Futureproof Your Provision with Mindful Education

Many further education colleges are facing difficulties in maintaining and growing income in the face of unprecedented challenges for the sector. Working in partnership with Mindful Education helps colleges to overcome some of the most significant obstacles currently faced by the FE sector:

  • Staffing shortages and the difficulty of recruiting tutors across professional qualifications
  • The threat of distance learning and the ongoing impact on college revenue
  • The need to meet employer and learner demand for hybrid apprenticeships

About Mindful Education

Mindful Education is an education technology company that specialises in blended learning, creating flexible courses and apprenticeships in accounting, management, law, business and human resources.Delivered in partnership with colleges, employers and training providers across the UK, Mindful Education’s innovative, media-rich courses are highly flexible, allowing learners to choose how, when and where they want to study.

Watch the video below to hear what colleges and employers say about working in partnership with Mindful Education

Staffing shortages and the difficulty recruiting tutors across professional qualifications

With a market size of more than £350m per year, professional apprenticeships in areas such as accounting, management, business, law and HR are an essential part of college provision. These professional skills are needed across all industries and regions of the UK, so they should form part of every college’s skills agenda.

At the same time, colleges face increasing challenges to recruit and retain staff to deliver professional qualifications. The AoC report, ‘College Staffing Challenges in 2022’, highlighted that there were 6,000+ total job vacancies in England’s colleges – the highest total in over twenty years.

Working in partnership with Mindful Education makes delivering professional qualifications easier for colleges. Our Online and On Campus blended learning model frees up staff time, enabling delivery teams to focus on the areas where they can make the most impact for learners.

Case Study: Westminster Adult Education Services (WAES) is an adult education college based in Central London. The service has traditionally focused on classroom-based learning, but has recently started to deliver blended learning courses to meet the demands of their students. They currently deliver AAT Level 2 and Level 3, using Mindful Education’s Online and On Campus delivery model.

Alison Muggridge, Assistant Principal Curriculum and Quality, said:

“Working with Mindful Education has been brilliant. We’ve found right from the offset they’ve been very open and flexible in the way that they approach things, they’ve provided a great deal of support for the tutors and the team when we first started onboarding. They’ve also helped out with some of our marketing as well in terms of branding the programmes, and outreach to get new learners on board.”

Samantha Carnegie, Accounting Tutor at WAES went on to say:

“The development and the support that I’ve had from Mindful Education exceeds all my expectations. Mindful are always there to support me, it’s online as well or I can request a face-to-face meeting. I’m having a wonderful time with it, it makes my life a lot easier!

Coming from where we used to have to build our own resources, have the lessons, get them ready, I would recommend the Online and On Campus approach because it gives the tutor and the learner an opportunity to develop and succeed.”

The threat of distance learning and the ongoing impact on college revenue

Further Education colleges lost £5m in revenue to distance learning providers (DLPs) for AAT courses alone between 2018-19 and 2020-21. There are many factors at play here, not least the marketing tactics of DLPs who offer low cost courses with attractive payment plans, plus the impact of improved online technology and 5G availability, and, of course, the COVID-19 pandemic. Colleges can counter this threat by offering high-quality blended learning provision, with focused marketing messages around strong achievement rates, the value of being part of a class that meets regularly with a college tutor, and the funding support available to learners.

Mindful Education partners with colleges to deliver award-winning blended learning courses and apprenticeships, helping our college partners to market effectively and ensure the right learner is on the right course.

Alison explains that working with Mindful Education has allowed WAES to increase student numbers by offering an attractive, flexible solution to learners in the local community:

“Mindful Education has enabled us to grow our provision to meet learner demand, and what we’ve seen is, because we do now have a flexible option that allows people to gain qualifications whilst they’re working, we’ve seen a growth especially in our level 3 – we’ve seen a doubling in demand for that provision.

“All in all, we’ve found it a very easy organisation to get to work with, and our learners feed back that they’re really enjoying the platforms as well.”

The need to meet employer and learner demand for hybrid apprenticeships

It’s clear that hybrid working patterns are now here to stay, with an August 2022 BBC report finding that UK workers are going into the office for an average of just 1.5 days a week. As a result, an increasing number of employers are seeking hybrid apprenticeships and work-based training to match the needs of their workforce. As well as demanding flexibility, employers are looking for online solutions that are high-quality, engaging and accessible. Employers expect apprenticeship delivery to fit to their needs, making hybrid delivery essential rather than a “nice to have”. It is this market shift that colleges need to respond and adapt to – both to win and retain apprenticeship work.

