New laws which will stop providers over-charging for higher education courses funded through the new lifelong loan entitlement (LLE) have been laid in Parliament.
The lifelong learning (higher education fee limits) bill legislates for a new method of calculating the maximum fees providers can charge students for eligible flexible courses when the lifelong loan entitlement comes online in 2025.
It aims to make the cost of studying modules and short courses at levels 4 to 6 proportionate to the fee cap for full undergraduate study, currently £9,250 per year.
The bill follows the skills and post-16 education act, passed last year, which amended the definition of a ‘higher education course’ to include shorter, modular courses.
New laws are now needed to give ministers powers to set tuition fee limits for those courses.
Ministers are pinning their hopes on arresting the decline of flexible and part time students studying higher level courses and boosting higher technical training with the lifelong loan entitlement. From 2025, it’ll give individuals an entitlement to a loan worth “four years of post-18 study”, currently valued at £37,000.
However the Department for Education admits that there are still too many unknowns to properly assess the impact of the policy on equalities and on public spending.
The government is yet to respond to a public consultation on the loan entitlement, which closed in May 2022, and so is still unable to answer questions on the fundamentals of the policy – primarily, who and what will be eligible.
Another missing piece of the puzzle is access to maintenance support as the LLE only covers tuition costs.
Yet the government claims the LLE entitlement will make higher level courses more accessible to people who are too “debt averse” to take out a full student loan.
They hope the lower fees charged for smaller and more flexible courses will open the doors to older learners, learners with jobs, ethnic minority learners, women and people from lower socio-economic groups.
Researchers at Public First found last year that, while the idea of lifelong learning was popular, the idea of a lifelong loan was not, casting doubt on the premise of the policy.
Today’s bill creates a new system of credits to measure “learning time” and gives the secretary of state powers to set fee limits for those credits. It also legislates for a “course year” so learners’ access to funding isn’t restricted to the academic calendar.
‘Ambiguous’ lifelong loan impact on providers
An impact assessment published today suggests that providers that most successfully “target and expand into this market” could see increased revenue.
But it also explains that it is still unknown how learners and potential learners will respond. For example, universities that don’t adapt could lose out if learners start to reject longer HE courses in favour of more flexible provision under the LLE at other providers.
A HE short course trial is under way, but early signs showed uptake was low.
Great news! Our Lifelong Learning Bill has been introduced in Parliament, paving the way for more flexible higher and further education courses, so more people can climb the ladder of opportunity and learn in a way that suits them. Read more here 👇 https://t.co/Isgva0D89Lpic.twitter.com/90wwU6dEhE
Skills and higher apprenticeships minister Robert Halfon said the bill will be “transformational in helping students to climb the education and skills ladder”.
“Rather than having to be confined to just traditional full degree courses, it will also be offered for new modular funding, and allow them to build up credits to get both the qualification and training they need for jobs,” he said.
Tom Bewick, chief executive of the Federation of Awarding Bodies said: “This Bill can help make the learning system genuinely cradle to grave, with individuals able to access the financial support they need, when it is most relevant to them.
“It will take a cross-party consensus to realise the full potential of the legislation, including acceptance that learning loans are not right for everyone. Grants and maintenance support will also be required. As will reform of the Universal Credit system.”
MPs will get their first opportunity to debate the bill at its second reading. A date has not yet been announced.
A global food and facilities company that also delivers apprenticeships to UK prison officers is facing a suspension on new starts after Ofsted found poor quality training.
Sodexo Ltd, which operates five prisons in the UK, received two ‘insufficient’ and one ‘reasonable’ progress judgements from the education watchdog in a new provider monitoring report published today following a visit in November.
According to the report, the firm had 80 apprentices on the level 3 custody and detention officer programme at the time of inspection – 42 based at HMP Bronzefield and 38 at HMP Northumberland.
The report said that the governing board didn’t challenge the leadership team enough, or have enough oversight of safeguarding.
Inspectors found that “too many learners do not pass vital examinations quickly enough to achieve their qualifications and to enable them to progress to end point assessment” because leaders didn’t intervene quickly enough to help learners when the fell behind.
In addition, feedback from learning coaches did not help apprentices improve the quality of their work quickly enough.
While inspectors noted that the curriculum was in logical order, and initial training prepared them to work supervised in a prison within nine weeks, they found that leaders and managers “do not ensure that apprentices benefit from an assessment of their work or useful feedback on how to develop their skills over time”.
It reported that coaches did not correct spelling and punctuation mistakes in learners’ work and made spelling and punctuation errors in their own feedback on apprentices’ work.
The report continued that line managers were not aware of their apprentice’s progress because they did not always attend progress reviews, and apprentices didn’t receive training to improve their maths or English because the firm had been “too slow” to recruit staff for functional skills.
