Encourage a winning mindset through our free competition-development programme

For the very first time we’re making our competition assessment modules available to educators, free of charge. We’ve done this so that students and apprentices can compare their performance with the average scores from last year’s competitors in our highly-respected national skills competitions. Participants can benchmark their performance against some of the best students across the country and instantly recognise how they can improve their skills, knowledge and competencies through self-reflection against set criteria. Taking part will inspire students and apprentices to learn in a fun environment that engages and enthuses them and drives up aspirations to achieve higher standards in their work.

This benchmarking also gives educators a valuable opportunity to provide constructive feedback on strengths and areas for improvement and to support curriculum development, so students and apprentices are learning the skills that are reflective of what professional sectors need, now and in the future.

The programme is aimed at all students at level two and three (England, Wales and Northern Ireland) or level five and six (Scotland SVQ2 and SVQ 3) even if they have taken part in regional or national competition activity in previous years.

A powerful tool, skills competitions have been proven to drive up standards and improve the teaching and learning experience of teachers and students and raise aspirations for both. They are an ideal way of enriching the curriculum and re-engaging learners and enabling them to address lost learning that may have resulted from the last two years of the Covid pandemic. They are also valuable in helping students and apprentices to develop the employability skills that employers value so highly, helping young people to become more well-rounded and high-performance ready individuals.

Colleagues in many FE colleges are finding our national competitions useful in supporting curricula with 58% colleges in England registering competitors in 2021 resulting in over 3,000 registrations. The competitions have a nationwide appeal with substantial representation of competitors coming from Wales, the North-West, Scotland, West Midlands and Northern Ireland. This is encouraging in terms of supporting the Government’s levelling up agenda and highlights WorldSkills UK’s specific focus on opening up career opportunities to young people from all backgrounds, especially those who may traditionally have been denied them.

Over eight in ten national competition participants surveyed said that competing made them feel more ambitious in pursuing their career.

97% of previous entrants say they improved their technical Skills

93% said they improved their personal and employability skills

90% said they could apply the skills they developed

“My knowledge of some skills has improved and are more in-depth now than I ever would have had before. Currently I just want to keep working and improving my skills through participating in more competitions to build upon my skills in the workshop.” (Billie-Jo, automotive technology student and WorldSkills UK competitor, South West College, N Ireland).

The modules of our competition-development programme are designed to be incorporated into lessons of up to one hour so they can be easily integrated into timetables, or for students and apprentices to undertake in their own time. Each activity is relevant to the individual skill area and will address potential skill and knowledge gaps. Some of these will be ongoing skills development gaps in the curriculum but will also include areas for development that have been established through the National Finals. For example, in some practical skills it is evident that students have experienced challenges using basic tools and equipment.

We cover a wide range of skill areas  in our competition-development programme at levels two and three (England, Wales and Northern Ireland) or level five and six (Scotland SVQ2 and SVQ 3):

Accounting Technician

Aeronautical Engineering

Automation

Automotive Body Repair

Automotive Refinishing

Automotive Technology

Construction Metalwork

Fine Jewellery Making

Health & Social Care

Heavy Vehicle Technology

IT Software Solutions for Business

IT Support Technician

Landscape Gardening

Mechatronics

Network Infrastructure Technician

Network Systems Administrator

Welding

All our training materials have been designed by industry experts for relevance and assess an individual’s knowledge and practical skills, together with employability attributes such as resilience, communication, time management and teamwork.

Designed to be engaging and flexible, during class or in their own time, students simply visit the website page and look for the relevant skill area and click ‘start assessment’. The programme not only gives them a realistic reflection of ability against their counterparts from across the UK, but also encourages them to strive for excellence raising their aspirations and encouraging them to take more responsibility for their own learning and development.

By weaving skills competitions into the core curriculum, vocational education providers can develop learners more creatively using competitions as a means of assessment. Through encouraging different teaching and learning practices, in line with employers’ needs, colleges can help drive up the quality and profile of vocational education providing valuable evidence against a range of criteria within the Ofsted Inspection Framework.

Give your students the opportunity to stretch and challenge themselves by taking part. They will benefit from the experience which for many is life-changing and they can include their competition results in their personal portfolio, supporting their CV when engaging with employers and educators. Getting your students and apprentices to participate is also a good way of addressing Gatsby Benchmark four: Linking curriculum learning to careers.

