Gill Alton, chief executive, TEC Partnership

After 35 years in the sector, Gill Alton, CEO of TEC Partnership, retired last Friday. She talks to Jess Staufenberg about leadership – and keeping it snappy

One night, when she was working in the hotel sector, Gill Alton and her staff heard a commotion from an upstairs bedroom.

A group of Welsh rugby fans, extremely jolly after a match, had thrown a pillow into the street and were carefully assessing the drop.

Next in their sights was the room’s double mattress, which, it was hoped, might act as a trampoline. Alton was swiftly dispatched.

“They were great about it,” she says cheerfully, praising the group for placidly agreeing they should not, after all, squeeze a mattress out the window. “Some people are difficult at that time of night, but no, they took it very well.”

Keeping calm under pressure is one of the parallels Alton draws between running a hotel and one of the biggest FE providers in the country.

She spent two years in the hotel sector, working in human resources, before accepting a part-time role, aged 25, teaching hospitality in FE; and 35 years later, she has never looked back.

Now, the chief executive of TEC Partnership (which includes Grimsby Institute, Scarborough TEC, East Riding College and Skegness TEC) is retiring for good.

Supporting Grimsby Town (Mariners) at Wembley with husband Colin and best friend

Aside from “dealing with people and problem-solving”, however, nothing else in FE is the same as hotels, muses Alton.

FE is unmatched in terms of the reward that comes from helping so many vulnerable people (parts of Grimsby are in the most deprived ten per cent of wards in England), she says.

Her own mother was a school teacher, but did not encourage her daughter into schools because of the stress of the job ̶ yet FE is different, says Alton.

“The difference is, you’re teaching an area you love to people who often really want to learn it.” She adds: “People don’t stay in education for the money. Most other sectors pay more. It’s just a lovely sector.” Pay is a theme we return to.

Alton had actually “half-heartedly” considered retiring before, she tells me, after being a turnaround principal at Rotherham College of Arts and Technology from 2010 to 2013. The college, which had previously been ‘satisfactory’, moved to a grade 2 with some outstanding features under Alton’s leadership.

Unfortunately, after Alton’s departure in 2015 it slid to a grade 3 by 2019, although last year’s monitoring visit found reasonable progress. Alton repeatedly impresses upon me how crucial her brilliant team at TEC Partnership are – but the story shows just how important the leader at the top is for a college’s reputation.

FE Week interviewed Alton back in 2013, not knowing her next steps. At that point, she had already worked at the Grimsby Institute for ten years and had then moved to Rotherham College.

She admits “a bit of a rogue manager” had made her want to leave Grimsby Institute the first time round. When she was asked to take the helm in 2015, her strong attachment to the institution made it an easy decision (despite the half-baked retirement plan) and she was in post by 2016.

East Riding College

In the past six years, Alton’s headline measures speak for themselves: £12 million has been added to the group’s cash reserves, two Institutes of Technology have opened, there are 52 “live projects” running from bid funding, the college even bought a small logistics company to offer lorry driver training, it has merged with East Riding College – and the college moved from a grade 2 to grade 1.

As one of her last acts as chief executive, Alton and her team will pick up a Queen’s Anniversary Prize next week, which is apparently the highest national honour a further or higher education institution can get.

So what are Alton’s views on leadership, and policy, as she looks back over 35 years? Alton took on the role at Grimsby Institute – which she says was “a very good college” by 2015 – specifically to make it outstanding. How does one do that?

Alton has a great way with phrases, sounding like a scientist or a military commander at different points. On the finance front, she says, “Every pound is a prisoner.”

She and the team tightened lots of financial decisions, filling classes where possible and tracking spending closely, to make sure the “bottom line” wasn’t hit.

Listen to your governors with business acumen, she adds. When the college was buying the University of Hull’s Scarborough campus (now Scarborough TEC), she and her team were minded to sell off the 200-bedroom residential halls, not thinking they could be useful in a largely 16-to-18 college.

