Revealed: The first three V Level subject areas

V Levels will launch in three subjects and begin teaching in colleges from September 2027, the Department for Education has confirmed in its consultation response today.

Ministers have also decided to design V Levels to the same qualification size as one A Level – 360 guided learning hours – so that students can choose to take a “mix and match” selection of vocational and academic qualifications.

In its full response to a public consultation on reforming the post-16 qualification landscape, the DfE has revealed that V Levels will be taught in digital, education and early years, and finance and accounting from September 2027.

Further V Levels will follow in 2028 in eight subjects including business, health, care, and construction, with four more subjects coming in 2029 in areas like catering and hospitality and hair and beauty, before completing the rollout in 2030 with courses in three subject areas including creative and travel.

In most cases, the DfE expects there to be just one V Level per subject, instead of multiple options under each route.

A four-year roadmap includes a total of 18 V Level subjects, 28 new level 2 certificates, and eight new T Levels (see table below).

The government has also launched a consultation on a new qualification for students with lower attainment in English and maths as a stepping stone to resitting their GCSEs.

It comes as ministers have again delayed the controversial defunding of popular alternative level 3 vocational qualifications, such as BTECs, that were due to be axed this year (click here for full story).

Labour’s introduction of V Levels is based on Becky Francis’ independent curriculum and assessment review, which called for a “third, vocational pathway” to sit alongside A Levels and T Levels at level 3.

However, many consultation respondents warned the government that “rushed and poorly planned implementation” could impact the quality of qualifications and employer confidence.

Education secretary Bridget Phillipson said: “Our bold reforms will end the snobbery in post-16 education, supporting young people with real choice and real opportunity to build secure, future‑proof careers.

“Not only that, but it will give parents much-needed confidence in a system that values every route to success – academic, technical or vocational – as we continuing driving forward our mission to ensure two‑thirds of young people are in education, training or apprenticeships by 25.”

Piles of new quals 

The government said it will publish a full implementation plan by June 2026, which will set out further detail on the delivery of reforms for the more than 50 new qualifications that span V Levels, T Levels and level 2.

A key concern about the transition to V Levels and new level 2 qualifications was that the 2027 teaching timeline could “impact negatively” on their quality and employer confidence, with some respondents suggesting piloting small numbers of routes and regionally tailored pathways.

The government said it recognises the timeframe is “ambitious”, so it will launch the qualifications route-by-route over the next four years to make implementation “more manageable”.

It added: “We are working rapidly, making use of cutting-edge approaches in qualification design (including artificial intelligence) and learning from what already works well in the existing qualification landscape to streamline our processes so that the sector has the information and resources as early as possible.” 

This will include clarity on whether the new qualifications will be designed in an A Level-style open market or a T Level-style contract with a single awarding organisation.

Mandatory provider transition plans

Every college, school and training provider offering vocational qualifications will be required to submit “strategic transition plans”, which the department will monitor, each summer for the next four years.

Officials will request a “planning statement” from each provider in June, and then check providers are on track for 2027 in October, according to plans set out today.

Then from next July, an annual transition plan, signed by accounting officers, will need to be submitted which will outline delivery arrangements for new qualifications in the immediate and following year. 

These should include “robust” transition plans, a clear timeline and strategies for supporting staff, students and employers through the development and delivery of new qualifications.

On a national level a group of “qualification pioneers” will be appointed to help model effective practice and advise what support the rest of the sector will need. This group will also shape the government’s “clear accountability expectations”.

Meanwhile, the government will offer “targeted, practical support” to providers, including through workforce development, strengthened careers advice, and guidance on accessing capital funding.

Optional content

The government will only allow more than one V Level per subject in “a limited number of exceptional cases” to ensure that students can mix and match, and that T Levels remain the main option for large technical qualifications.

Exceptional cases where a V Level could be “partnered” would be when studying more than one subject within the same employment route would be beneficial to students, in the same way A Level students can study maths and further maths, the DfE said.