Register today

“The best thing I have learned is more about myself. The competitions bring so many qualities out of you that sometimes you don’t realise you have. You find out a lot about yourself through these competitions.” (Harry Funnell, Former student at Myserscough College Lancs, and former apprentice, award-winning Frogheath Landscapes).

Having competition activity within the curriculum and its delivery doesn’t necessarily mean additional work, it’s about enhancing what’s already in place through different ways of learning. The concept can be introduced gradually into the classroom to enable students to get comfortable with the idea competing, as a way of building their skills and confidence.

The competition-development programme can also be used as an introduction to select competitors for the 2022 WorldSkills UK national competition cycle which is now open for registration and closes on 1 April.  Each year over 3,000 competitors enter. They take part in National Qualifiers and those that succeed go on to the National Finals held in November throughout the country when they compete against their peers for coveted Gold, Silver and Bronze Medals and the chance to join Squad UK. After this, they also have the unique opportunity of being selected for Team UK and the chance to represent their country on the international stage. The next EuroSkills competition will be held in 2023 and the next WorldSkills event in Lyon, France in 2024.

“Apply for it and see where it takes you! It’s a great opportunity to show off your skills and if you do make it to the National Finals, it’s really fun and hands-on, you get to have a play around with technology that you wouldn’t normally.” (Toby IT support technician apprentice).

Regardless of what stage competitors reach in the national and international competitions, all of them have the chance to stretch and challenge themselves and return to their college or employer with a renewed energy and newfound skills to contribute and act as a role model to colleagues.

For educators, embedding both the competition-development programme or national cycle competition activity into the curriculum offers greater scope for creativity in teaching, training and learning techniques. It’s a valuable way of continuing professional development, extending pedagogical skills and knowledge and opportunities for more involvement with skills competitions. Our judges, coaches and experts are dedicated to helping the next generation of young professionals hone their talents, leading the way to a skills-led economy.

Further information and access to the online competition-development programme

Registration for the 2022 national competition cycle closes 1 April

Poland to replace Russia as host for EuroSkills 2023

Poland is set to host EuroSkills 2023 following the recent decision by WorldSkills Europe to relocate the event away from the Russian Federation.

Earlier this month Russia and Belarus were suspended from WorldSkills competitions and EuroSkills 2023.

The eighth biennial EuroSkills event was originally scheduled to take place in St Petersburg in August 2023.

WorldSkills Europe approached the three member countries that had previously expressed intentions to bid to host the EuroSkills Competition 2027 – Germany, Luxembourg and Poland. 

“After extensive discussions it was agreed by all parties that WorldSkills Poland should take up the enormous challenge of organising the EuroSkills Competition 2023 at such short notice,” a spokesperson for WorldSkills Europe said. 

The spokesperson added that WorldSkills Germany and WorldSkills Luxembourg have expressed their “utmost support for WorldSkills Poland’s new bid” and have confirmed that they remain committed to plans for a joint bid to host the EuroSkills Competition 2027.

“WorldSkills Europe wishes to express its sincere gratitude to WorldSkills Poland for its support and commitment to have Europe’s biggest vocational education and skills excellence event relocated to Poland,” the spokesperson added. 

WorldSkills Poland’s application to host the EuroSkills Competition 2023 will be ratified by the WorldSkills Europe General Assembly at its annual meeting in June 2022.

The exact dates and a city of the relocated EuroSkills Competition 2023 are still to be confirmed. Further details will be released when available.

Following the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, WorldSkills swiftly condemned the Russian government’s actions and cancelled WorldSkills Russia’s participation in WorldSkills Shanghai 2022.

“WorldSkills is politically and denominationally neutral. The invasion of Ukraine by Russia is a clear and enormous breach of our Code of Ethics and Conduct. Belarus, by its active support of Russia’s invasion, has also breached our Code of Ethics and Conduct,” they said in a statement. 

“The Russian government has made choices that forfeit its access to participate in events and activities organised by WorldSkills and its Members.”

Nottingham College appoints new permanent CEO

Nottingham College has announced Janet Smith as its new permanent chief executive.

The appointment comes after the college’s previous leader John van de Laarschot had to step down because of a “serious heart attack”.

Smith joins the college from Inspire Education Group, where she is currently chief executive and principal of the merged New College Stamford and Peterborough Regional College.

She is set to join the college before the end of this academic year.

“I am very much looking forward to joining Nottingham College, and working within a city with such high aspirations for its residents and its young people,” Smith said.

