London mega-college announces new CEO

One of the country’s largest FE college groups has revealed its next chief executive. 

Angela Joyce will take over as leader of Capital City College Group in January 2024, the group announced today. 

Joyce will leave WCG, formerly Warwickshire College Group, which she has led as chief since 2015, this December. 

CCCG has been led by Pablo Lloyd on an interim basis since the departure of Roy O’Shaughnessy in April. 

Joyce leaves one rural, multi-site college group to join an even larger urban one. 

On her watch, WCG grew to six colleges across Warwickshire and Worcestershire. The group also has three subsidiary companies. 

The fate of one of WCG’s former colleges, Malvern Hills College, is currently before the courts as the group attempts to lift a covenant on the use of land before it’s sold off. The closure of Malvern Hills has been met with controversy locally, in particular from the area’s MP. 

As well as expanding the group, Joyce oversaw WCG in becoming one of the first colleges to be granted foundation degree awarding powers and, later, bachelors degree awarding powers. 

“I am delighted to join one of the UK’s largest college groups and lead the organisation into its next phase of development. While I will be sad to leave WCG, I take much pride in the achievements accomplished by our board, colleagues and students during my eight-year tenure as CEO,” Joyce said. 

CCCG is made up of three large general further education colleges spanning ten sites across central and north London, as well as a number of subsidiaries.

Joyce’s new position will see her in control of a budget more than twice the size of WCG and more than three times the number of funded learners.

According to the latest accounts data, WCG recorded 8,051 ESFA and OfS-funded learners in 2021/22 while CCCG had 26,125. On total income, WCG received just under £49 million compared to just over £116 million received by CCCG.  

CCCG and WCG were both rated ‘good’ at their last Ofsted inspections, which took place in December 2022 and March 2018 respectively. 

Alastair Da Costa, the chair of CCCG, said: “Angela stood out as the exceptional candidate during our extensive selection process. Her unparalleled track record in leadership and ambitious vision for CCCG’s future make her an ideal fit for the role.”

The board of WCG will begin the process of recruiting a new CEO “in the coming months.”

London SEND college awarded top Ofsted marks

A London-based specialist college delivering vocational courses for high needs adults has been praised for its “highly inclusive and supportive” education in an ‘outstanding’ Ofsted report.

The watchdog undertook its first full inspection of Great Oaks College in the London borough of Hounslow in April and awarded the college ‘outstanding’ across the board.

The college had 98 learners aged 19 to 25 at the time of the inspection, all of whom have high needs or education health and care plans (EHCPs), and had learners with moderate, severe or profound and multiple learning difficulties (PMLD), including some with autism spectrum disorder.

The relatively new college had shown positive signs from an early monitoring visit in 2021, which found it was making ‘significant progress’ after opening in 2018. The college is co-located on the same site as Oaklands School.

Inspectors said staff and learners have “very high levels of respect for each other”, and that staff understand learners’ needs “extremely well” and have a “clear and very effective vision” for learners to live as independently as they can.

The report found the majority of learners achieve their learning goals and continue onto positive destinations after college, such as supported living and employment.

It said that teachers “thoroughly” prepare learners for post-college life through careers support and interview skills training for those on a vocational pathway.

It also found that staff are highly trained to identify safeguarding concerns through frequent training.

“College staff go above and beyond their statutory legal duties to help learners,” inspectors said, regarding safeguarding.

The college additionally taught students “sensitively and appropriately” about sexual identity and sexuality and how learners can keep themselves safe in college, at work and in the community surrounding online safety and consent.

Elsewhere, Ofsted said teachers were given an extensive training and development programme including SEND-related topics such as how to support learners who have Autism, moving and handling learners and behaviour management.

College Principal Nickyie Thomas told FE Week that everyone is “thrilled” to receive the rating and the achievement was a testament to the college’s commitment to excellence.

“The inspectors acknowledged and praised the hard work and dedication of our staff, who provide a stimulating and engaging educational experience for our students,” she said.

She also praised staff for their “tenacious enthusiasm” and “consistently excellent” teaching.