Working in partnership with Mindful Education enables colleges to offer a high quality blended learning solution that is attractive to employers and apprentices.

Case Study: Ambitions Academies Trust is a large education provider, based on the south coast of England. They employ a number of apprentices across the organisation, and were seeking a flexible way to deliver training that suited the needs of their business, as well as their apprentices.

Using Strode College as their training provider, Ambitions Academies Trust is training accounting and finance staff through Mindful Education’s Online and On Campus accounting apprenticeships.

Emma Hart, Deputy HR Director at Ambitions Academies Trust, explains what led to her to choose Mindful Education’s Online and On Campus hybrid model:

“When I first looked at a package, I wanted an online platform that would enable apprentices to pick up and stop when they wanted to, and plenty of questions and answers that they could work through to test their knowledge.

“They’ve found the Mindful Education platform really useful. They have their core learning, and then they have additional material they can use to revise or practice to make sure they’re progressing.  They also appreciate having that touchpoint with Strode College, where they do some face-to-face learning with a tutor, so they have a good mixture of both.”

Micha, an accounting apprentice at Ambitions Academies Trust, goes on to say:

“Having the Online and On Campus approach for my apprenticeship has been perfect for me. Doing an apprenticeship as an adult, having a family and a full time job, is quite difficult to manage. Having the flexibility to incorporate the study within my working week is absolutely fantastic.”

Suzie Drew, Business Development Manager at Strode College, explains why employers are increasingly seeking hybrid delivery to train staff:

“Employers like the Online and On Campus blended approach to teaching as it gives a lot more flexibility to their staff. The flexibility of Mindful Education is second to none.

Emma went on to say:

“It enables us, within the work environment, to schedule when key things have to be done, and how work is managed, to make sure that deadlines are still met, while the allocation of time to study is still guaranteed for the individual. We’ve also used it to upskill our workforce which is really where the big wins are for us as an organisation.

“The blended option will always be the preferred option. It offers flexibility to all parties involved, and we’d look to be doing that with the majority of apprentices going forward.”

Working in Partnership

For more information about how working in partnership with Mindful Education can help your college meet the changing demands of part-time adult learners and employers by adopting a blended delivery model, contact Mindful Education: partnerships@mindful-education.co.uk

Another bailout for troubled college with merger in sight

An embattled college has been handed another tranche of bailout cash to stay afloat as its journey to a long-awaited merger nears its conclusion. 

City College Southampton received an additional £3.76 million in emergency funding in 2021/22, according to its recently published accounts, taking the total amount of lifeline financial support to £11.67 million since 2017. 

The Education and Skills Funding Agency has also agreed to provide more emergency funding during the current academic year to ensure it can continue operation until its merger, which is planned to take effect from August 2023. 

Terms of the grant agreement create a “low probability of conversion to a loan in the future”, the accounts state. 

But the college is having to repay £522,000 of its adult education budget after failing to deliver a quarter of its allocation in 2021/22. 

City College Southampton’s accounts also reveal that an audit has identified “compliance issues” in relation to apprenticeship funding. 

According to the financial statements, action “has been taken” and the issues addressed by the college through “investment in additional and specialist staff as well as system resources and an additional funding advisory audit to review progress and compliance”. 

The college told FE Week the audit was not part of an ESFA investigation and claimed the compliance issues have not resulted in the agency clawing back any funds. 

Due to the continued injection of ESFA bailout funding the college “believes it will be able to continue in operation and meet its liabilities over the period ahead of the planned merger”, the accounts added. 

And while it breached bank covenants in 2021/22, Santander “is continuing to be supportive”. The college’s ESFA financial rating continues to be ‘inadequate’. 

City College Southampton, which has 4,000 students and 220 staff, is currently being led by deputy FE Commissioner Martin Sim as it heads towards a merger with Eastleigh College and Fareham College. 

Multiple previous merger attempts involving City College Southampton – one of which included Eastleigh College – have been rejected since 2016 when the FE Commissioner said City College is not sustainable as a standalone college. 

This is the second three-way merger proposal on the table for City College Southampton – the previous plan was to join with both Itchen Sixth Form College and Richard Taunton Sixth Form but this was abandoned in 2020. 