“The college has achieved much, but there is more to do and I’m thrilled to be joining at such an exciting time.”

Smith’s career spans seven different FE colleges, where she has delivered curriculum and quality improvement as a senior manager in three of these institutions. 

She oversaw the merger of New College Stamford and Peterborough Regional College in 2020, to form Inspire Education Group. 

In the group’s latest Ofsted monitoring visit report from just over six months ago, the group was seen to be making significant progress in all areas listed.

Chair of Nottingham College, Carole Thorogood, announced the appointment. 

“I’m delighted to be welcoming Janet,” she said. 

“Her fantastic track record in the sector, coupled with her knowledge of our college and our city, makes her an exceptional appointment and I am very much looking forward to working with her.”

Martin Sim, who has been the college’s  interim chief executive office and principal since May 2021, will continue to remain with the college for the next couple of months, providing “leadership stability”. 

Smith’s appointment comes after former chief executive, John van de Laarschot, ended his five-year tenure at the college last year to “focus on regaining fitness and resilience” following a heart attack. 

The college had gone through a troublesome period since being created from a merger of New College Nottingham and Central College Nottingham in 2017.

It was subject to 15 days of strikes in 2019, during which University and College Union members dealt a vote of no confidence to the leadership. Months later, the college was downgraded by Ofsted from ‘good’ to ‘requires improvement’.

In 2020 it was subject to FE Commissioner intervention after hitting “serious cashflow pressures”, which arose after the college completed a major £58.5 million build and following the Covid-19 pandemic.

Home Office offers concessions on Ukrainian students’ visas

Ukrainian students will be relieved this week after the Home Office confirmed they will not have to return home if their visas run out. 

An official told FE Week that government concessions mean Ukrainian students will have their visas temporarily extended, or will be able to switch on to different visa routes in light of the invasion by Russia. 

However, Mike Hopkins, principal of South and City College Birmingham, whose college has five Ukrainian students, said students would need support with the process. 

“Very often [visas] extend to the end of the calendar year. What we would be doing, if that is the case, is talking with the students and where necessary working with them and the Home Office, or any other service, to make sure that they are supported.”

The exact number of Ukrainian students in UK FE is currently unclear. FE Week requested data from the Home Office and the Department for Education, but both refused to share it.

Data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency showed that there were 870 Ukrainian students at UK HE  institutions in the 2020/21 academic year. 

In the year ending September 2021, government data shows that most sponsored study visas were for higher education (91 per cent). By comparison, the number of visas for FE was three per cent. 

Government guidance says that if a student is 18 or over and their course is at degree level, they can usually stay in the UK for up to five years. If it’s below degree level, they can usually stay in the UK for up to two years 

Financial support is needed 

Hopkins told FE Week that in cases where students have extended their stays, they may come under additional financial pressure. 

“The other thing is that they have to have a certain amount of resources to pay for their stay etc, which comes either from themselves or their family,” he said 

“That is the other thing we’ll need to follow up on. As if they don’t have that, what we would then do, because it is an exceptional circumstance – and we’ve had this in a previous conflict – we would go back [to government] and ask, ‘What support is there for these students?’ 

“I suspect at the moment, there is likely to be a level of support… Although I don’t think the government has quite got its act together yet, but I think it probably will do, certainly in the short term anyway.” 

The DfE confirmed to FE Week that Ukrainian students who extend their study visas in the UK will be able to access several sources of funding. 

They said that institutions have an allocation from the 16-to-19 bursary fund to help disadvantaged people in that age range with costs, such as travel, books, equipment and trips. 

The adult education budget funds colleges and providers to help adult learners to overcome barriers that prevent them from taking part in learning, including learner support to support learners aged 19 and over with a specific financial hardship. 

The DfE also said that providers have discretion to help learners meet costs such as transport, accommodation, books, equipment and childcare. 

A spokesperson added that in areas where the AEB is devolved, mayoral combined authorities and the Greater London Authority are responsible for their learner support policies.

Colleges step up to support students 

Several colleges have confirmed to FE Week that they have Ukrainian nationals studying with them and spoke about the ways they are trying to support these students. 

A spokesperson for Luminate Education Group, a group that runs colleges based in the Leeds City Region, said that they currently have 13 Ukrainian students. 

“In terms of support, our students’ union has started a campaign called Us Against War. The aim of the campaign is to show solidarity among our college community against war,” a spokesperson said. 

