Funding to support SEND learners is being used to separate them from peers, writes Simone Aspis
You may or may not know, but this government has signed and ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This is an international treaty setting out disabled people’s human rights. In particular, Article 24 sets out the requirement for states to develop a fully inclusive education system.
So what does this mean?
It means inclusive education is meant to be at the heart of our education legal framework. This covers the presumption of mainstream education under the 2014 Children and Families Act, to the reasonable adjustments duties in the 2010 Equality Act.
So further education institutions are under a duty to enable all disabled students (regardless of ability) to be educated alongside their non-disabled peers on mainstream courses.
However, in practice the overwhelming majority of disabled students (particularly those with learning difficulties) remain segregated within further education institutions.
For instance, disabled young people are often unable to follow their academic and vocational interests because of the funding arrangements of local authorities and colleges.
This funding is often attached to segregated courses such as preparation for independent living, employment courses and supported internship programmes. This serves to segregate, rather than include, disabled students.
At the Alliance for Inclusive Education, we have set six actions that local authorities and FE institutions can do to make inclusive education happen.
Promote disabled students’ human rights in all aspects of learning and campus life, including mainstream courses, political and social education, and extra-curricular activities.
Support must follow the disabled student instead of vice versa. More specifically, education, health and social care support must be tailored to meet the needs of individual students instead of groups of disabled students. And whatever support the student needs must be made available throughout their chosen vocational, academic or professional courses.
Campuses and learning environments must be fully inclusive of disabled students. All parts of campuses must be physically accessible, such as toilets and changing facilities, lectures, labs, workshops, studio rooms and catering. Colleges also need to focus on the learning environments, including sensory and emotional experiences that disabled students may encounter. Room layout, lighting, colour schemes, acoustics, heat and various other environmental aspects of the spaces can create barriers which will need to be removed to promote inclusivity of disabled students with sensory impairments and those who are neurodiverse. The Department for Education capital grants could be used to make campuses and learning environments inclusive of disabled students. The grants must not be used to create dedicated and segregated areas for disabled students with learning difficulties.
Courses must include curriculum differentiation and be accessible for all, including disabled students with different abilities and learning styles. Course tutors and support staff must know how to prepare and deliver inclusive courses. Curriculum materials need to be available in a variety of formats, including large print, braille and so on.
Make reasonable accommodations as provided by examination boards and have assessment arrangements in place that allow disabled students to demonstrate their knowledge and competences in different ways.
The FE workforce must be trained in inclusive education principles, creating and maintaining an inclusive learning environment and campus underpinned by a social model of disability principles.
One of the biggest barriers towards full inclusion of disabled students in FE, particularly those with learning difficulties, is a lack of thinking creatively about how funding can be used to support inclusive practice.
One good example is for councils and FE institutions to transform segregated, supported internships into inclusive apprenticeships so that disabled and non-disabled young people are undergoing training within the same workplace.
That approach must be the same for disabled students for apprenticeships from a whole range of industry sectors.
FE colleges can and must become inclusive of disabled students with learning difficulties.
Local authorities and colleges need to stop funding segregated provision and use their resources to properly invest in inclusive education practice.
Teachers in further education colleges and training providers could soon be in scope for teacher misconduct regulations that can result in lifetime bans from the profession.
The Department for Education is consulting on broadening the rules which allow for the Teacher Regulation Agency (TRA) to issue prohibition orders to anyone “employed or engaged” in teaching work in post-16 settings that is found guilty of serious misconduct.
The agency currently only has the power to take actions against teachers in schools, academies, sixth form colleges and certain forms of youth accommodation and children’s homes.
The move would mean that the employers of thousands of teachers, assessors, tutors and lecturers in post-16 education and training would have a statutory duty to decide whether to refer serious cases of misconduct for the TRA to investigate.
Those in scope would be further education colleges, special post-16 institutions and independent training providers. Providers of online education are also proposed to be added.
According to the consultation, published today, this proposal would keep the teacher misconduct regime in line with the statutory ‘keeping children safe in education’ safeguarding guidance which was recently updated to include requirements across broader range of education settings.
“It is important that the teacher misconduct regime keeps step with current policy and practice in the different ways that young people are being education, and enables the secretary of state to consider misconduct across a broad range of education settings,” the consultation states.
Only cases of serious misconduct can be referred to the TRA. This is broadly defined as “unacceptable professional conduct”, “conduct that may bring the profession into disrepute” or “conviction, at any time, of a relevant offence”. TRA guidance documents go in to these in more detail to aid employers.
