Robert Halfon and Nick Gibb return as education ministers

Former skills minister Robert Halfon and ex-schools minister Nick Gibb are making a return to the Department for Education’s ministerial team.

The pair were announced as new ministers of state in the DfE tonight as part of prime minister Rishi Sunak’s reshuffle.

Their roles are likely to be confirmed in the coming days, but FE Week understands that Halfon will return to skills and Gibb will return to schools.

DfE sources have indicated that current skills minister Andrea Jenkyns and minister for school standards Jonathan Gullis left their posts on Thursday afternoon, although there has been no official confirmation yet.

It comes just hours after Jenkyns addressed a Westminster Hall debate on last week’s Colleges Week.

No update has been given for the children’s minister role, currently held by Kelly Tolhurst.

Halfon held the skills brief from 2016 to 2017 before being sacked. He then became the chair of the education select committee and has held the role since.

Gibb had served as schools minister for most of the last ten years before being sacked last year by Boris Johnson.

Their appointments come as Sunak is reportedly planning education reforms including a new “British baccalaureate”, which is an idea favoured by Halfon and would require children to study a wider range of subjects in post-16 education, with English and maths compulsory.

The prime minister will also announce plans for a network of elite technical institutions, the Times reported.

Former skills minister Gillian Keegan was announced as the new education secretary yesterday.

The appointments mark a shift in experience at the department, whose ministers had much less experience both as MPs and in senior roles

Halfon said it was an honour to be reappointed to the DfE and is “looking forward to working with colleagues to deliver the prime minister’s exciting education & skills agenda to ensure every student can climb the educational ladder of opportunity”.

Gibb also said it was an “honour to be asked by the PM to return to the DfE. Looking forward to helping deliver the PM’s ambitious plans for ever higher standards in schools and world class technical education.”

A new education committee chair will now need to be appointed to replace Halfon.

Colleges and providers ‘don’t really know’ if tutoring is working, Ofsted finds

“Most” colleges and FE providers do not know whether the government’s Covid-19 tuition scheme is helping students catch up with lost learning, Ofsted has warned.

The inspectorate has published an independent review of the £500 million 16 to 19 tuition fund that was rolled out during the pandemic as part of the Department for Education’s education recovery package.

During its visits to 21 further education providers From September 2021 to July 2022, it found learners were “overwhelmingly positive” about their tutoring experiences, but the quality “differed” with some sessions put on simply for students to do coursework assignments or exam revision.

Here’s what you need to know…

Leaders do not know if tutoring is working

Ofsted said colleges and providers suggested that tuition had re-engaged learners, increased their confidence and resilience, and changed their attitudes to learning.

However, “many” leaders and managers acknowledged that they had “not yet developed efficient means of assessing learners’ progress through tutoring or back in the classroom”.

“Although many tutors used assessment well for diagnosis, not all were reviewing progress to identify whether the gaps were closed after the tuition sessions,” today’s report said.

“In many cases, teachers and learners described the impact of tutoring in terms of summative results or were awaiting the outcomes of end-of-year assessments to comment on impact.”

Some providers said they would judge whether tutoring worked according to “whether there had been a general improvement in grades, or progress ratings, across the whole group rather than evidence that learners knew and could do more”.

Some providers did not follow eligibility rules

The DfE said the tuition fund should be used for “small groups” of up to five students, or up to seven in exceptional circumstances.

It could be used for students who had not achieved up to a grade 6 in GCSE English and/or maths, as well as disadvantaged learners who had achieved those grades but were from the 27 per cent most economically deprived areas of the country.

Aside from eligibility, the scope was relatively open but the guidance specified that providers should use the fund to support tuition activity “above and beyond the programmes of education already planned”.

Ofsted said “some groups” were too large to allow the tutor to tailor the sessions to learners’ starting points, and they did not receive individual attention from a tutor. This meant that the sessions were unlikely to help learners to catch up.

In about a quarter of cases, group size was sometimes between five to seven learners. While this is acceptable under the DfE’s guidance, leaders “did not provide reasons for these decisions”.