Apprentices were not prepared well enough for EPA, the report added.
Safeguarding arrangements were given a ‘reasonable progress’ judgement.
The government’s Education and Skills Funding Agency typically places a temporary ban on apprentice recruitment at new providers that receive at least one ‘insufficient progress’ judgement in a new provider monitoring visit. The suspension is lifted if the provider achieves at least a ‘requires improvement’ rating when Ofsted conducts a full inspection.
A Sodexo spokesperson said the firm took on board the feedback from inspectors and was pleased with its safeguarding feedback.
“However, we also acknowledge that we have areas of improvement and have been working prior to and since the inspection to develop and implement an action plan which builds on progress to date and addresses any areas of opportunity to be strengthened,” the spokesperson said.
They stressed that governance has “already been strengthened at all levels,” and had included a new delivery lead. In addition it has partnered with a specialist provider for maths and English functional skills to improve that provision, the firm said.
Sodexo operates in 50 countries with 400,000 employees, and joined the register of apprenticeship training providers (RoATP) in January 2018. However, it spent a few years as a subcontractor before starting its own apprenticeship training in September 2021 despite being on RoATP.
It had been the subcontractor to PTS Training Academy’s level 3 custody and detention officer apprenticeship prior to September 2021.
In July 2021, Sodexo said that the subcontracting arrangement provided a “low risk stepping stone” to gather knowledge and experience of the standard, as well as get to know quality assurance requirements and the processes for the ESFA, before it embarked on its own apprenticeship provision.
Sodexo’s contract with PTS was terminated for new starters in September 2019. FE Week later revealed that PTS had its own ESFA contract terminated after the agency found hundreds of apprentices were unemployed.
A college has slammed Ofsted for publishing an inspection report while leaders’ complaint against the grade is still pending.
Eastleigh College was downgraded from ‘good’ to ‘requires improvement’ last week, but the college has hit back saying it has “multiple areas of concern”.
After the inspection, which was conducted in October, the college followed the education watchdog’s complaints procedure but has found this to “not be fit for purpose”.
Last week the inspectorate published and took down two “incorrect” reports. The college said it continues to pursue “legitimate and evidence-based concerns about the inspection and post inspection process”.
Despite the live complaint, Ofsted published Eastleigh College’s report on January 25.
A spokesperson for the college, which teaches almost 4,500 students and apprentices, said: “Regrettably in publishing a college report with a known stage three internal review request pending, Ofsted have confirmed that introducing new recommendations, new evidence post inspection, and publishing two incorrect reports is ‘normal’.”
It comes just weeks after FE Week revealed Ofsted’s senior leaders had admitted their complaints policy “is not working” and is under review.
Several other FE providers have protested against the watchdog’s judgements and subsequent handling of their complaints in recent months.
Eastleigh College’s spokesperson said: “The college has experienced similar (if not enhanced) shortcomings to those reported across the sector, and has also experienced the shortcomings (again if not enhanced) to those admitted to by Ofsted as recently stated in sector press.”
The grade three comes as Eastleigh College prepares to step in to help bolster struggling City College Southampton through a merger. The merger, planned to take effect from August 2023, will also include Fareham College, which currently holds a grade one from Ofsted.
Ofsted said it “swiftly corrected” and apologised to Eastleigh College for the two incorrectly published reports. A spokesperson added that the latest published report “contained no new evidence or recommendations”.
Eastleigh College’s report included six ‘good’ judgements, including for quality of education, but its overall grade was dragged down by ‘requires improvement’ judgements in leadership and management and apprenticeships.
Since the college’s last ‘good’ Ofsted judgement in 2019, leaders have embarked on a remodelling exercise to significantly reduce subcontracted provision to comply with Department for Education’s reforms.
The college was working with 34 subcontractors in 2018/19 but now only works with six.
A spokesperson for the college said leaders presented a “unique ‘big picture’ for the inspection team” in light of the move from subcontracted to direct delivery of apprenticeships post-pandemic.
But Ofsted’s report criticised the college’s teachers for “not ensuring apprentices gain the skills quickly enough to achieve the apprenticeship within the expected time period”.
Inspectors also claimed that managers and teachers “do not ensure all employers are routinely involved in apprentices’ progress reviews”, that apprentices are “not always aware of the progress they are making”, and “not all apprentices have the support they require to make expected and sustained progress”.
The only other criticism in the report was leaders’ and managers’ oversight of the whereabouts and well-being of children looked after and care leavers, which Ofsted claimed was “limited at the time of the inspection”.
The rest of Eastleigh College’s report was wholly positive.