It is hoped that a three-way merger between City College, Eastleigh College and Fareham College will create a financially strong network of college campuses. 

The proposal forms the outcome of the Department for Education City-wide Solution (CWS) project Southampton, which got underway in late 2020 and concluded in May 2022. 

A spokesperson for the colleges said: “Subject to due diligence, public consultation, and securing necessary funding, City College, Eastleigh College and Fareham College remain confident that the three colleges will merge in August 2023 as currently planned.” 

DfE’s website rejects apprenticeship adverts for using ‘head’ and ‘man’

The government is “urgently” investigating its “over-censorious” apprenticeship website that rejects vacancies for including words such as “stripper”, “man” and “head”.

Sector insiders told FE Week that the “bizarre” algorithm was hindering firms that want to post vacancies online.

The development comes as education chiefs are desperately trying to boost apprenticeship starts in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The “recruit an apprentice” gov.uk website allows providers and employers to post and manage apprenticeship vacancies, with candidates able to apply on the “find an apprenticeship” page.

However Jenny Bicknell, director of education solutions at GetMyFirstJob, said that her firm had hosted roundtable sessions on the “recruit an apprentice system” during which employers revealed their vacancies were being rejected for innocuous words.

She raised the issue on social media and soon generated a flurry of responses.

Among some of the rejections was a post on the Isle of Man for use of the word “man”, a head chef role being blocked for the word “head” and the word “drive” halting another vacancy.

“Stripper” stopped a vehicle stripper apprenticeship from being advertised, while “run”, “family” and “children” were other examples flagged to Bicknell.

Those attempting to post vacancies have reported having to change words on their posts to get them on the portal. Some vacancies FE Week found on the site did include some of the flagged words, such as “head” and “children” but it is not clear how they circumvented the red flag.

Government guidance for creating an apprenticeship vacancy states that officials will check the vacancy and let employers and providers know if any edits are needed within 24 hours, but there is no reference to potential rejections for use of certain words.

There was however a new funding rule introduced this year to “improve usage”, after the Education and Skills Funding Agency found that about a quarter of active providers were not using the site, which “causes issues for candidates looking for central repository of all opportunities”.

The rule states that while it is not mandatory for employers to use recruit an apprentice, it is a “condition of funding for all main providers to offer this service where applicable”.

And where an employer has declined the use of recruit an apprentice, providers “must record the reason for this”. 

Bicknell suspects that the government has introduced changes to “recruit an apprentice” that is causing the issue.

She told FE Week: “The recent changes to recruit an apprentice have majorly affected our customers’ apprenticeship recruitment. The bizarre rejection reasons slow fill time and dampen the service they are offering to their employers as well as pushing more admin resource onto the recruiters.” 

She added that “words such as ‘run’, ‘family’, ‘children’ and ‘drive’ are fundamental to our customers’ opportunities and the employers they work with”.

Tom Bewick, chief executive of the Federation of Awarding Bodies, said it was “another silly example of computer says no”.

“Of course, there’s a place for artificial intelligence but we need to remember that these online bots are ultimately programmed by humans. It’s disturbing to read that some over-censorious zealots may have been at it again, determined it would seem, to find offence in everyday common words and usage,” he added.

Bewick said the algorithm needed a sensible override function.

A spokesperson from the DfE said: “The team are aware of the issue and looking into it urgently.”

College fails to file accounts for fourth year

A college is under fire for failing to publish accounts for the fourth year in a row. 

The “unusual” situation at Brooklands College comes amid a £20 million clawback dispute with the government following an apprenticeship subcontracting scandal, which was uncovered in 2018 but remains unresolved.

A union has criticised the “lack of transparency” which amounts to a breach of the college’s funding agreement with the Education and Skills Funding Agency. 

The Surrey-based college recently announced plans to sell a historic building and land in a deal understood to be in the region of £45 million to help balance the books. Stakeholders who fear they are being kept in the dark about the scale of financial problems, have called for the college to open its books.

A Brooklands College employee who did not wish to be named told FE Week that staff were keen to know when the accounts would finally be published but they have received “radio silence” from management. The source added: “They keep the finances very close to their chest.”

