New year honours 2026: Who got what in FE and skills?

Nearly a dozen college leaders and a WorldSkills UK gold medallist have been named in the King’s 2026 new year honours.

The list includes four CBEs, nine OBEs, 11MBEs, five British Empire Medals, but no knighthoods or damehoods, for individuals linked to further education, skills and apprenticeships.

Debra Gray, principal of Hull College, was made a CBE alongside Lisa O’Loughlin, principal and CEO of East Lancashire Learning Group and recently retired Luminate Education Group chief executive Colin Booth.

Lisa O’Loughlin

O’Loughlin, who was a panel member of the independent curriculum and assessment review led by Becky Francis, said: “I’m truly humbled by this award and deeply grateful to those who took the time to nominate me.

“Excellence in education is never the result of individual effort; it is built through strong collaboration between students, parents, employers, partners and the exceptional teachers and support colleagues I have the privilege to work alongside every day. I’m immensely proud of what we achieve together, and thankful that our collective commitment is being recognised at a national level.”

Another six college leaders received OBEs.

Anna Dawe, principal and chief executive of Wigan and Leigh College was recognised for services to further education. As was Julia Heap, principal and chief executive of Hopwood Hall College, Rachael Hennigan, principal and chief executive of Hugh Baird College, Sara Russell, principal of Peter Symonds College and Nikos Savvas, chief executive of Eastern Education Group.

Savvas said: “This honour belongs to the whole of Eastern Education Group and to Suffolk,” said Dr Savvas. “What we have achieved here shows that world-class education doesn’t only happen in big cities. Suffolk is leading the way, and this award is recognition of the people, partnerships and communities that make that possible. I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve accomplished together.”

Founder and CEO of training provider IN4 Group, Mo Isap, who is also a board director of The Careers and Enterprise Company and vice chair of Star Academies, was also made an OBE.

Meanwhile, Katherine Green, director general for skills at the Department for Work and Pensions, has been appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB), an honour only awarded to senior civil servants and military officers.

MBE for WorldSkills UK medallist

Gold medal winning WorldSkills UK competitor Isabelle Barron has made an MBE for services to vocational education. Barron topped the digital construction table for the UK at EuroSkills Gdañsk in 2023, bringing home the UK’s only gold medal from that competition.

honours recipient
Barron

Barron said being made an MBE by the King was “an incredible honour”.

She added: “Winning gold in digital construction at EuroSkills 2023 was a defining moment for me and I would like to thank Michael McGuire, my WorldSkills UK training manager for believing in me every step of the way. 

“Competing in WorldSkills UK competitions changed my life, and I hope this recognition will help inspire more young people to get involved.”

Ben Blackledge, chief executive of WorldSkills UK, said: “This new year honour is a fitting recognition of Izzy’s dedication to developing her own skills, furthering her career and championing the UK’s digital construction industry.

“Her gold medal success demonstrates the strength of UK technical expertise on the international stage and highlights the vital role high-level digital skills play in driving productivity, innovation and quality across the construction sector.”

Jane Hadfield, national apprenticeships lead for the NHS and former board member of the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education, was awarded an MBE for services to education. 

Safaraz Ali, CEO of Pathway Group and founder of the Multicultural Apprenticeships Awards, was awarded an MBE for services to diversity and inclusion in business.

New year honours 2026 – Further education and skills

Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE)

Colin Booth, lately chief executive, Luminate Education Group, for services to further education

Debra Gray, principal, Hull College, for services to further education

Lisa O’Loughlin, principal and chief executive officer, East Lancashire Learning Group, for services to further education

Oonagh Smyth, chief executive officer, Skills for Care, for services to adult social care

Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE)

Tracy Aust, lately principal and chief executive, West Thames College, for services to further education

Anna Dawe, principal and chief executive, Wigan and Leigh College, for services to further education

Julia Heap, principal and chief executive, Hopwood Hall College, for services to further education

Rachael Hennigan, principal and chief executive, Hugh Baird College, for services to further education

Mohamed Isap, chief executive of IN4 Group, for services to education

Sarah Lee, deputy director for education, employment and skills, HM Prison and Probation Service, for public service

