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6 September 2026

Latest news from FE Week

Training providers ‘optional’ under Reform apprenticeship plan

Training providers would be sidelined under Reform UK plans to let more employers deliver apprenticeships in-house, the party has revealed.

In an apprenticeship policy paper unveiled by education spokesperson Suella Braverman on GCSE results day, Reform pledged to “reverse the collapse” in starts from 353,000 in 2024-25 to a target of 600,000.

By making third-party training providers “optional” for small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs), Reform said it would reduce “red tape”.

Other proposals include a headline 30 per cent tax credit on wages for SMEs hiring 16 to 18-year-old apprentices, and a £2,000 tax-free retention bonus for young workers who stay with their employer for two years after completing their apprenticeship.

It also suggested softening rules around off-the-job training, English and maths exit requirements and apprentice assessment.

Baroness Alison Wolf, who served as an adviser on skills to the prime minister’s office from 2020 to 2023, called the wage credit policy “in principle a good idea” but said weakening formal training would be “very, very bad”.

“It would effectively abolish apprenticeships in a very large proportion of cases, and just replace it with a wage subsidy,” she said.

‘Suboptimal’ apprenticeship model

Currently, the only employers that can run apprenticeship training in-house are those with a wage bill of at least £3 million that pay the apprenticeship levy.

But of the 37,000 large employers that pay the levy, just 122 have taken this option by becoming a so-called ‘employer provider’.

Reform UK argued the apprenticeship model was “suboptimal” because apprentices must spend six hours a week away from their regular duties for off-the-job training, sometimes in a classroom.

It said this created a cost and bureaucratic burden for employers, particularly small businesses, which must find and choose a training provider.

The party said its proposal would remove this “psychological and practical barrier” by allowing a greater number of employers to conduct apprenticeship training in-house, according to their “professional judgment and industry standards”.

Employers could focus on practical on-the-job training or set aside time for book-based learning where necessary, while external providers would remain available but “optional”.

Young people choose apprenticeships for “proper work experience”, the party argued, adding that classroom environments are “not conducive to many people’s learning needs”.

Reform’s policy paper states that for trades where there are implications for public safety, “qualifications will be required, but again it will be for qualified employers to map out the route”.

It added: “Where outside approval may be necessary, it should be trade associations that carry out assessments in the first instance.”

Reform also promised to scrap the exit requirement for 16 to 18-year-old apprentices to achieve a level 2 qualification in English and maths to complete an apprenticeship. This rule was removed by Labour last year, but only for adults.

The party said it would consult on the proposals if it wins the next general election.

‘Not a bureaucratic burden’

Association of Employment and Learning Providers chief executive Ben Rowland welcomed plans to remove English and maths exit requirements for under-19s and measures to make it easier for smaller employers to access incentives and bursaries.

But he questioned whether extending the scope of employers to become in-house training providers would be popular.

He pointed out that only around 0.3 per cent of eligible employers choose to become employer providers, which demonstrates the expertise, capacity and commitment required to deliver apprenticeship training in-house.

Rowland said: “The magic of an apprenticeship is its unique blend of learning on and off the job.

“For most SMEs, dedicated off-the-job training is not a bureaucratic burden but a valuable part of developing a skilled and productive employee.

“Training providers also provide vital support to SMEs throughout the entire apprenticeship journey, from taking on a young person through to successful completion.

“Greater flexibility for employers is welcome, but it must not come at the expense of the high-quality, structured training that makes an apprenticeship an apprenticeship.”

Learning and Work Institute chief executive Stephen Evans said financial incentives like wage subsidies and retention bonuses “can help” increase the number of apprenticeships for young people, but apprenticeship growth “ultimately depends on a strong economy and employer demand”.

He added that apprenticeships should prepare people for a career, not just the job they’re doing today.

“That’s why off-the-job training and English and maths matter,” Evans warned. “Removing these requirements would be a mistake and would take England further out of line with leading apprenticeship systems like Germany.”

