Funding for college students’ free meals will be frozen next year, while schools will see a 5p boost.
In an update today, the Department for Education said the current £2.61 per student FE free meal rate will remain the same in the 2026-27 academic year “as a minimum”.
In contrast, the per-meal funding rate for school children will increase by 5p to £2.66 in September.
The news, which follows revelations of a below-inflation 0.5 per cent increase to the 16 to 19 funding base rate, has been described as “frustrating” and “insulting”.
Darren Hankey, principal at Hartlepool College of Further Education, said: “As someone who was in receipt of and benefited from free-school meals through primary and secondary education; I find this decision deeply disappointing.
“Once again, post-16 students miss out as colleges up and down the country work tirelessly to support many students from some of the least-resourced backgrounds.
“To offer £2.61 a day, a real terms cut, to help try and feed an older teenager is quite insulting and the government’s key mission of breaking down barriers to opportunity rings hollow.”
Qasim Hussain, vice president (further education) at the National Union of Students, added: “The decision is particularly frustrating following yesterday’s wider 16 to 19 funding announcements, which were already a significant disappointment for the sector.
“Free college meals are a vital support for disadvantaged students in FE, and freezing the rate while costs remain high will make provision increasingly challenging for colleges.”
In its update, the DfE said the rate will remain at £2.61 as a minimum “to support planning” but added that funding is kept under review.
Operational guidance will be issued “in due course”, the department added.
It is unclear why the DfE has chosen to increase meals funding for schools but frozen the rate for FE settings.
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “Through our Plan for Change, this government has taken a historic step to tackle the stain of child poverty – offering free school meals to every single child from a household that claims Universal Credit.
“The new entitlement will see over half a million more children able to benefit from a free meal from next school year and lift 100,000 children out of poverty.
“The significant expansion of free meals to an additional 500,000 children is fully funded, backed by £1 billion.”
How the dinner tables have turned
Colleges, independent training providers and sixth-form colleges have had access to free meals in FE funding for disadvantaged students aged between 16 and 19 since it was extended from schools to FE in 2014-15.
The 2026-27 rate freeze will be the first year since at least 2020-21 that FE providers have received a lower per-meal rate than schools.
The FE per meal rate was frozen at £2.41 between 2014-15 and 2022-23. The schools rate was set at £2.34 before being matched with FE at £2.41 in 2022-23 and rose at the same rate until this year, when it reached £2.61.
Diana Martin, CEO of Dudley College of Technology, said the DfE’s announcement on a free meals freeze for next year “is disappointing, given that the degree of disadvantage a learner has does not change when they reach 16”.
Hussain added: “At a time when the cost-of-living crisis continues to affect many families, and some students are struggling to afford food during the college day, this is not the direction we should be taking, even recognising the current fiscal constraints.”
Universal credit expansion
About one quarter of school pupils, 2.2 million, received free school meals in 2024-25.
In the same year, about 90,000 low-income students in 377 FE settings benefitted from free meals allocations, at a cost of £37 million.
But these figures are likely to rise next academic year as free meal eligibility is widened from students or families with an income below £7,400 to anyone from a household receiving universal credit.
This will give 500,000 more pupils and students access to the scheme for the first time, the DfE estimates.
Kerry Boffey helps FE providers navigate Ofsted inspections as boss of FIN – and she tells Jessica Hill the new inspection framework isn’t a reason to drop your guard
Kerry Boffey woke up every inspection morning with stomach ache during her 18 years as an inspector of independent training providers.
She believes every Ofsted inspector should wake with that sort of tension as it reflects an intense passion to “get the grade right because it matters”.
“If I ever didn’t have tummy ache in the morning, it would mean I didn’t care enough,” she says.
Nowadays, Boffey carries the same determination into helping others achieve successful inspection outcomes as chief executive of the Fellowship of Inspection Nominees (FIN).
And though Ofsted has launched a new inspection framework in the wake of headteacher Ruth Perry’s death in 2023, she points out that many of its inspectors are the same people as before, deploying the same methods for scrutinising evidence.
“They’re more polite about it now, and so they should be, but the fundamental aspects of triangulation of evidence haven’t changed,” she says.
Boffey’s team have been analysing the latest inspection feedback to help nominees get their houses in order under the new regime.
Ofsted inspectors (HMI) have played down the need for more inspection preparation, with one telling nominees at this year’s Apprenticeships and Training Conference that “you don’t need to produce reams and reams of documents, we just want you to talk to us”, and that “there are lots of things people think they’re supposed to do for inspection that they really don’t”.