And in four providers, Ofsted saw group sizes of more than seven. The watchdog warned that in groups of this size, “tutoring is likely to have less impact because the content is not adapted to the learners’ needs and they do not receive individual attention”.

In two of the independent learning providers visited, leaders did not check eligibility at all, and used the funding to provide extra support sessions for all learners. Ofsted said: “Learners could not distinguish tutoring from regular teaching sessions. Most learners at these providers were from disadvantaged backgrounds and would have been eligible for funding in any case.”

Tuition sessions used simply for coursework and revision

In about a quarter of providers visited by Ofsted, some tutoring sessions lacked planning and were instead open spaces to complete coursework assignments.

“This is not tutoring”, the watchdog said.

It also found that in some academic sessions, the tutor relied too much on learners to choose the content that they wanted to focus on which simply led to exam revision for exams rather than a focus on well-defined gaps in knowledge.

Some providers also used the tuition fund to deliver missed vocational content to whole groups of learners.

Recruitment for tutors proved a struggle for some

Ofsted found that tutors were often recruited from existing teaching staff and the quality of teaching was generally good.

But there were recruitment challenges, particularly in vocational and technical programmes.

Some providers recruited graduates as tutors because of challenges employing specialist teachers, inspectors found. These providers tried to recruit graduates with subject expertise in the area they were tutoring, as well as teaching or tutoring experience. However, this was not always possible.

Ofsted makes no comment on the quality of graduate tutors compared to existing staff.

King Charles laments lack of vocational education and ‘abandoned’ apprenticeships

King Charles has praised the value of apprenticeships but warned they are often “abandoned” and criticised a lack of vocational education across the country.

The comments were made before he became King in a one-off-episode of The Repair Shop, which will be broadcast by the BBC tonight at 8pm.

The then-Prince criticised the lack of vocational education, labelling it a “great tragedy”.

In the episode, he praises the value of technical skills and apprenticeships and says he has the greatest admiration for people who have technical skills.

Students from the Prince’s Foundation building craft programme, which teaches traditional skills including blacksmithing, thatching, stonemasonry, and wood carving, are filmed meeting Charles and showing the work they do. 

King Charles says: “I can see the difference we can make to people who have technical skills, which we need all the time. It gives people intense reward and satisfaction.

“I still think the great tragedy is the lack of vocational education in schools. Actually, not everybody is designed for the academic.

“I know through the Prince’s Trust. I see the difference we can make to people who have technical skills which we need all the time. I have the greatest admiration for people.

“That’s been a problem I think sometimes that’s forgotten. Apprenticeships are vital but I promise you people… they just abandoned apprenticeships for some reason.”

The rest of the episode shows the presenter, Jay Blades, and his repair team mending an 18th-century bracket clock and a piece of Wemyss Ware pottery made for Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee which the King recalls was damaged whilst someone was opening a window.

The then-Prince says: “Quite a lot of the people we’ve trained on these courses come back as tutors, so you get a wonderful circle. Some of them will be coming back for years, filling the skills gaps.”

One repair team member says: “Learning on the job and making the mistakes myself; that has taught me more than I could ever learnt out of a book”.

David Hughes, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, said tweeted that it was “great to have HRH King Charles advocating for skills, vocational, and technical education”.

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “We recognise that an academic route is not for everyone. Young people now have a range of high quality technical and vocational training options to choose from including apprenticeships and new T Level qualifications in a range of exciting subjects, helping them gain the skills they need to forge a great career.”

Skills funding: return to austerity?

The government has made technical education and adult skills a priority in order to improve economic growth and ‘level up’ poorer areas of the country. There is clear room for improvement here given low levels of adult skills and low take-up of technical qualifications.

However, rising levels of inflation and student numbers are putting growing pressures on budgets. The government is also more likely to be looking for savings in the upcoming fiscal statement.

Growing pressures

In the decade up to 2019, colleges and sixth forms saw some of the largest funding cuts across all areas of education. Spending per student in further education and sixth form colleges fell by 14 per cent after inflation and by an eye-watering 28 per cent in school sixth forms. The government has sought to change direction by providing an additional £2.3 billion in funding by 2024 compared with 2019. While this represents a significant injection of additional funding over the next few years, the effect on per-student spending will be dampened by rising student numbers and rising levels of inflation.