“The teachers, therapists, medical team, and support staff work collaboratively to provide bespoke learning packages,” she added. “Their work enables students to develop their independence, communication and to ensure that they are fully prepared for their next destination, as they take their place within the community.”

Thomas also said she was “immensely proud” of the students. “They have shown they are resilient, positive, and ready to challenge barriers and misconceptions.”

“I am proud to be the Principal of Great Oaks College and will continue to strive to develop our outstanding practice alongside a highly skilled team and our inspirational students.”

Sir Michael Barber reappointed as government skills adviser

The government has extended Sir Michael Barber’s role as a skill policy adviser.

The public administration supremo was announced as an unpaid adviser on skills reform implementation by the chancellor in November 2022 for a six-month term.

A Treasury spokesperson said today that “given the importance of the skills agenda and the need to maximise impact”, the chancellor and education secretary had decided to extend Barber’s role for a second term until December 16, 2023.

Little information has been published about Barber’s advice in the skills policy arena, but he told FE Week earlier this year that there will be no major “Barber Review of Skills Reform”.

His advice to the Treasury and Department for Education is more focused on delivery mechanisms – making what policies the sector has now work better.

The major reforms Barber is advising on include T Levels, boosting apprenticeships, approving Higher Technical Qualifications, rolling out skills bootcamps, and introducing the Lifelong Learning Entitlement from 2025.

Barber’s work was discussed at a meeting of the Department for Education’s board in February 2023.

Minutes from the meeting, published today, said Barber is advising the education secretary and the chancellor on five themes: “Skills delivery, a change in society’s perception of skills, the use of data to enable delivery of skills, careers information in secondary and tertiary education spaces, and a whole-of-government approach to skills.”

Barber has served in a number of roles within government, including as chief adviser to the education secretary from 1997 to 2001, head of the prime minister’s delivery unit from 2001 to 2005, chair of the Office for Students from 2018 to 2021, and led a review of the Number 10 delivery unit in 2021.

Outside of government, he has been a partner at McKinsey and head of their global education practice, and chief education adviser at Pearson.

Minister wants education providers to benefit from AI revolution

Ministers are scoping out how to ensure education providers benefit financially from any future use of pupil data by artificial intelligence systems.

The rapid rollout of generative AI such as ChatGPT and Google Bard has prompted a scramble across government to harness the technology’s power, but also to guard against any risks.

Such “large language models” could quickly process huge amounts of data, which experts say could help schools to understand their pupils better and analyse the impact of innovations.

Third-party organisations, including private companies, can already request data from the national pupil database for analysis. 

The development of more and more sophisticated AI systems could make this analysis easier. However, ministers are understood to be concerned about any use of pupil data to generate profits for private companies without any benefit for schools, colleges and pupils.

Baroness Barran, the minister leading on AI for the Department for Education, told FE Week’s sister publication Schools Week that ministers were “absolutely thinking about all of these issues”.

“It wouldn’t be truthful to say that we’re clear on what principles we will follow, but obviously, we are extremely sensitive and aware of the use of individual or aggregated pupil data. That’s clearly a real priority that we get that right”.

DfE probes data ownership and value

Barran said ministers were asking “a number of questions”, including on ownership of the data and “what’s it worth”.

“It’s about as complicated as anything I’ve ever looked at. But we’re working with people who are experts in data ethics and privacy, to really think through these problems.”

Ministers this week launched a call for evidence about the future use of AI in education, having already issued guidance for schools and colleges on how to combat issues such as cheating.

Gillian Keegan, the education secretary, told London Tech Week on Wednesday that AI was “transforming the world”, and that education must not be “left behind”.

Niel McLean, the head of education at BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, said there were potential benefits to using AI and pupil data. 

“If you build up a really large data model, and you train it using the pupil level data, then you can use that data model to help you understand your students as whole people.

“Everything matters. Their attendance matters, their performance matters, all those sorts of things. You’ve got a better sense of them as individuals. AI can do that. It can just help you just know your learnings better.” 