But Boffey warns it would be “naïve” for nominees to believe Ofsted’s “smoke and mirrors” rhetoric. “It’s really unfair to some providers who then go into inspection unprepared. That sets people up to fail. You need to be more realistic.”
She asserts that Ofsted’s new inclusion drive cannot be achieved unless inspectors ask “difficult questions” to get the evidence they need to show that disadvantaged learners are being supported.
Rural roots
FIN’s 600 members usually encounter Boffey via a screen from her farmhouse home, where her scruffy Jack Russell, plus a labrador and collie that belong to her daughters, sit just out of view.
“Anyone on a Zoom call with me often hears a dog who’s seen a squirrel through the office window – when all three see a squirrel, I’ve got no chance!” she jokes.
Boffey is a farm girl through and through. She was born and raised on a farm and married a farmer. Three years ago, her husband suffered a stroke, so her two daughters are often close by to lend a hand.
Boffey disliked school and recalls a careers officer in a tweed jacket with patches on his arms and an egg stain on his lapel, telling her she wasn’t “bright enough to work in an office”.
But at 16, she thrived on a work placement with a retailer, and thus began her deep appreciation for vocational training.
After she later trained as a dispensing optician, she found her “spiritual home in further education” as a retail and warehousing tutor for an ITP. She also became an external verifier for City & Guilds in Northern Ireland, and managed her own team in the West Midlands.
Kerry Boffey, FIN CEO
Inspector Boffey
In 1999, Boffey became an associate inspector for the Training Standards Council (TSC), and then for the Adult Learning Inspectorate which replaced it and subsequently became part of Ofsted.
She quickly learned just how pedantic inspectors can be. One remarked without irony how an organisation had 22 policies, but lacked “a policy to review the policies”.
Despite the tummy aches, she came to love the “total immersion of a week getting to know a provider” that inspections gave her.
She was “taken aback” by some of the “absolutely bespoke support” she saw. One tutor drove a homeless learner to court for a hearing, which was “not what they’re paid to do” and their actions proved to be a “game changer”.
Boffey started a consultancy in 2003, the Adult Learning Improvement Network (ALIN), providing services such as coaching, quality improvement and management development programmes for providers. She still runs ALIN today as a vehicle for governance work and quality reviews.
‘Don’t moan – get stuck in’
She noticed through ALIN that many inspection nominees were “struggling to drive quality”, as they were “a lone voice that could not be heard above the drive for business growth until the threat of inspection drew close”.
Boffey’s life mantra is that “if you don’t like something, don’t moan about it – get in and change it”. So she gathered current and former inspectors she considered as “experts in their field” to change the culture around quality improvement.
FIN was created as a collaborative community on the principle that “if providers place their focus on delivering high quality and put robust systems in place, then inspection will look after itself”.
Boffey claims it is still the only FE membership organisation focused solely on quality.
FIN includes serving Ofsted inspectors among its ranks, although they “have to be very careful what they can do”.
Its experts make themselves available to nominees in the run-up to inspections, so a remote meeting on a Sunday afternoon to run through a presentation, with feedback at 9pm, is “a regular occurrence”.
They give FIN members “unbiased and honest opinions” in “the heat of the moment” over whether they can complain about what an inspector has told them.
But more often they provide the “calm voice of reason”, with “tangible ideas on how to approach or evidence a forming judgment”.
Kerry Boffey speaking at this year’s Apprenticeships and Training conference
Lobbying behind the scenes
Much of Boffey’s work is done “in the background” and involves highlighting the inspection challenges that providers are experiencing with the watchdog.
Last year, FIN led a successful campaign calling for all providers, “regardless of size or complexity”, to be given a five-day notice period (instead of two) for inspections.
Boffey believes FE leaders face less anxiety over inspections than their school counterparts because the burden of judgment is shared more widely within their teams, with a shadow often appointed to support nominees.
She recently helped persuade Ofsted to allow schools to appoint nominees for the first time; before that, a headteacher was also the de facto nominee. Boffey is now “looking at getting much more involved with schools”.
The lull in inspections during the pandemic made things “quite difficult” for nominees who lacked that “external driver” to compel their provider to focus on quality improvement.
Boffey reminds her nominees they have the most influence in the aftermath of an inspection, when they can put the necessary processes in place to achieve a good result next time.
She thinks it would be helpful if Ofsted could tell providers post-inspection that “we could come back at any time” to prevent them from taking their eyes off the quality ball.
She would like to see more regular and less intense Ofsted inspections involving smaller teams, rather than one large team descending on a provider once every four years.