“Next Tuesday the student union will be fundraising for UNICEF, with several activities planned, such as selling iced coffee at Harrogate College. There are still ongoing plans to make the fundraising activities available across all our colleges.” 

The spokesperson said that members of staff have put some of the Ukrainian students in touch with each other – especially those who are being taught online. 

In terms of hardship funds, the spokesperson said that discussions are taking place around how to support students, but nothing has yet been confirmed. 

Bath College confirmed to FE Week that they had fewer than ten Ukrainian students and that they were being supported by their student welfare team and being offered “coping mechanisms”. 

“We are lucky enough to have a very diverse student body at Bath College, and have reached out to our Ukrainian and Russian international foundation year learners, who are young people living far from their home and families, to offer additional support,” the spokesperson for the college said. 

We are currently identifying any other learners who may be impacted by the current crisis and will also reach out to them.” 

NCG also told FE Week that they have identified a small number of Ukrainian students across their group, all of whom are under 18. 

“Our colleges are working locally to ensure they’re supported,” a spokesperson said.

‘Consider the context’: colleges defend against gender pay gap Twitter bot

Colleges have defended themselves after a Twitter bot called them out for celebrating International Women’s Day despite having significant gender pay gaps. 

Organisations across the UK came under fire on Tuesday after the Gender Pay Gap Bot retweeted their posts honouring the day along with their figures on women’s median hourly pay compared to men’s. 

Numerous colleges fell victim, with some commentators accusing them of hypocrisy online. Some colleges deleted their initial posts. 

However, colleges have said there are important contextualising factors that need to be considered. 

Leeds College of Building posted a tweet saying that to mark International Women’s Day they were celebrating female staff at the college to break the bias about careers in construction. 

This tweet was then retweeted by the bot, with figures showing that at the college, women’s median hourly pay was 30.5 per cent lower than men’s. 

Derek Whitehead, principal of Leeds College of Building, told FE Week that their latest figures show that this gap has decreased to 24.7 per cent. 

“We would highlight that we are a specialist construction college working in a traditionally male-dominated sector,” he said. 

“Currently, women only make up around 14 per cent of construction industry professionals in the UK. This is an industry-wide issue reflected in staff ratios across most construction-related fields, making recruitment of female lecturers in construction crafts and trade skills challenging.” 

Whitehead noted that the number of female apprentices studying at Leeds College of Building has grown from 44 in 2014 to 207 at present, a 370 per cent increase. 

The Fawcett Society campaigns to close the gender pay gap – saying that the issue reflects “inequalities and discrimination in the labour market that mostly affect women”. 

One reason the society gives for the gap is a divided labour market, where women are still more likely to be in low-paid and low-skills jobs.

Furness College in Cumbria, where women’s median hourly pay is 32.4 per cent lower than men’s, told FE Week that their gap was affected by this, saying that a large number of female staff are in lower-skilled jobs. 

“At Furness College all male and female staff are on the same pay bands for the same job. The cause of our gender pay gap is not a result of fewer females in higher paid roles,” the spokesperson said. 

“Of our upper quartile (highest-paid 25 per cent of staff) currently, 57 per cent are female. Our lowest quartile is primarily made up of cleaning and catering staff, roles which many organisations outsource and therefore do not include in their gender pay gap reporting,” the spokesperson said. 

Currently, 84 per cent of females fulfil these roles at Furness College – something the college says is primarily the reason for their gender pay gap which the spokesperson said they are “working hard to address”. 

What causes the gender pay gap? 

Joanne Moseley, professional support lawyer at Irwin Mitchell, told FE Week there are “many reasons” why most employers still have a gender pay gap. 

“For example, an employer whose senior leaders are predominantly men (perhaps because they’ve struggled to attract women to the sector) will have a high gender pay gap.” 

She explained that women tend to do more part-time work than men, and most part-time work is less well paid than full-time work, which results in the disparity. 

“What’s more interesting is looking at what steps organisations are taking to reduce their gender pay gap and to see if these strategies are working by comparing data year on year.” 

FE Week analysed available data for 112 colleges between 2018 and 2021. Across these colleges, the difference in hourly rate between women and men (median) in 2018/19 was 15.7 per cent. 

This figure rose to 16.3 per cent in 2019/20 and then went down again to 15.5 per cent in 2020/21. 

“Last year, the ONS put the overall gender pay gap in the UK in 2021 at a median of 15.4 per cent and many of the organisations who’ve been identified by the bot have gaps that are similar to this,” Moseley said. 