With the population boom in schools gradually working its way through the system, we already expect student numbers to rise by over 160,000 or 17 per cent between 2019 and 2024. Numbers will continue to rise by 2 per cent between 2024 and 2026.

Rising inflation will also eat into budgets. School sixth forms already face higher costs from rises in teacher pay (more than 5 per cent on average September 2022), an 8-9 per cent increase in support staff pay, as well as pressures from energy and food prices. The proposed pay award for college staff is currently lower at 2.5 per cent (with extra cost of living payments for low-paid staff). This might ease financial pressures on colleges, but might not be sustainable due to competition for staff with schools and ongoing industrial action across colleges.

Given rising inflation and student numbers, we now project that spending per student in colleges in 2024–25 will remain about 11 per cent lower in real terms than it was in 2010–11, and about 27 per cent lower in school sixth forms. These past cuts and further rises in student numbers will make it difficult to cut total funding for colleges and sixth forms.

Will skills spending be maintained?

Total spending on adult education and apprenticeships fell by 38 per cent after inflation between 2010 and 2020, with most of this driven by a 50 per cent fall in total spending on classroom-based adult education.

This will be partially reversed by an additional £900 million in extra spending in 2024. This includes an additional £550 million to restore full public funding for first full Level 3 qualifications and ‘Skills Bootcamps’, an additional £170 million for apprenticeships and about £190 million per year on the new ‘Multiply’ programme to improve adult numeracy. Even with this extra funding, spending on adult education and apprenticeships will still be more than 25 per cent lower in 2024 than in 2010.

This may be an area where the government looks to make savings. Scaling back new initiatives before they have been fully rolled out, such as ‘Skills Bootcamps’ and the ‘Multiply’ programme, might be easier than cutting existing programmes.

There is also a strong case for reform of the apprenticeship levy and funding system. Since the launch of the apprenticeship levy in 2017, firms have failed to spend about 25 per cent of the money in their digital accounts or about £500 million per year. Failing to spend essentially free money is not usually a good sign of value-for-money.

There are strong incentives to repackage existing training as apprenticeships in order to qualify for subsidy. Labour have already signalled a desire to reform the system to widen what qualifies for subsidy, partly to reduce this incentive.

Furthermore, there are potential sources of inconsistency. Degree-level apprenticeships effectively receive full public funding for course fees up to £27,000. This contrasts with university courses, where students are expected to repay loans to cover their course fees. While there is likely to be little appetite for another big bang reform, there is a strong case for reforming and targeting the system to achieve better value-for-money.

It would therefore not be surprising if the government sought to reform and make savings in the apprenticeships budget.

Labour eyes widened apprenticeship levy, return of EMA and individual learner accounts in government

A future Labour government should widen the apprenticeship levy to include other forms of training, bring back the education maintenance allowance and rollout further devolution, its council of skills advisers have said.

The party’s Council of Skills Advisers, chaired by former education secretary in Tony Blair’s government, David Blunkett, published its ambitions for the future of skills policy this morning.

Commissioned by party leader Keir Starmer, the report was teased at last month’s Labour party conference, and is designed to shape future policies to address the nation’s skills gaps and bolster economic recovery if the party wins the next election.

Here are the key recommendations…

Expand the apprenticeship levy

Teased at the party conference, Labour seeks to reform the levy into an “apprenticeship and learning levy” so that it can contribute to specified training costs that are not limited only to apprenticeships, with a particular steer towards 16 to 25-year-olds.

Furthermore, all apprentices on level 2 qualifications should be given the right to progress to a level 3 advanced apprenticeship, it said.

The 25 per cent limit on transferring levy funds should be lifted to make it easier for smaller firms to access.

Currently employers with a £3 million or more wage bill pay into the levy at a rate of 0.5 per cent of their wage bill, but are only expected to use half of their sum to pay for apprenticeships while the rest goes towards paying for small and medium-sized employer apprenticeships and other parts of the system.