Boffey also believes it would be beneficial for all full-time HMIs to return to the coal face on secondment to the most challenging providers every three years, to help them “fully understand provision”.
Their “untapped talent pool” could also benefit the sector in return.
“Unless, of course, some HMIs would actually be out of their depth? Hopefully not,” Boffey adds.
Kerry Boffey with her dog
Meeting Martyn
It is surprising, and perhaps a sign of the aloofness of Ofsted’s central command, that Boffey has never met any of its chief inspectors. Given she has spent her life reflecting on how the inspectorate could be improved, you would think its chief inspector would be biting her hand off for a meeting.
Boffey is not offended by this. But if she could sit down with Martyn Oliver, she would tell him that Ofsted has “missed the boat” by not measuring every provider against local and national skills needs, given that this is such a government priority.
“The true value” of an apprenticeship lies in its “impact on a business” and “a company’s ability to retain staff”, she explains.
To make time for this assessment during an inspection, Boffey suggests Ofsted could stop judging providers on some of the Prevent and safeguarding training, and English and maths provision they are now expected to deliver, but which they are not paid for.
A professional services provider was recently criticised by inspectors for not having enough sexual health training. Boffey says as a customer, it would not be her “first priority” to choose an accountant who had had sexual health training.
“Maybe if [Ofsted’s] focus was the difference the provider is making to industry, the government wouldn’t be looking at removing some of the funding because they’d see the true value of this provision,” she adds.
FIN’s inspection bootcamp
Inclusion balloons
Unlike schools, FE providers have always been “really good at inclusion” – just not at proving it.
At the last two-day intense ‘inspection bootcamp’ that FIN held for its members, Boffey handed everyone a balloon representing learners with difficulties to illustrate inclusion; those who left their balloons unattended lost them.
Ofsted’s new data portal, FESIT, helps providers to evidence their disadvantaged learners. But it is not perfect; for example, someone on free school meals with a care background and from a disadvantaged postcode has three different indicators of need and could be counted three times within the data, which “could be distorting to a provider”.
Boffey would also like to see much greater recognition of the progress made by each individual learner, rather than inspectors’ reliance on achievement data.
Inspections in some ways replicate the checks DfE makes on providers. And HMIs are still far more interested in finding flaws than finding good-practice “pots of gold” to share across the sector.
“Collecting the floating rot is easy, digging for gold takes time and determination,” says Boffey.
Ofsted has also made it harder to attain the top inspection grade (‘exceptional’), which Boffey decries as “taking away aspiration”.
FIN charges all its members £960 a year plus VAT (just over £20 a week), regardless of their size, because “the smaller providers need the support from the bigger providers to share ideas”. Every resource created for one member is shared, so everyone can access it.
Quality reviews (essentially a mock inspection) are the most popular service among the providers who approach Boffey, but she warns them it is like “fishing for you for a day, as opposed to teaching you how to fish” which is what FIN’s full membership offers.
The reviews are a part of the job that the straight-talking Boffey clearly enjoys. “If I see a lesson that isn’t good, I’m not afraid to pull punches,” she says.
Her favourite moments are “when you can see that through the work you’ve done, those learners are getting a better experience”. Her most challenging reviews are when “a team aren’t listening to you”.
Overcoming adversity
Boffey and her husband’s own resilience was put to the test when their herd of 150 dairy cows, calves and 350 sheep were slaughtered in a cull during the foot and mouth disease outbreak, after some pigs on a nearby farm caught the disease.
Boffey’s husband would not allow the cull until a vet came to confirm their cattle were in fact “perfectly healthy”.
He sent his wife and their two daughters away and sat in the house alone, counting the shots as the animals fell onto the fresh straw he had laid down for them that morning.
“They’ve not just taken away my today, they’ve taken away my tomorrow,” she recalls him commenting.
Boffey learned from the incident that although she could not control what happened, she could control how she reacted to it.
In 2022, Boffey’s husband had a stroke, and then she was diagnosed with multiple myeloma (bone marrow cancer). This caused her to give up a sport she loved – rowing – but it did not stop her from working throughout much of her treatment.
She coached a provider over the phone from hospital, just moments before going in for her stem cell transplant.
Looking on in despair, her daughter turned to the nurse, shook her head and said, “I’ll be taking her phone off her!’”
Boffey did not tell her members about her illness and returned to work after treatment in a “great wig”. (Her fabulous hair has since grown back).
“It was a tough time, but adversity gives us an opportunity to rethink and find a way through it,” she says.
Boffey is now a grandmother to twin boys, and talks of “sharing the responsibility” more with her team in the future.