University and College Union regional official Michael Moran said: “It beggars belief that Brooklands College has failed to publish its accounts for four years running, despite recent financial scandals. Staff, students and the wider public have every right to be concerned about the lack of transparency at the college and we call on management to open up its books as soon as possible.”

Colleges must publish their audited accounts in an easily accessible location on their website to “maximise transparency and to support accountability” by January 31 in line with ESFA requirements.

The agency’s rules state that stakeholders have a “right to expect information on the financial performance and results of a corporation to be published on their website” and failure to do so is a “breach of the corporation’s funding agreement with ESFA”.

Brooklands College’s last filed accounts are for the year ending July 2018.

An FE Week investigation later exposed how the college subcontracted out almost £20 million to a small private training provider called SCL Security Ltd in just three years.

The ESFA, FE Commissioner and Ofsted stepped in to investigate the private provider, headed by Andrew Merritt, was subsequently kicked out of the apprenticeships market.

Among other findings, the agency discovered that apprenticeship funding was being used to pay the wages for the 16-to-18-year-olds, which is strictly against the funding rules.

SCL Security Ltd filed for insolvency in October 2020.

The ESFA demanded Brooklands College pays up to £20 million back to the government after the scandal came to light.

However, a liquidators’ statement of receipts and payments for SCL Security was published on January 4, 2023, and revealed colleges and the ESFA have submitted claims worth £22.5 million to the company.

The claim is a result of the ESFA’s review “in respect of monies paid by a number of colleges and agencies to the company, which have been challenged for various breaches”, the statement said.

“Consequently, colleges have written to us claiming full recovery of all monies previously paid to the company.”

The statement continued: “The claims of the colleges, due to the basis on which they have been calculated as damages claims for breach of contract, are complex and the formal process of adjudicating the claims will involve further work and, in all likelihood, further information will be required to adjudicate the claims, individual creditors will be contacted with such requests.

“Due to the quantum and nature of the claims received the joint liquidators instructors lawyers from Andrew Jackson solicitors to provide legal advice in relation to these claims.”

Auditors that spoke to FE Week described Brooklands College’s failure to publish accounts for four years as “unusual”, but added the ESFA isn’t known for penalising colleges for being late on their accounts as they are usually aware of the reasons behind this. 

A spokesperson for the college’s leadership team said: “We are aware of the ESFA requirements for the publication of our annual report and financial statements and it is our intention to publish these early this year. The college is in regular communication with the EFSA who are fully aware of the college’s position and plans.”

The ESFA confirmed it was aware of Brooklands College’s accounts issue and said officials continue to meet regularly with leaders to resolve matters.

Ofsted suspends ‘independent’ scrutiny panels

Ofsted stands accused of being “unaccountable to anyone but themselves” after it emerged scrutiny panels that oversee how it handles complaints about inspections have been suspended.

The panels, which crucially include a sector representative who does not work for Ofsted, check the “robustness” of how complaints are handled at the internal review stage.

Introduced in 2015, Ofsted said the “independent scrutiny” would make the complaints process “more transparent, fair and fully objective”.

But the panels have been paused as Ofsted reviews how it deals with complaints. FE Week revealed last month a review had been launched after the watchdog admitted its complaints policy was “not working”.

Ofsted told FE Week the panels had been suspended since Covid. They remain so while officials consider “how best to incorporate external sector representation in our complaints handling process”.

The watchdog aims to consult on any changes later this year. 

Ian Hartwright, a senior policy adviser at the leaders’ union NAHT, said the suspension was a step backwards.

“An independent external view is required if schools and colleges are to have more confidence in Ofsted’s handling of complaints, otherwise the inspectorate will stand accused of marking its own work.” 

Independent representatives on scrutiny panels were originally chosen from Ofsted’s headteacher reference groups.

Alongside an His Majesty’s Inspector (HMI) and a senior HMI, the panel would “test” the “robustness of the complaints handling process” for each case before confirming a final response.

Following internal reviews, complainants are able to apply to the Independent Complaints Adjudication Service for Ofsted (ICASO).

The service may then investigate alleged failures by Ofsted to follow proper procedures. 

The Association of School and College Leaders said the internal review only considered if Ofsted followed its proper procedures and could not overturn outcomes. 

An external representative “does not change the fact that this is a largely toothless stage of the process”, a spokesperson added.

Eastleigh College said Ofsted’s complaints process was “not fit for purpose” after the inspectorate published a reputationally damaging ‘requires improvement’ report while its complaint was still live.