Labour’s party conference announcement said under its new levy system, large employers could “spend up to 50 per cent of their levy contributions on non-apprenticeship training, with at least 50 per cent being reserved for apprenticeships to preserve existing provision”.

Question marks were raised over how small businesses would continue to access the levy if larger employers use more of it. The report has not shed any further light on how the funding for this new system would work.

The council’s report does put an emphasis on expanding apprenticeships for younger people and to that effect recommends that Labour should “reinstate and develop a Young Person’s Taster Apprenticeships programme to offer meaningful and engaging vocational opportunities at age 14 to 16”.

‘Shared apprenticeships’ for SMEs and larger firms

While not addressing the details of how a new apprenticeship and learning levy would work between larger and smaller firms, the council has proposed a shared apprenticeship scheme between SMEs and larger firms which have greater resources.

They only exist in small numbers at the moment, according to the report, and would aim to help businesses keen to get involved but without the resources to do so. Further details have not been shared.

Introduce a skills tax credit for SMEs

The council said SMEs should be given an additional incentive to provide training for their
employees and suggested the introduction of a skills tax credit.

The report said: “As recommended by the Learning and Work Institute, this could be modelled on the R&D tax credit, and could allow employers to deduct 230 per cent of the cost of apprenticeships and accredited training from their tax bills, with a higher skills credit,
allowing 300 per cent of training costs to be deducted, in priority, levelling up areas.”

The idea of a skills tax credit has been put forward by various sector leaders and organisations in recent years.

Establish a National Skills Taskforce

Key players should be brought together, such as further and higher education bodies, trade unions, central and local government, and employers of all sizes, the report said, to develop long-term plans and ensure devolved decision making meets national objectives.

In addition, government departments should be co-ordinated more to develop skills policies.

Regional and sub-regional devolution

Decision-making and spending should be devolved where possible, the council suggests, with the NST helping simplify the “patchwork” of local bodies responsible for skills, such as local enterprise partnerships, mayoral combined authorities and local authorities. Combined authorities should take the lead in revamped skills commissioning.

Local skills improvement plans (LSIPs) – documents produced in collaboration with employers to direct skills commissioning – should be an ongoing process and not one-off exercises, it said.

Career service overhaul

The careers services should undergo a “complete shakeup”, Labour’s plans say, and feature trained careers leaders in all schools. Furthermore, regional or sub-regional careers hubs should be formed to provide every student with access to mentors and engagement opportunities with colleges, universities and employers.

Career awareness training should be made available to teachers, and a young people’s taster apprenticeship programme should be developed to offer vocational opportunities for those aged 14-16.

Job Centre Plus should be responsible for an all-age careers advice service, it added.

Further collaboration between FE, HE and businesses

“Post-16 learning, both vocational and academic, must be seen as a seamless pathway through apprenticeship, further and higher education – which instead of being juxtaposed as competitors, should instead be seen as partners in delivering a high-skill, high-productivity, technologically enabled workforce for the future,” Labour’s proposals said.

That could take the form of local “clusters” of colleges and universities where governance and back-office functions are merged.

Ofsted review

Although not going quite as far as Labour’s 2019 proposals in which the party suggested abolishing Ofsted in favour of a two-phase inspection system, the latest report does still advocate a review of the education watchdog.

That would be a national review of the inspectorate, although there are no further details on the scope of that review.

Quality assurance for higher education providers that lies with the Office for Students should be re-examined, with a separate quality assurance agency to be considered.

Reintroduction of the education maintenance allowance

The EMA should be resurrected in England for all 16-to-19-year-olds – including those on apprenticeships, the council proposes.

EMA offered students a weekly payment to help youngsters with their studies, but was scrapped by the coalition government in 2011 in England. It continued in the devolved nations.

This isn’t the first time Labour has called for a return of EMA.

Reintroduce ‘individual learner accounts’

Labour says individual learner accounts will share the cost of learning between the individual, employer and the state, and feature in the devolved budgets for combined authorities.

It hopes to incentivise employer co-funding to “further boost the range of training that can be made available to workers”.