But her former chair of governors was a successful entrepreneur and advised her to keep the buildings and offer them as low-cost accommodation.

Now, many doctors and nurses posted to work in Scarborough live in them, and college staff with long commutes can make use of them during the week.

“You’ve got some very capable people sitting around that table,” Alton says of her governors. “Sometimes they come out with golden nuggets.”

It was also the board that got behind the college buying the company Transafe in 2018, so it could quickly enter the market for lorry training with a ready-made staff and client base for training up adults.

This was long before the government started worrying about HGV driver shortages. “Treat your governors as allies, not as anything else. That’s my belief,” Alton tells me.

On getting to outstanding achievement levels, she says straight away: “Forensically know your data.

“Know which bits of your organisation are currently not outstanding and focus on getting them to the highest level.”

Automotive lessons at the Grimsby Institute

Her team also do walk-throughs of departments, speak to students and staff and “triangulate”. 

The approach is then supportive, not accusatory. “The conversation is, ‘what is stopping you from being outstanding?’ And then we put in everything they need – support from HR, data they’re missing, whatever it is.”

According to Alton, 95 per cent of areas that went through the college’s ‘support to outstanding’ strategy improved.

And it hasn’t gone unnoticed. In 2017, TEC Partnership got a beacon award from the Association of Colleges for its improvement work.

Alton is also a fan of borrowing ideas (and great phrases), from elsewhere.

“I learnt an awful lot from Lincoln College about bid writing, because they have a very clear and effective process,” she says. “They don’t chase everything.” 

Lincoln College trained her staff in using an ‘opportunity canvas’, which is a side of A4 that works like a SWOT analysis so a college can assess whether a pot of funding for a particular project matches its strategic goals.

A hospitality learner at the Grimsby Institute

Alton says she has taken on projects in the past that ended up as more work than use. Not any more.

In fact, if there is something noticeable about Alton, it’s that she is not given to waffle. Like any good commander, she keeps things to the point, clear and motivational. This is particularly displayed by her rules around college strategic plans.

I’ve been part of long plans most of my life

“Don’t make it long. We only ever do a one-year plan. It’s on the walls, it’s laminated, and everyone can read the strategic measurements.”

Alton has worked in places where strategic plans are closer to Biblical proportions.

“I’ve been part of long plans most of my life. But if you say to someone, ‘what’s in the strategic plan?’ and they can’t tell you, then people aren’t working towards it. I think a lot of our success has been down to that pace. ‘Let’s crack on’.”

Alton leaving the hotel to collect her OBE

Although five years ago now, Alton still clearly recalls the moment staff, who had stayed late in the main hall, got the feedback that told them they’d made it. “It was electric. It wasn’t down to the managers, really, it was down to the staff in the classroom. They just excelled. We were all pretty emotional actually.”

Of course, Alton is being modest – it was precisely her leadership, and that of deputy chief executive Debra Gray, that had enabled staff to perform at their very best.

But perhaps my favourite thing about Alton is that for all her successes, she does not shy away from angrily sticking up for those with less clout than she has.

She criticises the government’s habit of making FE providers bid for funding, saying it disadvantages smaller colleges (and that’s despite TEC Partnership doing well out of bids, winning £2 million for the college group in the latest strategic development fund).

Having to bid for capital is fundamentally wrong

“I don’t think we should have to bid for capital. Your probability of success is greater if you can afford a good bid-writing team, and that’s wrong, that’s fundamentally wrong. It should be based on need, not on having to pay for a team of people who can access that.”

Her other great parting shot is on pay. The gap in FE staff salaries compared to school staff (around £9,000 a year) is “outrageous”, she says. It also leaves college leaders in a moral quandary.

“Every leader in FE would like to pay their staff more, but they also have to make sure the college is sustainable. It’s a moral dilemma.”

Alton has come a very long way from managing a group of thoughtless revellers doing silly things.