Inspectors found that school leaver learners on full-time programmes benefit from well-planned opportunities with employers.
They also confirmed that learners and apprentices benefit from a professional learning environment, and that learners and apprentices feel safe at college, and in the workplace.
The report also said refugees from Afghanistan and the Ukraine were able to access the services and support they need through the additional courses offered by the college.
Meanwhile, leaders and managers were praised for having a clear and carefully considered strategy for the college’s curriculum offer.
Inspectors said the college makes a “reasonable contribution” to meeting skills needs as leaders, managers and governors “know their region extremely well”.
Commenting on Ofsted’s criticism of apprenticeships, Eastleigh College’s spokesperson said: “Whilst there is still more to be done the recruitment of subject specialist trainers with significantly reduced caseloads, working alongside high-quality teachers was seen to be working well in many areas. This investment and commitment to apprenticeship excellence will continue at pace.”
The spokesperson added: “The college is proud of every colleague who delivers opportunity and excellence on a daily basis. Commitment to our 2020-24 ‘more learners, more successful, more often’ strategy will continue unabated.”
A series of “bite-size guides” have been published by the Department for Education to help colleges meet their new requirements since being reclassified as public sector organisations.
Guides for five areas were published on Tuesday morning, covering senior pay controls, write-offs and losses, severance packages, indemnity guarantees and novel transactions.
In November last year the Office for National Statistics reclassified colleges as public sector organisations, which subjects them to certain public sector spending requirements.
Here is what you need to know from each of the guides.
Public sector rules mean that government approval must be sought for senior pay of public sector workers above £150,000 and bonuses in excess of £17,500.
That will apply to senior college staff from May 2023, with today’s guidance explaining that colleges will be required to submit one form for each clearance request.
From May, appointments newly advertised above the £150,000 threshold and £17,500 bonus must already have secured clearance from the DfE and Treasury – including for both new roles and new appointments to existing roles.
For those already earning at or above the threshold, approval will be required for pay awards above 9 per cent from May, as will those earning below the threshold currently where a pay rise of 9 per cent or more will take them over the £150,000.
Colleges will need to provide justification for the proposed pay, and applications should consider the type and size of provider as well as other pay in the region in their applications.
A formal deadline hasn’t been issued, but applications will be accepted from February 1 and a minimum of two months should be allowed for clearance.
The latest college accounts show that 78 college principals had salaries over the threshold and four received eligible bonuses in 2020/21.
The Treasury’s managing public money framework now applies to FE colleges and says that losses and write-offs come under additional controls.
Colleges are told that they should only accept write-offs and losses after considering whether “all reasonable action has been taken to effect recovery,” and are “satisfied that there is no feasible alternative”.
College bosses will be required to clearly document the circumstances of the financial situation, the rationale for a proposed write-off, and the cost effectiveness of any recovery action.
In addition, the guidance says that recipients who acted in good faith can use that in their defence but is not sufficient alone to result in non-recovery of public cash. Money recovery should always be pursued where recipients have acted in bad faith, it said, such as actively hiding necessary facts, or failing to give accurate or timely information.
Suspected fraud and internal controls must also be considered, and colleges have been told they should keep up-to-date records of losses and recovery attempts.
Colleges will be allowed to write-off relatively small amounts, but DfE approval must be sought where it exceeds either £45,000 or 1 per cent of annual income, or where write-off takes the college’s total write-offs for the year beyond £250,000 or 5 per cent of income (whichever is smaller).
However, colleges should seek approval if the write-offs are novel, might create a precedent in other colleges, arise because of ambiguous central instructions, or raise ”important questions of principle”.
Special payments include severance pay for staff, compensation payments which go beyond contractual or statutory entitlement, or ex-gratia payments.
DfE approval will be needed for severance payments of £50,000 or more before tax, if it is equivalent to three months’ salary, where they earn £150,000 or more, or where an exit package exceeds £100,000.
Severance payments of any amount that are linked to non-disclosure agreements will also need DfE sign-off.
Guidance says that special severance should not be used as a “soft option” to avoid management action or disciplinary proceedings, or paid to poor performing staff.
Colleges will need to document legal and HR advice, and consider appropriate levels of pay out. In addition, any confidentiality clauses cannot prevent the individual’s right to whistleblowing in the public interest.
For compensation pay outs, such as injury cases, colleges get delegated authority for amounts up to £50,000.
The DfE says indemnity contracts in colleges could include contracts around catering, data-sharing, utilities, commercial IT or land transfers.
Guidance says that college leaders should assess their contracts to determine whether the indemnities they hold are within the normal course of business, and maintain a contract register.
Caution should also be used on issuing letters of comfort as they may bring about liabilities, the DfE warned.