For years, ministers have tinkered with the idea of handing choice and power to the student by giving them access to a “bank” of the loans and grants they can spend on tertiary education.

The idea has had various names – Individual Learning Accounts, as they were under New Labour in the early 2000s, as well as personal learner accounts, individual education budgets, skills accounts, skills wallets. But a software system open to fraudulent abuse under the ILA system, launched in 2000, caused a horrified Estelle Morris to end them just a year later.

Form learning and skills ‘passports’

The council says these would develop individual profiles for learners to add to throughout their life as they develop skills records and qualifications.

Public procurement contracts to include upskilling

Public procurement and supply chains should seek to boost apprenticeship recruitment as part of their conditions, or contain clauses relating to skills and training.

Labour says it is “vital” for social value, and should be evidenced in contracts as to how apprenticeships will be created.

Right to retrain

Progression pathways for adults must be opened up, according to the report, with plans for a new “right to retrain” providing more flexible access to free courses for adults, specifically a first level 2 qualification from an approved provider.

Elsewhere, financial support for adult learners should be expanded.

Lord Blunkett said: “What the report spells out today is nothing short of a revolution in meeting the skills needs of the nation.

“It addresses the immediate pressures of the moment, but it also offers a social democratic solution to the challenges of the future, including the rapidly increasing impact of artificial intelligence and robotics, re-equipping the nation for the economy of tomorrow.”

Who is Gillian Keegan? 11 facts about the new education secretary

New prime minister Rishi Sunak has promoted Gillian Keegan to the role of education secretary, replacing Kit Malthouse.

Here’s what we know about her.

  1. Born in 1968, Keegan is 54 years old, which is older than the average for education secretaries, which is around 49. However, she is far from being the oldest – that was Keith Joseph, who was 63 when he was appointed.
  2. She is the fifth to serve in the role in four months, the sixth in 14 months and the tenth since the Conservatives came to power in 2010.
  3. Keegan is the MP for Chichester in West Sussex. She is the first politician from the county to serve in the role.
  4. The new education secretary is the first to have been first elected in 2017. Her predecessors Malthouse, James Cleverly and Michelle Donelan were all elected in 2015, while Nadhim Zahawi and Gavin Williamson were elected in 2010.
  5. Born in Leigh, Lancashire, Keegan went to primary school in Yorkshire and a comprehensive secondary school in Knowsley, Merseyside.
  6. She left school at 16, making her the first education secretary to have done so since Alan Johnson. She was an apprentice at Delco Electronics, a subsidiary of General Motors in Kirkby. She was sponsored to study a degree in business at Liverpool John Moores university, and went on to study a Sloan Fellowship master’s degree at London Business School.
  7. Keegan spent almost 30 years living and working abroad in the manufacturing, banking and IT industries, most recently as chief marketing officer for Travelport, a travel technology company.
  8. The MP told the Telegraph in 2017 that the activities of trade unions influenced her decision to become a Tory as a teenager. This might not bode well for her dealings with education unions, which are balloting for strike action. She said she saw unions were “all powerful and making it very unattractive for inward investment…I just knew that economic approach wasn’t going to work”.
  9. In 2019, she accused the government of “playing catch-up” on mental health services for children.
  10. She has also spoken about how special educational needs and disability funding is an issue “close to my heart” as her nephew has Down’s syndrome. She warned in 2020 that special schools in her constituency were oversubscribed and receiving more admission requests, adding they need “capital investment to expand”.
  11. During her time as skills minister she helped oversee the launch of the FE white paper and skills bill, the initial rollout of T Levels, and skills bootcamps.

Gillian Keegan becomes fifth education secretary in four months

Former skills minister Gillian Keegan has been appointed education secretary by new prime minister Rishi Sunak.

She becomes the fifth person to hold the role in just four months.

Keegan replaces Kit Malthouse who left as education secretary today.

She said: “It is a privilege to be appointed secretary of state for education. As a former apprentice and previous minister at the department, I know how important education is to levelling up opportunities and helping people to build the life they want.

“From childcare support and helping children in care, to improving school standards and giving both young people and adults the skills they need to get great jobs.