Having said that, it’s a shame we can’t deploy her into the Department for Education for a couple of years. But she’s earned her retirement. The sector will undoubtedly miss her voice.

‘Pull your weight’ on pre-16 attainment, colleges told

Colleges and universities will be told that they have a “moral duty” to help raise standards in local schools as the HE regulator floats even more regulatory controls.

John Blake, the newly appointed director for fair access and participation at the Office for Students (OfS), will use his first major speech since taking on the role to make the case that higher education providers have a “moral duty” as “educational and civic institutions” to improve results for disadvantaged pupils locally.

Blake will be speaking at the OfS’ ‘next steps in access and participation’ event this afternoon where he will set out the regulator’s expectations to college and university representatives. 

“If we are at all concerned with equality of opportunity in accessing higher education, we must be concerned with improving attainment much, much earlier in life,” he is expected to say. 

‘Strategic engagement’ to be closely monitored

According to the Education Policy Institute, disadvantaged pupils are on average 18 months of learning behind their peers by the time they take their GCSEs. 

“Universities and colleges have a moral duty to put their shoulder to the wheel of improving that wider community they sit within, and as both educational and civic institutions, improving attainment in our schools is an essential part of that work,” Blake will say today.

“We are asking providers to seek out strategic, enduring, mutually-beneficial partnerships with schools and with the third sector, all working together to contribute to this work.

“But we are expecting providers to pull their weight on pre-16 attainment, a challenge which affects us all.”

John Blake will address colleges and universities today.
OfS director for fair access and participation John Blake

Encouraging “strategic engagement” with schools already features in OfS’ guidance on access and participation plans. OfS requires HE providers that wants to charge higher tuition fees to have an approved access and participation plan.

These documents, which are published, must contain targets and investment plans to, for example, increase participation in higher education from under-represented groups and reduce gaps in outcomes between white and black and disabled and non-disabled students. 

When asked by FE Week whether the OfS will be using its regulatory powers to force college and universities to take improvement action with local schools, the regulator revealed that it will be doing so through its approval regime for access and participation plans. 

Blake will say today: “We will be asking providers to review their current access and participation plan and for them to seek variations to ensure the full scale of their work on strategic school engagement, quality, and non-traditional pathways is being captured. 

“If such work is not currently happening or is not appropriate, providers should seek to remedy that too, with new action beginning from September 2023.”

OfS will be inviting variation requests before the summer, FE Week understands.

The Association of Colleges chief executive David Hughes said that colleges “have decades of experience working closely with local schools to improve achievement and transition at 16” and agrees that “all parts of the education system should work together and have a moral duty to ensure that everyone who has the ability to benefit from higher education can do so”.

Hughes adds “We will continue to encourage OfS to take account of the different circumstances of the organisations they regulate in achieving our shared goals.”

Improve outcomes for disadvantaged students

In a second call to arms, Blake will tell the sector that they should be doing more to support HE students from disadvantaged backgrounds while they are at university or college rather than focussing solely on recruiting them. 

“I have heard more often than I would like that students feel their providers fell over themselves to bring them into higher education, but interest in their needs trailed off the moment they were through the door,” he will say.

This follows the OfS’ mammoth series of consultations launched in January which take aim at “poor quality” courses by bringing in tough new outcome measures. 

Responding to today’s speech by Blake, the higher and further education minister Michelle Donelan said: “It is a well-worn truth that opportunity has its roots in the early stages of education – which is why to truly champion widening access universities must work with schools and help ensure that disadvantaged pupils are not left behind their peers.”

Levelling up: Has an optimistic proposal missed the mark on skills training? 

From talk of widespread devolution and the recognition of skills in socio-economic development, the ‘levelling up’ white paper offered an optimistic view on opportunities development but questions remain on the delivery. 

