‘Even if Ofsted didn’t exist, I don’t think we’d do things differently’

Exeter College has become the first college to retain its ‘outstanding’ grade and achieve top marks in the new skills contribution measure from Ofsted. Tallulah Taylor finds out how they did it.

An unexpected influence on John Laramy, the principal of Exeter College, is Terry Leahy, who was chief executive of Tesco in the supermarket giant’s prime in the late 1990s.

Despite needing to make huge profits every year, Laramy explains that Leahy would spend half a day each week in stores, talking to customers and learning what it was like to shop there.

Being in touch with students and staff is therefore a big part of Laramy’s leadership approach, which this week delivered Exeter’s second ‘outstanding’ Ofsted result in 10 years.

The first result, in 2014, came under the leadership of Richard Atkins, Laramy’s predecessor who, after retiring as principal in 2016, became the FE Commissioner.

At that time, then education secretary Michael Gove introduced a rule that exempted schools and FE providers judged ‘outstanding’ from further inspections. The exemption survived until September 2021, when concerns were raised about providers going 10-plus years without scrutiny.

Of the 35 previously ‘outstanding’ FE providers to have been inspected since then, 22 have declined by at least one grade.

Higher Education Graduation at Exeter Cathedral 2022

Laramy has led Exeter for the past seven years through the turbulence of policy change, funding restraints and, of course, the Covid 19 pandemic – all of which have been blamed by other providers who have struggled to get top marks from Ofsted inspectors.

The Exeter report refers to the “nurturing and supportive environment”, with high-performing students taught by staff who act as “exemplary role models” to the learners.

Laramy tells FE Week: “The senior leadership team and I, alongside the governors, work really hard to listen to students and apprentices so that we know what it’s like to be a student or an apprentice here. I think that sort of culture really does have an impact across the college.”

Exeter received ‘outstanding’ judgements for every category inspected, apart from in their provision for learners with high needs, for which the college was graded ‘good’.

Top marks were also awarded for the new skills contribution measure which was introduced in September, making them the first both to retain an ‘outstanding’ grade and be judged ‘strong’ in meeting local skills needs.

Praise for the curriculum, sequencing, dedicated support and extra-curricular activities – among many other qualities – is scattered throughout the report, indicative of a caring and safe culture across the college campuses.

“Our teachers are absolutely amazing and go above and beyond”

Their high-achieving culture starts at the top, Laramy says. The college governors set high expectations of the senior leadership team which are then replicated across the college.

The vision is for the college to be exceptional, something which Laramy thinks reflects the standards they expect from their students, many of whom travel considerable distances to attend.

Vice principal Jade Otty supports this idea. She says that, when you work somewhere that is aspirational, alongside enough other people with similar aspirations, “you get into a positive spiral of this kind of culture”.

The report praises teachers and staff for valuing all members of the college community and describes them as “exceptional role models”.

“Our teachers are absolutely amazing and go above and beyond,” Otty says. “They will put on bespoke sessions for students, whether that’s revision or catching up.

“They are really good at assessing their curriculum and their delivery and asking, ‘how am I doing’ and ‘what do we need to have extra support’ in this and that.”

This attitude is part of the established teaching practice at Exeter College, Otty believes.

“You don’t just teach things in a particular order at a particular time because that’s what you thought you were going to do a few weeks ago or a few months ago.

“They’re dealing with human beings. They look at how their learners are getting on and change their curriculum accordingly.”

Laramy meets all his staff from right across the college four times a year to find out what they are doing brilliantly what they could do better. And he thanks any that are doing a fantastic job. They also have staff award celebrations and a similar model for students.

Principal, John Laramy and chair of governors, Bindu Arjoon

Meeting skills needs through the community

The college fares “exceptionally well” in how they identify and meet the local skills needs of employers, according to the inspectors.

Deputy chief executive Rob Bosworth explains that “exceptional colleges shape the landscape with the community. It didn’t happen because of one conversation. It has been built over time.”