“I look forward to engaging with our brilliant nurseries, schools, colleges, universities and all the staff working across our sectors.”

READ MORE: FE Week’s profile of Gillian Keegan

Elected to Parliament for the West Sussex seat of Chichester in 2017, Keegan served as a junior minister for apprenticeships and skills between 2020 and 2021, and then as a minister of state in the health department from 2021 to this September.

She became a junior Foreign Office minister last month, with responsibility for Africa.

Born in Leigh, Lancashire, she went to primary school in Yorkshire before moving to Knowsley, Merseyside.

She became an apprentice at the age of 16 and was sponsored to study a degree in business at Liverpool John Moores University. Keegan became well known in the sector and parliament for regularly reminding everyone she was herself a former apprentice.

She worked in manufacturing, banking and IT, and served as chief marketing officer for a travel technology company.

During her time as skills minister Keegan helped oversee the launch of the FE white paper and skills bill, the initial rollout of T Levels, and skills bootcamps.

Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, welcomed Keegan but said the “revolving door shows a complete disregard for the importance of what should be a key government post and it must stop”.

“Education matters more than this. It is a vital public service,” he added. “Schools and colleges deserve stable political leadership which addresses the crucial issues of inadequate funding and severe staff shortages caused by a government which has undervalued the workforce and sapped its morale.”

The education secretary merry-go-round

Nadhim Zahawi, September 15, 2021 to July 5: 293 days

Michelle Donelan, July 5 to July 7: two days

James Cleverly, July 7 to September 6: 61 days

Kit Malthouse, September 6 to October 25: 49 days

Average time as education secretary (since 1941): 764 days

Kit Malthouse out as education secretary in Rishi Sunak reshuffle

Kit Malthouse has departed as education secretary, meaning the sector will have a fifth secretary of state in four months.

It’s not clear yet if Malthouse, who was appointed in September, has resigned or was sacked by new prime minister Rishi Sunak.

He tweeted today: “As I leave the DfE (Department for Education), I do so with profound gratitude to officials, my private office team, and brilliant advisers, who all worked so hard.

“I hope my successor can harness their commitment to the most important mission in Whitehall: the future and welfare of our children.”

He also offered a “huge thank you to all the nursery workers, teachers, academics, staff, social workers and others, who help bring our young people through childhood and set them on a path to success.

“Our time together was short, but you will hear more from me in the months to come.”

Malthouse mostly remained under the rader while in post.

His main interventions were pledging to draw up plans for two new vocational colleges in the north to rival Oxford and Cambridge, vowing to “reinvigorate” Michael Gove’s academy reforms and promising “constant pressure” on schools to boost standards.

He was appointed education secretary by Liz Truss, becoming the fourth person to hold the role in a chaotic two months that included Michelle Donelan resigning after less than two days in the job.

The education secretary merry-go-round

Nadhim Zahawi, September 15, 2021 to July 5: 293 days

Michelle Donelan, July 5 to July 7: two days

James Cleverly, July 7 to September 6: 61 days

Kit Malthouse, September 6 to October 25: 49 days

Average time as education secretary (since 1941): 764 days

‘Too much content’ concerns raised in early Ofsted T Level study

A delayed Ofsted study into the implementation and quality of T Levels has found concerns that there is too much content and a need for improved planning.

But report authors say the rollout has been “a good start” and that no issues were insurmountable.

The education watchdog on Monday published an interim report into the launch of the government’s flagship new technical equivalents to A-levels in 2020 and 2021, and the T Level transition programmes.

The study, which was delayed by a year during Covid-19 and will be followed with another in 2023, sampled 24 providers (including 10 running the transition programme) to evaluate the main strengths and weaknesses of the curriculum, how well industry placements were being implemented, and how well they were meeting the needs of learners.

Paul Joyce, deputy director for further education and skills at Ofsted told FE Week: “The providers we have visited and the DfE have been very committed to making the T level rollout a success, and we have undoubtedly seen that through our visits.

“[There are] Inevitably some problems with new courses, and I don’t think anyone would have planned to roll out new provision in a pandemic. There are lots of positives to take from it but some learning and areas for improvement to make things even better.”