But he urged ministers to think about “four Ps”.

“There’s an ethics of purpose – what you’re actually using this to do? There’s an ethics of processes – how is data handled? What’s the confidentiality? How secure is it? There’s a people side. You want the people doing it to be professional, and feel they’re accountable. 

“The fourth P that came to my mind is the payback. Having a clear public benefits statement about giving that data to this entity, what does it deliver? And it shouldn’t just be financial return. It should be something that improves things for young people.”

But the DfE already faces questions about its approach to data-sharing.

A damning audit by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) in 2020 found the department broke data protection laws in how it handled pupil data. The full report still hasn’t been released.

It was also reprimanded over a “serious breach” that allowed a company providing age-verification for gambling companies access to the personal information of millions of young people.

Jen Persson, from the campaign group DefendDigitalMe, said the department should “publish the evidence of today’s data reality before getting ahead of itself with imagined futures. The 2020 DfE ICO audit must be published in full, with a timeline for what remains to be done. 

“And the DfE must commit to giving families control over the current commercial re-uses of their own and their children’s information from the millions of named records in the national pupil database, that few know exists.”

Colleges must embrace their central role in making apprenticeships more inclusive

The popularity of apprenticeships has soared since the introduction of the levy in 2017. Nevertheless, it is disconcerting that neurodivergent individuals who are keen on pursuing these opportunities have limited accessibility. To fix that, we need to start by shedding light on the challenges they encounter.

Lately, there has been a significant shift in the mindset of many learners, who are now favouring apprenticeship as their preferred path for progression. Students can earn while they learn, gain industry-specific skills and avoid the burden of high student loans. Successful completion leads to a recognised qualification and enhances job prospects. And they are accessible to a wide range of learners from level 2 to level 7, making them an appealing and well-defined pathway.

But what of the 15 per cent of the population thought to be neurodiverse. Education settings have been working to improve their inclusiveness over decades, but there is still plenty of scope for improvement. In addition, apprenticeships involve employers, many of whom have never engaged in this kind of work. Are they ready to meet the standards we set, let alone to help us to keep driving those standards up?

The first thing to note is that neurodiversity varies from person to person and represents a spectrum of needs, from hidden disabilities to more severe impairments. Across the sector though, our current programmes to support learners to find apprenticeship opportunities remain intrinsically very generic. Indeed, my experience indicates that they are broadly devoid of factoring in the spectrum of needs of neurodivergent learners.

A one-size-fits-all approach is clearly inadequate when addressing the needs of neurodivergent learners. These individuals require personalised guidance and support to make informed decisions about their education and career paths beyond their FE studies.

Another key barrier is systemic. Higher-level apprenticeships are to all intents and purposes off-limits for many neurodivergent learners who have completed level 3 vocational courses and struggled to achieve a grade 4 at GCSE or a level 2 in functional skills for maths, English or both.

A one-size-fits-all approach is clearly inadequate

Mencap has suggested that, where there is no industry standard regarding English and maths, neurodivergent learners’ abilities to meet the requirements of the job should be re-assessed. This is certainly an area where FE providers could work with employers to increase access. In the meantime, however, many neurodivergent learners remain ineligible for the level 3 and higher apprenticeship opportunities due to rigid criteria.

A third barrier that could be removed very quickly relates to support networks. Lack of tailored support and industry standards often result in neurodivergent learners turning to their parents or other sources for guidance and support into work, but these support networks can be limited – not least with regards to the information required to navigate the complex apprenticeships system on a level footing with their peers.

According to Scope, the disability employment gap is 29 per cent. This is even more pronounced for neurodivergent learners from disadvantaged groups. As a recent Guardian article highlighted, people from BAME backgrounds continue to face barriers to accessing apprenticeships – even without learning difficulties.

The rise in the popularity of apprenticeships, and the distinct advantages these qualifications confer, require us to think carefully about how our improving culture of inclusion can grow to encompass the specific demands of these qualifications.