Jamie Cater, employment policy manager at manufacturing sector body Make UK, said businesses would welcome simplification of the apprenticeship system, but removal of off-the-job training and basic literacy and numeracy skills would “risk undermining the readiness of apprentices to move straight into work”.

600,000 starts a year

Reform’s overall goal is to reach 600,000 apprenticeship starts a year, almost double the 353,000 starts recorded in 2024-25.

The party’s 30 per cent wage credit for 16 to 18-year-old apprentices would provide up to £4,742 per worker per year.

Reform’s calculations for the wage credit and retention bonus estimate a cost of between £1.4 and £2 billion between 2027-28 and 2031-31.

The current government apprenticeship budget is £3.3 billion a year and has been fully spent in recent years, forcing ministers to find savings by cutting public funding for some apprenticeships.

Reform did not pledge to increase the overall apprenticeship budget, instead pointing to savings elsewhere including a proposal to ban foreign students from accessing taxpayer-funded loans for university study.

The party would also “come down like a tonne of bricks on taxpayer-funded Mickey Mouse degrees from third-rate universities”, with no more public subsidies for “woke nonsense like gender studies or critical race theory”.

Other proposals include creating a “one-stop shop” for apprenticeship contracts, employer handbooks and paperwork, and using “automation” to speed up the apprenticeship service.

The party would also scrap the current intermediate, advanced and higher apprenticeship classifications and instead classify apprenticeships by occupation, with ranked standards within each occupation.

DfE plans £800m national SEND CPD framework

The government plans to create a new national framework worth up to £800 million to offer teachers continuing professional development (CPD) on SEND inclusion.

The four-year framework, which could be extended by two further years, would be used to design and deliver CPD to staff across early years, schools and further education.

In January, the Department for Education committed £200 million to provide SEND training to all teaching staff in every college, school and nursery, as part of major SEND reforms that aim to increase inclusion in mainstream settings.

The sector broadly welcomed the investment but some warned of a focus on “short-term pots of cash” and the lack of a long-term training plan.

Framework will help deliver SEND training

The planned framework would be used to deliver a significant proportion of the already-confirmed £200 million training package – though some elements have already been procured separately.

It could be live for up to six years and would have a “maximum potential lifetime value” of up to £800 million, meaning it could be used to deliver SEND workforce development longer-term.

The framework would “support the government’s investment in SEND workforce development and provide a flexible route to market for both immediate and future SEND CPD requirements”.

However, the DfE stressed any investment beyond the confirmed £200 million remains subject to future Treasury spending review decisions.

“This [£800m] figure represents the maximum potential value of the procurement and does not constitute a commitment to spend,” the department said in an official notice.

Staff must ‘engage meaningfully’

Alison Peacock, chief executive of the Chartered College of Teaching, welcomed the “significant, and potentially long-term, investment in professional development around SEND”.

Alison Peacock

But to achieve its full impact, “individuals and schools [and colleges] will need to create capacity and time to engage meaningfully with the programmes”, she added.

“This will be happening alongside changes to curriculum, assessment and accountability measures, as well as a relatively new inspection framework, all of which make demands of school [and college] staff.”

Peacock warned that SEND students also need specialist support from a range of other professionals, many of whom are “stretched too thinly” to provide adequate help to parents, learners and providers.

SEND training should be in-person – Kebede

NEU general secretary Daniel Kebede also welcomed the investment, but said the union “is not convinced the funding is sufficient to deliver the quality of training required”.

He also called for all training to be in-person.

Daniel Kebede

“For too long SEND training has been provided through online courses – what is required is in person training with coaching and accreditation.”

He added that the government “must” develop professional qualifications for teaching assistants who support SEND students.

‘SEND reforms cannot be done on the cheap’

Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the leaders’ union ASCL, said access to training and professional development “is essential if the SEND reforms are to be a success” and called for continued investment.

“The changes education staff are being tasked with implementing are hugely significant. Ongoing training is vital in ensuring these new expectations can be met and that children can get the support they require.

“Future spending reviews therefore must lay the groundwork for this system of training and professional development being embedded across the education system, as this is not something that can be done on the cheap.”