No government approval is needed if indemnity contracts are in the ordinary course of business, but approval is needed for those not considered ordinary and for letters of comfort or guarantees where the case exceeds 1 per cent of annual income or £45,000 individually, or takes the total contingent liabilities beyond 5 per cent of annual income or £250,000 (whichever is lower).
Governors are expected to challenge and provide oversight to make sure up-to-date records are kept.
The DfE says that transactions considered novel, contentious or repercussive will always require DfE sign-off before being made, but doesn’t necessarily mean they are forbidden.
Requests can be referred to the Treasury too, so colleges are advised to allow plenty of time for them to be considered.
The government considers novel transactions to be those outside of a college’s normal business or which it has no experience of, while contentious transactions are those which could attract criticism from Parliament, the public or media. Repercussive transactions are those which may set a precedent or have wider financial impact in the sector.
No threshold for those deals have been set as all will require DfE approval.
The DfE says reputational risk, value for money, financial exposure and propriety will be considered, and colleges should set out their requests as a business case outlining the risks and opportunities, benefits and drawbacks.
With a landmark new devolution deal due any day, West Midlands mayor Andy Street tells what he plans to do with more skills powers
Andy Street is poised to sign a devolution deal that will make him the most powerful Tory mayor in England.
It will add to a string of achievements for the former president of the Oxford University Conservative Association and managing director of John Lewis before he became the West Midlands’ first mayor in 2017.
But he candidly reveals his career “would have been thwarted” had he had to study maths until 18, as the prime minister is hoping all youngsters will.
“My own experience would have been horrific, I couldn’t give it up soon enough!” he says with a smile. “But I get where [Rishi] is coming from.”
Street admits the idea of doing maths to 18 provokes a “notion of doing advanced maths and physics” which “fills you with horror”.
But he is supportive of the DfE-funded Multiply programme of free numeracy courses for adults without maths GCSE, which is now being rolled out in local areas.
“For the jobs of the future, a good mathematical understanding is basic,” he says.
Film skills bootcamps at Solihull College
Devolution discussions kick off at last
Street reveals he and his team are now “in the trenches” with ministers thrashing out a landmark skills devolution deal that will make him the most powerful Tory mayor in England.
The trailblazer negotiations, which include Street’s counterpart in Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, have been a long time in the making. In February 2022, the Levelling Up White Paper committed to “deepen” devolution to the West Midlands and Greater Manchester, with an eye to later rolling out those blueprints to other mayoral areas.
But talks were hampered by ministerial revolving doors and an emergency Budget absorbing civil service capacity.
But Michael Gove, who returned as levelling up secretary in October, is “determined to get this done relatively quickly”. Last week meetings finally took place with his devolution minister Dehenna Davison.
“To be really clear, we have not had a face-to-face with DfE ministers yet. That’s all being done by officials. But overall, it’s absolutely game on and Michael is determined we achieve a genuinely stretching trailblazer deal as soon as possible.”
DfE ministers in the past have shown themselves wary to relinquish powers to devolved mayors. Last year, then-skills minister Andrea Jenkyns said she was “not a proponent of elected mayors”, while former education secretary Gavin Williamson was known for his lack of engagement with them.
Street’s aims will be to convince the DfE he can leverage proposed new powers to tackle his region’s low skills; 83 per cent of its residents are only qualified to level 1, compared with 88 per cent nationally, with 54 per cent skilled to level 3 compared with 61 per cent nationally.
The West Midlands Combined Authority’s (WMCA) levelling up growth prospectus, which sets out its devolution proposals, does not hold back from heaping criticism on the National Careers Service (NCS). The WMCA has been “hampered by a lack of local engagement” from them, with young people not in education or work having “suffered from a lack of support”.
Street says NCS provision “tends to be relatively fragmented and is very, very much dependent on the hyper-local ability”.
Street wants to address this with a “co-ordination of the careers offer across the West Midlands”. This means the WMCA working with and through existing contracts with the NCS as well as the Careers and Enterprise Company, to “bring together one standard across the region, bringing everyone up to the best”.
Street compares his careers proposals to what the combined authority already does in overseeing adult education, in how it works with different regional providers. “We would have responsibility frankly to be almost the kitemark of what is being provided.”
HS2 with a degree apprentice
Vision to co-ordinate LSIP response
Street is also eyeing a new role for the WMCA in “coordinating the response” to the regional Local Skills Improvement Plan (LSIP), which sets out skills provision needed to meet labour market needs.
West Midlands wants the LSIP to provide “greater responsibility for technical and vocational training in the region” to “drive up higher-level skills”, which can only mean a boost for FE.