Bosworth has been building these partnership relationships over 20 years through speaking with employers as well as to local community members and industry groups like the chamber of commerce.

“The way we do it is we live and breathe everything in the community. Colleges are there to serve the needs of the community. To do that at an amazing level, they have got to be embedded into the community on a day-to-day basis.”

He works with Otty on teaching and learning, which is a “purpose-driven curriculum strategy” that has a line of sight to industry and next-step progression.

Every piece of the curriculum is co-designed with an employer or partner stakeholder to ensure they are shaping the landscape alongside the different industries.

But it is not all about the hard skills needs that you read about in skills plans or economic strategies. Exeter’s work with Devon County Council to meet the needs of non-English speaking residents of the area also won praise in the report.

Inspectors emphasised how leaders quickly recognised the challenges for Ukrainian refugees and created courses “to support this community and help them become active citizens”.

The college’s relationship with stakeholders is notably successful in improving opportunities for those who are the most disadvantaged in the community.

Bosworth explains that they used their community learning budget to create an urban Learning Academy with partners who helped to design the curriculum to re-engage those that are furthest away from learning.

“So, we’ve done everything from sitting in the library playing Monopoly for adults that struggle with GCSE maths. We’ve done courses in bibliotherapy, where parents that are struggling to read to their children can come into a course and learn how to teach their children to read.”

Students celebrate graduating from the Michael Caines Academy with a special dinner

High needs ‘particularly challenging’

The only area in which the college did not achieve ‘outstanding’ was in the provision for learners with high needs.

Ofsted found that the specific courses designed for these learners was not sufficiently challenging and ambitious and was not sufficiently personalised to meet each learner’s needs.

Why doesn’t the high expectations culture set at the top seem to reach those with additional needs?

Laramy responds that they are in the throes of opening a new building to accommodate high-needs learners, and that getting ‘good’ at this point for high needs provision is a “pretty stellar grade” when “you read what’s going on out there”.

“High-needs provision is a particularly challenging area now, which is well publicised nationally, the challenges with funding and so forth behind the students… We are not a – and cannot be – a specialist high-needs college… 

“I think one of the areas that the government is thinking about carefully is investing in additional specific high-needs providers. Because, as I understand it, there’s quite a shortage of high-needs places across the country. So, I think we are part of the solution to that, but not the total solution.”

Despite offering help with the cost of living, training and offering professional development to teachers, one of Laramy’s main challenges is attracting and retaining his staff.

“It’s my job to ensure we pay them as much as we can afford,” he says. “But it’s not just about paying. It’s making sure they feel that it’s a supportive workplace, that they get developed, that they get to teach in a great space.”

Exeter College lifts the trophy for Engagement with Employers at prestigious Beacon Awards

T Levels are not part of that challenge. Laramy enthusiastically says the college has outstanding T Level provision, and he wished they were assessed this year.

Asked if they will need to do make any changes to achieve another ‘outstanding’, Laramy says that, although they had been out of scope for an inspection for many years, they did not actually do anything differently then.

He refutes the idea that ‘outstanding’ colleges know how to work the system to keep the inspectors happy.

“That’s the thing I’ve reflected on, having Ofsted come to visit. Even if they didn’t exist, I don’t think we would do much different as a college. And I think that is probably what the report reflects.”

Ministers accused of level 3 backtrack

Ministers are under fire for reneging on their promise to axe a “small” proportion of BTECs and other applied general qualifications, as new analysis reveals that more than half will be scrapped by government edict.

A cross-party group of peers led by Lord Blunkett has vowed to confront education secretary Gillian Keegan on the issue. “This, at best, is an act of considerable bad faith and, at worst,  an indication that the government’s word isn’t worth the paper it was written on,” Blunkett said.

College leaders have warned the “ideologically driven” reform could cause “significant chaos”, as the plans would wipe out provision currently offered to almost two-thirds of sixth-form college students and almost a third of courses available in general FE colleges.