Deborah Millar, executive director of digital transformation, Hull College, for services to further education

Sara Russell, principal, Peter Symonds College, for services to further education

Nikolaos Savvas, chief executive, Eastern Education Group, for services to further education

Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE)

Safaraz Ali, chief executive, Pathway Group, for services to diversity and inclusion in business

Paula Allerton, head of apprenticeships, HM Revenue and Customs, for services to apprenticeships

Andrew Barnes, lately chair of governors, City College Norwich, for services to further education

Isabelle Barron, team member, WorldSkills UK, for services to vocational education

Alan Foster, governor, Wilberforce Sixth Form College, for services to further education

Kathryn Geraghty, head of technical qualifications, National Theatre, for services to education and skills

Jane Hadfield, lately board member, Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education, for services to education

Joanna Hughes, director, Joanna Hughes Solicitor Apprenticeships, for services to education and skills

Hazrat Islam, senior manager, regions and providers directorate, Department for Education, for services to further education

Julie Kapsalis, lately chair, Coast to Capital Local Enterprise Partnership, for services to economic development

Vivienne McCormack, managing director, Michaeljohn Training Manchester, for services to vocational education

Medallists of the Order of the British Empire

Peter Clark, head of 16-19 funding and financial support policy, Department for Education, for services to further education

Ruth Flynn, director of sixth form, La Retraite Roman Catholic Girls School, for services to further education

Andrew Salter, apprentice training manager, AWE plc, for services to defence engineering and to young people

Victoria Seymour, lately tutor, Somerset Skills and Learning, for services to skills

Angela Wooller, apprenticeship and qualifications manager, East Sussex County Council, for services to further education

If you think a name has been missed, please email news@feweek.co.uk

2025 review: A defining year for further education and skills

If 2024 was about signalling change, 2025 was the year reforms arrived en masse. 

For Whitehall, it was a year of ‘simplification’, ‘streamlining’ and ‘cutting red tape’ across apprenticeships, inspections, qualifications and funding. For FE Week readers though, it was a year of added complexity; a redistribution, rather than removal, of bureaucracy and risk.

Ofsted scrapped the overall effectiveness grade but replaced it with more graded judgments. Some apprenticeship English and maths rules were relaxed, but providers are now navigating grey areas around assessment, duration and quality. And years of ‘will they, won’t they’ over scrapping BTECs was finally settled. They will, with yet another new government-driven level 3 vocational qualification.

If that gap between rhetoric and reality wasn’t clear enough already, we had Keir Starmer’s summer conference speech declaring further education a “defining mission” for his government. Typical, isn’t it, that such a commitment was to come from a prime minister at a time when his own position looks increasingly uncertain.

October’s ‘more with less’ post-16 education and skills white paper was the first opportunity to put Starmer’s words to the test. It was a framework to take us into the 2030s, built on the most pressing challenges of 2025: arresting the rise in NEETs (not in education, employment or training), diverting funding towards young people and prioritising reduced adult education spending – national and devolved – on economic growth sectors. 

Demands for an adult education strategy were answered implicitly rather than explicitly. “Packages” worth £800m for construction and defence training at the same time as “regrettable” cuts to the general adult skills fund and tailored learning told us everything we needed to know. Adult education is rhetorically desirable, but fiscally expendable and will now come in “packages”.

Meanwhile, young people have V Levels to look forward to. First revealed by FE Week and later confirmed in Becky Francis’s curriculum and assessment review, the latest iteration of vocational qualifications ends years of rows over the future of BTECs (RIP) and hopefully fills the applied general qualification-shaped gap left by T Levels.

Sector reaction to V Levels was fairly muted, with the standout exception of Trafford and Stockport College Group’s James Scott simultaneously giving the idea the V for victory and, well, the other V sign.

We can only hope that ministers and policymakers have learned the lessons of rushing through reforms at pace, remembering millions spent getting T Levels out the door only for some of them to end up on the scrapheap.

Moving house 

But who would have thought Angela Rayner’s resignation as deputy prime minister would have given the FE sector its biggest surprise of the year? In a move nobody saw coming, Starmer used the post-Rayner reshuffle to strip the Department for Education (DfE) of the skills policy brief and move it to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) under its new secretary of state, Pat McFadden. 