Contracts from March

The tender process is expected to launch in September, with a view to awarding contracts by March 2027.

Services commissioned may include design and development of national SEND CPD programmes, as well as learning resources and materials. They may also include training delivery, quality assurance, and digital learning.

Multiple suppliers are expected to be involved in delivering the SEND CPD programme.

The DfE has confirmed the timeline for its £200 million training package remains the same.

Free downloadable training materials designed by teacher training provider Ambition Institute are to be released from September.

New fully funded “inclusive education” training courses for teachers, leaders, teaching assistants, and FE support staff will be on offer by autumn next year.

Ofsted to review NEET prevention strategies

Successful strategies for helping disengaged young people transition into post-16 education will be highlighted in a new Ofsted-led study aimed at tackling rising NEET numbers.

The watchdog and Department for Education have jointly commissioned research into “effective” strategies for helping 16 to 18-year-olds remain in education, employment or training.

The study will identify practices from schools, colleges and training providers that helps young people stay engaged, prevents dropouts and support those who have already disengaged to re-enter education or training.

More than one million young people are currently estimated to be classed as not in education, employment or training (NEET).

Former Labour health minister Alan Milburn is currently running a national review into youth participation in work and education. His interim report in May warned of a post-16 system prioritised on enrolling young people into college rather of helping them progress into work.

His final recommendations are expected this autumn.

According to the terms of reference of the Ofsted and DfE review, published today, the inspectorate will investigate how schools and post-16 providers support young people as they move into their next destination.

Ofsted will examine its “rich” inspection evidence on a national scale that covers factors linked to disengagement such as attendance, inclusion, personal development and careers education.

Ofsted stressed that its role in this project is not to set new statutory expectations, but to identify effective practice and emerging evidence that can inform inspection practice, provider guidance and policy development.

Researchers will examine how schools, colleges and training providers identify and tackle barriers that increase a young person’s risk of becoming disengaged.

They will also assess how far existing inspection evidence captures the strategies providers use to prevent young people becoming disengaged and subsequently NEET.

The research will include case studies from eight local authority areas, examining how schools, post-16 providers and councils work together on prevention, transition and reengagement.

From the next academic year, researchers will interview school, college and local authority staff, alongside young people during the summer, autumn and winter terms, to track their experiences of the post-16 pathway.

A final report is expected in early to mid-2027.

College defends last minute decision to ditch A Levels

City of Liverpool College has defended its decision to cancel A Level courses on the day students expected to start enrolling.

The college announced yesterday, on GCSE results day, that it was scrapping all first-year A Level enrolments, leaving around 40 students scrambling to find a different course or place elsewhere.

A college spokesperson blamed “declining volumes” of A Level applications and “record growth” in students taking vocational and technical courses.

But according to staff speaking to local newspaper the Liverpool Echo, the timing of the announcement has left students who expected to start at City of Liverpool College in the next couple of weeks “distressed” at having to find a new school sixth form or college at short notice.

In a statement to FE Week, a college spokesperson said the decision was “not taken lightly”, with management waiting as long as possible in the hope of having more “firm enrolments”.

“At the same time that we were looking at very small numbers for A Levels, we were facing substantial waiting lists from young people wanting to study programmes directly connected to Liverpool’s future workforce needs,” they added.

“Maintaining very small A Level classes inevitably means resources cannot be deployed to accommodate young people waiting for those other opportunities.”

The college considered other factors such as overall student capacity to deliver “exceptional” teaching and learning, staff utilisation and wellbeing, and the “high level of availability” of 30 alternative A Level providers across the city.

‘A Level bias’

The college took aim at society’s “unfortunate tendency” to view A Levels as “gold standard” qualifications while technical and vocational qualifications are “somehow regarded as second best”.

Without giving any details of courses or timings of decisions, the college claimed that a decision to close some vocational courses last year due to viability was not met with a “comparable media reaction” to this week’s news.

About 40 students had applied for City of Liverpool College A Level courses this year, with about half now understood to have enrolled on “alternative qualifications”.