It’s clear that skills are being prioritised by the government, with new initiatives through bootcamps and Multiply as well as the boost to traineeships a welcomed move. But with prior pledges of investment directed towards ‘skills for the future’, there is a lack of wider action in the key functional skills of literacy, numeracy and essential digital skills. While ‘levelling up’ offers commitment to bettering functional skills development, without increased funding the true attainability of these ambitions are questionable.

The recognition of skills development on economic potential is positive, offering individual opportunity for developing a ‘sustainable living’ and providing better employment prospects. But positivity won’t fulfil national skills deficiencies or labour shortages and with the growing socio-economic divide, made worse by two years of job losses and business closure alongside a desperate shortfall of care workers throughout the country, it’s time for real investment to be made into adult learning. 

The move to devolution and greater local control is encouraging, offering opportunity for more suitable upskilling opportunities within the local area but the proposition poses a risk of creating a ‘postcode lottery’ and misses the mark on national employer support entirely. Some level of coherence and national entitlement will be required and it seems the Department of Education are unwilling to create an overarching skills strategy – instead opting for a range of initiatives. 

With still no reform to skills funding, the burden of a funding system that channels through the institution rather than the individual and employer remains. Closing national gaps in socio-economic opportunity requires placing upskilling opportunity into the hands of the individual through individual learning accounts and this should be prioritised. 

Talks on a new digital education service is positive and online ITP’s like The Skills Network, who offer high quality digital learning experiences for over 35,000 learns across the globe, know better than most the opportunity and accessibility that digital learning offers to education and skills development. This is a step in the right direction but more is needed to truly tackle the opportunity divide and skills shortages throughout the county. 

Only use exam board websites to access advance information, students told 

GCSE and A-level students should only access advance information about exam topics on official websites, exam boards have said, amid fears misinformation could spread online.

Exam boards are due to publish advance information for most GCSE and A-level topics throughout today. It is one of several mitigations aimed at helping students in the first exam year since the pandemic began. 

But the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ), which represents exam boards, has urged people to only access the content on the relevant board’s website for their subject, “to minimise any chance of misinformation”. 

Ministers have repeatedly insisted that exams will go ahead as planned this summer, with certain adaptations proposed including more generous grading.

Today’s information is aimed at helping students focus their revision ahead of the summer exams series. It is being made available for most subjects, including maths, biology, chemistry and languages. 

A “common set of principles” has been developed for the information. For example, they will avoid providing so much detail that answers could be “pre-prepared and memorised”. 

But the information will look different for each subject and exam board to reflect “the nature of those subjects and their assessments”.

Ofqual’s ’jigsaw’ on exam adaptations

Sarah Hannafin, senior policy advisor at schools leaders’ union NAHT, said the information is “new to teachers” so it will “only be over the coming days that we learn whether they believe it will be sufficient to counter the levels of disruption which students have faced due to Covid”. 

Other adaptations include a choice of topics in some GCSEs like English literature and history and support materials like formulae sheets in maths. 

The DfE said that because about 500,000 exams took place as planned in January for vocational and technical qualifications (VTQs), this would give “confidence” in the exams system. 

Ministers were urged last month to review their exams plan amid Covid disruption, but government has said they will proceed as planned.

Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi said: “Exams are the best and fairest form of assessment, and we firmly intend for them to take place this summer, giving students a fair chance to show what they know.”

Ofqual chief regulator Dr Jo Saxton said last month that they would research the impact of advance information to inform “future years”.

Staff voices get marginalised in hierarchical workforces

Lecturers for ‘lower ability’ groups are sometimes not treated with the same respect as A-level staff, writes Chantal Brown

We all know that FE is already considered the poor counterpart to HE, secondary and primary learning. But inside FE institutions themselves, does another hierarchy exist?

A hierarchy where teachers rate themselves as more or less superior to their colleagues based on the level and subject they teach? 

And is there a snobbery around teaching certain cohorts, such as “lower-ability” students? Is this snobbery perpetuated by how teachers value their own contributions?

