Another college exits 14-16 provision as its ‘original mission’ fades

Another further education college has officially exited 14-16 provision this week. 

Hugh Baird College will close its doors to 14-16 students this summer because growth in young student numbers has “led to the provision moving away from its original mission”. 

It follows a growing number of colleges which have deemed the provision is not financially viable – and have closed their direct entry 14-16 provision.

The college, which is based in Bootle, Liverpool, took the decision to suspend its 14-16 provision last year, FE Week understands. The final cohort is in the process of wrapping up their studies this year, and the college will not run any 14-16 provision from September 2023.

The college was officially removed from the Department for Education’s list of colleges intending to enroll 14–16-year-olds on Tuesday. There are now 13 colleges on the list, down from 19 in 2017/19.

A spokesperson for Hugh Baird College said it had told stakeholders last year of its intention to stop its 14-16 provision. 

Hugh Baird’s provision for 14-16-year-old education nearly quadrupled from 2014/15 when its first, 56-strong group began studying, to 2021/22 when it had 203 students on its 14-16 programme. That then slid to 92 students in 2022/23, according to a Freedom of Information request FE Week submitted earlier this year. 

Now, the college will stop the provision entirely from the next academic year following some “significant reflection and evaluation”.

“The original intent of this provision was to offer an alternative to completing year 10/11 in high school for students who wanted to study vocational qualifications alongside core GCSE subjects,” they said.

“Enrolment numbers have increased year-on-year, and the review identified that this growth has led to the provision moving away from its original mission.  

“Having considered a range of options on the way forward, including continuing to run the provision with reduced numbers, we concluded that we would not recruit a new year 10 cohort in September 2022.”

The college declined to elaborate on why it decided to close the programme.

“The college continues to work closely with schools to provide opportunities to Year 10 and 11 pupils to experience further education through its school links programme,” the spokesperson said.

The coalition government launched 14-16 provision back in 2012 as a response to the Wolf Review, with the aim of helping those for whom a vocational route into work was more appropriate.

An FE Week investigation this year revealed that 12,860 students have been taught through direct entry, across 27 general FE and sixth form colleges. 

College funding for 14-16 teaching is the same as 16-to-19-year-old-students, but the younger students get 25 taught hours a week (as at a school) compared to 16 or 17 hours usually offered on 16-plus college courses. 

The need for a separate site also means that 14-16 teaching requires a lot of resources from colleges.

Alan McKenna, deputy director of SEND, an inclusive provision at Leeds City College, said earlier this year that funding is the “number one reason” why colleges have pulled out of 14-16 provision because “until you get to a certain size, I don’t think you can do it at a profit, or even break even”.

Lifetime chairman Geoff Russell ‘leaves the company’

The executive chair of one of England’s largest independent training providers has left his post.

Geoff Russell left Lifetime Training on Monday, after just 15 months as its chairman. He joined last March from the training provider JTL, where he was chairman for more than four years.

Shortly after joining Lifetime, the provider’s then chief executive, Alex Khan, was replaced by Jon Graham, also from JTL.

Geoff Russell

Russell was the chief executive of the Learning and Skills Council and then the Skills Funding Agency, predecessors to the Education and Skills Funding Agency until 2012. 

Jon Graham, chief executive of Lifetime Training, said Russell “has left the company as of 26 June”. 

“We wish to thank Geoff for the contribution he has made to the business since joining in 2022,” he added, with details of his “replacement shared in due course”. 

Lifetime declined to provide a reason for Russell’s departure.

Russell’s departure comes as the provider grapples with cuts of 60 jobs as announced in March, following a “strategic review”.

But it had recruited more apprentices and secured more levy funding than any other provider in England for several years – with its apprentices working at high-profile employers including the NHS, the civil service, McDonalds, Wetherspoons, B&Q and David Lloyd.

The provider also faced an Education and Skills Funding Agency audit that explored possible overclaimed additional learner support funding, which could result in a clawback of over £13 million, according to Lifetime’s latest accounts.

The company recorded a loss of £9.2 million after it posted a £6.9 million profit the year prior. Cash was also down, falling to £4.1 million in comparison to £19.8 million the year prior.

In November, the training provider was sold to Alcentra – one of the provider’s lenders which specialises in credit management, private credit and structured credit strategies, in the midst of the ESFA audit.

Russell declined to comment.

Babington hires ‘turnaround’ specialist as next CEO

One of England’s largest apprenticeship training providers has appointed an “international growth and turnaround” specialist as its next chief executive. 