The college said second year A Level students would be able to finish their course and that there will not be any staff redundancies as a result of the decision.

Speaking to BBC News, principal Elaine Bowker said the City of Liverpool College is 500 “oversubscribed” in construction engineering students and 250 oversubscribed on health and social care courses.

She apologised for “causing any upset” but said staff have done their best to “put a really warm blanket” around disappointed A Level applicants to ensure they have the best advice on their next step.

University and College Union general secretary Jo Grady said students have been “badly let down” by the sudden decision to scrap A Levels.

Grady called for stable, long-term funding to help colleges respond to changes in demand without long-lasting consequences for students and communities.

She added: “A dip in applicants one year cannot justify undermining academic provision.

“The government is rightly promoting technical and vocational education, but that must not come at the expense of academic routes. Students deserve a broad choice of high-quality courses and colleges need the funding and support to provide it.”

Sign of the times?

College capacity is straining under growing pressure from a bulge in the population of 16 and 17-year-olds.

Last month, FE Week reported that colleges in West Yorkshire are turning away teenagers, with waiting lists of hundreds hoping to train as electricians, joiners and bricklayers.

But closures of A Level programmes continue to prove controversial, with staff at a London college campus striking last year over plans to ditch A Levels in favour of other level 3 courses.

According to its most recent Ofsted inspection report, from early 2024, City of Liverpool College offered 16 A Levels and had about half of its 3,500 16 to 18 students on level 3 courses.

The college, which has been run by Bowker since 2011, raised its overall effectives grade to ‘good’ in 2017, following two ‘requires improvement’ grades in the mid-2010s.

Its financial health rating is ‘outstanding’, according to the college’s latest set of accounts.

The people who assess our skills have no professional home

The Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors (CIEA) is separating from the University of Hertfordshire. For most of the sector, this will pass as administrative news. It shouldn’t. It reopens a question that further education has ducked for too long: who speaks for the people who carry out vocational assessment?

Tens of thousands of assessors and internal quality assurers work across the Regulated Qualifications Framework. They judge competence, uphold standards, and decide whether a gas engineer, a care worker or a team-leader apprentice has genuinely met the bar. They are the last line before a certificate goes out. Yet unlike almost every profession they serve, they have no professional body of their own.

Teachers have the Chartered College of Teaching. HR professionals have the CIPD (The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development). Accountants, surveyors and engineers each answer to an institution that defines their standard, protects their status and gives their expertise a name that means something. Assessors have nothing equivalent. They earn their CAVA (Certificate in Assessing Vocational Achievement) or IQA (Internal Quality Assurance) qualification, then work in professional isolation, their development shaped by whichever awarding organisation or employer happens to require it that year.

This is not a status complaint. It has practical consequences the sector feels every day.

Consider continuing professional development. An assessor who invests in genuine CPD (career professional development), updating their occupational knowledge, sharpening their questioning and keeping pace with standards reform, has nowhere neutral to record it and no recognised currency to show for it. Move employer, and the record often resets. An external quality assurer asks for evidence of competence, and the assessor rebuilds a folder from scratch. Effort that should compound instead evaporates.

Consider consistency. Assessment quality varies enormously between providers, and much of that variation traces back to how assessors were trained and how they are kept current. Where no shared professional standard sits above the qualification, no shared floor exists, and regulators end up policing outcomes that a stronger professional culture would have prevented.

At this point a fair objection arrives: assessors already hold the CAVA or equivalent, and Ofqual and the awarding organisations already regulate quality, so what exactly is missing? Neither fills the gap. A qualification certifies that someone could assess competently on the day they passed it; it does nothing to maintain that competence in the years afterwards. Regulation polices outcomes; it does not develop the people producing them, nor give them a standing that travels between employers.

A profession needs the bit in between, the part that keeps practitioners current and recognised, and that is precisely the part that no one currently owns.

So, what would a professional home for assessors need to provide? Three things, at a minimum.