My very skilled colleagues, including all-important support staff, are passionate about giving young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) a broad and stimulating learning experience.

In doing so, I and my team help the voices of young people with SEND to be heard.

Until recently, I thought that marginalisation in FE was all about the students and the challenges many of them face.

It seems ludicrous to think not all teachers are valuing equally the specialisms and expertise of their colleagues. They know first-hand how challenging the profession can be. 

But my experiences reveal a certain ignorance towards SEND as a specialism in FE. 

The term SEND covers a broad and in some ways endless spectrum of adaptation, diagnoses, support and perspectives that really is not transferable from one cohort of students to another. You can’t package up your approach to one set of students and deliver it again, like a level 3 lesson.

Don’t get me wrong. This commentary is by no means a bashing piece on any other teaching area or curriculum level.

It’s more an attempt to call for equal respect for SEND lecturers and practitioners within the already understated position of FE in England. 

We should give all FE specialisms equal respect

It is a conversation I have had with colleagues, asking them how they think the role of the SEND lecturer is perceived. Some have overheard comments that teaching SEND is not “proper” teaching, or that “it’s easier” due to delivering entry-level subjects. 

At this point I would like to raise that, yes, my colleagues and I are experienced in teaching entry-level subjects. At the same time, we also know how to teach level 1, 2 and GCSE. 

Teaching students with very individualised academic, behavioural or emotional needs can be both rewarding and challenging all at the same time. 

Often the young people and adults we teach have had poor experiences in education, been written off by professionals and the system, and have been deemed as having no chance of progression or even employment. 

But it is such a privilege to support learners to overcome barriers to learning, engage with their peers positively, achieve qualifications and develop social and emotional skills and independence. It makes teaching SEND one of the most rewarding specialisms in FE and in education in general. 

There are no exam board-focused schemes of work or lesson plans. Quite rightly, the curriculum is reviewed regularly and adapted frequently, with the learners at the forefront of those decisions. 

Being a teacher of SEND also means there are no single subject specialism on your timetable. You don’t get to focus on teaching maybe two levels in the subject area in which you are qualified or have the most vocational experience. 

Whether it be GCSE maths or supporting learners to access college facilities independently, teachers of SEND have to be flexible and highly professional in all they do. They are representative of the whole ethos of FE.

I share this brief depiction of what typifies some of the key functions of my role in FE, to dispel some of the mystery around SEND.

Many lecturers won’t have the time to find out what SEND teaching is about, and won’t realise how much is involved.

All of us in FE work hard. Really hard. 

The fact a single institution can offer so many modes of delivery, qualifications and opportunities is testament to the variety of professionalism and expertise in the workforce of an FE college. It is most definitely representative of my college. 

So let’s take the time to genuinely appreciate all lecturers – regardless of their specialisms.

Royal charter status for IoTs needs more detailed thought

Royal charter status is not the quick win it at first appears, writes Mark Taylor

The levelling up white paper sets out the government’s plans for successful institutes of technology (IoTs) to apply for royal charter status.

In May last year I commented in this newspaper on the then newly published skills bill. My conclusion was that, while it was welcome news that the FE sector was being given prominence and the promise of better funding, there would be a number of legal and governance issues to work through during implementation. 

I now find myself coming to the same conclusion on plans for IoTs to have royal charter status.

What is a royal charter?

A royal charter is effectively the constitution of a royal charter corporation, in the same way as a further education corporation has an instrument and articles and a company has articles of association.

This means that a royal charter corporation is a separate legal entity (pay attention, that will be important later). 

As you could probably tell from the name, a royal charter is granted by the Queen.

What is the advantage of a royal charter?

The levelling up white paper speaks of putting IoT’s “on the same level as our world-leading historic universities”. The Privy Council Office speaks of royal charter status being a “prestigious way of acquiring legal personality and reflects the high status of that body”. 