‘A clear reversal of the undertakings given last year’

The Department for Education is working to introduce a streamlined system for students finishing their GCSEs that pushes them to study either A-levels, their new technical equivalent T Levels, or an apprenticeship.

Officials have already announced that 106 alternative technical level 3 courses will have their funding removed from 2024 because they “overlap” with the first few T Level courses. Others face the chop in future years as more T Levels roll out to allow the qualifications to “flourish”.

The DfE launched the next phase of its level 3 review earlier this month, which involves a new strict approvals process that all “alternative” technical and academic applied general qualifications, such as Pearson’s popular BTECs, must pass to retain their funding.

But a guide published this month states that ministers have made the “conscious choice” to exclude “certain” academic qualifications from this process, either because the subject is “more suited to a technical qualification or because there is an associated A level”.

When the list of qualifications eligible for funding is mapped against the 134 recently reformed applied general qualifications currently available to young people and included in the DfE’s performance league tables, an “astonishing” 75 are found to be ineligible.

Source: Protect Student Choice Campaign

It means well-established qualifications, such as BTECs in health and social care, applied science, and law will disappear from 2025.

Experts also predict that many of the eligible courses will fail to gain approval through the new process.

The analysis, shared exclusively with FE Week by the Sixth Form Colleges Association that leads the Protect Student Choice campaign, shows that 62 per cent of applied general students in the sixth-form college sector are currently enrolled on qualifications that will be scrapped before the approval process begins.

This comes despite then education secretary Nadhim Zahawi promising the sector and Parliament through the passage of the skills and post-16 education bill that “only a small proportion of the total level 3 BTEC and other applied general style qualification offer – significantly less than half” would be removed.

Bill Watkin, chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges Association, criticised the government for their decision not to run a “transparent and impartial approval process”.

He also criticised officials for not being clear about what evidence was used to draw up the list of subjects that will be funded in the future, describing their decisions as “indefensible and entirely unnecessary”.

Blunkett hit out at ministers for a “clear reversal of the undertakings given last year” after promising the Lords “in writing and from the despatch box that only a minority of advanced qualifications would cease to be funded”.

He told FE Week: “This is either a mistake that can be easily rectified, or a deliberate and calculated U-turn.

“A range of peers from all parties have agreed to take this matter up with education secretary Gillian Keegan, and I feel sure that she will want to demonstrate her honesty and integrity and act accordingly.”

Toby Perkins MP, Labour’s shadow skills minister, said the government’s reassurances on level 3 choice “have been shown to be hollow” and called on officials to “work with the sector and think again before pursuing this approach”.

A DfE spokesperson said: “Our reforms are intended to help more people to progress into work, an apprenticeship or on to further study, so it’s vital that the qualifications on offer are of the highest possible standard.

“We have already introduced T Levels as the new gold standard technical qualification and the changes we are making through our review will make sure only qualifications that are necessary, lead to good outcomes for students and meet the skills needs of businesses are approved for public funding.”

‘Reforms could cause significant chaos’

College principals have warned that the government’s plans create more problems than they solve.

A quarter of Oldham Sixth Form College’s 2,300 students are currently studying applied generals that face the chop in years to come, mostly extended BTEC diplomas in health and social care and applied science.

Associate principal Suzannah Reeves told FE Week that both “highly valued” courses are “incredibly successful, with many students progressing onto university, locally and nationally, into science, nursing and early childhood jobs”.

Her college is particularly concerned at losing health and science BTECs because of the major issues with their T Level counterparts last summer, which led to results for over 1,000 students being regraded. Many dropped out of the course after this debacle and transferred to a BTEC instead.

Reeves said her college now has “little confidence in the quality assurance of awarding, of the examination design and of coursework aspects of the T Level”.

She added that applied science BTEC is also vital for students who did not achieve a grade 4 or above at GCSE but want to pursue a career in the field.