Calls for devolved mayors to take control of LSIPs were defeated when the skills and post-16 education act was going through parliament in 2021, despite concerns LSIPs would undermine mayors’ own skills plans.
Although Street expresses no regret that mayors were not tasked with LSIPs, he believes they should be the “guiding mind” behind the response to it.
“I’ve got no difficulty that one employers’ organisation provides the guts of the LSIP, and we input into all that. But what does that induce? That’s where you need a guiding mind. At the moment, that isn’t there.”
Street claims the West Midlands has some “outstanding” provision, citing Walsall College whose principal Jatinder Sharma has just been awarded a CBE for services to further education.
But away from glowing highlights, there is not enough focus on the “total offer provided across the region” as a “holistic response” to skills shortages.
As Street’s team has responsibility for the region’s economic growth plan and a view as to the skills areas required to deliver it, it is “in a position to be able to do that”.
Street is “totally supportive” of the FE sector, but denies it has been treated unfairly in the recent budget in which schools were given a funding uplift of £2.3 billion for 2023 and 2024 while funding rates for 16 to 18-year-olds remained 11 per cent lower than in 2010.
Street points to the government’s “consistent” commitment to institutes of technology, adding that the University of Wolverhampton’s newly opened National Brownfield Institute, which received some funding from the government’s Towns Fund and Getting Building Fund, is an “outstanding example”.
Andy with Commonwealth Games Volunteers (skills for life)
Fewer adult learners to offset rates rise
After remaining static for 10 years, the funding rates paid to colleges and independent training providers for adult education budget provision in the West Midlands will be boosted by 10 per cent this year.
Other mayoral combined authorities have also recently announced a 10 per cent uplift, with the Greater London Authority raising its rates by 13.5 per cent.
But the WMCA’s adult education budget shrank from £133.5 million in 2021-22 to £131.8 million this year and is due to go up by only 6.7 per cent, to £140.6 million next year – still well below inflation.
Therefore, the rates rise is being paid for by having “slightly fewer learners”.
“Our bootcamps and free courses for jobs help to compensate and more than maintain total learning provision,” the WMCA explains.
Street believes decisions taken locally and “really close working” with providers has resulted in better outcomes since the West Midlands devolved.
The WMCA boasts it has “turned around a failing skills system”, citing a 66 per cent increase in new digital courses and £7.3 million spent on construction training compared with £4.8 million pre-devolution.
Street points to how the adult education budget is being deployed for “level 3 development”, rather than “relatively undistinguished programmes” – with a 6 per cent rise in adults qualified to level 3 and above since 2018.
“We know where the new jobs are to be created in this region, therefore it is appropriate that [work] is almost hand in glove with technical and vocational training,” he says.
Jobs Fair in Birmingham
‘Staccato funding decisions’
Street wants the West Midlands to be a pioneer in retrofitting to help meet its aims of hitting net zero by 2041. But doing so will require more than 294,000 homes to be retrofitted by 2026, and it has a long way to go. The region is currently running two government-funded retrofit schemes targeting nearly 1,000 low income households, which Street hopes to “turbocharge” in the future.
While finding people to teach retrofitting and other construction courses is a “huge challenge”, student interest is the more pressing problem.
While those courses have had “100 per cent success” when it comes to students moving into jobs after completion, the courses across “a number of different colleges” have been “under subscribed”.
Street blames stop-start government funding, most notably, the £2 billion green homes grant voucher scheme, which was discontinued after three months.
“One of the challenges is helping young people see these areas of the future as really good life choices,” he says. “That’s hard if you’ve got staccato funding decisions, and people are not therefore seeing it long-term making the market.”
Digital skills gaps
While Street does not perceive there to be a particular problem in placing apprentices in the West Midlands and getting demand from SMEs for them, he gets “literally in my ear from employers every day” concerns about the digital skills gap – particularly an acute shortage of software engineers.
But this is not all bad news for Street. “It talks to how the economy is changing shape here.”
The West Midlands was the first area to introduce digital bootcamps in 2019, and has just clinched £15.2 million in government funding to continue providing them until at least 2024, securing more than 4,000 spaces.
“These camps are oversubscribed – I could fill them many times over.”
The free camps are intended to help learners access jobs in areas such as coding, cybersecurity and digital marketing, and the WMCA plans to use the additional funding to “evolve the programme into upskilling residents in retrofit, green and sustainability and healthcare”.
More must be done to address falling apprenticeship starts in early years providers amid the sector’s staffing crisis, Ofsted’s chief has said.
But Amanda Spielman has also warned against using apprentices to replace “skilled, experienced practitioners”, which “isn’t fair to children or apprentices” and “can’t be a long-term solution”.