But she still goes skiing several times a year, and is keen to keep working to pay for those holidays.
“If I’m young and fit enough to ski, then I’m well and fit enough to work!” she asserts.
And Boffey clearly still deeply enjoys the day job. “How many people can actually say, ‘I think I made a difference today’ – that’s a great feeling,” she says. “ And if I don’t, then I need to do it better.”
Today is an exciting day: I chair the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Further Education and Lifelong Learning, and this afternoon (Monday 11th March) we will have the first session of our inquiry into adult education.
Announced during Colleges Week, our inquiry will put adult education in the spotlight and explore five key areas: economic growth, skills and workforce needs, social mobility and inclusion, health, wellbeing and community resilience, policy, funding and the future of lifelong learning and learning from across the UK and beyond.
I will be chairing the first session, and then I’m delighted to say that Lord Johnson of Marylebone, Sam Rushworth MP, Baroness Carmen Smith of Llanfaes, and Rachel Gilmour MP will chair the others.
As a group of MPs and peers from across Parliament, we are united in our desire to see real change in the adult education space, and it’s clear that the FE sector joins us on that. Indeed, there are three separate adult education campaigns currently active, led by Association of Colleges (Adult Learning Pays), Learning and Work Institute (Get the Nation Learning), and by UCU (Save Adult Education).
You don’t have to look far to see why: adult education in this country is in a dire state. Public funding for classroom-based adult education and training has fallen by two-thirds since the early 2000s. This has a very real impact on the opportunities available to adults, and indeed, the number of adults studying or training in English colleges have fallen by more than third since 2017-18.
It is a part of education that is underfunded and underappreciated, and yet one that is fundamental to how we equip our workforce and communities to deal with the major shifts our world.
We know that adults will need to upskill and retrain to meet the needs of the green agenda and technological revolution. We know that as unrest grows in our communities, access to community education builds cohesion, belonging and respect. Adult education transforms lives every single day, usually without fanfare, and our inquiry aims to shine a proper light on that.
One thing the FE sector always asks for is for policymakers to listen before acting. So instead of announcing a list of grand proposals, we are beginning by gathering evidence from all corners of the FE sector.
Through the Association of Colleges (who provide the secretariat to the group), we have launched an online call for evidence and survey so that colleges, training providers, employers and learners can submit their experiences and ideas easily. We want to understand what’s working, where the gaps are, and what changes would make the biggest difference. If you’re in the sector, please don’t be shy. We genuinely want to hear from you; this inquiry and subsequent report will only be as strong as the evidence we receive.
FE works best when people come together as employers, educators and policymakers. This APPG inquiry is determined to reflect that same spirit. I am looking forward to hearing the evidence we receive and to share our findings later this year. Together, we can strengthen lifelong learning for everyone and highlight the vital role of adult education.
The role of teaching and learning has evolved beyond academic attainment. Increasingly, FE colleges are recognised as relational environments where learners’ sense of belonging, emotional safety and wellbeing directly influence engagement and outcomes.
In response to this, I introduced a teaching and learning strategy rooted in Brené Brown’s work on leading with empathy. While this work is in its early stages, it is beginning to have a positive influence on classroom culture and aligns closely with the updated Ofsted inspection framework’s emphasis on inclusion.
I was introduced to Brené Brown’s work by my partner, at a time when I was reflecting on how well existing approaches to behaviour and engagement were serving learners.
Her work is most associated with leadership development, and leading with empathy is being introduced through leadership training rather than classroom practice.
While her research originates in the US, there is growing interest in similar relational and trauma-informed approaches across UK further education.
Why empathy matters
Brown describes empathy as the ability to understand and share another person’s feelings without judgment. Within education, this means recognising learners as whole individuals, shaped by their experiences both in and out of the classroom.
Empathy does not equate to lowering expectations or avoiding challenge. Instead, it enables staff to respond to behaviour, engagement and learning needs with curiosity, fairness and compassion.
Research into student-teacher relationships demonstrates that pupils who feel understood and supported are more likely to engage, persist with challenge and develop positive attitudes to learning.
The strategy introduced was underpinned by three key principles drawn from Brown’s work.
1. Creating psychological safety
Staff focus on building environments where pupils feel safe to contribute, make mistakes and ask for help. This includes normalising error as part of learning, actively listening to pupil voice and responding to mistakes with guidance rather than shame. When pupils experience psychological safety, they are less likely to disengage through avoidance or challenging behaviour.