The board of Babington has announced that Mark Basham, currently a self-employed angel investor and board adviser, will join the provider as chief executive on Monday, July 3. 

The appointment follows the sudden departure of David Marsh, who left the business just over a month ago after five years as chief executive. 

Basham was previously CEO of AXELOS, a company set up by the UK government and Capita, which runs certifications in best practice such as ITIL and PRINCE2. 

On leaving AXELOS in April 2022, he went on to become a self-employed angel investor and co-founder of HIT Global, an IT service management training company.

The self-described “high-impact CEO” said he was “excited to get started.”

“Apprenticeships are a key element of the UK’s economic strategy ensuring the availability of appropriate skills and resource. I am certain they will play an increasingly important role in the talent strategy of all businesses across the UK for decades to come. Babington is well-placed to support this trend and I am excited to get started.”

Joining Basham will be Mike Kinski who will become Babington’s first chairman. 

Kinski is currently a special adviser at Babington and will “provide significant additional expertise to Mark and the executive committee as they seek to build on Babington’s strong reputation in the training and learning sector,” according to a statement.

Babington is currently rated ‘good’ by Ofsted and trains thousands of apprentices and adult learners each year in areas like accountancy, administration, management and employability skills.

The provider is yet to file accounts for 2022, but its financial statements for 2021 show turnover reached £26.1 million in 2021 with a profit after tax of £3.4 million. 

However, Babington’s holding company, Project Sinatra Topco Ltd – now called Babington Managed Services Topco Ltd – showed a loss of £2.5 million in the same year.

Police investigate stolen exam papers after cyber-attack 

Police are investigating a cyber-attack where it is thought a hacker posed as a school to obtain exam papers before selling them online.

Cambridgeshire Police said they are in the “early stages” of investigating a “data breach” involving exam boards Pearson and OCR. The boards had exam papers “extracted from their systems and sold online”, the police said.

Officers are working with the National Crime Agency and the Department for Education on the investigation.

FE Week understands the incident relates to a school’s email system being hacked and then used to request papers from the exam boards – before the exam was taken. It is not known which exams this relates to.

Centres usually receive exam papers weeks in advance. However, there is also a process to request “emergency” papers sent electronically, if there is not enough time to post the papers.

The individual exam boards refused to comment. Instead, they sent a joint statement from their membership organisation, the Joint Council of Qualifications.

A JCQ spokesperson said that “every year, awarding organisations investigate potential breaches of security. When investigations are complete, sanctions, which may be severe, are taken against any individuals found to be involved”. 

Most summer exams series, rumours circulate online about certain papers being leaked. 

But boards told the BBC earlier this year that it was extremely rare for genuine papers to be leaked. Any attempts to obtain confidential material is malpractice. 

Exam boards are required to report to Ofqual when there has been an actual or potential security breach of confidential material. 

Last summer, there were 28 leaks of material, including a Pearson GCSE maths question leaked on social media before the exam. 

Ofqual’s annual report stated the board quickly identified the person involved and carried out “immediate inspections and extra supervision of exams” at the centre. 

AQA’s A-level chemistry paper last year was stolen from a delivery van. Students who had access to the paper were disqualified and the theft was reported to the police. 

On the latest breach, an Ofqual spokesperson said it “requires exam boards to investigate any alleged breaches of security and to take appropriate action.  

“This year, as in every year, Ofqual has received reports from exam boards about alleged breaches of security. We would not comment on any investigations being carried out by boards.”

Prison leaders slammed for ‘slow progress’ on reading education

Prison leaders have been accused of not taking reading education seriously in a damning joint report by education and prison inspectors.

Reading education in prisons is still hampered by “weak curriculum design” and a lack of specialist staff, Ofsted’s chief inspector has warned – in a new report warning reading is “still not given sufficient priority”.

Despite warnings last year of “serious systemic challenges, as well as plenty of poor practice”, HMI Prisons chief inspector, Charlie Taylor said in this year’s follow-up report that “things have not improved at anything like the rate that Ofsted and HMIP would have expected”.

Inspectors found that staff shortages are still a major problem, that the curriculum had not been improved enough and that the prisoners in most need of reading support were least supported to develop good skills.

While she was “pleased” to see nearly all prisons had “acknowledged the importance of reading”, Ofsted chief inspector Amanda Spielman said “there is more work to do to meet the recommendations we made last year” around teacher provision, staff training and assessment.

In total, HMIP and Ofsted assessed 24 prisons for their progress.