Details of the “rigorous criteria” for such cases will be set out in the implementation plan in June.

While V Level content will be set by DfE and informed by occupational standards, “some” subjects may allow for “optional” content which providers can tailor to the needs of local employers, regional economies or the “interests and aspirations of their cohorts.”

Brand management

Ministers have backtracked on plans to eliminate awarding organisation branding from the new qualifications after hearing concerns about “losing well-established” product names.

After initially proposing to remove awarding organisation names from V Level titles, the government now says it will “allow differentiation” by including awarding organisation, level and subject, with the product name limited to the name of the pathway qualification itself. 

This will also apply to the new level 2 foundation and occupational certificates.

Qualifications regulator Ofqual will consult on assessment and grading arrangements, which the government wants to be simple and consistent across awarding organisations, “in due course”.

Level 2 developments

Alongside V Levels, DfE will launch occupational certificates designed to be a two-year level 2 programme for students who want to study for a particular job or apprenticeship and “need to develop their skills in a classroom-based setting”.

Meanwhile, new foundation certificates will be a one-year “further study pathway” for students aiming to move on to level 3 studies such as A Levels, T Levels or V Levels – usually because they did not meet entry requirements due to their GCSE grades.

Catering and hospitality, and education and early years occupational certificates will be introduced alongside digital and education and early years from next September.

The first consultations on content of the new qualifications will launch in “late spring”, the government said.

‘Outcomes will improve’

The reforms will be positive for students with SEND thanks to their greater flexibility, quality and consistency, and “coherent” choice of subjects, the government believes.

The government argues that the smaller size of V Levels will mean they can more easily be combined or adapted, and that students can learn at their own pace or with additional support if needed.

Reforms to T levels should also make them “even more accessible” to students with SEND.

Overall, the plans “will improve outcomes for students”, the impact assessment said. 

Survey says

The DfE said their reforms were justified after a survey carried out by DeltaPoll last month reportedly found that parents of 14 to 18-year-olds prefer a mix of academic and work-based or technical training.

The survey of 1,124 parents in England showed that 45 per cent prefer the mix and match qualification approach, compared to 23 per cent favouring exclusively academic choices and 22 per cent vocational.

One quarter of parents reportedly feel unsure that their child understands what options are available beyond A Levels.

David Hughes, CEO of the Association of Colleges, said: “The simplicity of an agile, adaptable system with only V, A and T Levels at level 3 and with a new set of level 2 qualifications is a good one. 

“Now we need to work through the inevitable list of implementation and detailed issues that will require evidenced and grounded knowledge and understanding.”

Diplomas get a reprieve, and learners avoid the gap

Well, that was close. With just sixth months to go before the start of the new academic year, the government has confirmed that learners can continue to enrol on diplomas and extended diplomas in T Level subjects in 2026-27. Diplomas will continue to be available in 2027-28 (and until the relevant V Level is rolled out) alongside the all-important extended diploma in health and social care.

This is fantastic news. Today’s announcement will provide some much-needed certainty to staff and leaders in colleges, schools and universities. It will also reassure employers who were deeply concerned about the planned removal of these well-established pathways to key sectors of the economy.

But most importantly, it will avoid creating a qualifications gap that tens of thousands of learners would have fallen through. 

The next two academic years are a crucial period in the transition to the new qualifications landscape. However promising the promised land looks, V Levels will only start being rolled out from 2027.

In July, the Protect Student Choice campaign published a report that showed scrapping diplomas and extended diplomas in T Level subjects would have led to 52,000 fewer young people studying health and science courses from 2026-27 (a 45 per cent reduction) and 11,000 fewer young people studying digital courses (a 33 per cent drop).

In November, a campaign survey of 150 school and college leaders found widespread concern about the plan to scrap diplomas and extended diplomas. The vast majority of leaders believed this would lead to an increase in the number of young people not in education, employment, or training (NEET) in their local area.

We shared the survey report with the Department for Education, and we are pleased that officials and ministers took the findings seriously.