Spielman told Saturday’s Ofsted Big Conversation that apprenticeships are a part of the solution to address declining staff numbers in the early years sector, but said that “unfortunately fewer young people are even beginning these programmes at the moment”.
According to the education watchdog, the number of new apprentices starting in the sector had fallen from 27,000 six years ago to just 16,000 last year – a 40 per cent fall.
Among the issues she highlighted were delays in employers releasing apprentices for their off-the-job training.
“This may seem like a short-term fix, but it can delay or disrupt their training and cause problems down the road,” she said.
The chief inspector said Ofsted has also seen “some providers using apprentices to replace skilled, experienced practitioners”, adding that this “can’t be a long-term solution and it isn’t fair to the apprentices, or to children”.
Spielman said she hoped that a recent consultation on improving level 3 early years educators course criteria will help inform necessary changes, explaining that “it’s so important that people coming into the sector get off to the right start, and this means equipping them with the knowledge they need”.
A study published by the Social Mobility Commission and carried out by the Education Policy Institute in August 2020 found that low pay, a high workload, long working hours and lack of career development were impacting on staff retention in the early years sector.
It found that fewer than one in five early years workers received job-related training, and more than a third left their employer within two years.
Ofsted’s annual report last year said that early years workers were opting for higher paid or more flexible careers, and warned that while staffing problems had not affected inspection judgements to date, quality could be affected in future if experienced staff continued to leave the industry.
It reported that nurseries were becoming “over-reliant” on apprentices to fill gaps.
Michael Freeston, director of quality improvement at the Early Years Alliance, said the decline in apprenticeships is “disappointing but sadly not surprising” and said it is “vital” that funding for those standards is reviewed and increased.
“There’s no doubt that completing an apprenticeship provides a solid foundation for a career in the early years, but currently it can be costly for settings and training providers which, in turn, act as a disincentive.”
Freeston said that the combination of demanding hours and low pay deterred people from joining the sector, but said the organisation has also found that it can be difficult for employers to take on apprentices.
“Course requirements often incur additional expenses which are not completely covered by funding,” he said.
“The commitment to regular reviews and mentoring requirements can also place pressure on settings, especially when they are already facing limited budgets and limited resources due to sustained sector underfunding.”
The alliance reported that many training providers have stopped offering level 2 apprenticeship courses because the income did not match the cost of delivery.
The level 3 early years educator apprenticeship standard was introduced in 2019, while the education and childcare T Level was among the first three T Levels to be launched in September 2020, and includes a minimum of nine weeks on placement with an employer, or 21 weeks for the early years educator specialism.
In 2021, the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education approved a level 5 early years lead practitioner apprenticeship to provide more career progression for those who had achieved a level 3 apprenticeship in the sector.
Does CPD really lead to benefits on the ‘front line’?
The worlds of education and business are evolving. Educators must keep up if young people are to find rewarding careers, so that employers can recruit the talent needed to drive performance and improve competitiveness. It is this ‘skills edge’ that will help the future economy to thrive, attracting inward investment so that the UK can compete better globally. WorldSkills UK is working as part of the WorldSkills international movement of over 80 countries driving up standards worldwide and promoting future workforces that will serve young people, employers and communities, improving social and financial mobility around the world.
WorldSkills UK has developed a suite of CPD sessions called, ‘Developing excellence in teaching and training’, developed in partnership with ETF and applicable across a wide range of curriculum disciplines, based on our experience at the cutting edge of professional development. Held on 1 and 2 February, this event will draw on WorldSkills UK’s insights from international competitions, best practice exchanges and standard-setting for curricula.
Using knowledge from national and international experts across a wide range of skills and streamed via an interactive online platform, the sessions will support you and your colleagues in developing your knowledge, understanding and skills as well as those of your students and apprentices.
By taking part, you’ll help move your learners from competence to excellence, learn more about the latest advances in learning technology, and examine how to support learners from underrepresented groups.
I want to do more CPD but how can I fit it into my busy schedule?
You can opt into just one session or as many as you like. Opting into a minimum of two during the live stream you will receive a digital credential to share with your networks and incorporate into your portfolio. All content will be downloadable after the event, so you can revisit or share the link with colleagues.
Practical applications for achieving excellence with learners:
Understand WorldSkills UK’s seven step pedagogy cycle and related activities for use in a classroom or workshop environment.
Using world-class standards to enrich curriculum planning and enhance learner achievement:
Understand what WorldSkills occupational standards are and what their purpose is.
Competition activity as a method of raising learner aspirations and outcomes:
Experience the benefits of engaging in skills competition activity to individual learners, institutions and businesses.
Coaching techniques for supporting learners in developing effective behaviours and attitudes:
Learn coaching methodologies for supporting learners to achieve excellence.