First, a defined standard of practice. One built around vocational assessment as it is really done, not borrowed from academic examining. Assessing a welder on site is not the same task as moderating an exam script, and the standard should say so.

Second, portable CPD that means something. Development an assessor records once and carries between employers, and that awarding organisations and external quality assurers recognise. Recognition is what turns activity into a credential.

Third, a route to recognised status. A way for a skilled, experienced assessor to be identified as exactly that. Not through a one-off qualification sat years ago, but through demonstrated, current, ongoing competence.

None of this is exotic. Every established profession already works this way. The oddity is that assessment, the discipline whose entire job is to judge whether others meet a standard, holds itself to no organised standard of its own.

The CIEA’s change of circumstances is a prompt, not a solution. Whatever emerges from it will continue to serve educational assessment broadly. The specific community of vocational assessors and IQAs, the people making competence decisions in workshops, salons, wards and warehouses, still needs an institution built for them.

I have founded BIAP to address this gap.

The sector spends a great deal of energy worrying about the quality of assessment. It spends almost none on the professional standing of the people who deliver it. Those two problems are the same problem. Until assessors have a professional home, we should not be surprised if the quality of assessment stays as uneven as the support we give those responsible for it.

GCSE resits 2026: English and maths pass rates fall as entries surge

The proportion of post-16 students achieving a grade 4 or above in GCSE English and maths resits has fallen as entries have surged.

In maths, 15.3 per cent of 219,135 learners aged 17 and over who resat the subject in England achieved a grade 4 or above this summer.

That was down from 17.1 per cent last year, when the cohort was 6 per cent smaller at 206,732.

The grade 4 and above pass rate was 21.2 per cent in 2019, before the pandemic.

In English, 19.8 per cent of 187,558 post-16 students who resat the GCSE achieved at least a grade 4 this summer, down from 20.9 per cent last year when there were 175,118 entries.

The English pass rate was 30.3 per cent in 2019.

Despite the falling pass rates, the number of students securing a grade 4 or above increased marginally in English as the size of the cohort grew.

A total of 37,136 students gained their level 2 English GCSE this summer after failing to do so at school, compared with 36,599 last year.

But in maths, the number achieving a grade 4 or above fell, from 35,351 last year to 33,527 this summer, despite the cohort growing by 12,403 students.

Ofqual chief regulator Sir Ian Bauckham said the rise in 18- and 19-year-old entries (see breakdown below) suggested more learners were attempting to secure the qualifications for a third or fourth time.

He said there had also been a “long-term shift” away from functional skills qualifications towards GCSEs, which could be changing the makeup of the resit cohorts.

 

The results come as the government continues to face pressure over its policy of requiring 16- to 19-year-olds without a grade 4 in English and maths to continue studying the subjects.

The condition of funding rule, introduced in 2014, has been criticised by colleges for driving repeated GCSE resits.

Education secretary Lucy Powell told The Times yesterday that GCSE results day had highlighted “one of the most pernicious examples of the education system setting kids up for a cycle of failure: the number constantly resitting English and maths”.

She said she wanted to end the resit “treadmill of failure” and pointed to “stepping stone” qualifications now being developed as a way of improving results for resit students.

A consultation on new level 1 English and maths qualifications for 16- to 19-year-olds who leave school with a grade 2 or below closed in June.

The qualifications were proposed last year by the independent curriculum and assessment review, led by Becky Francis, as a way of better preparing learners to achieve a grade 4 in their post-16 GCSE resits.

Bauckham told FE Week he was “anxious” to get on with developing stepping stone qualifications as they could play a “really important part”.

Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said today’s results showed that the current condition of funding policy was failing.

“This year’s post-16 resit results reinforce the fact that the government policy of then force-feeding them a relentless diet of GCSE English and maths in post-16 education is simply not working,” he said.

“Tinkering at the edges of the qualification system will not solve this problem. As long as we continue to grade students in this way in these gateway subjects of English and maths we will continue to damage their future prospects.

“If the government is serious about tackling the not in employment, education or training (NEET) crisis it must grasp this nettle and rethink how we assess English and maths.”