Part of that is up to the DfE, who as part of their SEND and AP review must surely also revise the current ‘Specification of Apprenticeship Standards for England’ to remove unnecessary restrictions.

But there is a lot that we can and should be doing to customise our support structures in FE settings to offer personalised and sufficient assistance for neurodivergent students. We must establish policies that guarantee equal access to support and guidance for every learner, based on their unique needs.

And we must work with employers to make apprenticeships more inclusive. Big employers like Microsoft, Ernst and Young, JPMorgan Chase, and GCHQ are at the forefront of this work, but the many SMEs who form the backbone of apprenticeships and the economy need our help to follow suit.

The growing popularity of apprenticeships is a success story for the sector and for the economy, and we must ensure that this success is shared with every young person irrespective of needs.

King’s Birthday Honours: Who received what in FE & skills?

A longstanding college governor, college cleaning supervisor and a PE teacher are among sector figures named in the King’s first birthday honours list for services to further education and skills.

More than a dozen leaders from the FE and skills sector were named in the honours list, including one CBE, three OBEs, seven MBEs and three BEMs.

Mark White, who recently retired from the Education Training Collective’s governing board after 27 years, took the CBE.

His first role in further education was as a governor at Billingham’s Bede Sixth Form College back in 1995, and he has also served as chair of the Stockton Strategic Education Board. Over the years White has also chaired numerous AoC boards, including AoC sport and the AoC’s governors council.

Mark White

“I am thrilled and humbled by this award. I have worked with wonderful, dedicated people and, to me, this award recognises and celebrates the value and importance of our essential further education sector,” he said. White previously was given an OBE in 2016.

An OBE goes to Clare Howard, the chief executive of NATSPEC, the representative body for specialist colleges, for services to children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities.

Clare Howard

Howard said she was “speechless and a bit stunned about receiving the honour”.

“The only way I can understand it is to see it as recognition for all those thousands of dedicated people who work in specialist colleges or with students with SEND across the FE sector,” she added.

“This also wouldn’t have happened without all the people at work and home that have supported me; the credit and my thanks go to my colleagues in the Natspec team, my board, students and staff of every college, and my family.”

Two college leaders scooped OBEs for services to further education.

Pat Brennan-Barratt, chief executive and principal of Northampton College, said the OBE has “humbled me beyond words”.

Pat Brennan-Barrett

“Working in education has been a great privilege,” she added.

“Over time I have worked with the most extraordinary colleagues, whose talent and enthusiasm has been inspirational.

“In FE everybody plays a part. It’s not one individual who makes a difference but the part you play in a team. I am constantly amazed by the rock-solid professionals who work in colleges. Those who go the extra mile.”

White is joined on the honours list by his former colleague Philip Cook, who left his post as CEO of the Education Training Collective last August, and who has been made an OBE.

“I feel very proud but also lucky,” Cook said. “My family have been incredibly supportive throughout my career, and I have been fortunate to have worked with many talented and kind colleagues over the years.”

Multiple skills sector figures also picked up MBEs, including Gillian Eaton, the director at Sporting Futures Training in Stevenage, who said she was “immensely proud” to receive the MBE.

“The value of apprenticeships is immense and whilst we face challenges, we must strive to ensure that apprenticeships continue to fulfil the purpose for which they were developed,” she added.

Lloyd Thomas, future workforce skills & capability lead at Co-operative Group, also received an MBE which he said was a “reflection of not only my work but the support from hundreds of colleagues I’ve worked with across the years”.

“Apprenticeships and vocational qualifications are integral to ensuring our communities thrive and are opening doors every day for people from underrepresented groups who otherwise wouldn’t have been able to fulfil their potential.”

British Empire Medals (BEMs) meanwhile were awarded to three individuals including Pauline Franklin, cleaning supervisor at St Brendan’s Sixth Form College in Bristol.

“I’m just absolutely blown away, I don’t think it can get any better,” she said.

“It’s been 35 or 36 years that I have worked here, it’s a very very nice place to work. Being given this award, I can’t thank Marian [Curran, the college principal] enough for putting me forward – what an honour.”

