Education secretary Gillian Keegan faced her first education committee grilling today.
She answered questions about apprenticeship quality, the possibility of teaching apprenticeships, and plans for a new British Baccalaureate.
Here’s what we learned
‘Pragmatic’ on a British Baccalaureate
In October, The Times reported that prime minister Rishi Sunak was keen on introducing a British Baccalaureate as part of plans to reform the education system.
But no further details have been released.
Keegan suggested today that with only another two years of this parliament, the baccalaureate may not be coming imminently, despite being open to the idea.
“We have to figure out where we are as well because we have got two years possibly left, so throwing everything up in the air is not as good idea either. We need to have an open pragmatic mind,” she said.
She did however confirm that discussions were focused a lot around youngsters studying maths up to the age of 18, one of the key proposals within the British Baccalaureate.
Schools bill scrapped – so where does that leave FE teacher misconduct powers?
Keegan confirmed the schools bill would not progress in its current form, but said certain elements would be prioritised as the government considers its legislative programme.
That may not seem like much relevance to the further education sector, but one element within the bill was a proposal for teachers at further education colleges and independent training providers to be covered by teacher misconduct regulations.
In April, it emerged that the Department for Education intended to extend the Teacher Regulation Agency’s powers to post-16 education and training “when a suitable legislative opportunity becomes available”.
The scrapping of the remainder of the schools bill raises questions over whether that will now happen.
Following the hearing, the DfE told FE Week it “remains committed” to measures “improvements in teacher regulation”, which will still be “progressed when the legislative timetable allows”.
Teaching apprenticeships back on the table
While falling short of a firm commitment, Keegan confirmed she had asked her department to investigate potential apprenticeship routes for undergraduates to get into teaching.
A postgraduate teaching apprenticeship currently exists, but there has little success to date on an undergraduate pathway.
“I am always keen to look at what more we can do, and I want them to look maybe at an apprenticeship for undergraduates, maths and physics teaching apprenticeships, I have asked the department to look into that,” she said.
“Is that something that we could develop, would that broaden the pipeline? Would that allow people who had maybe had a career in engineering and might want to teach as a second career, or indeed want to earn and learn at the same time and avoid the student debt and loan etc?”
In addition, education committee chair Robin Walker urged the department to liaise with government colleagues on potentially bringing former armed forces personnel into retraining as teachers, to which Keegan said “that could indeed be an apprenticeship model”.
Apprenticeship achievement rate target remains
Back in June, then-skills minister Alex Burghart set a new “ambitious” target for an overall 67 per cent achievement rate on apprenticeship standards by 2025 – a 15 percentage point increase on the current rate.
While continuing to be an issue for the sector amid a 47 per cent drop out rate, fears were raised at the time that the target may be unachievable.
Keegan re-iterated that commitment to MPs after being questioned on the quality of apprenticeship training.
She said: “We want to see increased achievement rates, so 67 per cent by the end of 2024/25 is what we have set, and it is 52 per cent for standards at the moment.”
More IoT-style collaboration?
Keegan told MPs the government will push for more collaboration between further and higher education institutions in the future.
She referenced the Institutes of Technology model – tie-ups between businesses, universities and colleges to deliver higher technical qualifications.
The first 12 of those have already been established with a further nine now being formed following an announcement in December last year.
Keegan said those sorts of collaborations are “absolutely the way to go” but she was “not really hung up on the structures” of what those sorts of partnerships could look like.
She added: “They are really leading in key critical skills areas, and I think collaborations between universities, FE colleges and businesses is where a lot more effort is being made.”
More medical apprenticeships
The apprenticeship route is already well-established for many healthcare roles, but Keegan said she wanted “work in considering whether we can do a master’s degree, higher level apprenticeships also to facilitate more routes”.
Keegan said there were around 70 currently, and Health Education England in the summer announced a medical doctor apprenticeship route will be launched from September 2023 to make entry into the profession more accessible.
The very nature of further education is inclusive; we work to ensure that people from all backgrounds and of all abilities have the chance to gain qualifications and achieve their life and career ambitions.
This context makes for an ideal starting point when it comes to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) strategies. EDI is a corporate priority for most and nurturing a positive, supportive and inclusive workplace for all is high on every college’s agenda.