It would have made little sense for the government to commission Alan Milburn to explore to how to reduce the number of NEET young people, while simultaneously pursuing a policy that leaders predict would have the opposite effect.

Leaving students without a suitable qualification for two years would also have been bad for economic growth and would have made it much harder for colleges and schools to engage positively or effectively in the development of V Levels.

Taken together, that is why we have continued to make a robust case for this further pause to the defunding of existing qualifications.

Today’s announcement greatly reduces the risk of young people being left without a pathway in the transition to the new qualifications landscape. We are also pleased that the case to retain three pathways in that future landscape – academic, applied and technical qualifications – has been well and truly heard.

As a result, the Protect Student Choice campaign will now go through a transition of its own. We are proud of what has been achieved over the last five years.

Today marks the third pause to defunding since the start of the campaign. As a result, tens of thousands of students have been, and will be, able to study qualifications that would otherwise have been scrapped.

These are ‘level 3 ready’ students who, for a variety of well-documented reasons, would struggle to access an A Level or T Level study programme, and in most cases would not flourish even if they did.

Retaining the option to study applied general qualifications has enabled many of these young people to progress to higher education and/or skilled employment and they will now be joined by at least two more cohorts of students.

We always prefer to work collaboratively with government, but there are times when it is necessary to challenge policymakers. The threat to diplomas and extended diplomas simply could not be ignored.

The Protect Student Choice coalition of 27 organisations (including FE Week) was able to leverage the collective strength of colleges and schools, universities and employers, and a cross-party group of parliamentarians to make the case for a final pause to defunding.  That united front proved both powerful and effective.   

Our hope now is that we can now work in a similarly collaborative way with the government to get V Levels right for young people. Today’s very welcome announcement provides the breathing space to do just that.  

Three pathways, one goal: Getting young people back on track

We are facing a crisis in the number of young people who are falling out of education, training and work, and colleges are on the front line. Almost one million young people are not in education, employment or training. Nearly one in six 16 to 24-year-olds are unemployed. And with 900,000 more skilled workers needed in our priority sectors by 2030, the current system simply isn’t working for young people or for our economy. 

I know how hard college staff work to help young people to succeed. I want to personally thank each and every one of you for what you do.  But we need a system that works with you, not against you. 

We’re doing our part by delivering landmark reforms to post-16 education – and today marks a significant milestone in that journey.  

We have published our response to the level 3 and below pathways consultation, which received over 750 contributions from colleges, training providers, employers and young people themselves. I am grateful to everyone who took the time to engage. This is a reform built with the sector, not imposed upon it. And we want that collaboration to continue as we build out these qualifications. 

 It is also built on what we know parents want. The overwhelming preference of those we polled (nearly half at 45 per cent) told us that they would prefer their child to study a mix of academic and vocational qualifications after GCSEs to better prepare them for their future careers.  

Our consultation response sets out a reformed system built around three pillars. V Levels will give young people who want to combine academic and vocational learning a genuinely prestigious route into work. T Levels will be expanded and will be the best option for students to undertake more specialised study where they know which broad career path they want to pursue.   

And two new level 2 pathways will give students a clear onward route: one supporting students to progress to further study at level 3 and one supporting students into employment.  

I know that colleges, sixth forms and other providers need certainty to plan, and we are committed to giving them exactly that. 

We are taking a phased approach to transition – carefully balancing the introduction of new qualifications with the removal of funding approval from unreformed ones. No young person will be left without suitable options and there will never be a gap in subject availability. 

You told us that the transition arrangements we originally proposed were too aggressive, putting providers’ ability to prepare for the reforms to come at risk. I appreciate that and so, to give providers space and certainty, we are setting out that large qualifications the size of three A Levels or bigger in T Level areas will have funding approval removed from 2027 instead of 2026, apart from health and social care qualifications, which will follow in 2028. Smaller legacy qualifications will retain funding approval until the relevant T Level and V Level is available in that subject area from 2027. 