Ofsted’s recommendations have called on providers to reduce delays to industry placements, offer summer schools and projects to provide guidance to learners before they start their T Level, ensure coherent curriculum planning, and collaborate with employers.

It says employers must ensure their placements give relevant experience to the students’ T Level course, while the Department for Education has been tasked with evaluating the transition programme’s effectiveness and ensuring universities accept T Levels for all relevant courses.

Here are some of the key findings from the report.

Too much content

Teachers and course leaders have reported concerns that there was “too much content to cover in class”, and in some cases meant providers struggled to offer wider personal development or curriculum sessions on areas like money management or mental health.

Some also reported that there was “insufficient time” for re-sits for GCSE maths or English, which are not a requirement of the T Level but offered by some providers to help fill gaps in knowledge, while others voiced uncertainty about breadth and depth of content that should be taught.

Similarly for students, Ofsted found that not all learners were prepared for the amount of work they had to do.

The DfE said the programmes were rightly rigorous.

Delays to industry placements

T Levels include a mandatory 45-day industry placement, which Ofsted described as “broad, high-quality and appropriate experiences”, but many had faced delays as a result of Covid-19.

Providers “struggled to attract enough high-quality employers”, while staff shortages and home working meant employers were often unable to host a student.

Concerningly, in health and science placements learners had to be 18 or over in some health settings and double-vaccinated against Covid-19. They also required Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks, preventing placement starts. Both limited opportunities for younger students on health-related courses, the report said.

Ofsted said it found some employers did not routinely give learners the opportunity to put theory into practice. In a small number of cases, learners were given only basic tasks, Ofsted reported, while some placements, it said, lacked structure.

Joyce said: “We are very aware of the amount of time and of course as numbers grow, finding those placements for providers and learners may become problematic, we will have to see there. But by and large, for the relatively small number that were on courses during our initial work, they were Covid-related issues and sectors like digital, construction, health, that is probably not surprising.

Collaborative curriculum planning

Ofsted said providers linking topics and utilising practical case studies were among examples of good practice in curriculum planning.

But unrealistic learning environments, and an “underdeveloped” curriculum were reported in a small number of providers. Some providers just used the list of topics as a curriculum, it said.

The report added: “Many leaders talked about adapting and improving their curriculum planning after the first year,” noting that the best curriculum planning happened in collaboration with employers.

Teacher recruitment concerns

Some teachers were well prepared to begin teaching T Levels, the report said – particularly where there were strong links between providers and employers.

But some said they did not have enough training, and many who took part in the Education and Training Foundation’s T Level professional development programme “did not feel it prepared them”, the document said.

Some providers reported difficulties in recruiting industry specialist teachers, most notably in construction.

Questions over the transition programme

The report found that teaching on the T Level transition programme – a year-long course carried out between finishing school in Year 11 and going onto a T Level aimed at those who did not have all the skills required for the T Level – was generally of a high standard.

But Ofsted chiefs found it was “clear that many learners would not necessarily progress to a T Level course”.

A lack of careers advice and guidance was cited as one reason, while others didn’t achieve the grades needed to progress onto the T Level.

In addition, some providers offered transition programmes in subjects not yet offered as a T Level course, such as sport, and work experience placements were “not always of a high quality”.

Ofsted has confirmed it will revisit the same providers next year now that there is a benchmark.

Joyce added: “I don’t think there is anything there that we have identified that is insurmountable for any provider. I think this is about tweaks in guidance, in support, in IAG [information, advice and guidance], and in delivery practise.”

Delays in resources

Ofsted reported that “across all T Levels, providers were dissatisfied that some resources from awarding bodies were initially not available”.

That included textbooks, practise exam papers and teaching materials, and frustrations were voiced by teachers in trying to get timely answers and clarity from awarding bodies to their questions.

A DfE spokesperson said it welcomed the findings. “We commissioned this review to gather evidence about the quality of T Levels to ensure the ambitious standards we have set are being met,” the spokesperson said.

“The findings offer valuable insights that will help us to shape policy and tailor our support programmes in the future to make sure all T Level students have the support they need to be successful.”