Over the past three years, my own college has been on a rapid EDI journey. We are starting to see some positive outcomes, including being awarded a level 4 accreditation by ‘Investing in Ethnicity’. This has put us in the top 25 employers, recognising our commitment to this agenda.
But what does a successful EDI strategy look like and how can it be implemented to achieve maximum impact? We know from our own experience that change doesn’t happen overnight and that EDI is very much a journey. Here are some of our key learnings:
Encouraging disclosure
It is essential that colleges know their starting points. Encouraging staff and students to disclose details about their gender, mental health, disabilities, religion, ethnicity and so on is vital to build up an accurate picture. Fully analysing this data and all its intersectional ties will enable appropriate actions to be taken.
Encouraging and enabling this disclosure is key. Everyone needs to feel they will be supported and certainly not discriminated against when providing such sensitive data.
Targeted interventions
High and accurate disclosure rates will ensure EDI action plans can be effectively targeted, achieving much greater impact at a faster pace.
For staff, it is important to compare demographic profile with the community a college serves. While we had a positive picture in term of overall representation, we saw evidence of under-representation of non-white staff at more senior levels.
This gave us the opportunity to take positive action, which included creation of a talent management programme to identify future leaders, as well as providing mentoring, coaching and other development opportunities.
Staff and student engagement
Any EDI strategy must be embedded across the entire college, at all levels. Training and awareness raising is key; providing context and understanding for staff and students.
We have introduced EDI champions to help with this engagement. Events including debates and workshops, are run to highlight black history month, LGBTQ+ history month and mental health awareness week.
Diverse workplaces bring an important mix of talent, experience and knowledge. It’s not box ticking – it’s about creating opportunity for all, which benefits every business. High quality training supports this, including for example, inclusive recruitment training for recruiting managers.
Embedding EDI in the curriculum
An inclusive curriculum is vital to take your strategy right to the front line.
If a group of students are not achieving, you need to understand the link with EDI criteria. By understanding specific barriers and challenges, positive action can be taken, such as extra tutorials and targeted intervention programmes.
Using this approach, we have narrowed achievement gaps for some student groups over the last two years – for example, looked-after children and young care leavers (by 6.7 per cent) and Black African adult students (by 2.2 per cent).
However, gaps continue to widen for others, including students of black/white dual heritage and those with mental health conditions. This is undoubtedly one of the most challenging areas we face and is a key focus for us going forward.
External partnerships
Working in collaboration with partners to exchange best practice and get an external lens is an essential part of EDI development. The Black FE Leadership Group’s 10-point plan has been central to our work, together with Stonewall’s support with our LGBTQ+ initiatives and Investors in Ethnicity’s help to benchmark our EDI practices.
EDI must be part and parcel of everyday college life. It is not a ‘tag on’. It must be embedded into everything, with everyone understanding their own role within it.
Getting this right takes time but will ultimately benefit the whole organisation and its wider community.
In 2009, the Climate Change Act made history. We were the first country to set out in law the path to achieving net zero by 2050. The department of energy and climate change (DECC) was also the first of its kind at the time. Thirteen years on, the abiding message from COP27 is that we need to redouble our efforts. Legally binding targets have provided certainty about the scale of the change we need to make to go green, and we know training will be central to that transition.
In 2009, we were part of the small fuel poverty review team that first developed the warm home discount and energy company obligation which have proved vital in supporting the most vulnerable households through the current cost-of-living crisis. The latter has also driven increasing demand for retrofitting homes with new insulation and heating.
Now at IfATE, we are pleased to be able to support retrofit from the supply side too. Employers tell us they need retrofit skills in the workforce. We are therefore prioritising retrofit skills within the standards that underpin apprenticeships and technical qualifications, convening employers and industry experts at pace to update current standards and developing a new occupational standard, the ‘Retrofit Co-ordinator’.
But retrofit is just one of many new and emerging skills needed to achieve the transition to net zero.
The Government has set an ambition for two million green jobs by 2030. There are already over 420,000 jobs in low-carbon businesses and their supply chains (with an estimated turnover of £41.2 billion in 2020), but that leaves huge scope for further growth.
In addition, 80 per cent of the 2030 workforce is already in work. So, reaching net zero by 2050 will require government and industry to work together fast on training and retraining.