We kept skills minister Jacqui Smith, who works on 16-19 and higher education at DfE and adult skills and apprenticeships at DWP.

But it took a few weeks to work out precisely what was moving, and confusion reigned even among MPs. 

Skills England had barely established itself before being housed in its second department. The new executive agency had its first real scrap with the sector at the tail-end of this year over its handling of reforms to apprenticeship assessment and was forced to defend its plans against accusations it was “dumbing down” standards.

Funding costs

Funding was of course never far from the headlines. Throughout 2025, FE Week monitored adult skills spending in every devolved authority, and delved into the foreseeable shock that was the boom in 16-year-olds that caught the college system unprepared. 

But it was level 7 apprenticeship funding that saw the biggest political fallout this year, splitting the sector between those sympathetic to the government’s aims of redistributing limited funds towards opportunities for young people and those fearing scrapping the programmes would cut off routes to the top professions. If it hadn’t been for members of the Cabinet reigning in Bridget Phillipson, as we exclusively revealed, the cuts would have been even deeper.

Our investigations also showed the long tail of DfE’s decision to give employers and training providers a long lead-in time before turning off the level 7 tap. Right now, providers and employers are scrambling for starts. There were 228 per cent more level 7 starts in July 2025 than July 2024 – and we don’t even have the data yet for the final months of this calendar year when the rush will intensify further. 

The cost is not just financial. The already stretched apprenticeship budget, with its fixed funding bands, demands from new programmes like foundation apprenticeships, growth and skills courses and a level 2 business admin standard reportedly somewhere in the pipeline, can only go so far before ministers are forced to make more tough decisions about higher level (and the most expensive) provision.

The cost will also be reputational. There is a sad inevitability about the hit recently improved achievement rates will likely take when newly minted level 7 apprentices (mostly senior leaders and accountants) drop out, don’t pass, or are found to be receiving poor quality training from providers that have grown too quickly. 

Some problems though are even closer to home. At the same time as being asked to solve the country’s workforce deficits, the FE sector is battling with its own. Our investigations into staffing shortages this year show a clear tonal shift from years of warnings to real-life consequences in the form of cancelled courses, record waiting lists and ongoing industrial disputes.

Spotlight returns to governance

While reform (and Reform) dominated headlines, college governance was one of 2025’s more uncomfortable subplots. 

We saw Weston College emerge from scandal, but not before its former chair revealed he had felt powerless to stop millions in undeclared payments going to his still-knighted former principal. 

By summer, a new scandal had emerged. After months of mystery surrounding the disappearance of Burnley College’s principal, Karen Buchanan, Ofsted revealed the college had been inflating its 16-19 achievement rates, misleading students and the public by proudly but falsely declaring itself to be the “number one” college in the country. 

Governors were rightly slammed in both cases, triggering much-needed fresh debate about college governance models.

It probably wasn’t the final year as FE Commissioner that Shelagh Legrave was hoping for, but it did lead to her issuing some powerful parting advice to governors about challenging powerful leaders – beware of “hero principals.”

Lots to look forward to

We enter 2026 with FE defined by the (current) prime minister as central to the government’s economic mission, repositioned closer to the welfare system and with a white paper promising more change to come in every corner of the sector.

Major SEND reforms, V Levels, new level 2 pathways, beefed up local accountability rules, an adult essential skills review, higher technical “partnerships” with embattled universities, finally sight of the growth and skills levy, all alongside a new inspection regime, rising young student numbers, tougher public sanctions on misbehaving FE teachers and a major review into stubbornly high youth unemployment. 

That is all to say nothing of the rising threat to educational integrity from the unregulated use of AI in FE classrooms and the front-line battles being fought right now by providers to keep communities together in the face of divisions stoked by the far right.

You have your work cut out for you, and so does FE Week.

2025 in front pages

New peer and former City and Guilds chair admits wrongly claiming PhD

A former college principal and awarding body chair who was recently appointed to the House of Lords has admitted incorrectly claiming that she had a PhD.