Gender gap narrows

More females than males continue to enter post-16 maths GCSE resits, but the gender gap in pass rates has disappeared.

This summer, 15.3 per cent of both male and female entries achieved a grade 4 or above.

Last year, 17.8 per cent of males reached the threshold, compared with 16.4 per cent of females.

In English, there continues to be more male than female entries for GCSE resits, although the gender gap in pass rates has narrowed slightly.

The proportion of male students achieving a grade 4 or above fell from 17.9 per cent last year to 16.8 per cent this summer.

Among female students, the pass rate fell from 25 per cent to 23.8 per cent.

18-19 year olds struggle the most

Students aged 18 and 19 continue to have the lowest GCSE resit pass rates, while those aged 20 and over perform significantly better.

The condition of funding rule applies to 16- to 19-year-olds, meaning older learners are not required to continue studying English and maths if they have not achieved a grade 4 and therefore are more likely to study the subjects by choice.

In maths, 16.4 per cent of 17-year-olds achieved a grade 4 or above this summer, compared with 10.4 per cent of 18-year-olds and 10.3 per cent of 19-year-olds.

Among those aged 20 and over, the pass rate was 32.5 per cent.

 

In English, some 21 per cent of 17-year-olds achieved a grade 4 or above, compared with 16.1 per cent of 18-year-olds and 15.6 per cent of 19-year-olds.

The pass rate rose to 29.6 per cent among learners aged 20 and over.

 

SEND reforms will only succeed if colleges change too

There is no doubt that we are entering a period of significant change in FE. Qualification reforms, the schools’ and SEND white paper Every Child Achieving and Thriving, and the post-16 education and skills white paper are all aligned with the new Ofsted framework, which places inclusion, equity and opportunities for skills development at the heart of its purpose.

For me, having worked in forward-thinking, inclusive and proactive FE settings all my career, the revised SEND policy and legislative changes feel like a welcome approach to provide a level playing field and address some inequities.

I fundamentally believe these changes will be highly impactful if their intent is fully realised. Recognising that more young people will receive earlier diagnosis and support from a network of specialists through the ‘experts at hand’ approach, as well as the use of nationally standardised assessment and documentation and the sharing of information between settings, can only benefit young people with SEND.

The essential element to this, however, is the co-design and co-production of the revised system.

FE colleges have often tried to ‘fix’ the issues in the current SEND system themselves, forgetting that a wider network of professionals and experts exists in their shared ecosystem. Families, parent and carer forums, local authorities, the NHS, employers and organisations within the voluntary and care sector are all trusted and superb sources of external help, feedback and guidance to ensure colleges deliver the very best provision, supporting students on their PFA (preparing for adulthood) journey.

Colleges should deeply reflect on how they use their network to enhance their SEND offer and student outcomes.

What is more often missed are the opportunities for the college to use its own resources to support students with SEND on this journey. As seen in my own organisation, this starts at the very top, with a clear vision and intent statement from governors through to senior and middle leaders.

This should then translate into policy and action at the curriculum and business support level. Imagine a college where every business support department offered work experience to a student with SEND as standard, where the sports curriculum across the wider college delivered health and fitness programmes to students with SEND, or health cooking and nutrition was delivered by hospitality students.

Imagine a college where health barriers and anxiety were removed by collaborative working with health students, or the creative teams supported the artistic and musical cultural development of students. This approach is taken at EPNE, but these opportunities are not seen in all colleges.

When they are, the impact on organisational culture and SEND awareness is tangible, as is the progress students make on their academic and personal development.

Collaborating with colleagues who have a keen and vested interest in SEND is also pivotal in transforming SEND inclusion in a college.

Real impact is delivered by embedding a SEND champion model, where colleagues from all areas of the college come together in experiential learning. This also supports SEND advocacy across the college. Setting up SEND clinics and planning for inclusion training for teachers can also deliver a significant impact on inclusive pedagogy. This ensures that the organisational training being delivered is relevant to the setting, and areas for development are addressed ahead of the implementation of national SEND training.