Effective curriculum delivery to support meeting the needs of industry and net zero:
Gain insight into international best practice at reducing waste and increasing sustainability across vocational skill areas.
How do I book my free place?
Simply register with our quick-to-complete form and you’re ready to go.
Will I get an accreditation for taking part?
WorldSkills UK will award a digital credential to all those who attend two or more sessions, but we’re sure you’ll want to stay longer.
This verified digital credential demonstrates your commitment to professional development and embedding world-class practice into your teaching and can be shared across your professional networks including LinkedIn, bios, and CVs.
Who’s behind the programme?
To produce the programme, WorldSkills UK has partnered with the Education & Training Foundation (ETF), the workforce development body for the Further Education and Training sector. ETF works in partnership with others to deliver professional learning and development for teachers, trainers and leaders to improve education and training for learners aged 14 and over. The Society for Education and Training (SET) is ETF’s membership body, dedicated to professionals working across further education, vocational teaching and training.
We are also grateful to our session partners, the Skills and Education Group, Autodesk and Electude.
What other opportunities are there to enhance my teaching practice?
Competition-based training programmes: Each year, over 3,500 students and apprentices across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland hone their technical skills in our competition-based programmes, as well as the personal skills that employers look for when recruiting young people, such as communication, planning, teamwork, self-reliance and resilience. 97% of competitors in our National Finals say that taking part has improved their technical skills, and 93% felt their self-confidence had grown. We can help you embed competitions in your teaching to encourage your students to take more responsibility for their own development and to be more aspirational in developing their skills. Applications for the 2023 competition are accepted from 27 February until 24 March 2023 and it’s free to enter and take part.
Those competitors making it to the National Finals have the chance to win medals as an endorsement of their skill level. They also have the opportunity to be selected for Squad UK, from which Team UK is drawn to compete on the global stage. In the WorldSkills Special Editions in 2022, the UK scored gold medals in aircraft maintenance and cabinet making, plus bronzes in Industry 4.0, jewellery making, and car painting. Half of Team UK also achieved medallions for excellence, indicating they had reached WorldSkills’ international standards of excellence. The UK achieved a top ten place overall, up two places from the last international competition in Kazan, Russia, and ahead of countries including Spain, Singapore, Australia and Canada.
While winning medals is important for the participants and their colleges and employers, the benefits of the training programme for them and other members of Squad and Team UK can’t be overestimated as they return to the workforce with improved technical and employability skills, becoming valuable role models for their peers by passing on the skills they have learned, so that the benefits of training are cascaded through the workforce.
Learning Lab:WorldSkills UK’s Learning Lab is a new online space and resource centre which provides free access to world-class skills development tools and resources for all.
Content is built on WorldSkills UK’s insights into international best practice, supporting educators to supercharge both their professional development and teaching skills and equipping them to boost student learning and develop world-class skills.
Easy to navigate, the Learning Lab offers a wide range of teaching tools and resources, from advice on careers education to mindset masterclasses, based on world-class practice from the world of elite sports training and development. Fresh resources will be continually added over time.
Careers Advice Toolkit
Mapped against the Careers Development Institute, Skills Builder and Gatsby Benchmark Frameworks, the Careers Advice Toolkit empowers young people to explore excellence within technical and apprenticeship career pathways. With inspiring bitesize content, the Toolkit can be used flexibly to support independent online learning, as well as any careers curriculum, delivered in the classroom or virtually.
Spotlight Talks
Designed to fit within lesson timetables, the Spotlight Talks video series brings together leading businesses and services to demonstrate young professionals sharing their own career journeys and what it takes to succeed in their sector. The next Spotlight Talks are in spring 2023 and we encourage viewers to pose questions directly to the presenters. All Spotlight Talks are available for download afterwards, so your students and apprentices don’t miss these inspiring and informative sessions. Check out existing downloads here.
Future programmes
We’re committed to continuing to provide educators with high-quality, free to access CPD opportunities. If you would like to be kept informed of new live and digital opportunities that can fit in with your timetable, email us at: getintouch@worldskillsuk.org
WorldSkills UK’s chief executive Dr Neil Bentley-Gockmann is stepping down from his role after seven years at the helm.
The organisation – an independent charity which supports young people in global Olympics-style skills competition – said a smooth transition has been planned.
Bentley-Gockmann will step down as chief executive in May, but WorldSkills UK confirmed he will remain a member of the board through a transition period.
Taking the interim chief executive post before a permanent successor is appointed will be Ben Blackledge, currently deputy chief executive with eight years at WorldSkills on his CV.
Bentley-Gockmann is leaving to take up the chief executive position at the Whitehall & Industry Group – an independent charity which brings together business, government, not-for-profit organisations and academics to share learning.