Sustainable supply of green skills
Our green advisory panel of expert employers has made good progress with transforming apprenticeships and technical education. Over the past year, they have been testing whether apprenticeships meet green jobs task force recommendations and where we need to develop new standards.
Their work has found that around 100 standards contribute to climate change and environmental goals, with many more up for revision to make them greener. This includes:
upgrades to existing apprenticeships, for example to train aspiring electricians to install and maintain domestic heat pumps, solar panels and electric vehicle charging points
specialist occupations, like ecologist and countryside ranger
apprenticeships designed to help any businesses improve their impact
We have also built partnerships to better understand the green skills required for the future workforce. Apprenticeships and technical qualifications must provide businesses with employees who can use and apply these new skills and technologies and be agents of change within their organisations.
Sustained demand from trainees
The other crucial part of the puzzle is capitalising on demand from younger people. Learning and Work Insitute research found that 80 per cent of them consider it important that they work for an organisation committed to tackling climate change.
Learning green skills also makes financial sense; individuals employed in green industries earn approximately 7 per cent more than those working in non-green industries.
To harness this enthusiasm and earning potential, government and education settings must do a better job of highlighting and promoting green training opportunities. To make that much easier, IfATE is developing interactive new occupational maps to show which career pathways help tackle climate change and what apprenticeships and technical qualifications at all skills levels support people into them.
So that’s the plan. Trace the impact of the net zero targets down to the sectors where change is needed, engage employers to discuss the roles and skills that will enable a successful transition, and work at pace to translate that into world-class apprenticeships and technical education, promoted brilliantly to everyone.
We have come a long way since 2009, but there is a long road ahead. We’ve led the way before, and with a focus on workforce training we can keep leading the world to a sustainable future.
Oldham College recently won the nasen award for teacher development in digital accessibility, but the real winners are our students. We have seen first-hand the benefits that assistive technology (AT) can bring: Students are more confident and empowered, accessing learning with the skills they need to thrive in and outside the college gates. And yet, I find myself teaching in one of the few colleges that offers a range of AT to all staff and students.
Some teachers find the technology daunting and believe it will be too hard to incorporate. Many leadership teams feel it is too expensive, especially with continuously squeezed budgets. Of course, it isn’t something that can be embedded successfully and work for all overnight. And yes, the technology isn’t overly cheap. But with time, students will reap the rewards.
If you are thinking of investing in AT software, or planning to use the built-in accessibility features on your current devices, here are five considerations that have been key to incorporating more assistive tools within our classrooms.
Know your options
There are so many devices out there, so it’s important that you and your leadership team invest in the right tools for you and your students. You will find many reviews online and feedback in teacher forums, but our students heavily influence our decisions too.
Most AT providers will allow you to trial their software and equipment, so give your students time to explore and feed back their own opinions. This will help you build an even more solid case for use of funds in the budget. Our students have helped us choose software to support memory recall and creating mind maps and – something I feel has particularly helped many students – text-to-speech software that can read text aloud to students online or in documents.
Let your learners explore
One of the biggest barriers to students embracing AT is confidence, so it’s vital to have the time and space for them to try out what’s available. Give students total access to the various AT tools and let them explore their learning potential.
I also find taking the time to listen to parents and carers is hugely beneficial to make sure they are aware of the AT being trialled, its potential benefits, and to help plan any interventions.
AT doesn’t have to mean new devices
Most computers and laptops have built-in accessibility tools, so check what devices you have and see what tools there are in their settings options. Chromebooks have text-to-speech, dictation and display- and screen-changing options in their settings menu. iPads have assistive touch and guided access, while Microsoft Office has ‘Immersive Reader’ (a free tool that helps improve reading) as well as the dictation tool. If your class uses Google Docs, all your students will have access to dictation there too.
Introduce monthly AT sessions
It’s important that every teacher is on board and understands and appreciates what is available to them in their classroom. We have monthly sessions where we go through any AT that is currently being trialled as wells as any new AT that has been incorporated and feed back on how we and our students have found working with it in class. This is a great way to learn from one another.
Maintain ongoing training
Technology is constantly evolving so it’s important to keep up to date with what is available or any updates to the technology you already have in place. I’m always on the lookout for CPD on what technology is out there and working for others to help improve my general knowledge and that of my fellow teachers.