2. Empathetic but courageous conversations
Empathy is embedded through restorative and solution-focused conversations. Rather than asking, “What rule has been broken?”, staff are encouraged to explore, “What has happened here, and what support is needed next?” These conversations maintain clear boundaries while acknowledging the underlying factors influencing behaviour, such as unmet needs, anxiety or external pressures.
3. Consistency, structure, trust
Predictable routines, clear expectations and calm responses help pupils feel secure. This balance of warmth and structure is particularly beneficial for pupils with additional needs, those experiencing adversity and learners who struggle with regulation or transitions.
Early impact and staff engagement
Early indicators have been encouraging, particularly in relation to staff engagement. Teachers report increased confidence in applying empathetic, relational approaches within their practice.
Feedback suggests staff value the shared language and clarity this approach provides, especially when responding to behaviour, supporting vulnerable learners and maintaining high expectations alongside compassion.
While it is too early to draw definitive conclusions, initial learning visits and informal ‘walk thrus’ point towards a more inclusive culture developing across the setting. Staff are beginning to report stronger relationships with learners and a heightened awareness of individual barriers to learning.
Importantly, inclusion is understood not as the responsibility of specialist teams alone, but as a shared, everyday responsibility embedded within teaching and learning practice.
Alignment with Ofsted
The Ofsted framework places emphasis on how effectively FE colleges identify, understand and meet the needs of all pupils. An empathetic teaching and learning approach supports this by demonstrating strong understanding of individual needs, equitable access to learning, relational approaches to behaviour and inclusive practice enacted consistently across classrooms.
Inspectors look for inclusion as lived experience rather than policy alone. Empathy-driven practice ensures that values of fairness, dignity and support are evident in daily interactions.
By embedding Brown’s principles into classroom practice, staff are better equipped to support diverse needs while maintaining high expectations.
This approach not only aligns with the new Ofsted framework but also reflects a moral commitment to educate with humanity, understanding and purpose.
The Milburn Review is soon expected to publish its diagnosis of one of the most pressing challenges facing the country: the rising number of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET).
But the real question is: how will policymakers and the sector respond?
At EDT, we work directly with tens of thousands of young people and adults out of work or education every year. We consistently see not a lack of ambition, but a system that too fragmented to help young people turn that ambition into reality.
Access to employability support varies hugely depending on where a young person lives; Intensive or tailored support in one local authority not existing in the next. 18-year-olds falling between youth and adult funding streams. Waiting times for access to mental health services varying wildly from one area to another.
This is replicated at a national level. Responsibility for NEET young people is spread across schools and colleges, local and combined authorities, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department for Education and the voluntary sector.
The resulting patchwork of provision is difficult for professionals to coordinate and even harder for young people to navigate.
This matters all the more because we have found that nine in ten frontline employability providers identify low confidence as a key barrier to young people entering education or work – a challenge even more acute for care-experienced young people lacking stable support networks.
The youth guarantee, two weeks’ worth of work experience and expanded apprenticeships are to be welcomed. But it takes time for these policies to translate into real opportunities, and without stronger national coordination, we risk adding more programmes to an already complex landscape.
Gatsby for NEETs?
We can learn from one part of the system in particular that has improved significantly in recent years: careers guidance in schools and colleges.
The Gatsby Benchmarks offer a clear national framework for what good careers provision looks like. Too often delivery still varies, but schools and colleges share a common set of standards, supported by national infrastructure through the Careers and Enterprise Company and Careers Hubs.
There is no equivalent framework for the services supporting young people who are not in school or college, employment or training.
NEET provision could benefit from the same principle: a framework for high-quality support coordinated nationally – but combined with strong local partnerships to deliver it.
Drawing on our programme delivery, we have begun to develop a framework built around the following principles.
If we are serious about reducing NEET numbers, prevention matters as much as the cure. We cannot separate what happens in schools, at key transition points, and once young people fall out of education or work. Any ladder of opportunity is only as strong as its weakest rung.
That means ongoing access to high-quality careers information, advice and guidance, alongside responsive post-16 learning pathways aligned to young people’s goals.
Ongoing support
Where a young person or adult disengages, local services should be able to track, monitor and re-engage them quickly to reduce ‘not known’ outcomes.
Every NEET young person should have access to a trained adviser and personalised support plan. Where they face complex needs, support should be differentiated and delivered holistically, with strong coordination and collaboration across services. That could include access to flexible funding to address practical barriers such as transport, childcare or digital access.
There should be clear pathways into further education, training and employment, including meaningful opportunities to experience and succeed in a work environment, building confidence and employability skills step-by-step.
Crucially, young people must be at the heart of decisions affecting them. That includes these important conversations about the shape and nature of services designed to support them.