So you can see that this is about status and prestige. Having a royal charter can be important because it looks important. It would be easy to scoff at this, but it can genuinely be a useful tool for a body in attracting business (or learners) and working with collaborators (or employers, in this instance).

Royal charter corporations have very wide powers and are subject to less regulation than other types of legal entity. This is all very exciting for a lawyer like me, but it does not make a big difference in the real world.

What issues need to be considered?

The levelling up white paper explains that more detail will be given in the spring on how to apply for royal charter status. 

Here are the issues which I will be looking out for:

You will remember that a royal charter corporation is a separate legal entity: it is a legal thing. Many IoTs (and well over half of those on which I have advised) are not legal entities at all. Those IoTs are set up as a contractual collaboration between colleges, universities and employers. For those IoTs to apply for a royal charter, their model would need to be completely rewritten. This would require planning around contracts, governance, tax and procurement.

Their model would need to be completely rewritten

2.         Who will control them?

Nobody owns a royal charter corporation. Would the institutions that have set up an IoT be willing to set up a body that is very much independent of them? This would present an issue for institutions, particularly if the IoT were to act in competition with the college or university.

3.         IoTs would need to comply with more rules

IoTs do not currently deliver education, they act as a funding and branding mechanism for the individual colleges and universities to themselves deliver education. If that is to change, then IoTs would need to comply with relevant funding rules, for example, around the register of apprentice training providers (RoATP), Office for Students registration and subcontracting rules.

4.         Give colleges royal charter status?

If royal charter status brings the benefit of prestige to the IoT, then what about its members (such as further or higher education corporations) which do not have that status? It could be argued that it would be simpler and would have more effect to give royal charter status to more colleges and universities.

5.         Time and money for applying

Achieving a royal charter is not simple. The application process can take some time, it is not certain to succeed and it would incur cost. Only around half a dozen new royal charters are granted each year.

Any focus on, or funding for, technical education is to be welcomed. Royal charters for IoTs could give the sector a real boost, but this is not the quick win which it may first appear to be.

Is the Teaching Excellence Framework useful – or just another audit burden?

FE providers already evidencing excellence might not need another framework, writes Stephen Corbett

The introduction of the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) for higher education has created another mechanism of reviewing FE providers. This, in addition to existing audit mechanisms, such as Ofsted, does raise a question: is it really useful to layer “quality audits” on to FE providers? 

The breadth of provision offered by the FE sector is a real attribute to our education system. One aspect of that offer is university-level studies. This delivers a distinct benefit in terms of choice and opportunities for students.

I’m sure we are in no doubt that it is important students have an excellent learning experience. But mechanisms intended to ensure this are often widely debated.  

Higher education courses offered by FE providers are a small proportion of the sector’s overall provision. About 118,000 students are studying higher education in 162 colleges this year, according to the Association of Colleges. That’s 6.9 per cent of all students in FE.  

By comparison, there were 2.7 million students undertaking HE courses through both colleges and universities in 2020/21 (this year’s data is not yet available). 

While not a direct comparison, it is reasonable to extrapolate that FE providers are responsible for about four per cent of HE students. 

The vast majority of the FE sector’s remaining provision is already subject to continuous external quality review. 

Some higher education curriculum offered by further education providers can fall outside of this framework. However, much is within it, including initial teacher education and higher apprenticeships.

Overall, the provision sitting outside of the current quality framework is limited when considering the overall work of a further education provider.  

Furthermore, it has been necessary for further education providers to meet national higher education quality standards as laid out by the Quality Assurance Agency for higher education and through subject benchmarks.

This is not to say provision being continually reviewed is not valuable. When reviews are done in a supportive way that facilitates useful reflection and dialogue, it can enhance the student experience.  

However, caution should be exercised when considering the different mechanisms for review. This is particularly the case where they might create an unnecessary burden to providers already evidencing excellence. 

It is not uncommon for FE providers to work with universities in developing and delivering HE provision. Such collaborative programmes offer students access to wider resources, facilities and expertise. 