Dame Ann Limb, who has chaired City & Guilds since 2021, published a CV on her website stating that she had a “PhD University of Liverpool” and an MA in “applied linguistics” from the Institute of Linguists.

But the former Milton Keynes and Cambridge Regional College principal has now admitted this was incorrect after an investigation by the Sunday Times, telling the paper that she started but “never” completed a PhD at the university.

The information about Limb’s 1970s PhD was published on her personal website in a CV that appears to have been uploaded in August 2020 and refers to her as “Dr”.

Her “Dr” title has repeatedly appeared in high-profile biographies, including the Cabinet Office’s Queen’s birthday honours 2022 list that awarded her a damehood, a 2021 City and Guilds’ announcement that she had been appointed the charity’s chair, and a recent University of Liverpool post celebrating her peerage.

Responding to the Sunday Times, Limb said: “Just to be completely upfront and honest about it, I never completed my PhD at Liverpool University.”

She added that she used the word “doctor” because she has several honorary doctorates, but admitted that her website is “perhaps not very helpful”.

The 72-year-old was nominated for a peerage by Sir Keir Starmer two weeks ago, becoming the first former further education college principal to be appointed to the House of Lords.

She will sit on the Labour benches and will take the title Baroness Limb of Moss Side in the city of Manchester and County of Lancashire.

Limb’s CV says she has been awarded seven honorary doctorates from universities since 2003. 

Universities often offer honorary doctorates for recognition of personal, academic or professional achievement, but recipients tend not to use the title.

A new CV appears to have been uploaded to Limb’s website in July 2024 that removed the ‘Dr’ title and claim that she had achieved a PhD in 1978, three years after completing her bachelor’s degree.

However, it continues to claim that she was awarded an MA in “Applied Linguistics Final Diploma Institute of Linguists (Distinction)” in 1976.

The Institute of Linguists, now known as the Chartered Institute of Linguists, told the Sunday Times: “We have never awarded MAs.”

Limb’s website also refers to her career in further education beginning in 1976 “whilst she was undertaking her PhD at the University of Liverpool”.

She said: “I undertook a PhD at Liverpool University which I did not complete. I have been awarded several honorary PhDs and therefore used the title Dr prior to being awarded a Damehood.

“The postgraduate Maitrise des Lettres (MA) completed in France in the mid 1970’s was unrelated to membership of the Institute of Linguists for which I took and passed a separate exam.”

Limb has held a range of chair roles, including the Scouts, Lloyds Bank’s charitable arm, and King Charles’ King’s Foundation.

As chair of City & Guilds she co-wrote a piece for FE Week justifying the sale of the 150-year-old technical education awarding body to a Greek certification business to avoid it sliding “imperceptibly into irrelevance”.

Limb remains chair of the City & Guilds Foundation charity.

Ofsted enacts ‘contingency plan’ as inspection notes software glitches again

Ofsted has enacted a “contingency plan” to help inspectors record notes when inspections resume in January, after more “technical problems” with its electronic evidence-gathering (EEG) system.

Inspectors will be given “alternative processes to record their notes on inspection” due to issues with EEG, which has been dogged with problems since it was introduced in 2019 to replace pen and paper records.

An email sent to inspectors by Ofsted, seen by FE Week‘s sister paper Schools Week, has revealed “an underlying technical issue” has been “causing EEG to freeze when inspectors type notes directly into the application”.

The email said a “contingency plan” has been put in place. Thanking inspectors for their “patience and collaboration”, Ofsted said it had “further developed” these arrangements ready for January inspections.

From January 5, “all inspectors will need to follow the updated EEG contingency plan on all state-funded school inspections, standard and additional independent school inspections, further education and skills inspections and initial teacher education (ITE) inspections,” it said.

The email said this “is a temporary measure” and that it will provide an update “by February half-term”.

Inspectors must watch an online briefing on the EEG contingency plan before carrying out inspections in the new year.

Ofsted ‘not aware of any data losses’

In a statement, an Ofsted spokesperson said the “technical problems” are due to a Microsoft issue. The EEG is a digital application built using Microsoft technology.