At present, many of these elements exist but they are unevenly distributed or too short-term. Strong local programmes deliver excellent outcomes, but they are rarely embedded across the system.
In the same way that schools work towards the Gatsby benchmarks, organisations supporting NEET young people could work towards a shared set of standards for early identification, personalised guidance, workplace exposure and coordinated support back into education, employment or training. This could be coordinated centrally by an independent body (akin to the Careers and Enterprise Company), and supported by local hubs to drive meaningful results.
The Milburn Review has an opportunity to move the conversation beyond diagnosis and towards system reform.
We dearly hope it recommends national coordination, clear standards for quality support, longer-term funding and genuine collaboration across services to ensure that new initiatives deliver lasting change.
Because if we are serious about reducing the number of young NEETs, we must know what we are all striving for, what excellent practice looks like, and how that is delivered in a joined-up system from school through to adulthood.
At Wigan & Leigh College, what we’re doing around careers guidance is making a transformative difference to young people at risk of becoming NEET (not in education, employment or training).
When good careers guidance is underpinned by the Gatsby benchmarks and is made a strategic priority for leaders, it transforms lives.
The latest government guidance calls on leaders to make careers guidance a leadership priority; we’ve been ahead of the curve and have been prioritising careers guidance for many years.
This has had a huge impact on NEET numbers, which in our area are below the national and regional average. Careers guidance is embedded in strategic planning, discussed at every level and reflected in everyday interactions.
Whole college approach
Careers guidance is woven into every stage of a learner’s journey, from their first encounter with the college to their progression beyond it.
This whole-college approach, championed by the entire leadership team and delivered consistently by staff, ensures young people always understand why they are learning and where it can take them.
This work begins well before enrolment. Close collaboration with schools and the local authority allows us to engage learners at key stage four, helping them understand their strengths, interests and ambitions.
This ensures our young people really are guided correctly to the provision that they’re actually going to succeed in, thrive in and be retained in.
We proactively view our learners as ‘future leavers’, focusing on what they need to thrive well beyond their time at college.
Full breadth of pathways
One of the most effective strategies in preventing young people becoming NEET is ensuring that young people see the full breadth of pathways open to them.
Too often, learners believe there is only one route – commonly A Levels followed by university – and if that pathway closes, they can feel they have failed.
Our approach is to present academic and technical routes, apprenticeships and higher education as equally valid and visible options. This approach reduces the risk of young people disengaging when plans change or results are not as expected.
A second key element to our careers programme is individualisation; for those learners who could be described as either disadvantaged or disengaged, it is about providing them with something bespoke that meets their specific needs and that is layered on top of what all young people are universally entitled to.
We’re looking for the things that resonate for that particular young person, that remove barriers or sparks something in them – something that makes them think: “That’s it, that’s what I want to do. That’s my goal.”
When you align that tailored approach with ongoing careers guidance that evolves as the young person progresses in their journey, it has far more impact.
An example of this is a programme we’re involved in, called Success 4 Life. It’s a collaboration between us, the council and GM Higher, our regional network of higher education providers.
Students who don’t traditionally go to university can come and explore the different pathways that can help get them there.
They may not know what they want to do and they might have certain challenges stopping them accessing next steps.
The programme also helps with essential skills and builds confidence and motivation. It is a very bespoke intervention that really makes sure that young people have got everything they need to move on and transition seamlessly.
Preventing young people becoming NEET is not achieved through a single initiative; it requires sustained partnership with schools, local authorities, employers and higher education, early and ongoing guidance and a relentless focus on helping every young person find a pathway that fits.
As FE leaders, we have a unique opportunity to influence not only individual lives but the prosperity of our communities. A genuinely strategic approach to careers guidance is one of the most powerful tools we have.
FE is rightly judged on outcomes. Qualifications matter and for many of our students they’re life-changing. At our college, attainment, progress and positive progression will always remain central to our purpose.
But in recent years we found ourselves asking: are our students leaving us ready for adult life, or simply successful in their courses?
By traditional measures the college was performing well. Results were good and progression rates high. Yet feedback from universities, employers and families was consistent.
Some students struggled with organisation, professional communication and operating confidently in unfamiliar environments. They had achieved academically, but the transition beyond education was often harder than expected.
This is not a criticism of young people. It reflects the environment they’re entering. School and college leavers in London face a particularly demanding landscape: a competitive labour market, rising living costs and increasing expectations from both universities and employers.
Grades are non-negotiable, but they are no longer sufficient. Increasingly, high quality progression routes depend on behaviours and competencies that are difficult to develop solely inside classrooms, or measurable in course outcomes.