Where strong collaborations exist between FE providers and universities, there are distinct benefits for students, employers and the education providers themselves. 

Of course, we could cynically suggest that a key driver for collaboration is financial benefit for both further and higher education institutions. However, there are far greater advantages other than the “bottom line”.  

Layering more quality assurance systems may not be the most effective solution

A key advantage is the two-way knowledge exchange that takes place. Both providers have expertise that each can benefit from, and there are many examples of highly effective collaborative relationships.  

Each year, excellent teaching and collaborative working are recognised by Advance HE, the professional membership scheme, through its national teaching fellowships and collaborative awards for teaching excellence.  

Such initiatives share good practice and it could be suggested are an effective way of encouraging true innovation in educational working practices and pedagogy. 

In recent years, FE and HE sectors have experienced higher expectations from both students and regulatory bodies such as the Office for Students.

The latter has sought to clarify expectations of participation, student experience, outcomes and value for money. This greater level of transparency and choice for students is very valuable. 

But we should also be reflective on what the most effective and proportionate mechanisms for achieving this are.

Layering more quality assurance systems may not be the most effective solution, and certainly isn’t the only one.

MOVERS AND SHAKERS: EDITION 378

Sian Wilson

Executive director- commercial, The Skills Network

Start date: February 2022

Previous Job: Director of channels and partnerships, Practice Labs

Interesting fact: Sian loves boxing and has completed an amateur boxing award

Naomi Phillips

Deputy chief executive & director of policy and research, Learning and Work Institute

Start date: January 2022

Previous Job: Director of policy & advocacy, British Red Cross

Interesting fact: Naomi started running just before the pandemic and is training for her 3rd half marathon. Naomi likes to run at around 5am, before the world wakes up

Stuart Hales

Managing director- apprenticeships, The Skills Network

Start date: January 2022

Previous Job: Managing director of apprenticeships, Entelechy Academy

Interesting fact: Stuart swims long distance and is currently training for a 13-mile swim

Phil Wilkinson

Chair, Nelson and Colne College Group

Start date: February 2022

Concurrent Job: CEO at Ascentis

Interesting fact: He once enjoyed a cup of tea whilst standing on an iceberg off the coast of East Greenland

Levelling up Access to Further Education Whitepaper

There is broad agreement, also among students, that universities and colleges of Further Education responded effectively to the digital challenge of “lockdown education”. It is too soon to determine in what ways remote learning is affecting student progress, but there is a sense of urgency around this question because the pandemic is far from over. Also, we discovered that virtual lessons have certain clear advantages over “real classrooms”: remote learning resolves issues around accessibility, frees up student time, and allows them to review the recorded lesson. 

Two recent reports acknowledge that technology will play an ever-larger role in delivering Higher and Further Education but are short on answers on how EdTech can help universities and FE colleges to be digital game-changers now.

Levelling up Access to Further Education 

Code Institute, Gateway Qualifications and four colleges of Further Education – Newcastle College, City of Bristol College, College y Cymoedd and South Devon College have  collaborated on a new whitepaper, Levelling Up Access to Further Education: Using technology to skill more digital talent. The whitepaper takes a forensic look at how colleges have used technology in the shape of platform, curriculum content and online tutor-support to deliver qualifications in web application development. 

Each college overcame particular challenges relating to physical resources, subject expertise and increasing frequency of course delivery to meet learner demand. This white paper explores how the technology and business model of the Gateway Qualifications Level 5 Diploma in Web Application Development, delivered on the Code Institute platform, enabled Further Education colleges to transform course delivery in the same way that fintech transformed banking, and streaming revolutionised the media and music industries.