But make no mistake – change is coming. Every provider will be expected to have a clear transition plan in place, owned by a named, accountable leader. To support the sector as we move through this period, we are establishing a sector-led group of expert practitioners – our Pioneers – who are providers that will help shape those plans and ensure the support on offer is practical and grounded in real experience. Providers will also receive targeted support including workforce development, careers guidance and support from the FE commissioner. 

A full implementation plan will be published by June 2026, setting out the detail providers need to plan confidently and build sustainable capacity for the years ahead. 

By the end of this Parliament, we want our young people to take for granted that they can make clear choices, from a range of prestigious and robust courses, that will propel them to success, whatever that success looks like to them.  

This is national renewal in action – a skills system that prepares every young person for the jobs of the future, reduces NEET rates, and drives the economic growth our country needs. It will be instrumental in achieving the prime minister’s target to get two-thirds of young people taking a gold standard apprenticeship, higher training or heading to university by age 25. 

MOVERS AND SHAKERS: EDITION 525

Emma Barrett-Peel

Chief Executive Officer, Train’d Up

Start date: March 2026

Previous Job: Chief Operating Officer, Learning Curve Group

Interesting fact: Emma was an Air cadet in her youth and wanted to join the RAF as a combat pilot. At the time women were not allowed to fly combat aircraft

David MacDougall

Director of Work and Skills, South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority

Start date: February 2026

Previous Job: Commercial Director, The Wise Group (Social Enterprise)

Interesting fact: David loves playing and making records and was a resident DJ in one of Glasgow’s biggest clubs many moons ago

Angela Middleton stripped of MBE by King Charles

Former training provider boss and renowned entrepreneur Angela Middleton has been stripped of her MBE by King Charles for “bringing the honours system into disrepute”.

Middleton, a media commentator and self-proclaimed “careers queen”, was awarded the honour in 2019 for her services to apprenticeships and business.

She ran a group of training companies until late 2020, initially blaming the “devastating impact of Covid-19” for their collapse.

FE Week later discovered their closure followed the launch of an Education and Skills Funding Agency counter-fraud probe.

The DfE wrote off over £12.5 million in 2024 as funding that wasn’t recovered from Middleton’s businesses: Astute Minds Ltd (£9.9 million), MiddletonMurray Ltd (£1.4 million), FNTC Training and Consultancy (£900,000) and The Teaching and Learning Group Limited (£456,000).

The department has never published the investigation outcome report into Middleton’s companies.

A notice published on The Gazette, the UK’s public record of honours, said: “The King has directed that the appointment of Angela Jane Middleton to be a Member of the Civil Division of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, dated 29 December 2018 shall be cancelled and annulled and that her name shall be erased from the register of the said order.”

A separate Cabinet Office notice added that the reason for forfeiture was for “bringing the honours system into disrepute”.

Middleton said she was “disappointed” by decision to revoke her honour, adding that the claims made by the DfE were “unfounded”.

She told FE Week: “In May 2025 I provided the Cabinet Office with a detailed and evidence-based response regarding claims brought to their attention by the ESFA following the closure of my company in 2020. That response set out why those claims were unfounded.

“The figures referenced in your article were submitted by the ESFA to the liquidator in 2022, approximately two years after the company’s closure. They represented an extrapolated claim for the full value of historic contract activity. No sums were owed to the ESFA at the point of closure.

“Those claims were not admitted by the liquidator or determined by any court. The Insolvency Service subsequently reviewed the same concerns and concluded there was no evidence to pursue disqualification proceedings, closing its investigation with no action and an apology for the delay.

“While I am obviously disappointed by the decision regarding the honour, I do not intend to comment further.”

Middleton states on her website that she appears on well-known media outlets and has links to high-profile politicians.

She is also a fitness guru who founded companies called YourBodyMeansBusiness and The Limitless Group.

The DfE was approached for comment.