We concluded the issue was structural rather than pedagogical. Sixth form provision is understandably qualification-led. Personal development usually sits within tutorials or enrichment. These activities are valuable but limited in reach and often accessed most by students who are already confident and well supported outside college.
For many young people, particularly those without professional networks at home, education may be their only opportunity to experience workplaces, adult expectations and unfamiliar environments before they are required to navigate them independently.
Two years ago we ran a pilot programme and consultation on the proposal to compress the taught curriculum into four days and dedicated the equivalent of one full day each week to structured personal development.
The pilot was a success with feedback from students, parents and staff in mutual agreement that it was a positive step.
Students still complete their guided learning hours and, through longer teaching sessions, A Level subject teaching time actually increased.
The fifth day is neither a study day nor optional enrichment. It is compulsory.
Every student completes volunteering, an industry placement and a structured cultural capital and life-skills programme across the year, often across more than one sector.
At any one time, hundreds of our students are working with employers, charities and community organisations across London.
The programme requires students to source opportunities, communicate with professionals, travel independently and represent themselves appropriately in adult environments.
They sometimes make mistakes and have to resolve them: clarifying expectations, sending the email, making the phone call and putting things right. Much of the learning comes from that process.
If engaging with employers feels difficult while still supported by college, it becomes significantly harder once education has ended. The programme allows students to develop independence while a safety net still exists.
The impact has extended beyond personal development. Students increasingly understand the relevance of their subjects because they can see how learning connects to real workplaces and future careers.
Teachers report stronger motivation and more mature attitudes to study. Some students secure part-time employment through their placements, but more importantly they gain confidence operating in adult spaces.
Crucially, this was not dependent on additional funding. We achieved it through timetable redesign and redeployment of existing pastoral capacity.
The main change was philosophical: we treated preparation for adulthood as a core educational purpose rather than an additional offer.
We describe the model as a passport to independence. Qualifications open doors to university, apprenticeships and employment, but independence, communication, resilience, adaptability and self-management determine whether young people can step through those doors successfully.
FE has always been the final academic step into adulthood. If social mobility is genuinely our mission, preparing students for adulthood cannot sit at the curriculum margins.
For some young people, networks and experience come through family circumstances. For others, the institution must provide them.
Our responsibility is not only to help students achieve, but to help them function and flourish beyond education. Our timetable now reflects that responsibility.
Ministers have been accused of breaking a promise for a real-terms funding increase for 16 to 19 year olds made in last year’s white paper to ease demographic pressures.
The Department for Education today confirmed the national funding rate for 16 and 17 year old learners will only rise by 0.5 per cent in academic year 2026-27, from £5,105 to £5,133.
This marks the lowest increase since funding rates were frozen in 2021-22.
The move has “disappointed” college leaders, who pointed out it breaks a pledge made in October’s post-16 education white paper which said there was “significant investment” available to “ensure there is increased funding to provide real terms per-pupil funding in the next academic year to respond to the demographic increase in 16 to 19-year-olds.”
Today’s batch of 16-19 funding guidance documents also failed to reveal details of any additional funding to support significant increases in learner enrolments this year due to a demographic boom in the number of school leavers.
Leaders said the government’s recent £800 million cash injection will be swallowed up by the extra estimated 20,000 16-18-year-olds entering college last autumn.
But the Association of Colleges (AoC) estimated that there are already around 32,000 current learners in colleges who will now be unfunded, and the “disappointing” funding rise will leave “very little” for staff pay rises.
The white paper promised £1.2 billion of additional investment per year in skills by 2028-2029, which will allow recruitment and retention of expert teachers and will “respond” to the demographic increase in 16-19-year-olds.
Julian Gravatt, deputy chief executive of the Association of Colleges, said: “Colleges will be disappointed by the funding announcement today by the Department for Education.
“The DfE calculation that there will be a 1.6 per cent [average per-student] increase shows that this promise hasn’t been kept, and right now, there is a lack of information on the overall budget,” he added.
Gravatt added that the demographic bulge will bring in extra income in the 2026-27 academic year, which will be lagged for one year, but will also incur extra costs associated with more teachers, staff and teaching space.
“This may leave very little money for pay rises in 2026-27 given that colleges are operating with funding that assumes no or minimal inflation,” he said.
Officials have also removed the 5 per cent uplift to the national T Level funding rate for several subjects.
Meanwhile, a £400 increase has been made to high-value courses in construction in a bid to boost the number of students who are “immediately” employable.