The Association of Colleges said there is “still work to do on the gender pay gap in colleges”, with women making up a significant proportion of those carrying out lower-paid support roles and men often working in teaching roles attracting market supplements from male-dominated industries. 

“However, as a sector, further education has done better than other areas of education in supporting women to leadership positions – 61 per cent of staff and 48 per cent of principals and chief executives in colleges are women,” the spokesperson added. 

Colleges deleting tweets

Some colleges deleted their initial tweets celebrating International Women’s Day after they were retweeted by the Gender Pay Gap Bot. These included Blackburn College and Fareham College. 

After Blackburn College deleted their original tweet, one Twitter-user commented: “Deleting the tweet is evading responsibility and demonstrating an astounding inability to reflect and be accountable to this shocking gender pay gap. Do better.” 

FE Week reached out to both institutions but did not receive a reply by the time of publication. 

Moseley told FE Week that it was surprising that some organisations have deleted their original tweets. 

“It’s possible to celebrate the good work that women are doing in your workplace even if you have a gender pay gap (which most organisations do unless they don’t employ any men).

 “Having a gender pay gap doesn’t mean that an employer is paying a woman less than she pays a man doing the same or similar work, which is unlawful,” she said. 

Focus feature: The realities of research in FE

Despite a lack of funds and interest from above, research in FE is being kept alive by grassroots groups of lecturers and dedicated academics. Jess Staufenberg meets the movers and shakers to find out if it’s enough

“There is no, as far as I know, ‘WonkFE’,” Phillip Augar said, from inside a cosy wooden lodge, during a virtual event with higher education think tank Wonkhe on Tuesday. 

“If there is anyone out there”, continued Augar, in his talk seen by FE Week, “interested in talking to me about setting up a Further Education Policy Institute,” then could they please be in touch?

On one level, this caused some surprise. Stephen Evans, chief executive of the prolific Learning and Work Institute, tweeted there are “loads of organisations working on policy and practice in FE” (being too modest to say, not least of all his own).

But David Hughes, chief executive at the Association of Colleges, said Augar likely wanted the FE voice “to be stronger and more influential in Whitehall”. 

This touches on an interesting set of questions for FE. Who is carrying out research and generating evidence-backed ideas, and how much of this is going on?  

And is this research making it back to practitioners, and policymakers in the Department for Education? Perhaps Augar’s lack of awareness of the LWI reveals that problems with the status of FE research run right to the top. 

First off, it’s worth looking at what the DfE has funded in schools. In 2011, the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) was set up with a £125 million founding grant to share evidence around attainment. But it’s only for students in schools, not FE.

Then in 2016, the DfE funded the Research Schools Network, with each school getting £200,000 over three years. The next year the DfE gave £5 million to the Chartered College of Teaching, to engage teachers with the latest research.

Again, it’s only for staff in schools, not colleges (and meanwhile, FE lost its think tank dedicated to staff-led research with the closure last year of the Further Education Trust for Leadership).

Despite this, however, scratch the surface and there is lots of research going on in further education. 

Kevin Orr, professor of work and learning at the University of Huddersfield, says, “there is a very committed network of researchers who work closely with practitioners.”

I soon find their names across multiple papers: Matt O’Leary at Birmingham City University, Alison Fuller and Lorna Unwin at UCL, Maggie Gregson at the University of Sunderland, Liz Atkins at the University of Derby, Jim Hordern at the University of Bath, Susan James Relly at Oxford University (taking over from Ewart Keep, a long-standing FE researcher, now retired) – and, of course, Alison Wolf at King’s College – to mention a few.

Outside universities, other organisations alongside the LWI include the Gatsby Foundation and Edge Foundation, both of which fund FE research, and EDSK think tank.  

 Gary Husband, visiting professor of education at the University of Sunderland, asserts, “there isn’t a lack of research in FE, there just isn’t anywhere near as much research as on compulsory education. Meanwhile, HE is really good at running research on itself!”

But Orr and Husband agree that finding big funding for FE research, and then ensuring it has impact, is a real issue.

The main government funding body for large-scale projects is the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), explains Orr. 

“That gives very substantial grants, but they haven’t funded much FE research, and that would be really good to see more of,” he tells me. “Just given how mainstream FE is, it should be getting more mainstream funding.”  