‘Not given sufficient priority’

Last year the report warned many staff did not know how to teach reading, and that a lot of the work was left to voluntary organisations or enthusiastic staff members.

In this year’s follow-up report, Spielman warned staff shortages “still limit the quality of reading education in most prisons”.

At 15 of the prisons visited by Ofsted and HMIP, a shortage of qualified English teachers made it more difficult to teach reading.

“Poor teaching” and a lack of access to education means that prisoners often did not practice their reading skills. Very few of the teachers in prisons were trained to teach using systematic synthetic phonics, the report added.

The lack of training meant that some of the teachers assumed if a prisoner could answer a question on a text correctly, that they could read and understand the whole text.

“Because of continuing weaknesses in curriculum design and teaching, there has not yet been a significant improvement in prisoners’ reading skills,” the report said.

Reading, the report found, is “still not given sufficient priority”.

Difficult to navigate ‘basic aspects of life’

Inspectors found that the prisoners in most need of support were the least well supported to develop good reading skills.

Once in reading education, Ofsted and HMIP found most leaders “neither monitored the progress prisoners made nor intervened when prisoners made slow progress”.

While “a few prisons used […] diagnostic assessments of prisoners” to assess their ability on entry to the education steam, most of those projects were relatively new meaning it was too early to know if they worked.

Following last year’s report, prisons were mandated to have a reading strategy. But many of those are “generic” and created by the education provider without input from prison leaders. 

Inspectors said they were less confident prisoners would make progress in those prisons, in comparison to those where the governor had developed the reading programme with the provider.

Prison leaders also do not have an “agreed approach” to written communication or instructions to make prison life easier for those with learning needs. That meant that prisoners who were still learning to read “find it difficult to navigate basic aspects of prison life, such as ordering food and completing canteen sheets”.

Severe impact on prisoners

Inspectors added one new criticism in this report to those laid out last year – that prison leaders had been “slow” to meet the reading needs of prisoners learning English as a second language.

They warned prisons “rarely” provide ESOL classes and that teachers often have “little or no expertise” in ESOL.

The lack of support from prison leaders meant that too many ESOL prisoners were forced to rely on other prisoners for support when working – because they could not understand the work instructions.

Pandemic-induced online learning was ‘greatest barrier’ for T Level and transition students

Reduced in-person teaching derived from pandemic restrictions was the biggest barrier for a large proportion of learners undergoing the T Level Transition Programme (TLTP) and T Levels, a new survey has revealed.

While the first cohort of learners on the TLTP and T Levels 2020/21 programme reported a generally positive experience, the limit to in-person teaching was linked to lower satisfaction in learners.

The findings come from a new technical education learner survey, published today, where 2,207 learners from the 2020/21 TLTP and T Levels programmes were surveyed for their views on the scheme.

In their first year, the two programmes were delivered by 43 providers across England in three technical routes: Education and Childcare, Construction and Digital.  

One of the major findings from the survey was 37 per cent of T Levels learners said not receiving enough in-person teaching was “the greatest barrier” to their studies. These learners received a varying blend of in-person and online teaching due to pandemic restrictions.

Learners on education and childcare, and construction courses found the lack of in-person teaching a bigger barrier (41 per cent and 38 per cent respectively) than those in digital courses (31 per cent).

Those doing the T Level transition programme reported similar views, with 32 per cent saying it was the biggest drawback to learning. 

Over one quarter (29 per cent) of T Level learners had not experienced any barriers to learning.

Most learners who had undertaken work experience or an industry placement were satisfied with their experience, despite this cohort coming mainly from education and childcare courses, and the childcare sector being one of the first sectors to open after the first Covid-19 lockdown in 2020.

“Covid restrictions were likely to have impacted on learners’ access to industry placements – a crucial element of the technical programmes – and may partly explain some differences between subjects in perceived outcomes from courses,” the report said.

Aside from pandemic-related challenges, the report added that the difficulty of the T Levels courses had been challenging for most learners. “Those taught mainly online were more likely to find it ‘very challenging’,” it added.

However, learners with low prior academic attainment and special educational needs found it more challenging than their peers.

“The relaxing of Covid-19 restrictions are likely to lead to more learners having the opportunity to complete work experience and industrial placements and learners being taught more of their programme in-person,” concluded the report authors NatCen Social Research and National Foundation for Educational Research.

“This is likely to lead firstly to higher satisfaction with the work experience and industry placement elements of the programmes compared to the 2020 to 2021 academic year and, secondly, to fewer learners reporting remote teaching being a barrier to their learning,” they added.