Having access to AT has made many of our learners more determined and ambitious and it’s wonderful to see them grow. I know I am extremely lucky to work for a college that invests so heavily in AT, but by exploring the tools you already have within your devices, and with some research and trials on external AT, your students could be reaping the benefits before you know it.
A college for disadvantaged adults has officially been downgraded to ‘inadequate’ after Ofsted found poor safeguarding practices that fails to protect learners.
Ruskin College fell two grades from ‘good’ in a report published today. This was the college’s first inspection since being taken over by the University of West London (UWL) in August 2021 following a turbulent period.
Ofsted’s report includes many positives about students’ experience and the delivery of teaching.
But, as FE Week reported last month, it was ineffective safeguarding arrangements which caused the college to be hit with Ofsted’s lowest possible grade.
Ofsted’s report said the college’s leaders are “unable to identify and protect learners who may be at risk or need help”. Leaders “do not know about significant personal challenges that some vulnerable adults faced while in their care” and are “unable to help staff to keep these learners safe”.
Leaders acknowledge that they have failed to follow their internal safeguarding procedures, for example by not ensuring that staff are safe to work with vulnerable adults while waiting for Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks.
Staff do not know how to identify and report safeguarding concerns because they have not completed the relevant training. As a result, staff develop their own individualised responses when vulnerable adults disclose concerns or issues and leaders are unaware of the advice given.
Today’s report makes Ruskin College the only “institute for adult learning” – as classified by Ofsted – to hold an ‘inadequate’ grade.
Ofsted acknowledged that Ruskin College has undergone a period of “significant change” since being taken over by UWL, adding that due to the newness of many of the organisational structures, leaders have “not yet fully implemented a system of governance and oversight which provides effective challenge to managers around quality assurance”.
A UWL spokesperson said: “While we are naturally disappointed with Ofsted’s findings in respect of the college’s safeguarding processes, we acknowledge and accept that improvements are required in this area. We are committed to making these improvements as a matter of priority as we work to ensure the highest standards in all aspects of the college’s performance.
“The ‘good’ assessment received in the other three areas of the report, after only a year under new ownership, supports our confidence that our objectives for the college are achievable.”
Oxford-based Ruskin College, founded in 1899, designs its courses for local residents furthest from the labour market, those who are socially isolated and those seeking a second chance at education.
Its offer includes Access to HE diplomas, English for speakers of other languages courses, and trade union courses accredited by the TUC.
The college has been subject to a financial notice to improve from the Department for Education since 2014. The notice was reissued in November 2020 when the Department for Education placed the college in supervised status following a report by then-FE Commissioner Richard Atkins which said the provider faced an “uncertain future” due to deteriorating finances caused by falling enrolments.
The Education and Skills Funding Agency also clawed back more than £5 million, an issue which led to the firing of former principal Paul Di Felice, and the college was told to find a strong merger partner to secure its future.
At the time of Ofsted’s inspection, there were 374 learners enrolled.
The watchdog found that learners are “very positive” about their experience at Ruskin College which, for many, is a “much-welcomed second chance at education”.
Learners “value the support they receive from staff and peers, and the knowledge and experience of their tutors, which make lessons interesting and informative”.
Leaders were praised for designing an “inclusive and welcoming” curriculum while tutors “prepare learners well to be active citizens in modern Britain”.
UWL’s spokesperson said: “Overall, we have been pleased with the considerable progress which has been made since UWL’s acquisition of Ruskin College to secure its future last year, and in particular we were delighted with the recent positive report from the FE Commissioner – something we are looking to mirror with Ofsted at the earliest opportunity.”
Last week, the very first national tutoring summit took place in London. A little over two years on from the introduction of the National Tutoring Programme (NTP), this inaugural event brought together schools, tuition partners, research organisations, and think tanks to explore the power and potential of small-group and one-to-one tuition.
As with all good conferences, I left with a renewed sense of purpose, buzzing with new ideas, and keen to get started with new projects. But I also have a big question: what is happening in further education?
We know that tuition can have a highly positive impact on learning and progress, particularly for learners from disadvantaged backgrounds. According to the EEF, small group tuition can provide an additional 4 months’ progress while one-to-one tuition can provide an additional 5 months’ progress. It is an invaluable tool for supporting learners with low prior attainment or who are struggling with particular topics.