As a case in point, one of the biggest research projects in FE that is repeatedly mentioned to me dates from 20 years ago. Transforming Learning Cultures was published in 2007 by co-author David James, now a professor of sociology of education at Cardiff University, and is admiringly cited by researchers across the board for its insights into classroom and staffroom practices and how these relate to inspection and funding frameworks. 

It was a large-scale project involving four universities and 16 colleges, funded by the ESRC on its £30 million Teaching and Learning Research Programme, which ran from 1999. But the TLRP was scrapped in 2009.  

“There is research going on now, but there isn’t that large-scale programmatic funding for independent research, like there was with the TLRP,” James tells me. 

In response, an ESRC spokesperson said it had invested £8.6 million in the Centre of Research on Learning and Life Chances for lifelong learning since 2008, and was currently funding a five-year research study, worth £2.2 million, into England’s vocational education and training around school-to-work transitions.

But even where big research does turn up important findings, it can then be difficult to translate these into a change in practice or policy, continues James. He points me to research he published in September on ‘Processes and practices of governing in colleges’.

“Our project supplies a detailed picture of what’s happening in governing boards on the ground, and comes to all sorts of recommendations, but I’m yet to meet a government minister or senior policymaker in England who’s interested,” says James.

I’ve yet to meet a government minister who’s interested

Given that the DfE regularly ignores recommendations from its own commissioned research, such as the Ney Review published in 2020, that’s little wonder, he adds. 

Suzanne Straw and Lisa Morrison Coulthard, research directors at the National Foundation for Educational Research, explain that another challenge facing researchers is getting hold of the necessary datasets.

The pair are currently working on a five-year research project funded by the Nuffield Foundation examining the labour market in 2035. 

“The dataset that relates to FE is the individualised learner record (ILR), but less research has been done using the ILR than the school equivalent, the national pupil database, because it’s quite complex and difficult to navigate,” explains Straw.  

Another key information source is the ‘longitudinal educational outcomes’, or LEO, which shows destinations data over the course of a learner’s education career.

Coulthard warns: “It’s a very useful resource, but the level of information provided isn’t as granular as it could be.”  

Olly Newton, executive director, Edge Foundation, confirms that it took his team almost five years to access LEO data for a project.

“You have to get specific access from the DfE and obviously the data security needs to be 100 per cent. It would be reasonable for it to take a couple of months, but not years and years.” 

Another issue his team faces is accessing information for international comparisons, as post-Brexit the UK is no longer part of CEDEFOP (the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training).

That’s partly why more research comparing the four home nations should be a priority, says Newton, because “it’s a natural policy laboratory”. The Edge Foundation is currently comparing inspection systems in FE across the home nations with Birmingham University, with a report out later this year. 

But the government needs to clearly state it is interested in research on the FE sector, for universities and other funders to fund it properly, says Newton.  

“Until that signal is there, I can understand why there wouldn’t be a push for that,” he says, adding: “It would be good to bring back calls for a ‘What Works in FE Centre’.” 

It would be good to bring back calls for a ‘What Works in FE Centre’

He’s referring to when the Social Mobility Commission urged government in 2020 to create a “what works” centre for FE, with £20 million over the next five years to “translate the best available evidence” for improving outcomes for poorer students. It sounds like the FE sector’s answer to the EEF.  

But when FE Week checked with the DfE, a spokesperson said: “We have no plans to create an FE What Works Centre.” 

So with no formal support from government, and difficulties in getting hold of large-scale funding, the sector has been left to get on with the job of research itself.  

Multiple organisations have initiatives to support practitioners in classrooms to run research.

For instance in 2014 the Edge Foundation set up an ‘early career researcher network’ to support the next generation of FE-focused PhD and other research students, with 40 on its support programme so far.  

Similarly, the AoC launched its Research Further programme this academic year, funding ten FE practitioners on a PhD or masters with awarding organisation NCFE. It has also its first-ever policy manager for research and evidence, showing that research is an increasing priority for the organisation. 

research

Finally, the ETF runs it “practitioner research programme” with about 300 practitioners achieving a masters level qualification through the programme, according to Catherine Manning, national head of mentoring and practitioner research.

It’s a strong example of how to link up academic researchers and FE practitioners, with participants getting tutorials on research methodology and being invited to attend residentials. The ETF disseminates the findings through its publication, Intuition. 

But FE Week can exclusively reveal the DfE grant for the practitioner research projects will not be available in 2022-23. 

An ETF spokesperson said it is “currently exploring options for these programmes and seeking alternative funding”. FE Week approached the DfE for a response. 