Once the TRA receives a referral, a professional conduct panel is formed which makes a recommendation on whether or not to issue a prohibition order. This would ban the individual from carrying out teaching work, usually for life. Their name would also appear on the “prohibited list” for employers, local authorities and teacher supply agencies to be able to check.
The expansion of the providers in scope would mean that a banned teacher from the post-16 sector could not be reappointed in the pre-16 sector, and vice versa.
Powers to bar former teachers from returning
Another proposal in the consultation would give the TRA powers to investigate referrals of individuals that commit serious misconduct while not employed as a teacher.
The secretary of state doesn’t currently have the powers to ban someone from teaching if the person is not currently employed as a teacher. The new proposal would close this loop-hole and allow the TRA to consider all referrals involving serious misconduct by individuals who have at any time been employed or engaged to undertake teaching work in a relevant setting.
This would allow the regulator to probe more cases involving staff only working infrequently in teaching and those on career breaks.
No cap is planned for the length of time that may have passed since someone last worked in teaching.
“An artificial time limit may prevent consideration of extremely unsuitable people,” the consultation documents state.
“Our guidance will allow TRA caseworkers to carefully consider each case on its merits, by weighing up the length of time a person has been away from the profession, any child protection considerations and the likelihood of them trying to return to the classroom.”
The consultation opened today and closes on March 14, 2022.
Simon Parkinson, chief executive and general secretary of the Workers’ Educational Association, has been a lifelong learner himself. He tells Jess Staufenberg why a ‘community learning centre’ in every town must be delivered on now
Simon Parkinson, chief executive and general secretary of the Workers’ Educational Association (WEA), took over at a time of relative crisis for the almost 120-year-old organisation.
He was happily in his first chief executive post at The Co-operative College in Manchester when he was asked to apply for the top job at the WEA, driving its next steps as a specialist in community learning for adults.
The charity, with outgoing boss (and passionate proponent of adult education) Ruth Spellman at the helm, was having a wobble. After years of being directly grant funded, the government announced in 2017 that the regions would get devolved adult education budgets.
In one fell swoop, about one-third of the WEA’s guaranteed government funding, roughly £7 million out of a £19 million contract, was under threat (the rest of its income is from charitable fundraising and learner fees).
Parkinson clearly remembers walking into the interview to joyously congratulate the team on retaining six out of seven of its original contracts– the WEA had only lost Cambridge and Peterborough. But he was met with long faces.
“I believe, understandably, that it absolutely wobbled the organisation,” he tells me. “The thinking was that this could be the start of the end of statutory funding. You know, it will be Cambridge and Peterborough today, then Liverpool, Manchester, tomorrow.
‘It did paralyse the organisation a little bit. It’s not a criticism – we’d been delivering in those communities for over 100 years.”
The general policy landscape was also pretty brutal. Readers will be familiar with the figures, but as a fun recap: in November the Institute for Fiscal Studies revealed adult education funding has been slashed by 49 per cent between 2009 and 2019, and that even with recently announced additional funding, the total will still be one-third below 2009 levels.
But Parkinson also joined the WEA almost exactly two years ago this month, around the time the cabinet, if not quite the Treasury, began singing from a new hymn sheet. You can now barely read a Department for Education press release without “lifelong learning” cropping up somewhere.
And if anyone knows what lifelong learning means, it’s Parkinson.
Time and again, he has built his career with employers who regularly invested in their workers as learners, meaning he completed both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees because someone senior believed in upskilling him.
In Rochdale celebrating the centenary of The Co-op College based in Manchester, 2019
As a 16-year-old, however, the aim was not so lofty. The teenage Parkinson, who had achieved six O-levels at school, simply wanted to get a job he wouldn’t lose.
“Looking back, we didn’t want for anything, it was just a traditional working-class family,” he grins, describing a full home of four children growing up in Salford. It wasn’t an overly political household (“you knew you were red – Labour and Manchester United – but that was it”), but events of the 1980s soon made themselves felt.
“My dad was made redundant. He never found himself a full-time job after that, and he wasn’t unique in that. He never really recovered from that.”
It was Parkinson’s dad who accompanied him to buy a suit for his two job interviews: one with Barclays Bank and one with the local authority. Soon he had a letter back from Barclays, saying they were finalising their successful applicants.
“I thought it was a nice letter, but my dad looked at it and said, ‘that’s a no,’” chuckles Parkinson. When he got a job offer from the local authority instead, the family considered it a real win.
“My dad’s view was, ‘the local authority, that’s a job for life! You’ve done well there, son.’” A few months later, Barclays got back in touch saying they had a job for him, but Parkinson wouldn’t be budged.