“While our supplier works to resolve the issue, we have provided inspectors with alternative processes to record their notes on inspection,” said the spokesperson.

“We are not aware of any data losses related to technical issues with EEG – inspectors are recording their notes as instructed.”

Ofsted said it would not provide any further details of the alternative processes that have been put in place.

The inspectorate has previously said the EEG helped inspectors better “review and synthesise their notes” and that it has made a “notable improvement” to security.

Yet over a three-year period between 2021 and 2024, glitches in the system meant evidence was lost on 191 different occasions. 

Only four of these incidents resulted in inspectors returning to gather extra evidence, and Ofsted said it was “confident that the judgment…is secure” in the other 187 cases.

In January, Ofsted published a review of the EEG and how robust and reliable it is.

The review said “there have been some technical issues with stability and reliability” since the EEG was introduced. “Some of these issues link to the application itself, and some to the Microsoft technology it is built on.”

‘Uncertainty and additional workload’

The review said Ofsted has made improvements over time, but that “on some inspections there are still issues with the application intermittently ‘freezing’ and closing unexpectedly.”

“This does not automatically affect the recording or saving of an inspector’s notes, but it does create uncertainty and additional workload for inspectors.”

It comes as inspectors are adjusting to a new education inspection framework (EIF) after Ofsted overhauled its inspection process. 

Under new “report card” inspections, providers are graded across up to 16 judgment areas using a new five-point scale.

For Skills England to succeed, the sector must lead

As sure as night follows day, Skills England will not last.
Not because it will fail in its work or because its people lack competence or commitment. It won’t last because it is a political creation – and every time the government changes, the new administration wants to show it’s doing something different. That is the rhythm of Whitehall.

Quangos such as Skills England are born with great fanfare and expectations they will “transform” the skills system. Yet they are constrained from the outset. Ministers demand results yesterday, chairs and board members soon realise the limits of their power, and enthusiasm ebbs away as delivery lags behind political ambition.

Government skills policies tend to sit at 30,000 feet – simplify the funding and qualifications system, fix NEETs, involve employers, upskill the workforce. The flexibility this vagueness provides can be useful, but it leaves others to fill in the detail. That is where representative bodies come in.

Good representation matters

Membership organisations exist to serve their members, so they have vested interests. The best ones use that mandate positively, proposing ideas that make policy work better and help members thrive while delivering government objectives. The worst attack others, highlight problems without offering solutions and forget that the elected government, like it or not, sets policy direction. If you dislike the policies, the remedy is at the ballot box.

Running a membership body is never easy. Every member has a different view. The art is to satisfy enough of them, enough of the time, while demonstrating progress overall. Across the skills landscape, common interests are clear: a shared strategy, proportionate regulation, sensible investment and a bridge between policy and delivery.

What we hear on the ground

At The Skills Network, we partner with hundreds of colleges, independent training providers, local authorities and awarding bodies. Week in, week out, I meet principals and CEOs. The themes are strikingly similar regardless of organisation type. Funding is tight, that’s a given. But the deeper frustration lies in how the system works, or doesn’t. Regulation often seems to get in the way of delivering what government itself says it wants.

We should also recognise some practical truths. Local authorities have political masters; colleges are public sector; independent providers are, well, independent. Whether not-for-profit or commercial shouldn’t matter.  If the funding and rules are right, all can contribute effectively to national goals.

One voice, or many?

Ministers often claim they want a single voice from the sector, but only when that voice agrees with them. In a fragmented landscape, “divide and rule” is easy. Previous attempts to unite the sector have faltered because individual interests trumped collective purpose, critics sniped from outside, sponsors distorting agendas, with no neutral arbiter to manage disagreements.

A sector-led solution

So what might a Skills England-style body run by the sector for the sector look like? One that endures beyond political cycles and focuses on what really matters: defining and delivering an effective skills system and maximising the billions already invested?