“A-levels are not easily accessible for these students because of the content they have covered at school, usually on the foundation pathway,” she said.

“For those students wanting to take the BTEC applied science from 2025, they would have to go on to A-level single sciences or a combination of single diplomas and A-levels. I think their educational experience would potentially be poorer as a result.”

Graham Pennington, principal of Sandwell College in the West Midlands, said around half of his 4,000 level 3 students would be impacted by the DfE’s reforms. Of those, about 80 per cent would not have an “obvious and clear” alternative to transfer onto.

He said he sees T Levels as a positive step in technical education but warns the new qualifications are not suitable for many disadvantaged learners.

Pennington echoed Watkin’s concern that ministers have failed to evidence their decisions to date. “There’s a lot of assumptions as you listen to the narrative but not evidence-based assertions,” he said.

“Everyone wants to see the new qualifications succeed, but not by removing choice and opportunity.”

Reeves added: “It feels like this reform has been ideologically driven, and it has the potential to cause significant chaos.”

Provider’s contract terminated after another failed legal battle

An apprenticeship provider has had its funding contract terminated by the government after another failed legal challenge against a grade four Ofsted report.

The Education and Skills Funding Agency’s decision to kick The Opportunity Group out of the apprenticeships market comes seven months after inspectors visited the Newcastle-based provider.

After receiving the lowest possible rating, The Opportunity Group instructed Lester Aldridge Solicitors – a law firm retained by numerous providers in a similar position in recent years – to appeal against the “unfairness” of the report.

The ESFA held off on ending the provider’s contract while representations were made and until after Ofsted had conducted a follow-up monitoring visit, the report for which was published this month. It resulted in three ‘reasonable’ judgements but one of ‘insufficient’ progress.

Agency officials contacted The Opportunity Group’s owners last week to confirm they would go ahead with contract termination, in line with funding rules for apprenticeship provider’s judged ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted.

The company will continue to deliver commercial rather than government-funded training, but jobs will be lost as a result.

Co-founder Kate Temple-Brown said: “We are saddened by the decision the ESFA has made to terminate our contract despite us providing clear examples and reasons as to why we disagreed with the judgements and gradings in our full inspection. 

“We have exhausted our ability to continue legal action due to the high costs involved and the likelihood of us succeeding against the ESFA. We have also seen the sad outcome for other training providers who have had their contracts terminated, despite legal challenge.”

Training providers have long complained about the regime adopted by the ESFA whereby an ‘inadequate’ Ofsted report leads to automatic contract termination. Many firms threaten legal action where they feel the judgement is unreasonable, but they rarely follow this through due to the significant costs involved.

Two providers failed in high court bids to overturn ‘inadequate’ judgements and contract termination last month. Like The Opportunity Group, both firms argued against alleged factual inaccuracies and disproportionate Ofsted judgements, including that inspectors had failed to take into consideration the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Temple-Brown said she hopes that, through the “collective power of independent training providers” that policy “will change, so that this removal of funding, based on the current system of inspection, doesn’t continue to happen unjustly to other providers”.

The Opportunity Group was delivering training to over 600 apprentices mostly on leadership and management programmes at level 3 and above at the time of Ofsted’s full inspection in June 2022 – nearly triple the number it had during a monitoring visit from Ofsted in early 2020.

In the report, Ofsted criticised the provider for allegedly putting adults on to unsuitable apprenticeships – an issue that led to large numbers dropping out and too many apprenticeships running significantly beyond their planned end date.

The watchdog also found that, in too many cases, apprentices were not receiving sufficient time to complete their apprenticeship during working hours or attending off-the-job training.

The provider claimed these issues were a consequence of delivering apprenticeships throughout the pandemic.

Treasury recoups £230m in unspent traineeships cash in last two years

Just a third of the government’s traineeships budget was spent during the past two years – with education chiefs handing back nearly £230 million to the Treasury, shocking new figures reveal.