He had been a board member of the organisation for two years until December.
“It’s been a real privilege to lead WorldSkills UK over the past seven years and to help grow its impact nationally and internationally,” Bentley-Gockmann said.
“While I am looking forward to my leadership next step, I am of course sad to move on from a fantastic organisation with a brilliant team doing such important, life-changing work.”
He added that the work of the team meant WorldSkills UK is “improving training standards through mainstreaming international best practice, championing future skills to align with rapidly changing economic needs and empowering more young people, from all backgrounds, to succeed in work and life”.
WorldSkills UK is one of 85 nations in the global WorldSkills network which works to use international best practice to improve standards, and showcase the talents of young learners in the UK in technical education and apprenticeships.
Under Bentley-Gockmann’s tenure, the UK crept back into the top 10 for the global medals tables in the 2022 competition, delayed from 2021 because of the Covid-19 pandemic. At the prior competition in 2019, the UK finished 12th, with a 10th placing in 2017.
Among some of the other achievements for the organisation under his tenure have been establishing the centre for excellence in partnership with NCFE and the learning lab, producing a series of key reports on skills development and employer needs, and securing the UK’s position in the top 10 once again for the global WorldSkills competition medal table.
Marion Plant, chair of the board at WorldSkills UK, thanked Bentley-Gockmann for his “transformational” leadership over the last seven years, explaining that he has positioned the organisation as “a unique and innovative contributor to the UK skills systems” which had bettered the lives of “countless students, apprentices, further education staff and other partners”.
She added: “The respect in which WorldSkills UK is held nationally and internationally has grown significantly under his leadership, and we are well placed now to grow and to deepen our impact within the UK skills systems.”
Bentley-Gockmann took up his role at WorldSkills in November 2015. Prior to that he served various roles at the Confederation of British Industry over 11 years, including policy director, deputy director-general and chief operating officer.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Bentley-Gockmann studied French, German and European politics at Cardiff University in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, staying on to do a PHD on race equality in the workplace.
In 2013 the West Belfast-born businessman studied on the authentic leadership programme at Harvard Business School.
He has also held a number of board positions since the early 2000s, including at the aforementioned Whitehall and Industry Group for two years until December, as well as three years on the board at the University of Warwick and for three years at Stonewall until January 2015 where he was also deputy chair.
Board positions at BusinessEurope and The Carbon Trust are also on his CV.
Increased funding rates for “priority” adult education courses have been revealed by the Education and Skills Funding Agency.
But functional skills courses in English and maths will not see any base increase.
The government’s delayed reforms to adult education funding bring together multiple funding streams to a single new skills fund in 2024/25. Ministers have said reforms are designed to simplify the system and incentivise “priority” skills.
New rates will apply to ESFA grant funded and procured provision, with mayors in devolved areas setting their own rates.
Courses under the new skills fund will be organised along five new hourly bands that range from £6 to £12 by their sector subject area.
This replaces the current “single activity matrix” which organises funding along fifteen possible funding bands.
Under the new system from 2024/25, courses in travel and tourism will attract the lowest base rate of £6 per hour and engineering the high rate of £9.60 per hour.
There is a higher “specialist” band of £12 per hour for certain land-based courses, however officials are still reviewing which subjects receive the “specialist” band and which receive the “high” funding band.
The hourly band is then multiplied by a qualification’s guided learning hours to give a funding rate. Adjustments for disadvantage and area costs will apply as they do now.
For example, a diploma in engineering is 360 guided learning hours and currently receives £2,583. From 2024/25, the new funding rate for this qualification will be £3,456, calculated as follows: £9.60 (the new hourly skills funding rate for engineering sector subject area) multiplied by 360 guided learning hours.
Courses which are eligible under the government’s free courses for jobs offer will continue to receive extra funding: £600 for qualifications at or above 360 guided learning hours and £150 for courses at 359 guided learning hours or below.
The announcements isn’t all good news for providers delivering functional skills English and maths courses, which have been confirmed today to continue to be funded at their current rates.
New digital qualifications though will be funded by the new band for ICT for users, which is £8.40, meaning funding for a 55 guided learning hour qualification will increase to £462 from the current £336 for the functional skills ICT qualification.
Access to higher education courses will also be moved to the new five band system depending on their subject area.
Skills minister Robert Halfon said: “We are simplifying the way we fund skills training for adults so that more people can climb the ladder of opportunity into well paid jobs, and we can better meet the skills needs of employers and the economy.
“Our new funding reforms will ensure we are targeting money at the subjects and sectors with the greatest skills need, while giving providers the flexibility to develop innovative training solutions that work for their local communities.”