It means grassroots research practitioners – and grassroots research colleges – are more important than ever.  

As far back as 1997, former FE practitioner Andrew Morris co-founded the Learning and Skills Research Network, which links up university researchers and FE practitioners, and is still going to this day.

The entirely voluntary organisation’s national planning group is now chaired by Jo Fletcher-Saxon, assistant principal at Ashton Sixth Form College in Greater Manchester.  

“This is about shining a torchlight quite specifically on an area of your practice, that an academic paper might not be able to,” says Fletcher-Saxon.

“We’ve got everything from people looking at the type of pastoral support to offer students transitioning on to T Levels, to the best teaching techniques for students experiencing social anxiety!” 

It sounds brilliant. Morris tells me this kind of initiative has especially gained traction with social media. 

Nevertheless, “dissemination is an issue,” continues Fletcher-Saxon. She is currently pursuing a PhD on the “disrupted pipeline” between “research getting churned out” and “being embedded in the culture of colleges”. 

To tackle this, she is also now involved with the Research College Group, set up and chaired by FE teacher educator Sam Jones, and which involves staff from nine colleges and sixth forms.

So there is clearly great practice going on in research in FE, which just needs more weighty support. In the leveling-up white paper the DfE has pledged a Unit for Future Skills to “improve the quality and accessibility of data and intelligence on skills and jobs”.  Whether it is the kind of WonkFE Augar thinks is needed is yet to be seen. 

“It would be marvellous,” concludes Morris, “for the DfE to support research colleges in the same way the EEF supports research schools. That would great.”

‘A terrible way to treat a profession’: ASCL president slams league tables publication plan

Colleges are being “thrown to the wolves” by the government’s decision to publish performance league tables this year, the president of the Association of School and College Leaders will warn today.

Pepe Di’Iasio will urge the Department for Education to rethink the decision at ASCL’s annual conference – insisting that schools and colleges will be unfairly criticised publicly by newspapers.

“How can it be right to compare the performance of one school or college with another when they have been so differently affected by the pandemic over the last two years?” he is expected to say.

Unlike last year, the DfE has ruled that results from GCSEs and post-16 qualifications, such as A-levels, will be used in performance tables. 

In its guidance, the department says: “We recognise the uneven impact on schools and colleges of the pandemic and will ensure clear messages are placed on the performance tables to advise caution when drawing conclusions from the 2021 to 2022 data.”

Last year’s GCSE, A-levels and other academic-focused level 3 qualifications were decided by teacher-assessed grades due to the pandemic rather by than traditional exams, which return this summer for the first time in two years.

Adaptations have been made to this summer’s exams to try to make them fairer for students following the disruption caused by Covid, such as advance information on some of the exam content to help them focus their revision.

But an ASCL survey of 13,300 school and college leaders found that about 80 per cent are against the move to publish performance tables based on qualifications being sat by students this summer after two years of upheaval caused by the pandemic.

Backing his president, ASCL general secretary Geoff Barton said: “That’s not because we’re against accountability. It’s because we’re against phony accountability, based on evidence which is not going to allow parents and other people to make fair judgments.”

During his speech Di’Iasio will say: “The government’s answer is to say that it will place a health warning on performance tables and advise caution when considering the data. 

“Surely, if the data is unreliable, the obvious answer is not to publish it in the first place. 

“This is not a small matter. Careers and reputations are affected by performance tables. Newspapers publish them. 

“It feels as though we are being thrown to the wolves by the government’s insistence on going ahead with this misguided and counter-productive policy. That is a pretty terrible way to treat a profession which surely deserves more respect after the last two years.”

DfE sets sail for first shipbuilding skills taskforce captain

The government is on the hunt for a chair to steer the first skills taskforce for the UK’s shipbuilding industry.

A refreshed cross-government National Shipping Strategy was launched on Thursday and includes a commitment for the Department for Education to develop a skills strategy for the sector, which currently support 42,600 jobs.

The taskforce will last for 18 months and aims to build a picture of the industry’s skills needs and provide solutions to skills shortages – particularly those related to new and emerging technologies and zero-emissions shipping.

There are currently 16 apprenticeships available for the maritime industry. There are also a number of level 3 qualifications for the sector, as well as traineeships.

The taskforce will explore what other courses are needed to supplement the existing offer.