Andrew Green, a physical education teacher at New College Pontefract in West Yorkshire, said he was “amazed” to get a BEM.

“This will be dedicated to my fantastic colleagues, parent volunteers and wonderful family, who have supported me over the years,” he added. “It has been a privilege to work with thousands of youngsters in schools, colleges and the local community. Providing opportunities for children and young people to develop their skills and achieve their potential has always been a great pleasure and honour in itself.”

The full list of FE and skills honours (click to enlarge):

Why Manchester’s proposals could lead straight MBacc to square one

Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham recently unveiled plans to introduce a Manchester Baccalaureate (MBacc). Its aim is to shift the city’s educational focus towards more technical subjects. Where the English Baccalaureate (EBacc) sets learners up to progress onto A-levels and from there typically on to university, the MBacc is intended to dovetail with a more vocational route in post-16 learning, including T-levels and progressing through the skills sector.

The MBacc is a good example of what can be done by local authorities like Greater Manchester using the new powers granted to them through devolution deals. It promises to better match the skills demanded by jobs to the supply of relevant qualifications, and not just nationally but in a way that reflects local idiosyncrasies. Burnham’s seven proposed ‘career gateways’ are calibrated to the strongest areas of the Greater Manchester economy.

With its focus on the 14–19 age bracket, the MBacc also breaks somewhat away from the ‘state of play’ in policy discussions around technical skills. It recognises that the path to higher technical qualifications is laid early in our educational trajectories. It also represents the best-developed positive alternative so far to the EBacc framework, long criticised for its academic skew.

By tying together 14–16 secondary education provision with the early stages of post-16 tertiary learning, the MBacc creates a smoother pathway through the complex ‘climbing frame’ of qualifications. This joined-up way of thinking about vocational learning pathways means learners can more easily navigate the step up into training and upskilling after school. Apprenticeships or vocational certificates and diplomas are no longer add-ons or afterthoughts to school-age learning, but a natural and pre-planned continuation.

Yet despite these clear areas of promise, the MBacc does not really touch some of the most fundamental problems of our education system.

Writing in these pages, Burnham was quick to say that he did not envisage EBacc and MBacc as ‘two rigid, parallel routes but an approach with as much commonality as possible’, with plenty of opportunities ‘to switch between the two’.

Our system needs deeper integration

He is right: our system needs deeper integration and it is crucial to elevate technical training to the same status as academic study. But the MBacc’s presentation as an alternative to the EBacc looks set to perpetuate the false rivalry between these two learning ‘tracks’. The proposals are open for consultation, but it is unclear whether enough groundwork has been laid to set up a genuine alternative. And besides, schools will continue to be held accountable for EBacc results.

Meanwhile, what is missing from the proposals is any consideration of what happens after learners leave the 14–19 age bracket. Many of the skills they need are precisely those offered by the MBacc qualifications. It is vital to combine growing the workforce of the future with refreshing, updating, or expanding technical skills among the workforce of today. The MBacc, in other words, must fit into a much larger programme of lifelong pathways in technical learning and skills training.

A final missing piece in the MBacc proposal is the voice of learners. It is hugely promising to see such strong support for the scheme from businesses, colleges, and the combined authority. Yet the scepticism among learners towards the ‘Welsh Bacc’ hangs over the MBacc like a shadow. Stakeholders will have their work cut out to ensure the MBacc has the visibility and take-up appeal it needs to succeed and that careers advisers can avoid presenting it as a poor relation.

If Westminster can learn anything from the MBacc proposal, it is that its EBacc calculation (and with it Achievement 8 and Progress 8) is increasingly out of step. It should include more technical options, giving learners more choices between and across academic and vocational subjects for longer.

And for local authorities with devolution deals, fostering local education partnerships that allow learners to ‘mix and match’ academic and technical learning could be just as productive as the MBacc, without the fanfare.

Greater Manchester can justly claim to be leading the way towards a new approach to technical learning. But for all its innovations, it does not obviate the need for much larger structural changes.