What FE should learn from edtech’s pandemic legacy (and what it shouldn’t)

Before the pandemic, the post-16 sector was fraught with negativity about e-learning. Assessors were too nervous to adopt blended learning solutions because they thought it posed a risk to their jobs. Sweeping statements dismissed full distance learning with notions of horrific achievement rates.

In truth, there were bad practices just as there were many organisations with a matured e-learning strategy. As a whole though, the system was years behind many corporate markets.

Now we seem to be in a transitional phase, and I fear the pandemic experience, rather than bringing about system maturity, could be catastrophic for the ed tech market.

Panic purchasing and buyer’s regret

Many organisations, through no fault of their own, purchased edtech through curtailed procurement processes and ended up systems that were not fit for their purposes. For example, they may have adopted 100 per cent online lectures instead of more future-proof blended solutions, emailed assessments rather than assessment systems or learner management systems developed for staff training in corporate markets rather than a regulated environment.

What we’re left with now is many colleges and providers coming out of the contracts they were originally tied into thinking that learning technology isn’t for them, rather than that the system or solution they purchased wasn’t quite what they needed.

We’re beginning to see this in a number of ways – the slowdown of recruitment in ed tech firms and  redundancies amid new entrants to the market. This is being led in part by the back-to-class strategy, and the resulting cancellation of online application forms and many other systems that can support a learner’s journey in many provisions.

This is bad for the edtech sector, but the point of markets is to adapt. More worryingly, it’s bad for colleges, providers and most importantly learners. We need a fully thought-through e-learning and systems strategy for the further education system to stop these knee-jerk reactions.

Where do we go from here?

In the absence of a system-wide strategy, there is much that individual providers can do to support their staff and their learners and to keep driving innovation.

First and foremost, the most crucial step is to hire and develop staff who will drive innovation at all levels. This is not a question of just one job role, or even a dedicated department; a culture only works when everyone understands it, agrees with it and adopts it. A lot of work went into professional development to adapt to the pandemic. The staff who benefited from that didn’t just learn to use a specific tool or set of tools. They learned to engage with and critically evaluate those tools and educational technology more broadly. These skills shouldn’t be lost, and they should be nurtured across the workforce.

But developing staff to understand and use edtech solutions will be ineffective if they don’t work within a system that supports them to explore what’s available. So it’s important to also maintain and develop policies and expectations that allow learning technology to be adopted through both internal and external processes

Sector leaders and policy makers should all be working to support this too. At every event and in every policy discussion, edtech should be seen as an enabler. It is and should be instrumental to implementation, not a bolt-on to be developed responsively once decisions are made.

And finally, this all depends on sharing best practice across the sector. Further education is in the advantageous position that the idea is not controversial at all and that many platforms exist to do so. If you are doing it well and getting good results, others will want to learn from you.

We can’t afford to repeat the cycle of panic buying and buyer’s remorse. It hampers colleges’ ability to adapt to future crises and developments, stifle learners’ chances to get the best from their learning journey and holds back effective innovation.

We need a long-term strategy, to keep learning technology at the forefront of educational agendas to ensure the sector moves forwards – and that starts with providers themselves.

Four principles to ensure lesson observations make the grade

For 25 years we have allowed one-off, managerial observations to become ubiquitous, often ignoring the copious evidence that now exists about their unreliability and pernicious effect. Many providers have used this evidence to move on from one-off, graded observations. But not all. Many more still use observations, albeit ungraded, for which they are ill-suited.

To ensure observations make the grade, there are four key principles to consider.

Purpose and evidence

First, it is crucial to know why you observe a lesson and triangulate your hypotheses with a wide range of carefully chosen sources of evidence.

Observations mostly contribute to teacher development or quality assurance (QA). They can’t do both. Nor can an observer see or understand everything that happens in the room during an observation. So, if an observer is clear about why they are observing, they have a greater chance of focusing their attention and capturing valuable and relevant evidence.

The current spotlight on curriculum and cognition points observers to valuable sources of evidence: sources that go way beyond the proxies for quality that so many latch onto in one-off observations. These proxies include teachers’ differentiation of resources and learners’ participation in discussions or engagement with tasks. The skilled observer creatively chooses what evidence to consider, the questions to ask and how to interpret the answers given.