“We’re focussed on delivering skills for jobs using a combination of learning at scale technology and qualifications. For colleges, the real benefit of the learning platform comes from the flexibility it affords in terms of how programmes are delivered. But, equally, for learners, the increased flexibility makes it easier to mix upskilling into their already busy work and personal schedules.” explains Lee Lindsay, UK Education Partner Manager, Code Institute

Welsh Experience

In Wales, where the course is fully funded through the mechanism of the Personal Learner Account, the Gateway/Code Institute programme launched with a cohort of 20 learners under a year ago, and has since scaled to prepare 200 learners for a career in software development. 

Coleg y Cymoedd offers a wide range of PLA-sponsored courses in priority sectors such as sustainable construction, business management, occupational health and safety, social care, and digital technology. “Some of these courses are taught by us,” says Kathryn Bishop, Business Development Manager at Coleg y Cymoedd, “but for Level 5 software development we lacked the required in-house expertise.”

As soon as the Gateway Qualifications Level 5 Diploma in Web Application Development was approved by the Welsh Government for PLA funding, Coleg y Cymoedd got the green light to offer this qualification through Code Institute.

English Colleges 

Whereas Coleg y Cymmoed outsources all learning aspects to Code Institute, the delivery model at City of Bristol College is hybrid: the Code Institute provide the platform, mentoring and careers guidance to support the College in delivery, while the College take the lead on assessment and provides direct support to the students, which is led by Pasquale Fasulo, Head of Department for Digital and Creative. 

“It’s evolved to the point where from January 2022 we’re going to do rolled monthly starts. We will continue to offer support but the approach will be more flexible. We will ring-fence and protect certain times for learners to drop in and book appointments with us and have progress reviews,” explains Pasquale.

The flexibility of the enrollment was something that appealed to South Devon College where Conrad Saunders, Programme Coordinator for Digital  understood the benefit of rolling enrolments given the likely demand for the course in the region. “We’ve seen for a long time that there are a lot of learners going off and doing their degrees but afterwards there’s nothing for them. They don’t find employment,” Saunders says. “Often they have media-type degrees in digital production that just aren’t right for today’s jobs market.

“The [Code Institute] platform is proven, the students are eligible for an Advanced Learner Loan, so let’s run with it. We just hit the ground running 100 miles an hour.

“In terms of the model, rather than looking at a traditional termly intake, we look at a monthly intake as this was technically as feasible as anything else. It also allowed us to dip our toes in the water, and see if we could get the numbers. We’ve had a cohort in September, October, and November. We paused December but started up again in January with five students.” concludes Conrad.

This flexibility was what Newcastle College spotted when they were the first FE college to rollout the qualification in 2020. That, and a strong need for a relatively short and directed course that would lead to employment in the tech sector. Currently, Newcastle has three intakes per year which have grown from 14 to 25 learners per cohort. Achieving this growth in learner numbers have been chiefly down to their pre-existing relationships with local employers who are seeking these skills.

Level 3 for Adult Learners

Building on the success of this qualification, Code Institute and Gateway Qualifications have partnered once more on the development of a Level 3 Diploma in Software Development which will be rolled out in 2022. This gives learners from a variety of backgrounds an opportunity to lay the foundation for a career in tech through further study such as the Level 5, a higher level qualification or through work based learning.

Paul Saunders, Business Development Manager of Gateway Qualification has worked with Code Institute on creating a solution that will be the right fit for learners and colleges looking to deliver these skills ina  flexible format that allow them to reach more learners: “We are delighted to be able to build on our successful partnership with Code Institute to bring the same level of expert support to more learners and centres on the Level 3 Diploma and Certificate in Software Development.

The qualifications address a key government priority and provide excellent preparation for learners wishing to develop a career in the software industry and progress to the Level 5 Diploma, or to similar qualifications.”

From a college’s perspective the quality is there, the demand is growing and the outcomes are proven. This solution offers colleges the ability deliver with flexibility outside of college hours, meet learner demand and provide adult skills qualifications where learners can access Adult Skills funding streams including National Skills Fund, Adult Education Budget, PLA funding and Advanced Lerner Loan. All key criteria in successfully increasing accessibility to digital skills.

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