The Department for Education last month announced it was axing the flagship pre-employment programme, and instead said it would be “integrated” into existing 16 to 19 programmes and adult education provision from August 2023.

Years of low take-up were to blame for the decision, with starts reaching just half and two-thirds of their respective targets in 2020/21 and 2021/22 despite huge additional investment aimed at helping young people to enter the jobs market during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Fresh figures published in response to a parliamentary written question from Toby Perkins, Labour’s shadow skills minister, have now revealed the extent of the flop.

In total, just £119 million of the £348 million allocated for the past two years was spent – 34.1 per cent. Breaking this down by individual years, the data shows that £127 million of the allocated £189 million went unspent in 2021/22 and £102 million of £159 million was unused in 2020/21.

Last year the government reported that a £65 million underspend had been handed back to Treasury officials in 2020/21. FE Week asked the DfE to clarify the discrepancy between that number and the £102 million underspend figure it has now reported for the same year, but the department refused to comment.

The DfE did however confirm that all unspent money on traineeships was returned to the Treasury’s coffers, rather than reinvested in other programmes.

The Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) criticised last month’s decision to scrap the scheme, dubbing it “disastrous” and “short-sighted”. It called on the government to tackle the reasons for the low uptake rather than stripping away a programme that offered a vital opportunity to disadvantaged learners.

AELP’s director of policy Simon Ashworth said the underspend “should have been used to offer trainees a training allowance, which would have made traineeships much more attractive to young people”.

Ashworth said it was fortunate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on youth unemployment was not as bad as anticipated, while the Kickstart scheme – the government’s paid job opportunities programme for 16 to 24-year-olds on Universal Credit – had been more appealing.

He added: “We are in discussion with the Department for Education on how we can mitigate the impact of this decision on learners, providers and communities. To retain expertise and capacity, we are clear that those providers with a standalone 16 to 18 traineeship contract should be able to access 16 to 19 funding and as a result some flexibility from government is required to allow that to happen.”

Traineeships were introduced in 2013 to deliver pre-employment training and unpaid work experience for eligible 16 to 24-year-olds. They can last between six weeks and one year, although most do not exceed six months.

The DfE said it had encouraged the growth of traineeships by introducing occupation-specific routes, employer incentives and promotion through its Get the Jump campaign, but starts still remained low.

Figures published in November revealed that just 15,500 traineeship starts were recorded in 2021/22, compared with a target of 43,000.

A high of 24,100 was recorded in 2015/16 while just 17,400 starts against a planned 36,700 were recorded for 2020/21.

Data published this week on traineeship starts between August and October 2022 – just weeks before the programme was axed – indicated just 4,600 enrolments – a fall of 17 per cent on the same period last year.

In May 2022, education chiefs gave the programme a final chance by pleading with employers to rapidly boost their starts. The Education and Skills Funding Agency reminded local authorities of their statutory duty to help 16 and 17-year-olds who were NEET (not in employment, education or training).

The ESFA also provided £1,000 cash sweeteners to employers for each learner they took on through the programme from 2020 up to July 2022.

From August 2023, traineeships can be incorporated into existing 16 to 19 programmes and non-devolved adult education budgets, while mayoral combined authorities, which oversee their own AEBs, can decide what is best in their areas.

During last month’s announcement about the ending of the flagship scheme, skills minister Robert Halfon said it was right to focus on mainstream provision and highlighted “great alternatives” such as T Levels and the T Level transition programme, skills bootcamps and apprenticeships.

Demand doubles for free courses for jobs

Data released this morning by the Department for Education gives us a first look at adult learner participation in further education and skills courses this academic year. 

Here’s what we learned from the first quarter (August 2022 – October 2022):

Level 2 decline

There were 1,056,530 learners recorded this quarter, up 4 per cent, on the same period last year. Most of the extra 43,380 learners so far this year are taking courses at level 4 and above (up 11 per cent) and below level 2 excluding basic skills (up 7 per cent). 

However, the number of learners on full level 2 and 3 programmes fell by 9 per cent and 5 per cent respectively, representing nearly 23,000 learners.