Avoid managerialism

Second, there is no place for managerialism in observations. An observation that aims to improve teaching needs to be low stakes and non-judgemental. The whole process must be carried out in a culture of mutual trust. This trust can be difficult in any superior/subordinate relationship since it requires the subordinate to expose weaknesses to someone with power over them. This is not something that sits comfortably with high-stakes, career-defining judgements.

But it’s not just developmental observations that are susceptible to managerialism. Teachers: don’t assume that becoming a manager bestows someone with some mystical power to draw conclusions about learners’ progress, curriculum and pedagogy after 30 minutes in a classroom.

And managers: remember that it is hard for many teachers to argue with a superior, even if they make an unsubstantiated judgement or one based on their personal preferences rather than valid evidence. So, if you make a judgement without sufficient triangulation, or hear yourself saying ‘I would like to have seen…’, just pause. Excellent qualities for any observer are humility and self-doubt.

New ways of observing

Growth in apprenticeships and online learning demand new ways of observing. Observation systems in apprenticeships sometimes evolve from an IQA model, a criteria-based approach that takes too little account of pedagogy and learners’ progress. Or they are adapted from a classroom-based model that doesn’t accommodate the unique characteristics of apprenticeships.

We see similar issues in evaluations of online learning. QA systems tend to be adapted from those applied to other types of courses. And yet there are many distinctive features of successful online courses (one-to-one interactions, learners’ critical thinking skills, teachers’ use of formative feedback through technology, etc.) that provide an observer with rich evidence.

If leaders have not considered how observations in a QA or improvement system capture the distinctive characteristics of apprenticeships and online learning, this may be one for the improvement plan.

Values and professionalism

The culture of an organisation is so often determined by the clarity of purpose that informs leaders’ decisions, and the extent to which teachers and stakeholders agree with these. Astute leaders know the value, but also the limitations of observations. In their organisations, observations lead to improvements or help maintain standards.

These leaders include teachers in decisions about how to raise standards and demonstrably value their professionalism. In these organisations, we wouldn’t hear leaders say that they use Ofsted criteria for observations (What criteria? They never existed!) or claim that a graph showing an annual rise in observation grades is evidence of improvement. Both were once common, neither were credible.

Observations can add value, but only when they are suited to their purpose and always alongside other evidence. With these principles in mind, we can continue to evolve them for the good of the profession.

The Staffroom: The road to employment for students with SEND

Who has the upper hand in our labour market: employee or employer? With ‘we’re hiring’ and ‘vacancy’ signs commonplace, you might be forgiven for thinking that job seekers have it all their way – but that’s not quite the case for young people with SEND.

Currently, fewer than one in four young people with high functioning autism access education after GCSE level and only 16 per cent are in full-time employment.
As educators, we have to support our young people to be ready. Today, flexibility is key – whether that is in working hours, location or role demands – as is resilience to be able to cope with change, good communication skills and problem-solving abilities. Confidence in practical matters and technical skills to succeed in a digital world are vital too, as are the basics of good timekeeping, being personable and looking presentable.

All these attributes to being employment ready can be hard for young people with SEND. That’s why our student-centred approach is so important, providing the best opportunities for young people who may be disenfranchised from traditional education or whose needs simply are not being met elsewhere. Our ethos is that a young person’s learning need or disability shouldn’t hold them back.

We know our students have a lot to offer, they can be confident and employable individuals and they can pursue their dreams and succeed as young adults. We want them to have as many opportunities available to them as their peers in a mainstream school or college. It’s our job to give them the skills to help them achieve it.

We tailor every student’s study programme. They follow an individual learning journey that develops them academically, socially and culturally. As part of that, we work on their employability preparation and personal finance. However a key part of their study programme is the chance to access a supported internship linked to their own long-term target and career aims. This has only become possible by creating a strong network of local employers across a host of sectors from 3D design to groundskeeping who are willing to give our students that opportunity.

Businesses have quickly come to see how much our students have to give

We have worked hard to build this network. A member of our team is dedicated to growing these relationships, ready to work with employers to respond to their needs and questions and, importantly, resilient when some say no. As a result of this work, our business partners have quickly come to recognise how much our students have to give.

This work is ongoing as we seek to offer an even broader range of opportunities for our students. In the meantime, we continue to be innovative in our study programme ensuring our students and staff thrive in a culture that allows them to take calculated risks and not be afraid to fail.