A key focus of the Summit was how schools, often working with tuition partners, might draw on recent studies into tuition best-practice to ensure that learners derive maximum benefit from the sessions. Ofsted, the EEF, and the NFER have all highlighted the value of accurate assessment of student needs, sessions targeted at specific gaps in knowledge and skills, and close working relationships between tutors and teachers.
Central to the discussions of the research underpinning our developing knowledge of effective tutoring was an emphasis on the value of micro-research. While macro-studies provide evidence of impact at scale, of the kind that is useful for ministers and policy makers, what practitioners often need are micro-studies – the kind generated through peer discussions and communities of practice that reveal precisely what approaches and techniques have worked in particular settings and contexts. There were calls for far more of this kind of research.
Which providers are doing what, with whom, and how?
And this is where my question comes in. What, exactly, is happening in further education? A year after the NTP was introduced, the DfE created the tuition fund to ensure that 16- to 19-year-old learners can also benefit from small group and one-to-one tuition. As a sector that supports a high proportion of learners from disadvantaged backgrounds and/or with special educational needs and disabilities, it makes sense that further education should be deploying a strategy identified as conveying particular benefits to those groups.
We know that effective tuition is happening in the further education sector. Ofsted has recently published phase one of its review of 16-19 provision, highlighting the value of tuition that is aligned to the wider curriculum and targeted at gaps in learners’ knowledge.
Working within a further education tuition partner, I know that our own work with colleges has helped to support student achievement in English and maths GCSE resists, with students who attended 12 tuition sessions being almost twice as likely to secure their grade 4. But it would now be good to hear far more about this provision: Which providers are doing what, with which students, and how are they doing it?
Within the national conversations about tutoring there is plenty of room for voices from further education that would help us to better understand what is happening – on both the macro and the micro levels. What do we know about the deployment of small-group tuition to support English and maths, vocational studies, personal development, adult learners, and apprentices? What are our communities of practice uncovering that might be shared and magnified? Which organisations are conducting the macro-studies needed to explore the widespread impact of tuition on post-16 learners?
While tuition, with all the benefits it conveys to the learners who need them most, remains a subject of national and political interest, how can we work together to ensure that further education is at the heart of the discussion?
The fact that the answers to these questions are not readily available is telling. In light of the introduction of the DfE’s new tutoring advisory group, it’s time that the sector and its policy makers grasped the opportunities to better our understanding – and young people’s educational outcomes.
Effective governance is not easy, and neither is it well understood. Governance, however, is fundamental to the viability of any organisation. It determines the effectiveness of the functions that underpin the very purpose of that organisation, covers how decisions are made and by whom, how those decision makers report the process and how they are held accountable. Governance requires that all stakeholders are considered and ultimately determines the very viability of a college.
The Covid pandemic tested colleges’ decision-making and makes for an interesting case study. Once it was upon us, colleges acquitted themselves well in crisis. But what about readiness?
When it comes to risk management, the government’s advice to the sector is clear about how a policy should be formulated, and adds that “maintaining an up-to-date business continuity plan is a funding requirement”.
Yet some basic research on 30 college websites chosen at random, looking at their governance and policies pages, returned not a single business continuity plan. I found one Covid emergency closure plan. If I cannot find it, as a parent, student or employee, then that decision making is fundamentally neither transparent nor accountable.
The focus of governing boards was primarily designed to be on the financial and educational requirements of legislative and regulatory frameworks set by government. They also address the wider safeguarding and welfare needs of their staff and students. But the dearth of a wider perspective is symptomatic of an inward-looking and reactionary governance culture.
The governance inertia identified in John Spindler’s recent article in these pages can be partly attributed to the scope of the board’s focus and make up. Notwithstanding the members who come from staff, students and local businesses, if the focus is on the immediate environment in which the college operates, then wider horizon scanning is unlikely to feature in the board’s analysis. This misses threats (including ones that would be obvious to a risk management professional) as well as opportunities and reduces the possibility of innovation, disruptive evolution and regeneration.
30 college websites returned not a single business continuity plan
Horizon scanning is a recognised function within commercial operations, embedded in marketing and strategy planning, and threat analysis is part of financial and safety decision-making processes. Innovation is integral to commercial survival.
Political turbulence like this year’s ins and outs at the department for education doesn’t help with either horizon scanning or threat analysis, but governance of risk management has been developing rapidly precisely because of the VUCAH (Volatile Uncertain Chaotic Ambiguous Hyperconnected) period we live in.