EPNE is a nationally leading college group for its SEND provision and an Education Training Foundation Centre for Excellence.

The introduction of the SEND reforms means we are fully reviewing our approach to inclusion. Key aspects of the journey of students with SEND are being re-mapped. This includes the initial assessment, transition, meeting needs decisions and allocation of courses from a ‘seamless’ start perspective. The full review of scaffolded curriculum ladders, including the new level 1 maths and English offer, is also being embedded within our annual planning cycle.

While the introduction of new policies may feel challenging and will result in a need to review SEND practices, they also provide a huge opportunity to truly pause, reflect and improve the SEND offer, and deliver improved, equitable outcomes for all.

 

Four lessons from six years as an FE college chair

Two seemingly unrelated life events have happened to me recently. I stepped down as chair of Barnet and Southgate College after six fantastic years, and I saw The Odyssey at the cinema.  Through scenes of storm-lashed boats, it occurred to me that FE governance does in some ways feel comparable to steering a steady course through choppy seas and unpredictable headwinds.  Being chair of my local FE College has been the professional privilege of my career and has taught me many lessons.

The most important has been how critical FE governance is to enabling colleges to stabilise, grow and thrive during tumultuous times.

That recent years have been challenging for the FE sector is not in doubt.  Emerging from the pandemic, colleges have had to support students impacted by lost learning.  Ongoing qualification reform, Ofsted framework changes, shifting stakeholder engagement priorities, devolution – to name but a few – have complicated long-term planning. All of this during an initial period of historic underfunding, while FE staff continue to contend with cost of living challenges.

Barnet and Southgate College has not been immune to this.  When I became chair in 2020, the college had recently been judged ‘requires improvement’ and was dealing with a significant financial deficit at the end of 2019-20 of £1.2m.  Most of the governing body were coming to the end of their term, so significant change was imminent.  Reductions in adult education funding were hitting the college particularly hard, in a geographical area where competition for enrolling 16-18s was consistently fierce.

Amidst these challenges, the college was able not just to stabilise, but eventually grow and thrive.  Our governance played a fundamental role in enabling this.  The college received an Ofsted ‘good’ (with ‘outstanding’ for apprenticeships), converted a historic financial deficit into a healthy surplus, grew student numbers year on year, underwent successful structural transformation, and set an ambitious new strategy for 2030.

Reflecting on my time as chair I learnt four key lessons for how governance can support college stability, growth and transformation:

1: Focusing governance structures, processes and culture on delivering success

Introducing a new committee structure, refreshing data flows and redefining governor skillsets delivered an immediate step-change in our governance quality. Building a sense of team identity and empowering our governors to work directly with the college’s senior executive unleashed the powers of their experience and skills.  Making the governing body more visible to college staff also brought governance out of the shadows, so their purpose was clearer.

2: Putting learner impact at the heart of decision-making

Student governors were newly recruited, and wider ‘meet the student’ sessions for the governing body helped triangulate information and led to more informed decision-making. Delivering growth required more students coming through the doors and staying with us.  Governance deep dives on the recruitment and enrolment process, plus the challenges in improving attendance, helped drive executive focus on these areas.

3: Fostering relationships between the governing body and the college executive team

These were the foundation for success.  Committee chairs worked in partnership with their direct equivalents in the executive.  Myself and our CEO/principal developed a hugely productive working relationship through clear and honest communication, availability, coaching and mentoring, and above all trust.  This was particularly key as new senior leadership structures were built.

An enhanced role for governors in performance management of senior postholders also made clear how ambitious the governing body was for college success.

4: Being ambitious for the college, and expecting it back

Recruiting excellent governors meant setting high expectations for our college.  Our governing body challenged the college leadership to be bold, to be transformative for our students and to enhance our role as a local and regional skills stakeholder.  The college’s ambitious ‘Strategy 2030’ was the result – an approach we are all hugely proud of.

Much is rightly now expected of colleges. Within a supportive and challenging environment, governors can – and must – continue to drive their institutions forwards through the storms they face to deliver growth and learner success.