Our learning environment is a point of difference and centres on a calm, creative and purposeful atmosphere where staff and students can be innovative in their approach to teaching and learning. The outcome is young people who have the life skills to help them overcome obstacles and achieve, all done at a pace that is right for each individual and their capabilities.

We were delighted to win nasen’s Award for 16-25 Provision last year as well as two Doncaster Chamber Business Awards, but it’s the feedback from students and their parents that tells us we’re on the right path. Our students have reported improved confidence levels, developing core skills, the ability to make new friends and being able to complete an apprenticeship which in turn has led to post-college employment.

For many of our students, this is the first time they have been happy in a learning environment; it is the first time they have made friends and they feel happy, safe and want to come to college and learn in a way they never have before.

We place no limits on what can be achieved, no matter their background or starting point. And slowly but surely, employers are seeing the value of doing the same – leading to a secure and prosperous future.

Sustainability: One giant leap on FE’s journey to net zero

Last year, the Royal Anniversary Trust launched a programme called the Platinum Jubilee Challenge. It convened 21 higher and further education winners of the latest Queen’s Anniversary Prizes and tasked them with working together on a shared sustainability challenge: accelerating the tertiary education sector’s journey to net zero.

The result has been a journey of committed collaboration between FE and HE, and the benefits are clear to see. The product is an invaluable resource to help the sector accelerate its knowledge and actions. Indeed, it should attract interest in any public body as this is the most detailed work on net zero currently being promoted across the UK public sector. 

The Challenge group began by asking a basic but fundamental question: what exactly is the tertiary education sector’s carbon footprint? While there are numerous examples of innovative carbon reduction work in colleges and universities across the UK, to date there has been no standardised method of measuring or reporting emissions across all nations.

Perhaps even more surprisingly, there was no accessible data on the sector’s carbon footprint. So, with the help of expert sustainability and climate consultants SB+CO and EcoAct, the UK’s HE and FE sectors’ emissions were estimated for the first time, revealing a combined footprint of 18.1 Mt CO2e for 2020/21, of which the FE sector accounts for 12 per cent, or 2.6Mt CO2e. 

The next logical question was how to continue to measure and report going forward. And this is where the journey to net zero starts to accelerate. The report proposes a standardised emissions reporting framework designed exclusively for the sector which will enable all HE and FE institutions to measure, report and manage their carbon emissions on an ongoing basis.

This is a significant piece of work, developed by The Alliance for Sustainability Leadership in Education (EAUC) in consultation with the Challenge participants and the sector, and funded by the Department for Education. The significance of this is that while departments do not currently make reporting mandatory, the writing is on the wall: the government’s net zero strategy commits to legislating the reporting of emissions if insufficient progress is made voluntarily.

Departments are committed to enabling reporting by 2024 and as stated in its strategy: “From 2025 we will publish targets and institutional progress for the further and higher education sectors”. It really begins with institutions measuring and understanding their carbon emissions in a way that is reflective, transparent and consistent across the sector to enable peer-to-peer review.

Accelerating towards Net Zero also offers 14 recommendations to government which tackle the core blockers to change. The first of these is a call for the establishment of a National Decarbonisation Institute to provide the support and expertise needed to develop and implement decarbonation plans across the sector.

For further education, the opportunity is huge. The UK government wants the education sector to be world leading on sustainability. However, there is still a significant gap in how we teach it. 74 per cent of further education educators have not received training to embed or develop education on sustainability, even though 94 per cent agree that all learners should be taught.

And the sector must be at the heart of the skills agenda – so the government needs to support its policies by acting in education. For example, the UK government has set a target to install 600,000 heat pumps by 2028, yet there are currently only 3,000 trained heat pump engineers in the UK. At least 27,000 will be needed in the next six years, requiring increases of 4,000-6,000 per year. Who will be training and upskilling these engineers?

That is just one example, and there are many. The agenda has implications for retrofitting, hydrogen, electric vehicles, and the circular economy. Further education is at the heart of the solution.

There are 30 case studies profiled in the report which show that the UK further and higher education sectors are already world leaders in the carbon reduction space. From sewage-powered heating systems to the world’s first Passive House Premium education building in my own South West College, there is much to be proud of.

And if the sector continues to work together, as we have on this report, then there is much to be hopeful for as well.