Corporate social responsibility is merging with the health and safety function and is evolving into enterprise risk management, which itself is becoming an integral aspect of strategy development. Frameworks and analytical tools to those ends are continuously becoming more sophisticated.
Management and leadership, culture and accountability are having to evolve to create the human behaviours necessary to function in this environment. ‘Agile leadership’ is maturing into an approach that accommodates devolved decision making while assuring stability and consistency of purpose. Executive education is reflecting this change.
A wider strategic perspective and the implementation of more comprehensive risk management should be an integral function of colleges’ governing boards. The wider benefits will be felt in the quality of planning, of curriculum design and delivery and, ultimately, by the students.
Here are six simple questions to start the process:
Which are the five most significant risks to the viability of your College?
Which three events in the last three years had the largest negative impact on the viability of your College?
Of those three, which of them had been foreseen 5 years ago?
Do you have a Business Continuity Plan that covers the impact of the risks in Boxes 1 and 2?
How would rate your College’s current Risk Management system?
Does the Board have a stated Risk Appetite?
The UK is relying on the FE sector to deliver its skilled workforce. Its governing boards must be effective, innovative and constantly aware.
Essential skills should be a vital component of the government’s ambitions for adult skills, but a slew of recent data points to continued poor performance when it comes to addressing adult literacy, numeracy and other essential skills needs, including English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL).
Last week, the department for education published further education and skills data showing that adult participation in English and maths has yet to recover to 2018/19 pre-pandemic levels. Over-19s’ English participation has fallen from 360,270 in 2018/19 to 239,160 in 2021/22, a decrease of 34 per cent since the pre-pandemic period. And in maths, adult participation has fallen from 364,000 in 2018/19 to 258,310 in 2021/22, a decrease of 29 per cent.
And of course, this takes place in the wider historical context of sharply declining participation in English and maths over the past decade. Our recent report, Getting the Basics Right, estimates that on current trends it would take 20 years to tackle literacy and numeracy needs.
The outlook on ESOL is slightly different. Alongside DfE data, the new 2021 census data on English language proficiency released this week helps to put ESOL participation in context.
DfE data show that overall adult participation in ESOL has recovered to pre-pandemic levels, rising by 3 per cent from 120,490 in 2018/19 to 123,730 in 2021/22. The figures highlight some regional variation; In the East Midlands, West Midlands, East of England and the South East, participation remains below 2018/19 levels, despite some signs of recovery.
Despite the slight improvement in participation, the 2021 census reveals significant unmet need for ESOL provision. 1,040,000 adults in England and Wales say they can’t speak English well or at all. That’s 20 per cent of all adults whose main language is not English (or Welsh in Wales), little changed on ten years ago though population growth means it’s an extra 177,000 people. 160,500 people say they can’t speak English at all, up from 137,500 in 2011.
At current levels of ESOL participation, it would take 25 years to address need
Given the current level of participation in ESOL, this means it would take around 25 years to address English language learning needs in England, assuming people need on average three years of ESOL provision to improve their English language proficiency.
As a result of Adult Education Budget devolution, we are starting to see changes in ESOL policy in devolved areas, aimed at reducing barriers to participation and increasing flexibility for providers to deliver in ways that meet local needs. Initiatives in devolved areas have included changing the low-income threshold so that more learners are eligible for fully funded ESOL, removing other eligibility restrictions and funding ESOL provision in the workplace.
All of these developments are welcome, though it will be important to monitor and evaluate their impact so that lessons learned can be applied in other areas of the country and in non-devolved areas and avoid a postcode lottery in terms of ESOL support.
English language skills underpin the employment prospects, integration and wellbeing of new arrivals. The chancellor’s autumn statement recognised that the UK underperforms on basic skills compared with similar countries. But while it’s clear we need more urgent action to boost English language provision alongside other essential skills such as literacy, numeracy and digital, no new investment was announced.
The government points to wider investment in adult skills and the £560 million Multiply programme as evidence of its commitment. The support for adult numeracy is welcome, and joined up, targeted Multiply delivery could well bring benefits to learners with literacy and ESOL needs too.
Looking more broadly across the adult skills landscape, support with essential English, maths and ESOL skills is key to helping adults access and progress into provision at level 3 and above, supporting upskilling and re-training in a changing labour market.