Why reviving the college-led SPA could see the sector through a challenging time

Workload has sped up for college boards recently. Accountability agreements, LSIPs, annual conversations with DfE, external governance reviews. Meanwhile, worries about quality, finances and big estates plan (more on these later) haven’t gone away for many, maybe even most.

You’ve been worried for a while that something could go wrong. Then something does. DfE conducts an assessment through the FEC team and its last recommendation is a commissioner-led Structure and Prospects Appraisal (SPA). That’s it. You’ve lost control of your future.

How did it come to this? The board is split, maybe feeling blindsided. It’s not really much use now, but you’re having strained conversations about how you could have headed off this situation.

The answer to that question is a college-led SPA. A SPA is a process to follow if you are considering anything from major structural change to a significant alteration of your delivery model. It doesn’t have to be focused only on merger.

Outcomes of a SPA might include federation or looser collaborative models, withdrawing from or locally merging key areas of provision or, of course, no change at all. If you’ve got a nagging doubt that your college could be vulnerable in future then trust your instincts. Get ahead of the curve and get answers for yourself. Run a SPA through a committee that reports to the Board.

At the very least, it will be useful as you approach your next annual conversation with the DfE. Something in the back pocket. It’s ten years ago now, but the business, innovation and skills department (DBIS) published guidance for colleges on how to conduct them that is still relevant.

Another good reason to do this is that reclassification could still result in further centralising behaviours from DfE in response to almost palpable anxiety around colleges’ financial grip. Now feels like the right time for colleges to take back some control.

I believe the two London Colleges I chaired between 2018 and 2023 were well served by commissioner-led SPAs. They were in almost uniquely difficult circumstances, but merger was the necessary outcome for both. Nevertheless, I do sometimes wonder what their alternative futures might have been if they had determined to take control of their own destinies.

Get ahead of the curve and get answers for yourself

When I think back to the huge pressures on executive and non-executive leadership through those years, I also wonder what steps leadership in colleges local to those two colleges could have taken collaboratively to preserve, enhance and protect the leadership bandwidth that we know is so precious in the sector.

Just as important to protect are the people who embody that bandwidth. One of the main worries for chairs today is their duty of care to their principal and chief executive. The association of colleges is rightly speaking up about these pressures. Collaboration and mutual support are surely central to the response, however it’s formalised (or not).

The DBIS guidance details a few triggers chairs should consider for commissioning a college-led SPA. Interestingly, it doesn’t prominently pick out large capital estates schemes. In my experience, however, any significant capital scheme should almost automatically warrant board consideration of a college-led SPA. It’s no coincidence that my last detailed estates conversation with a college leader segued imperceptibly into musing about merger.

The role of the board, and the chair in particular, is key. Harder-edged structural changes that come about outside of intervention are invariably driven by the chief executive, sometimes communicating with DfE/FEC. It is all conducted in highly private, perhaps deliberately non-transparent ways.  That’s understandable, but chairs and boards really need a greater role up front.

Perhaps I am just tripping over process, but I believe it’s important (and uncodified) process. In local and regional contexts, college-led SPAs could be discussed transparently first by chairs, and then commissioned to chief executives by chairs and their boards.

To work, it would require groups of like-minded chairs and boards, prepared to put aside competitive instincts. But that should be achievable. After all, they are the essence of the corporation. Ultimately, they own the blueprint for FE education and training delivery in their local areas, and do so in the best interests of all students and their whole community.

MOVERS & SHAKERS EDITION 429


Gillian Day

Director of Finance and Resources, JTL

Start date: April 2023

Previous Job: Director of Finance & Corporate Services, The Housing Ombudsman

Interesting fact: As a linguist, Gillian has lived in both Spain and France and, when a student at university, used to earn a bit of extra cash by making and decorating wedding cakes

Michael Wood Williams

Chair, Gateshead College

Start date: April 2023

Concurrent Job: In house corporate counsel and investor

Interesting fact: Michael worked as a professional skier and climber for ten years in the Austrian Alps