A quarterly comparison of ESOL learners show there were just over 20,000 more in 2022/23 so far than for the same period in 2020/21. Most of that growth came from entry level courses.

There was also a small overall rise in community learning participation, with a 4 per cent bump to 119,180 learners. Figures reported growth in all areas of community learning, but the largest increase in learner participation was in family English, maths and language programmes.

Free courses for jobs demand rises

The number of adults that have started a course under the free course for jobs offer is double what it was for the same period last year.

In-year statistics for the first quarter of this academic year show that 10,670 enrolments were funded under the scheme, which fully subsidises the course fees of certain level 3 courses. 

There were 5,080 enrolments for the same period last year. 

Figures also reveal that the decision to extend eligibility criteria last year boosted enrolments by nearly 2,000. 

A major criticism of the free courses for jobs scheme was that it would only subsidise courses for learners that didn’t already have any level 3 qualifications. A small change was made in April which allowed level 3 qualified learners to access the scheme but only if there earned below the national living wage.

In its first full year, the scheme achieved just under 25,000 enrolments.

Free courses for jobs enrolments

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly compared figures for participation of learners aged over 50 for quarter 1 of 2022/23 with full year figures for 2021/22. That section of the story has been removed.

Apprenticeship starts fall 6% in first quarter of 2022/23

Apprenticeship starts in England dropped by 6 per cent in the first quarter of 2022/23 while traineeship starts fell 17 per cent, new government figures show.

Provisional in-year Department for Education data states there were 122,290 apprenticeship starts recorded from August to October compared to 130,240 for the same period in 2021/22.

The apprenticeship starts recorded for the first quarter of 2022/23 are also 3 per cent down on the 125,800 reported for same period in 2019 before the pandemic struck.

While starts are down overall, take up of higher apprenticeships has continued to grow – rising by 10 per cent from 38,230 in 2021/22 to 42,060 in 2022/23.

Starts at level 6 and 7 increased by 14 per cent to 22,060, which now represents 18 per cent of all starts reported to date for 2022/23.

The biggest drop was seen at level 2 – falling 18 per cent from 35,740 to 29,150. Starts at level 3 dropped 9 per cent from 56,270 to 51,080.

Starts for young people aged 16 to 18 dropped by 4 per cent from 40,130 to 38,480, while starts for those aged 19 and above fell 7 per cent from 90,110 to 83,810.

Today’s data provides further evidence as to why the government has decided to scrap traineeships.

Despite investing hundreds of millions of pounds in additional funding to ramp up the pre-employment programme after the pandemic, starts were down by 17 per cent to 4,600 in the first quarter of 2022/23 compared to 5,600 reported for the same period in the previous year.

There were 5,700 traineeship starts in the same period in 2019.

DfE offers colleges ‘reassurance’ over at risk capital projects

The Department for Education has confirmed plans to “possibly” introduce its own loans scheme for colleges after restricting the sector from commercial borrowing, as officials seek to reassure leaders over their “at risk” capital projects.

Colleges have had to gain special and rare permission to borrow commercially since November 29, 2022, when the Office for National Statistics changed their classification from private to public sector.

The overnight ruling has put numerous capital projects in jeopardy, as previously reported by FE Week.

In an update today, the DfE said it “recognises” the challenges the new borrowing rules present and reminded the sector that £150 million additional capital grant funding will be shared among to colleges in April (individual allocations can be found here).

Officials admitted that for “some” projects this new additional funding “may not be sufficient” in addressing any funding gaps resulting from reduced access to private sector borrowing.

The DfE’s finance and provider market oversight (FPMO) team is working directly with affected colleges in “priority order” through the new borrowing consents process.

Today’s update revealed that officials are also working on other “options”, including a “possible DfE-backed loans scheme for colleges that were intending to borrow commercially in order to fund a capital project”.