Key elements would include:

  • A strong chair, skilled in managing relationships between member bodies, politics and the civil service, and scrupulously non-partisan.
  • Balanced representation from across the delivery spectrum, each with an equal voice.
  • Collective responsibility: members publicly back decisions even when debates behind closed doors are robust.
  • Clear boundaries on when the organisation speaks with one voice and when members can lobby individually.
  • Realism: don’t try to boil the ocean. Set a long-term vision and take steady steps towards it.
  • A small coordinating team working through member bodies rather than creating another bureaucracy.
  • A focus on delivery, representing those charged with implementing government and employer priorities – not necessarily including employers themselves, who define need..

Worth the effort

Building such a body would take time, patience and compromise. There would be many disagreements, and progress would sometimes be slow. But done right, it could make a profound difference to the stability and coherence of our skills system.

Skills England will come and go, as its predecessors did. What endures is the need for the sector itself to take ownership – to collaborate, focus on delivery, and speak with clarity about what works. Only then will our skills system be resilient enough to outlast the next political cycle.

College pulls statement about its future after failing to get DfE sign off

A financially troubled Hampshire college has been forced to withdraw a statement containing claims about the outcome of an FE Commissioner review of its operations after failing to seek “ministerial approval” before publication.

This week, Havant and South Downs College (HSDC), which is under financial intervention, issued a press release declaring that an FE Commissioner-led review has ruled out a merger with another college as its cashflow issues are “in the past”.

However, today the college asked FE Week to “disregard and withdraw” the press release, which it claimed was an “early draft” that was “inadvertently sent” without ministerial approval.

It said: “This was premature and in error as the contents are still subject to details being confirmed and to subsequent ministerial approval.

“We would, therefore, ask you to disregard and withdraw that press release while the details are being finalised and ministerial approval is being sought”.

A “revised” statement will be issued “in the New Year”, the spokesperson added.

The college has also removed a post titled, “HSDC confirms strong and independent future following strategic review” from its website. 

The post asserted that an FE Commissioner-led strategic review of whether it should restructure or merge, known as a structure and prospects appraisal (SPA), had found that the college is “well-positioned” to continue operating independently.

It added: “The process recognised that the college’s financial challenges are in the past and good progress has been made to resolve any issues.”

Troubled colleges are usually required to publish the FE Commissioner’s initial assessments after entering intervention, but SPAs remain confidential, even if they recommend major restructures such as a merger or campus closure.

HSDC was placed in intervention in May this year after “late identification” of expenditure resulted in its predicted £763,000 surplus for 2023-24, becoming a £548,000 end-of-year deficit.

The initial FE Commissioner’s assessment of the college’s challenges, published in October, revealed that trust between governors and leaders had broken down after the scale of the deteriorating finances came “out of the blue”.

That year, it had an overall income of about £42 million, with staff costs of about 72 per cent of its turnover, above the FE Commissioner’s 65 per cent benchmark.

FE Commissioner Shelagh Legrave’s team found “inaccurate” financial reporting to governors and a “risky reliance” on future land-sale receipts to fund an “ambitious property strategy”.

Since the intervention, HSDC has implemented a large-scale redundancy programme of up to a third of its 1,000-strong workforce and principal and CEO Mike Gaston announced his retirement.

The withdrawn press release said HSDC governors have “formally endorsed” the FE Commissioner’s recommendation to remain stand alone.

Mike Gaston, principal and CEO, who retires next month, had said the news meant he had “complete confidence” in the college’s future and new leadership, which would take it “from strength to strength”.

HSDC is has a ‘good’ overall effectiveness grade from Ofsted and teaches about 6,500 students across its three campuses in Waterlooville, Havant and Alton.

Brenda McLeish quits Learning Curve Group

The high-profile boss of a large national training provider has suddenly stood down. 

Brenda McLeish will leave her post as chief executive of Learning Curve Group (LCG) today. 

In a statement this morning, McLeish said: “The time has come for me to step aside and allow the next chapter of LCG’s story to unfold. 

“After leading the organisation through significant growth and transformation, I feel this is the right moment to hand over to new leadership who will continue building on the strong foundations I helped create and thrive for years to come.”

As well as stepping down as CEO, ending 17 years at the group, McLeish has also resigned from the board of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers.

“While I will no longer be in the CEO role, I will remain a passionate advocate for Learning Curve Group and the life-changing work it does. Thank you for your support, collaboration, and trust throughout this journey—it has meant the world to me,” McLeish said.