Australia, Canada, and a lesson for England’s 14-16 routes

The prime minister’s recent proposals on 14-16 routes have reignited an important debate about pathways and, importantly, repositioned technical education as a first-choice route rather than a second-best option.

Drawing on my Churchill Fellowship, which funded my exploration of work-connected learning systems in Australia and Canada, I believe the bigger lesson lies elsewhere.

The systems that impressed me most did not begin by asking what new qualification should be created. They began by asking how progression could be intentionally designed around young people, local opportunity and long-term outcomes.

Across every system I visited, one thing became increasingly clear: while the models differed, the underlying design principles were remarkably consistent.

People before institutions

Education systems are designed around young people’s journeys into opportunity rather than organisational boundaries. Schools, FE providers, higher education institutions, employers and local services see themselves as integrated contributors to one progression journey, deliberately removing barriers that prevent young people moving successfully into adult life.

Progression must be designed

Successful transitions are never left to chance. They are engineered through curriculum, work-connected learning, technical pathways and employer engagement. The strongest systems design both progression and re-engagement, ensuring young people can move forward, or find their way back, through intentional pathways.

Experiences should carry recognised value

Learning beyond the classroom counts. Work experience, technical projects and employer-designed learning contribute to recognised achievement, giving young people trusted evidence of their capabilities alongside and within academic qualifications.

Partnership creates infrastructure and opportunity

Employers, FE providers, universities and intermediary organisations are not simply external partners; they are integral parts of the progression system itself. Genuine co-design, enabling timetables and shared responsibility make ambitious pathways possible, at scale.

Progression is shaped by people and place

National ambition provides consistency, but local systems bring pathways to life. Education, employers, civic leaders and communities work together to reflect the distinctive opportunities and workforce priorities of their area.

These principles came to life in very different ways.

South Australia’s flexible industry pathways (FIPs) demonstrate how regional government can enable local innovation while maintaining consistently high standards. FIPs are accessible to15-18-year-old learners in every school. Co-designed with employers, government-approved and aligned to regional workforce priorities, they make intelligent use of existing qualifications while creating rigorous, employer-informed pathways into sectors that matter to local economies.

In July 2026, I visited Calgary, where more than 12,000 learners had enrolled on funded summer technical programmes, completing around 120 guided learning hours through intensive three-week vacation courses. Alberta has expanded opportunity not by creating more qualifications, but by delivering existing accredited programmes with greater flexibility around the core curriculum.  They add opportunity in and around the core curriculum rather than competing with it. Ministry-approved locally developed courses allow successful programmes to be adopted across the province, combining local innovation with consistent standards.

At Fusion Collegiate in Calgary, flexible programmes enable young people to access connected pathways designed by local skills needs, while carefully designed discovery routes keep learners connected to progression. Their impressive “gap year” pathways programme re-connected lost learners up to the age of 20 to tangible jobs and progression into the workplace, when the young person was ready and supported as an end-to-end pathway.

Different models, the same design principles: progression designed around learners, recognised value for experiences, genuine partnership and shared local responsibility for creating opportunity. Ultimately, every one of these systems sends young people the same message: there are multiple successful futures, and each deserves to be planned for with equal ambition.

That may be the most important lesson for England: successful progression is designed, not left to chance.

If Andy Burnham’s proposals are the catalyst for genuine reform, our focus should not simply be on creating new pathways. It should be on creating the conditions that allow purposeful progression to flourish: curriculum flexibility, mature local partnerships, intelligent use of existing qualifications, coordinated delivery across institutions and accountability measures that reward purposeful progression alongside attainment.

England already possesses many of these building blocks. The challenge now is to connect them into a coherent progression system.

My forthcoming Churchill Fellowship report explores further examples from Australia, Canada and Ireland and practical recommendations for England’s education and skills system.

Ultimately, this is not simply a debate about qualifications or technical education because there isn’t one future worth preparing young people for. There are many. Our responsibility is to give every young person a clear line of sight to the future they choose, and the means to get there. That is what it means to design progression well.