However elsewhere in the 16 to 19 funding formula, there will be no changes in 2026-27 to the advanced maths premium, core maths premium, disadvantage funding, English and maths funding, English and maths condition of funding or programme cost weightings.
T Level rate lowered
T Levels with technical qualifications introduced before 2022 will have their 5 per cent uplift removed in 2026-27, even if their occupational specialisms were introduced after.
The uplift was introduced to support extra costs associated with the early rollout of T Levels.
This means the funding rate has dropped by 4.3 per cent from last year for T Levels in digital, construction, education and early years and health and science.
The funding rate for band 9 “very large” T Levels of 1,830 total planned hours for the programme’s two years will be reduced to £14,772 in 2026-27 from this year’s rate of £15,430.
Band 8 (comprising an average 1,680 planned hours) will reduce from £14,146 to £13,544.
Band 7 will shrink from £12,864 to £12,316 and band 6 will fall from £11,154 to £10,680.
Sitting alongside the above funding bands are three additional “uplifted” funding rates across bands 6 to 8.
The 5 per cent uplift has applied to T Levels in business and administration, legal, finance and accounting, engineering and manufacturing, agriculture and animal care, creative and design and marketing.
The uplifted band 6 will fund the marketing, finance, accounting and legal services T Levels at £11,214 per student across the two-year qualification.
Uplifted band 7 has been boosted to £12,932, affecting T Levels such as management and administration, craft and design and media, broadcast and production.
Meanwhile, all three engineering and manufacturing T Levels and most routes under agriculture, environmental and animal care courses will be boosted to £14,222 per student under the uplifted band 8.
Ministers today confirmed plans to limit new T Levels to 1,080 guided learning hours, lower than the current minimum of 1,180 hours after long-standing calls from colleges that T Levels are too large and difficult to deliver at scale.
The move followed new starts data this morning showing ministers failed to meet their T Level recruitment target for 2025-26 by nearly a fifth.
Functional skills qualifications will remain available “for some students” as ministers introduce new stepping-stone English and maths qualifications for GCSE resit students.
The Department for Education has launched a consultation on new level 1 English and maths qualifications for 16 to 19 year olds that leave school with GCSE grades 2 or below in the subjects.
The so-called stepping-stone qualifications were proposed last year by the independent curriculum and assessment review, led by Becky Francis, to better prepare learners to achieve a grade 4 pass in their post-16 GCSE resits.
According to a consultation published today, most in scope students would take the new level 1 preparation courses in their first year of post-16 study and then progress to the resit in their second year.
Changes to English and maths accountability measures, first mooted in the post-16 education and skills white paper, are mentioned in the consultation but are not set out in any detail.
Different design
Unlike functional skills qualifications, the new courses will be designed specifically to prepare learners to achieve at least a grade 4 pass at GCSE.
There will be further consultations on the detailed design, curriculum and assessment arrangements of the new qualifications, but the consultation states they will be aligned to GCSE content and address gaps from earlier key stages.
Most students who leave school with a grade 2 or below in English and maths will be expected to take the new level 1 preparatory qualifications, but the consultation doesn’t say when they will be available for teaching. Officials won’t tell us that until they analyse consultation responses.
Enrolments on alternative qualifications will be allowed, but are expected to be rare.
“We believe level 1 and entry level English and maths functional skills qualifications will remain an appropriate option for some students. We also believe that level 2 functional skills qualifications may have a role for some students. This is in line with the condition of funding guidance,” the consultation states.
Students who achieve a grade 3 in their GCSEs at school will be able to progress straight to resits.
Modular vs linear assessment
One major design question in the consultation is whether the new qualifications should be modular or linear.
DfE makes the case for a modular design, meaning students could “bank” progress over time which it said could improve the confidence and motivation of students who have previously struggled.
The consultation notes: “If students make progress in their learning but do not achieve the full qualification, having nothing to show for that progress could lead to further disengagement.”
However, one drawback of the modular approach could be that frequent assessments have the opposite effect by increasing pressure on students and create timetabling challenges for providers.
Options proposed include making the new qualifications fully modular, fully linear or a hybrid model combining modules with a final exam.
Condition of funding still applies
The consultation makes clear the new qualifications will sit within the existing English and maths condition of funding rules that apply to 16 to 19 study programmes.
This rule means providers must ensure students who have not yet achieved a grade 4 or above in English and/or maths continue to study the subjects. There are funding penalties if the condition isn’t met.
DfE said the new qualifications are intended to support the condition by giving lower-attaining students more time to gain the skills and knowledge they need before attempting to resit the GCSEs.
It added that the new qualifications should be completed within the teaching hours already required under the condition of funding guidance.