Further study

The survey results found over half (53%) of T Level learners intended to continue their studies following the technical programme, with nearly one-third planning to go to university. A larger proportion (40%) of learners in Education and Childcare compared to learners in Digital (26%) and Construction (17%) identified going to university as their next step.

Meanwhile over a third (37%) of TLTP learners said at the start of the programme that they planned to continue to a T Level at the end of the course. By the end of the course, around a third (34%) had decided not to do a T Level, leaving just under a third (29%) who were not sure whether they would or not.

Digital learners were more likely to be intending to move to a T Level than other learners (48% compared to 36% of Construction and 29% of Education and Childcare learners).

Ofqual and DfE studying ‘feasibility’ of ‘fully digital’ exams

The exams regulator is undertaking a feasibility study alongside government on “what it would take” to make GCSEs and A-levels exams “fully digital”.

Dr Jo Saxton, Ofqual’s chief regulator, told the House of Lords it was important they set “guardrails” so students can benefit from technological innovation in a fair way.

With the Department for Education, they are currently doing a feasibility study on “what it would take” for high stakes assessments – like GCSEs and A-levels – to be “fully digital” and delivered on screen, Saxton said.

Speaking at the education for 11–16 year olds committee, Saxton added: “There are huge opportunities, but we’ve got to make sure that we don’t throw any babies out with the bathwater.”

The regulator pledged in its corporate plan last year to support exam boards to use “innovative practice and technology”.

Some exam boards are already piloting on-screen assessment, but research by AQA last year found teachers’ biggest barrier to digital exams was a lack of infrastructure.

Saxton, a former academy trust boss, said the feasibility study was looking “at things like the national infrastructure” and the “potential for digital and modern technologies to do things like provide additional quality assurance around matters like marking”.

But there are other countries that went entirely online with their national assessments “very quickly” and there have been “significant issues” with that.

Ofqual also previously promised to look into the use of adaptive testing – a computerised test that adapts to the students’ ability – and whether it could be a possible replacement for tiering in certain GCSEs.

Saxton told Lords one difficulty is that adaptive testing is “incredibly resource intensive to develop, you need millions of questions for them to be able to be not predictable so young people aren’t able to cheat”.

“It’s a thing personally I care a lot about but I think we’re some years away from being able to deliver that.”

However Sir Ian Bauckham, Ofqual chair, said artificial intelligence could help with the resource issue, adding: “That’s an exciting potential future area.”

The apprenticeship levy cannot sit in isolation of place-based need

A Policy Exchange report published in May called for widescale changes to the skills funding system; and an open letter sent by several major employer representative bodies back in February described the apprenticeship levy as a ‘£3.5 billion mistake’. The Labour Party has recently announced that it would transform the apprenticeship levy into a ‘Growth and Skills Levy’.

While we do need to reflect on how we address weaknesses in the current approach to work-based education, we should also pause to celebrate the fact that since the apprenticeship levy came into effect in 2017 it has generated funding from business to support more than 1.75 million apprenticeship starts. This includes over 400,000 higher and degree apprenticeships. The department for education claim that, in England, 99.6 per cent of their ring-fenced apprenticeship budget (£2.455 billion) was spent on training last year, with less than 0.5 per cent of funding returned to the treasury.

With this in mind, I recently hosted a roundtable on the future of the apprenticeship levy with representatives from think tanks, professional bodies, representative bodies and Rt Hon The Lord Blunkett, who produced the Labour Party’s recent Council of Skills Advisors’ Report. Although there was much nuance to the discussion around the table, and a usual focus on transparency and bureaucracy with respect to the levy’s allocation, a key theme that developed was around the importance of positioning the levy within a wider, place-based skills framework.

The apprenticeship levy was introduced to help address the market failure of under-investment in training by UK employers (currently less than half the EU average). However, it has arguably had limited impact in this regard, given that only 23 per cent of employers were offering apprenticeships in 2021 and over one-third of employers (39 per cent) have provided no skills development for their workforce during the past year.

There is a risk that our skills funding is creating a ‘welfare state mentality’ for employers. With that in mind, the government perhaps needs to consider using tax incentives or other funding levers to complement the levy in ways that encourage more employers to take ownership of this agenda,  assessing their own future skills needs and investing in training, be that through apprenticeships or otherwise.

