spare time, Lauren can usually be found running after her four year old child or seven year rescue dog (and most commonly, both!)
Sally Burtonshaw
Associate Director Education, Public First
Start date: February 2023
Previous Job: Head of Policy, London Higher
Interesting fact: Sally is a keen skier and qualified ski instructor who enjoys nothing more than a blue bird day in the mountains
Chloe Hudson Jones
Head of Projects, Newcastle Stafford Colleges Group
Start date: January 2023
Previous Job: Director of Technology,
Apprenticeships and Commercial, Stoke on Trent College
Interesting fact: Chloe is a retired professional footballer, having played in the Women’s Super League for Liverpool before transitioning into coaching. She is currently a BBC pundit for the Barclays Women’s Super League Group