Skills minister Alex Burghart said: “We are looking for a chair and members for our new taskforce that will supercharge the shipbuilding industry, bringing together experts who will work together to develop a plan to plug skills gaps and get more people into rewarding jobs.”

The taskforce will work with the Ministry of Defence, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Department for Transport to “optimise the available skills funding and opportunities for shipbuilding”, a DfE spokesperson said.

Applications for a chair and members of the taskforce with experience in shipbuilding opened on March 10 and close on April 17.

The chair would be expected to commit three days per month to taskforce activities, and members up to two days per month. The roles are unpaid.

Revealed: Colleges’ moral dilemma over Russian energy contracts

Colleges face “severe financial penalties” if they exit gas contracts with Russian-firm Gazprom, with warnings they face “jumping out of the frying pan into the fire” as energy prices soar. 

At least one college and several academy trusts began seeking urgent legal advice this week on whether they can cut ties with the energy firm following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

One council leader said it was “immoral” for public bodies to financially support the Russian “war machine”.

But sector experts warn backing out of contracts is “difficult”. Even if they do, schools and colleges face potentially taking millions of pounds away from education to pay for new deals at much higher prices.

Unions are urging the Department for Education to make “emergency funding” available to cover cancelled contract costs. 

Gary Smith, GMB general secretary, said: “Gazprom contracts are morally indefensible. Every pound spent on heating classrooms could end up fuelling Putin’s war machine.”

Colleges face Russian gas moral dilemma

At least one college is attempting to navigate legal quagmires over cutting ties with Gazprom.

Greater Brighton Metropolitan College signed up with Gazprom in November 2021 and is contracted with the firm until 2025.

The college confirmed it is in the process of reviewing its contractual obligations in light of the war in Ukraine.

But a financial penalty for leaving the contract early is one “potential issue” which is being weighed up, a spokesperson told FE Week.

Graham Burns, education partner at law firm Stone King, said the “current situation in Ukraine would not be a lawful reason to terminate contracts”.

Organisations would have to “consider carefully the terms of their contract and any breakage costs which would apply”.

Tim Golding, head of strategic partnerships at Zenergi, which supports 3,000 schools and 25 colleges to find energy deals, said there are particular problems for those on fixed-term contracts.

“In most cases, it is not possible to come out of given the contractual obligations that were agreed at the point the contract was secured.”

Termination charges would run into the thousands, he added. Organisations on flexible contracts have a “higher chance” of being able to cut ties without huge fees.

Golding estimates that around 20 per cent of colleges in England use Gazprom as their energy supplier.

Julian Gravatt, deputy chief executive at the Association of Colleges, said colleges spend 2 per cent of their budgets on energy “so this just adds to a financial problem”.

“But obviously the war in Ukraine and Russian sanctions are at a higher level of seriousness,” he added.

‘Frying pan into the fire’

Chris Felgate, director at Ginger Energy, said cancelling gas contracts in the current market “is like jumping from the frying pan into the fire”. 

As well as termination penalties, the price of gas is now “multiple times higher than it was even this time last year” – enough to have a “seriously detrimental financial impacts on any institution”. 

Academy trust United Learning told FE Week’s sister publication Schools Week it secured all of its energy for 2021-22 and 50 per cent for 2022-23 and 2023-24 when prices were “vastly lower than they are now”.

The trust said the remainder of this year’s gas contract will likely be £500,000. However, if repurchased at yesterday’s price, it would cost £4.7 million. 

“This money would therefore no longer be spent on educationally valuable activity but would instead go back to the oil and gas industry,” a spokesperson said.

“More money would be returned to the Russian state, since the gas we are securing now at a low price would be sold at a much higher price.”

Gazprom supplies 20.8 per cent of non-domestic gas in Great Britain. Golding said they have historical been “very competitive”.

‘Give schools and colleges emergency funding’

Hayley Dunn, business leadership specialist at the Association of Schools and Colleges said, education providers may feel they are “stuck between a rock and a hard place”.

“It is very hard to see how schools and colleges can address this problematic situation on their own and the government needs to step in with sanctions and practical guidance or assistance as soon as possible.”

Gazprom has been banned from raising debt in the UK and accessing its capital markets – but the firm said “nothing has changed” for its customers.

Russian natural gas makes up less than four per cent of the UK’s supply. But business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said he is “exploring options to end this altogether”.

Last week, health secretary Sajid Javid said the NHS in England must stop using energy supplied by Gazprom, PA Media reported.

Additional reporting by Billy Camden