Old-school class snobbery will not solve the university funding crisis

University of Birmingham vice chancellor Adam Tickell has weighed in on the growing pressure around student loans to argue that students without A Levels or equivalent qualifications are “not really capable of graduating”.

Public and political pressure on the student loan system has been rising, with interest rates and the inequity of debt across student demographics rightly coming under scrutiny. 

Yet Tickell’s intervention does nothing to address inequity and should instead be called out across the sector for the thinly veiled class snobbery which it represents. 

Headlines have focused on A Levels, but this VC fails to explain what “equivalents” to A Levels he deems appropriate for university entry. Without such details, one can only assume this means multiple routes into HE from vocational education.

This debate comes at a critical moment for higher education, when the purpose of universities is being contested both inside and outside the sector. Universities should be places of transformation, working to reduce, not reinforce, social inequality.  

Where research does indicate that students with vocational qualifications are less likely to succeed, this is within the context of social disadvantage. It will come as no surprise to educators that socially disadvantaged students face more barriers to success, not because of their capability but because of the harsh impact of social inequality.

Students and voices in FE have long fought the privileging of A Levels within society, with vocational education routinely positioned as inadequate within the policy sphere. A Levels are still sadly perceived as a “gold standard”, leading to higher university acceptance rates. 

The inequality with which BTECs, T Levels and other qualifications are treated is based on an outdated conception of what constitutes rigour in education. In this sphere, end-of-subject examinations are held as the standard, a narrow view of educational practice which has long been critiqued. 

Research from the Nuffield Trust instead has shown that students with BTEC qualifications are less likely to drop out of university than their A Level counterparts.

Leader of the opposition Kemi Badenoch has positioned herself as wanting to save students money from excessive interest rates, but her comments expose a broader agenda to defund courses which “aren’t delivering for young people”. 

Badenoch is directly targeting courses without an immediate quantifiable economic impact. Aside from completely missing the social benefits of a broad-ranging, public higher education model, Badenoch reveals a narrow view of education and a broader agenda against non-elite universities. 

Like Badenoch’s intervention, Tickell exposes a political agenda gaining traction via a simplistic political narrative: that of rolling back post-war progress on widening access to post-compulsory and higher education. 

As a former FE teacher now researching educational policy, my research explores the limitations of T Levels. Yet, Tickell and I are not positioned in the same wheelhouse. 

My research does not identify a lack of capability within non-traditional routes. Instead, I explore the reduction of the T Level curriculum and learning opportunities to knowledge and skills which are to have immediate economic impact by policy makers.
 
At a decisive moment in which the unequal and unfair student loans system is coming under pressure, the comments from Tickell are incredibly disappointing.

Yet they are not surprising. 

As FE practitioners, students and communities are well-aware, we sadly live in a society which routinely fails to acknowledge the transformative work and power of FE’s contribution. 

As my practice shows in both FE and in a university where many of our students take BTECs, T Levels or Access courses to get there, students without A Levels arrive at university with important academic skills such as invaluable professional experience, producing detailed coursework, examining research and often the ability to juggle multiple demands of study and work.    

Time and again they prove themselves more than capable of graduating.

Yet too often, for students from working-class backgrounds, plus those juggling additional multiple experiences of discrimination, the structural barriers to attaining a university degree, such as the cost-of-living crisis or caring commitments, are what impact university study.

Stating that access to student funding should be reviewed for non-A Levels students rolls back social progress. It furthers the damaging narrative that students with vocational qualifications, who are more likely to be from working-class backgrounds, are not welcome or needed in university settings. 

This could not be further from the truth.

DfE ‘unconcerned’ by post-16 transport cliff-edge

MPs have accused the Department for Education of appearing “unconcerned” about the impact on young people when they lose subsidised post-16 transport.

In a report on home-to-school transport, the public accounts committee (PAC) said DfE officials did not understand how access to transport affected student attendance or participation in education, particularly for young people aged 16 to 19.

Parents and college staff told the committee that students had missed learning or failed to start courses because transport was no longer provided or was unsuitable.