The levy is subject to the individual decisions of 17,000 employers

If skills development is to expand in a sustainable way, then as well as funding levers, we will need a clear skills strategy at governmental level to identify areas of skills deficit and focus on core growth opportunities like green skills, digital, engineering, biology and healthcare. The current lack of strategic oversight of how the levy is spent means it is currently subject to the individual decisions of 17,000 separate employers. While these employers will make the best decisions for their businesses, their choices will not necessarily align with wider government and societal priorities.

The identification of national priorities would help improve investment in infrastructure at a local level. That could be facilitated through the shared prosperity fund, for example, but linked to investment in local skills needs by local business beneficiaries. Without a clear strategy it is difficult to ensure work is joined up across different government departments and to understand not only where we should focus but what investment is needed for success.

If government provided a clear strategy, it could assess the funding needed to tackle shortfalls in level 2 and 3 skills. Currently, these shortfalls are unlikely to be addressed by business but these must be dealt with if we are not to fail 50 per cent of our young people. A dedicated fund to promote opportunities aligned to apprenticeships and training for learners from lower socioeconomic backgrounds could help to transform the skills pipeline as we develop our aspiration to be a knowledge-led economy.

This must be part of a clear skills strategy that helps support appropriately funded adult education through developed funding for core level 2 and 3. This plan must also incentivise employers to engage in skills development and align government departments to enable place-based focus within a national framework.

Supporting us must start with understanding who we are and what we need

The Student Commission on Racial Justice will soon publish its 2023 Manifesto for Action. Over five weeks, its commissioners will set out its five key priorities and recommendations exclusively for FE Week.

I am 21 years old and I study health and social care. Safety and wellbeing are at the heart of what I am learning, and I’m pleased that they are also at the heart of the work the student commission on racial justice has been doing.

Among the commission’s five priorities, we focused part of our peer research on exploring racial justice in relations to support, safety and wellbeing. Colleges have a reputation for doing a great job when it comes to student services, including mental health provision and learning support. However, our findings suggest that said support may not be as accessible to all students as once thought.

Many students in our research said they feel well supported, but students from minoritised ethnic groups felt less confident that they would receive adequate mental health support if they sought it. Equally, while most students feel safe in their colleges, students from minoritised ethnic groups report being targeted by security staff because of their ethnicity.

Some students spoke positively about the fact that their college has a multi-faith facility, yet many stated that theirs is not well advertised and doesn’t offer adequate space. Moreover, many say that staff aren’t supportive of their students’ use of the facility, and a significant number did not even know it existed.

This is clearly not acceptable. Students and teachers are learning and working in a public setting. Everyone must understand that each of us is unique, and that with different people come different needs. Not having enough knowledge is not necessarily a problem, but it is certainly not an excuse. No one should be judging anyone else based on their appearance or behaviour, and this applies as much to racist stereotyping from security staff as it does to support staff who may not provide the same support to minority students, assuming they don’t need it.

Students we spoke to told us a lot about being questioned by teachers during Ramadan when they needed to pray, being asked to “just do it later” or told to “do that on your own time”. This is when lack of knowledge does become a problem. If members of staff don’t understand the needs of their students, how can they possibly offer the best support?

Lack of knowledge is not necessarily a problem, but it is certainly not an excuse

We are encouraged to ask questions when we don’t understand. The same applies to adults. Most people love to be asked questions about their cultures and religions, particularly if it is friendly, respectful and genuine.

Students appreciate the support they receive from their education institutions, particularly when these take steps to accommodate their religious and cultural practices. A well-advertised, suitable and accessible multi-faith space, reasonable adjustments for Ramadan, and seizing opportunities to grow community understanding go a long way towards that.  

As a commission, we think that colleges need to work more closely with their student body to understand their individual needs when it comes to support. We also think colleges need to ensure that their staff get to know and understand their students – who they are as individuals, and why they need what they need, whether that is Halal food or time and space for prayer. Christmas is a given. In fact, most students have no choice but to partake in the festivities, including a mandatory two weeks off college. Ramadan, Eid, Diwali, Lunar New Year matter equally to many students.

To build on the quality of support colleges offer, we recommend creating and training a cohort of student ambassadors who can represent the student body in an authentic way. They can advise you of the needs of their peers. They can help to design and deliver unconscious bias training to ensure that no student is treated unfairly, targeted, or dismissed.

We also recommend that colleges improve their communication so that students clearly understand what support is available and know how to raise concerns or suggestions if they do not feel their needs are being met or are experiencing unfair treatment.

After all, supporting us to succeed starts with understanding who we are, what we need, and celebrating what makes us unique.