The department added: “We want to reassure you that DfE continues to be committed to all its capital programmes (e.g., FE capital transformation, post-16 capacity fund, Institutes of Technology or T Level capital), including projects which had been planned with commercial borrowing.

“Our intention is that projects funded through these programmes should continue.

“We will provide a further update in the coming weeks.”

Skills minister Robert Halfon revealed earlier this month that, as of January 11, the DfE had already responded to six colleges which had urgent requests for commercial borrowing in December. It is not clear whether these requests were accepted or rejected.

The DfE has received 63 other consent requests, of which 36 have capital projects as part of the request, from 24 colleges.

Julian Gravatt, deputy chief executive of the Association of Colleges, previously told FE Week that a DfE-backed loans scheme for colleges was on the cards, but said it was “unclear what the terms are” and warned there is a “risk of delay while the two sides discuss the amount”.

How to ensure ESOL meets learners’ and employers’ needs

ESOL provision has been a long-standing feature of adult education and the metro mayors have taken advantage of their devolved powers to champion it as part of their social inclusion agendas.

More recently and evidently flying under the radar, local authorities have been commissioning pre-Entry ESOL, in some cases drawing from the UK Community Renewal Fund (CRF), the forerunner to the UK Shared Prosperity Fund. This type of provision is likely to grow, and in an increasingly output-driven environment, it is important that we take on board the lessons from the pilot initiatives so far.

Between June 2021 and September 2022, Twin Training delivered a pilot programme for Leicester City Council to address the lack of pre-entry ESOL provision in the city. The ESOL for Communities programme was designed to help those furthest from the job market and most at risk of exploitation to access pre-Entry ESOL and receive one-to-one information, advice and guidance (IAG) on employment, benefits and accessing statutory services. Learners were also supported to begin working towards paid employment.

The East Midlands has a lower English language proficiency than most regions. In Leicester specifically, 7 per cent of residents cannot speak English well and 2 per cent cannot speak English at all. The challenge was compounded by a belief that existing government programmes were not responding sufficiently to the needs of local people and new arrivals who spoke little or no English. For example, prior to the pilot, Twin Training received 75 referrals per month onto our accredited ESOL provision through an ESFA-funded Skills Support for the Unemployed (SSU) contract but had to refuse circa 30 people each month because their complete lack of English meant that they were ineligible for SSU.

The adult education budget does not fund any pre-entry ESOL in Leicester. Those without the skills to enter funded ESOL programmes are forced to self-fund, continue to struggle without work or support, or suffer exploitation in the black or grey economy without opportunity for progression.

Meeting demand

As an established local ESOL provider, Twin was acutely aware of the challenges likely to be faced in taking forward the new pre-entry programme. However, various hurdles were successfully overcome, resulting in a very significant improvement in hard outcomes between the start and end of the pilot. On soft targets, 85 per cent of female beneficiaries, for example, reported increased confidence in challenging cultural barriers to employment.

We anticipated correctly that 40 per cent of the 225 participants would be from the local Indian community and that 72 per cent would be female from cultures where female education is typically limited. With the exception of Ukrainian refugees, the spread of the remaining ethnicities was thinner than predicted and a first key lesson was that many organisations tried to refer asylum seekers to the programme, suggesting a great need for pre-entry ESOL provision among this group.

We would suggest that future pre-ESOL projects broaden their parameters to include asylum seekers so they can develop their ESOL skills and access other support to obtain legitimate employment.  

Matching supply

Linked to entering the workforce, participants must reach at least entry level 2 to engage in conversation. In addition, many employers require level 1 ESOL to apply. We recommend that future programmes expand to at least 12 months to achieve entry level 2, stretching to 18 months if possible to enable participants to progress to level 1 ESOL qualifications.

To adhere to CRF guidance, Twin had to report qualification and employment outcomes immediately after contract close on 30 September. However, not all could be for bona fides reasons. Allowing for a three-month tracking period following contract close should ensure all outcomes can be accurately recorded. Similarly we propose a three-month contract extension to support those who start the programme in its final three months to ensure they receive the IAG support they need.