And despite the “weight of evidence” about difficulties navigating the system, the committee said officials appeared “unconcerned about the clarity of the offering” for post-16 learners. 

However, the committee stopped short of recommending an extension of the legal obligations placed on local authorities to provide transport for pre-16 pupils to post-16 students.

Council discretion

Local authorities are only legally responsible for providing free transport to school for eligible school-age pupils. Once a young person turns 16, councils have discretion over what travel funding, if any, they provide.

The PAC described this change in entitlement as a “cliff-edge” for families. Parents told the committee losing transport support had “huge impacts” on family life, with some reporting having to give up work to manage travel arrangements.

Colleges also reported direct impacts on participation. Evidence submitted to the PAC from Natspec cited one college where 30 students were unable to start their course on time because transport had not been agreed. 

Stronger duties

Ruth Perry, senior policy manager at Natspec, said the committee had highlighted a problem specialist colleges had been raising for years.

“We are pleased to see the PAC recognising that 16 to 19-year-olds with SEND have been among the worst affected by local authority attempts to manage rising home to school/college transport costs,” she said.

Perry welcomed the committee’s recommendation that the DfE should investigate links between transport support and rising numbers of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET), but said the report should have gone further.

“We would like to have seen the committee recommend that the statutory duty on local authorities to provide transport be extended to include 16 to 19-year-olds and 19 to 25-year-olds with an education health and care plan (EHCP),” she added.

Department in the dark

The PAC also criticised the DfE for lacking basic data on who received transport support, how they travel or how provision differs between areas, despite annual home-to-school transport costs reaching £2.6 billion in 2024-25. 

The committee said this means the government cannot judge whether the system represents value for money or whether support reaches those most in need.

It recommended the department improve data collection from local authorities and set out how it could better understand the relationship between access to transport, attendance and the number of young people who are NEET.

Spending on education transport has increased by around 70 per cent in real terms since 2015-16, driven largely by rising demand from growing numbers of children and young people with SEND.

The DfE had suggested its proposed SEND reforms could help reduce demand for transport in the long term by identifying needs earlier and supporting more students closer to home.

But the PAC said even if the proposed reforms succeed, it was likely to take time before they translated into savings or eased pressure on local authority budgets. 

Repeated warnings

The report adds to growing scrutiny of post-16 SEND transport. 

Last year, the education committee warned that learners with SEND can lose guaranteed transport when they transition from school to further education and called for clearer funding and transport guarantees for FE students. 

And the government’s spending watchdog, the National Audit Office, criticised local authorities’ inconsistent and “insufficient” data collection on SEND transport and said scaling back services could increase NEET numbers.

An FE Week investigation in 2024 found cases where SEND learners missed the start of their courses by up to three months because of local rows over transport services. It also found examples of local authorities charging families hundreds of pounds for services that were previously free. 

The DfE was approached for comment.

88 providers granted Ofsted inspection delay

One in 10 FE and skills Ofsted inspections were delayed at the provider’s request in the last financial year, figures reveal.

Of the 818 further education and skills inspections and visits carried out in the year to March 31, 2025, 114 providers requested deferral. Of those, 88, or 77 per cent, were accepted.

That means 23 per cent of requests were rejected, the highest proportion out of all of Ofsted’s inspection remits covering schools, early years and social care. 

There were also four cases where an FE and skills provider requested a pause to their inspection. Each of those were agreed. 

This is the first time the watchdog has released data covering inspection deferrals, pauses and post-quality assurance changes to grades. It follows a new policy aimed at lessening the impact of inspections on leaders’ wellbeing.

The mechanisms allowing providers to request an inspection be delayed or put on hold were introduced in January 2024 as part of a raft of reforms in response to the suicide of headteacher Ruth Perry.

A coroner ruled in late 2023 that the Ofsted inspection of Caversham Primary School in Reading had contributed to her death.