There is a real risk that by failing to address essential skills needs, including literacy and ESOL as well as numeracy, the government’s ambitions for a high-skill, high-wage economy are seriously undermined.
From classroom-to-career; the record of colleges sponsoring multi-academy trusts is a mixed one. Jessica Hill investigates if there is a secret to their success, and why some have fallen by the wayside.
While some see colleges and schools as uncomfortable bed partners, others claim there are profound benefits to be reaped for students when a multi-academy trust (MAT) is sponsored by a college which is actively engaged in the running of its schools.
And our analysis shows the college-led trust model is slowly gaining traction in some areas. But the path along the way is littered with failures, with one expert in the sector predicting around half of those remaining will disappear soon.
Although the Department for Education data appears to show 41 colleges have approval to sponsor trusts – up from 21 in 2018 – our analysis shows only 29 colleges appear to have schools under their remit.
But the number of schools being sponsored by colleges is up by 174 per cent in the last four years, from 57 to 156, with approved colleges now sponsoring more than five schools on average.
In some of those that failed, the college was one of several local sponsors. The Salford Academy Trust was set up in 2012 as a partnership between Salford Council, the University of Salford and Salford College, but in 2018 the schools were transferred to another trust after the regional schools commissioner cast doubt on the “ability and scale” of the trust to provide the level of support required. Its four schools had all received poor Ofsted ratings.
For others, the trusts folded because of poor reputations or because of their small size. Burton and South Derbyshire College’s education trust, set up in 2014, had one school – the Kingfisher Academy in Burton – which it gave up in 2018 a year after Ofsted rated it inadequate.
And Newbury College Academy Trust is set to merge next year with The Thames Learning Trust after it opened its only school, Highwood Copse Primary School, in 2021.
But some college and trust leaders claim there is a recipe for success in the model.
The ‘golden thread’
Some college-led trusts are believed to have failed because they were driven by financial motivations rather than conviction, and Sam Parrett, group chief executive and principal of London South East Colleges, thinks it essential for a college to only take on schools for the “right reasons”, with a “golden thread” permeating through the organisations that binds them together.
While the colleges’ London South East Academies Trust is on sound financial footing with a turnover of just over £30 million, the “very strong reasons” for setting it up in 2014 were not financial.
Parrett is frank about how the trust takes on schools that “no one else wants”, and that turning those struggling schools around requires a “deep personal commitment in our DNA”.
“There is a multi-academy trust dividend, and it’s greater when you pool services”
Since its launch in 2014, Parrett’s colleges’ trust has sponsored seven alternative provision and special schools and one mainstream school across Bromley, Bexley and most recently Surrey.
‘Swan’ schools
All its schools inspected by Ofsted since being taken over are good or outstanding.
But Parrett describes them as ‘swan’ schools – ‘schools without a name’ – when they first join the MAT.
“In most instances, the local authority and the DfE come to us and say, ‘we’d really like you to take on this school…but please change its name because its reputation so bad that we need it to have a fresh start’,” she explains.
“Our job is to make them glide and do all the beautiful things that a swan does above the water, whilst you’re paddling frantically underneath to keep it going.”
For Parrett, the golden thread has been around special educational needs provision. The trust’s journey started following the 2013 SEND reforms when the college’s local authorities of Bromley and Bexley became pilots for education, health and care plans, with the college as the transition to adult phase.
“We started working closely with all our special schools on ‘what does the local offer look like? And what does progression look like?’
“At that time, some of the schools were not performing very well in Ofsted terms. We had a long, hard debate at our governing body. We could see that through working with our schools where there were young people experiencing disadvantage excluded from mainstream schools who went on to do well in the college. We could see how together we could be much stronger.”
Joanne Harper
Technical education
For Activate Learning Group, which includes seven colleges, the golden thread is its focus on technical education – with four of its six schools being university technical colleges.
While for some colleges sponsoring a MAT simply requires them to appoint members to the trust’s board, for others the relationship is more involved.
Chief executive of Activate Learning Education Trust, Joanne Harper, explains how although the colleges and schools exist within two separate legal entities, they “share a learning philosophy – ‘brain motivation, emotion’ – right the way across, which really brings us closely together”.