With nearly 80 per cent of participants continuing their education afterwards, the Leicester pilot has shown that pre-Entry ESOL programmes can have a major impact for adult learners and the economy, especially if providers can incorporate measures to increase the number of economically inactive participants who benefit.

GCSE re-sits: ‘Wrong’ grades drain students and resources

The November 2022 GCSE English and maths results announced on 12 January reveal a huge problem at the heart of the re-sit policy.

The summer and autumn English cohort sizes are significantly different (697,827 and 41,529 respectively) but the difference in the grade distributions is stark. In November, 42.7 per cent of candidates received grade 3, and 23.1 per cent grade 4, as compared with 17.2 per cent and 16.0 per cent in the summer. This clustering of the November results around the 3/4 boundary is no surprise; these exams are taken largely by candidates obliged to re-sit because they were previously awarded grade 3.

The problem is a more fundamental one. What the autumn grade distribution hides is that many candidates are forced through the distressing experience of re-sitting, not because they didn’t work hard enough or had a bad day, but because their grade was wrong.

Don’t take my word for it. In September 2020, Dame Glenys Stacey, then Ofqual’s chief regulator, admitted to the education select committee that exam grades are “reliable to one grade either way”.

Should that grade 3 have been a 2? Or a 4? No one knows. But what the candidate knows is that there is a world of difference between a 3 and a 4; Only one represents many more months in the classroom and another trip into the exam hall.

Dame Glenys’s statement can be quantified. In November 2018, Ofqual published measures of just how (un)reliable grades are: their report showed that about 61 per cent of the grades awarded in England for GCSE English language correspond to the ‘definitive’ or ‘true’ grade that would have been awarded had a senior examiner marked all the scripts. Unfortunately, there aren’t enough senior examiners, so ‘ordinary’ examiners do the bulk of the job. As a consequence, around 39 per cent of grades aren’t ‘definitive’ or ‘true’. In other words, they could be just plain wrong.

It’s a tragic waste of time students could be investing elsewhere

Importantly, this difference in grades is not attributable to marking errors. Rather, it is a consequence of a reality we are all aware of: different examiners can legitimately give the same script different marks. If those legitimate-but-different marks are on different sides of a grade boundary, the resulting grades will be different –  but only one will be ‘definitive’.

We’re discussing English here, but let’s do some maths.

According to JCQ, for the summer 2022 GCSE English exams, 17.2 per cent of 697,827 candidates received grade 3: That’s 120,026 candidates who have to re-sit (not counting those with lower grades, who aren’t impacted by this argument).

Ofqual’s measure of the reliability of GCSE English grades implies that only about 61 per cent of those 120,026 candidates received a ‘definitive’ grade 3, while 39 per cent – that’s 46,810 students – were awarded a ‘non-definitive’/‘untrue’/‘wrong’ grade.

This means up to a huge 46,810 students were awarded grade 3 (a de facto ‘fail’) in error. The grade errors are about the same both ways, so around 23,405 students should have been awarded a grade 2, and some 23,405 grade 4, and would never have had to re-sit – if only their paper had been marked by a senior examiner.

Nevermind the shocking waste of FE resources being squandered on re-teaching more than 23,000 students who didn’t need it. But for those more than 23,000 students, it’s a tragic waste of time they could be investing in their chosen pursuits.

And this is just one example of the consequences of Ofqual’s failure to deliver reliable grades, one that happens every exam season.

Unreliable grades are a menace, and the easiest fix is for all certificates to declare, using Ofqual’s own words:

OFQUAL WARNING: THE GRADES ON THIS CERTIFICATE ARE RELIABLE ONLY TO ONE GRADE EITHER WAY

And if we accept that, then pursuing a policy to ensure all students study maths to 18 must surely be based on a better proposition than ensuring a high proportion attain a more acceptable – but also unreliable – grade.