Ofsted guidance says inspections should only be deferred in “exceptional circumstances”. It lays out examples, which include where a senior leader’s wellbeing “would be severely impacted” and there is no other senior leader to step in. 

Other examples include major incidents, such as the death of a learner, closure due to staff training or severe weather.

The data also revealed that during the 24/25 financial year, nine inspections were deemed “incomplete” while additional evidence was gathered. 

This policy was introduced in September 2024 and allows inspectors to pause an inspection to allow a provider to resolve safeguarding “where that is the only issue”.

The anonymised data also showed there were four cases that year where a provider’s overall effectiveness grade was changed following Ofsted’s quality assurance processes. This data excluded cases where the headline grade was changed as a result of an upheld complaint by the provider.

Children’s commissioner: Colleges forced to ‘mop up’ system failures

Colleges are “mopping up systemic failures” that include poor information sharing from schools and regional disparities in transport costs, the children’s commissioner has warned.

In a report based on survey data from 238 colleges, children’s commissioner Rachel de Souza said young people in post-16 education were often “neglected” due to a narrow focus on schools in education policy.

College leaders told the commissioner that information sharing from school to college was “not good enough”, with many students arriving with outdated education health and care plans (EHCPs).

Almost a third of colleges reported affordability and availability of transport for college students was a top concern, with regional variation in transport subsidies creating an “uneven playing field”.

Other top concerns included access to mental health support, student attendance, funding constraints, and diverse problems faced by college students such as complex home-life pressures, disadvantage and work responsibilities.

De Souza said the data, collected between September 2024 and February 2025, gives a unique national picture of how colleges typically go “beyond their core role” to help students.

She added: “The ambition to reduce NEET rates across the country will require us to tackle the structural and wellbeing barriers our young people face – and colleges are rightly recognised as part of the solution.

“Yet too often, rather than the wider system learning from them, colleges are asked to mop up after systemic failures elsewhere.

“When thinking about supporting young people’s needs, there is now rightful pushback to the simplistic idea of ‘put it on the school curriculum’ as a policy lever, but too little attention is paid to the burdens placed upon the FE sector and skills policy.”

College leaders reported that “delayed or incomplete” information sharing was a barrier to effective planning.

The report says: “Colleges have a shorter amount of time than schools to understand and meet their young people’s needs due to the length of time young people study at the college, and therefore timely information sharing is crucial.”

Key recommendations from the commissioner include providing free travel for as many children as possible, “timely and high quality” data sharing by local authorities and schools, and an extension of the pupil premium to young people in post-16 education.

De Souza said colleges and sixth forms play a “vital role” in young people’s educational journeys, and taught about a third of 16 to 18-year-olds in England in 2024-25.

However, 70 per cent of college leaders listed funding as one of their top concerns, compared to about half of secondary school leaders – revealing one of the biggest disparities between the two sectors.

And 35 per cent said funding constraints prevented them from fully meeting the requirements of EHCPs.

Most colleges step in to provide mental health support due to difficulties accessing local services, the report found.

Access to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) was a top concern for 79 per cent of leaders, with a similar number reporting that they fund their own mental health counsellor.

Chief executive of the Association of Colleges David Hughes said: “The barriers facing the college sector are well known to all across further education, but often fail to register in wider policy circles, so it’s heartening to see this report set them out so explicitly.

“Colleges are consistently asked to do more with less, and despite immense funding and resource pressures, they offer strong support to young people from all backgrounds, no matter what their circumstances.”

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “We are determined to break down barriers to opportunity to reach the prime minister’s target for two-thirds of young people to take a gold-standard apprenticeship, higher training or heading to university by age 25.

“Our post-16 education and skills white paper set out ambitious reforms, coupled with investment, to identify young people who need support and help them to move smoothly from school into further education, including piloting automatic enrolment and investing in better data sharing and attendance monitoring.

“We are also tackling the issues before young people reach college by expanding access to a mental health professional in every school and college, rolling out free breakfast clubs and free school meals, and lifting the two-child benefit cap.”