College sponsored MATs also utilise their close connections with businesses in their area. In some cases that means bringing children onto college campuses to see courses on offer or take part in extracurricular activities.
Dudley Academies Trust, which has six schools sponsored by Dudley College of Technology, has gone a step further, with some school pupils working with college engineers on a project to build a two-seater aircraft which the trust’s chief executive Jo Higgins claims in two years’ time will be “flying over Dudley”.
Quality matters
Parrett plays an active role in the sector in supporting smaller MATs struggling with leadership and governance, and provides advice on how to merge.
With the government’s 2030 target for most MATs to be on a trajectory to have at least ten schools or 7,500 pupils, most college led trusts have an ambition to grow.
London South East Academies Trust is about to take on its ninth school in January, Michael Tippett special school in Lambeth, and is in discussion with two other special schools and two mainstream schools.
Parrett believes it is likely her trust will become larger in financial terms than its colleges within the next two to three years. But she admits that growing a MAT is difficult for a college to do if it “only wants good and outstanding schools to come to it, because there’s a lot of competition.
Why would a school join a college-run MAT, when they could join one [run by experts in] primary or secondary schools?”
The answer for some lies in the branding a well-regarded college can provide it.Higgins believes her organisation was “really helped in the early phases” by Dudley College’s outstanding Ofsted rating, which“ enhanced the character of the mat and boosted its branding”.
The trust has the green light from DfE for further growth focused on transforming struggling schools, and is “moving towards the government’s target of ten schools”.
Economies of scale
However, one of the biggest advantages for being part of a college-led trust is financial. Savings in back-office functions, for Parrett, means “more support in the front line”. For her, the efficiency savings have been “significant”. The group pooled its colleges’ and schools’ central services, with group directors of finance, IT, marketing and estates, with shared resources coming in handy particularly when a particular school requires extra help.
It also means greater purchasing power, with savings from a centralised MIS system coming in at “hundreds of thousands of pounds”.
Work is currently underway across the schools and colleges on a programme of resilience and wellbeing for staff.
And the group has a framework for training and development of staff from teaching assistants at level two and three apprenticeships through to level seven degree apprenticeships and PhDs for staff.
“We’ve got all of those wraparound things that cocoon and support a school to develop, that go far further than they would have in isolation,”
Parrett explains. “There is a MAT dividend, but that dividend is greater when you pool all of the support services of the college and the
school together to create that central team.”
Lines of accountability
Most college MATs are made up of two separate legal entities, a college corporation and the MAT itself under one group governance structure, with both bodies working together at committee level where they have shared interests educationally.
Parrett at Aspire with co-heads
“The more successful you are the more autonomous you are, the less successful you are, the more accountable you are”
Parrett describes her group as having “very structured formalized accountability frameworks and schemes of delegation”, with the schools given some independence to be embedded within their communities, because “the head teacher knows their local community better than I do”.
The shared education group then provides “infrastructure” to help “grow and support” the schools.
London South East uses the ‘earned autonomy model’ of intervention promoted by the Local Government Association. Parrett describes it as “we monitor you, we risk assess you, and the more successful you are the more autonomous you are, the less successful you are, the more accountable you are for what you’re doing”.
Parrett believes that structures in which “you haven’t got a single line of accountability” can prove problematic, and “might not be easy to grow from”.
Levels of delegation
In some other trust models, the college takes more of a back-seat role.
Harper is very clear that her MAT is “sponsored” by Activate’s seven colleges, which have “elements going into the governance of the MAT – but they don’t lead it”.
“We have grown that, so the sponsor only has a seat on the members board, so it’s an ‘eyes on, hands off’ approach. But we also talk to [college] curriculum leads about the courses running.
“Where it works is where there are clear levels of delegation and real understanding of partnership and trust.”
An Activate school. Credit: Karla Gowlett Photography
Smaller college sponsored MATs often have a single governing board. In 2015 Telford College sponsored TCAT MAT comprising of just one school, the Kickstart Academy, which operates from college owned premises. It is overseen by one board with a college appointed vice chair. The college is currently working towards transferring the academy to another trust.
Success is not guaranteed, though there are clear lessons to be learned here for colleges considering going down the MAT route.
Competition for post-16 places isn’t going away, but with colleges now finding themselves back in the public sector – with all the new associated challenges – the question now is, are college leaders up for the risk?