McLeish has been a high-profile advocate of the independent training provider sector, frequently speaking at sector and regional events. She joined Learning Curve in 2008, first as group managing director, before becoming chief executive in 2015. 

A spokesperson for LCG said: “Brenda has been instrumental in building this organisation into what it is today.  We are grateful for her leadership and the strong foundations she leaves behind. We are pleased she will remain supportive of the ‘Purple People’ for a period in an advisory capacity under a consultancy arrangement.

“The LCG strategic board will act as a leadership committee and lead the organisation on an interim basis. The board is already engaged in a succession process to identify a permanent CEO.”

LCG had a turnover of £32 million in the financial year 2024-25 and an after-tax profit of £5 million. However, the group’s latest financial statements also flag a “material uncertainty” over the future of the business due to around £80m in bank loans held by Boyd Topco Limited (a parent entity of Learning Curve) becoming repayable in March 2026.

FE Week has approached Learning Curve Group’s owners, Agilitas Private Equity, for comment.

The news bookends the year which began with a settlement between LCG and the Department for Education, ending an 18-month-long legal battle that alleged DfE “unlawfully” rejected LCG’s 2023 adult education budget bid.

Sixth form college teacher banned for life over sexual messages to student

A sixth form college teacher has been banned from teaching for life after a professional conduct panel found he sent messages of a sexual nature to a student and showed “no remorse” for his behaviour. 

Andrew Bennington taught at Scarborough Sixth Form College from September 2013 until his resignation in January 2025 after admitting he had contacted a learner on social media, including sending a winking emoji, and later a series of inappropriate messages on social media.

In a prohibition order published earlier this month, the Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) ruled Bennington posed a “risk of repetition” and that his behaviour amounted to unacceptable professional conduct and behaviour likely to bring the profession into disrepute.

Around January 2024, Bennington sent a winking emoji to ‘Former Pupil A’ while they were still studying at the college. The TRA did not name the app used, but said it is “known as being a site to facilitate contact of a romantic or sexual nature between adults.” 

The learner told investigators the message, sent on a Sunday evening, made them not want to come into college the next day.

After the learner left the college, Bennington continued to contact them online. Towards the end of 2024, the now-former student accepted a friend request from him on Facebook. The panel found Bennington had sent messages including: “you 18 now??”, “I’ve my iPad for general internet porn” and “you’re just around the corner if you ever want to come round during the week”.

The panel ruled that several of the messages and emojis exchanged were sexual in nature. Some were deemed sexual regardless of Bennington’s intent, while others were found to be sexually motivated after he admitted during the college’s investigation that he was “fishing” to see if the former student “was interested”.

During the college’s investigation, Bennington said he was embarrassed about what he had done, acknowledged he should not have sent the messages and admitted to unsending some of them.

However, the panel concluded that while Bennington had accepted responsibility for his actions, he had not demonstrated any understanding of why his conduct was wrong or the impact on the student, and had shown no remorse.

“There was no evidence that Mr Bennington’s actions were not deliberate,” the panel said, adding that his lack of insight and remorse created an ongoing safeguarding risk.

The TRA imposed a prohibition order with no review period, meaning Bennington is barred indefinitely from teaching in any school, sixth form college, relevant youth accommodation or children’s home in England.

The decision maker said allowing Bennington to apply for a review would not be sufficient to maintain public confidence in the profession, given the seriousness of the misconduct, the risk of repetition and the “absence of full insight”.

The case comes as legislation laid in Parliament last year extends the remit of the TRA to further education and independent training providers from September 2026.

Phil Rumsey, principal of Scarborough Sixth Form College, said: “The safeguarding team were made aware of possible misconduct by Mr Bennington in January 2025. This was investigated quickly in line with the college’s policies which resulted in a referral to the local authority designated officer (LADO). 

“Mr Bennington admitted what he had done and offered his resignation without notice, which was accepted. The matter was subsequently referred to the TRA with the published outcome. The speed at which this was investigated with the correct outcome shows the college policies are strong and fit for purpose, and on review no changes were deemed necessary. 

“The student involved left the college the previous summer for reasons completely unrelated to this, which the college later verified as part of the investigation. As a result, there has been no significant negative impact on any staff or students. 

“The college had updated its code of conduct for staff in September and all staff received training, which included reference to relationships between staff and students.  We were both shocked and saddened by Mr Bennington’s actions and it appeared to be very out of character from the hard-working, dedicated teacher he was, but we are also confident that this was a one-off.”

To lead on inclusion, FE needs more neurodiverse thinkers at its top tables

Further Education leadership traditionally has been measured by numbers such as retention, achievement and Ofsted ratings. But now the sector is facing issues such as challenges from digital disruption to funding cut pressures, perhaps what we actually need in this sector is a different kind of leader. A leader who sees problems from unusual angles, questions the status quo and builds environments and teams where difference is valued.

In other words, FE needs neurodiverse leadership.

Why this matters

In the UK one in seven people are neurodiverse. Yet when it comes to FE leadership, those voices remain largely invisible. Neurodiverse learners are slowly starting to receive more inclusive teaching and adjustments. However, when it comes to decision-making tables, there is limited representation.

This is definitely a missed opportunity. Research has shown that neurodiverse leaders often excel in various areas such as creativity, pattern recognition and problem-solving. They also have a unique empathy for learners who feel invisible and excluded because they themselves have lived through similar obstacles themselves. I can vouch for this myself as an autistic leader; I tend to have more empathy for students and staff and can see problems in others which I faced. In sectors facing rapid change, these traits are not optional extras. They are essential for resilience and innovation. Research by Deloitte highlights that neurodiverse teams can be 30 percent more productive in some tasks, particularly those requiring creativity and pattern recognition. Similarly, Made By Dyslexia estimates that one in five people are dyslexic, many of whom bring strong problem-solving and communication skills to leadership roles.

So why are there so few openly neurodiverse FE leaders?

  • Many fear that disclosing their diagnosis will potentially impact their selection.
  • Recruitment pipelines reward conformity rather than someone different, which filters out those who think or communicate in a way which maybe seen as non-traditional.
  • Workplace culture still favours narrow expectations of what leadership should look like, from networking events to rigid communication styles.

These barriers create a leadership pipeline that is far narrower than the talent available in our sector.

A CIPD report on neurodiversity at work found that traditional recruitment and promotion processes often filter out neurodiverse candidates because they emphasise conformity over potential. This means leadership pools across sectors, including education, are not reflecting the real diversity of the workforce.

What FE can do differently

If FE truly wants inclusion, it cannot stop just at classrooms. Leaders can create systems and environments that welcome and promote neurodiverse talent at every level.

  1. Rethink recruitment. Job descriptions can list requirements that can often exclude neurodiverse applicants. Having a more flexible process such as task-based interviews or work trials, could surface talent that is missed by traditional methods. 
  2. Mentorship and sponsorship. Neurodiverse staff should have access to mentoring and, crucially, senior sponsors who can advocate and push them as future leaders.
  3. CPD with inclusion built in. Leadership training must go beyond finance and strategy to include self-awareness, inclusive practice and different communication styles.
  4. Celebrating role models. FE needs to encourage more leaders to share their lived experience. This will encourage more young people that being a leader even with neurodiversity is possible.

I know the obstacles that I faced. I also understand the value of different thinking in leadership; The ability to spot patterns others may miss, to connect with learners who feel invisible and to challenge traditions. These should not be seen as weaknesses, but strengths. Harvard Business Review notes that neurodiverse leaders often demonstrate unique empathy and adaptability, qualities that are increasingly valued in complex and uncertain environments. This underlines why representation at leadership level matters as much as classroom inclusion.

A call to action

FE has talented neurodiverse professionals who could bring that same perspective. These professionals have the creativity and resilience which is needed to navigate times of rapid change. But without intentional change, these potential leaders will continue to be overlooked.

If FE wants to lead on inclusion, it must practice what it teaches. That means creating opening leadership pathways to neurodiverse leaders, assessing recruitment, and building cultures and environments where difference is not hidden but valued.

The sector cannot afford to waste talent. The future of FE depends on leaders who can think outside of the box.