“Wanting the security of employment was more important than the money, because you didn’t want to be out of work,” he explains. “There was a massive stigma. I didn’t want to be on the dole.”
In a move that seems unthinkable now, Salford City Council then funded Parkinson through his first degree when he was 18, qualifying him as a building surveyor. “I must be the least talented building surveyor there is,” he chuckles again – but the qualification took him interesting places.
He interviewed with Golden Lane Housing, the property arm of Mencap, the huge national charity supporting people with learning disabilities. From the interview onwards, he was “hooked”, he says – in part because his boss, Jan Tregelles, was a deeply inspirational leader – but also because the cause lay close to his heart.
His parents were foster parents and had adopted his brother, Gary, who has Down syndrome.
“Once he came to us as a baby, I don’t think my mum could ever let him go.” Although his brother was never directly bullied, Parkinson’s peers sometimes called his brother a “retard” – nowadays considered a completely unacceptable word for anyone with neuro-developmental or physical differences – behind his back. “I had an awareness of learning disability,” he nods.
Over the course of a decade, Parkinson helped buy 100 properties a year for Mencap, so that people with learning disabilities could live in them independently.
“We came up against a fair share of prejudice as well, with people who were really nervous about someone with a learning disability living on their street,” he continues. “It was about breaking down those stereotypes.”
Next, he worked on helping them access education and employment. This was partly possible through three specialist residential colleges Mencap owned at the time: Dilston College outside Newcastle, Lufton Manor College in Somerset and Pengwern College in north Wales.
From the way Parkinson talks about it, it was clearly inspiring work: the team were throwing open doors for people with learning disabilities at a time when the awful treatment of them in other contexts was being rapidly revealed.
He remembers the Budock Hospital scandal in Cornwall in 2006, which found “widespread institutional abuse” of people with learning difficulties. The scandals continue today: just last month, a family reported that their autistic son in care was being fed meals through a hatch.
“We could just decide, as a society, to just stop this,” grimaces Parkinson. “The way to provide people with a better life is there now.”
WEA student Sam, who studied ‘Start your own business’, website and social media courses to launch her art business
Once again, Parkinson was able to continue with his lifelong learning, as his boss sent him on a master’s in public administration at the University of Warwick. It was “fantastic” and “paid back, because I stayed for 19 years in the end!” he laughs.
It was only when he was ready to be a chief executive himself that he looked elsewhere. This took him to the Co-operative College in Manchester, helping workers access education and training, before joining the WEA.
Parkinson’s lifelong learning, and close work with the most vulnerable learners, makes him a fierce defender of community adult education. The government may be recent converts to that cause, but it is relying on an FE sector that is largely focused on young people – as Parkinson points out.
“Part of the issue is that colleges are generally seen as provision for 16-to-19-year-olds,” he says. “People returning to learning in their 30s and 40s are scared of being the oldest person in the classroom.”
Instead, the WEA is one of nine specially designated ‘Institutes for Adult Learning’. These are adult learning organisations that support about 130,000 adult learners each year: City Lit in London, Fircroft College in Birmingham, the Mary Ward Centre in London, Morley College in London, Northern College in Yorkshire, Richmond and Hillcroft Adult Community College in London, Ruskin College in Oxford and WM College (Working Men’s College) in London.
WEA student Selma, who studied English for Speakers of Other Languages to gain a job as classroom support assistant
What makes institutes for adult learning different is the greater variety of courses available than in general FE colleges, continues Parkinson.
As he puts it: “The reason the WEA has survived for over 100 years is we’re genuinely responsive to meeting adult learners’ needs. That doesn’t mean sitting here and saying, we only deliver level 2 technical qualifications.
“People trust us to respond to their needs. Maybe that starts on a cookery course.”
The question now is whether the institutes of adult learning will need to prove their outcomes in line with government skills agendas in order to keep winning contracts. This year the WEA won nine out of ten contracts it bid for, but failed in the Tees Valley Combined Authority.
This has clearly frustrated Parkinson, but he’s up to the challenge, bolstered by the fact learners in the area are still turning to the WEA via its online offer (6,000 courses are now online).
“Increasingly, we need to show the impact community learning has,” he tells me. “It gets stereotyped as old people doing the same thing again and again, and that’s just not true. We’ve got to carry on fighting.”
WEA student Kenny, who joined the ‘Reach Out’ programme for confidence and community connections
As we conclude he points out, eyes gleaming, that in 2020 the education select committee called for a ‘community learning centre’ in every town, as a way to actually deliver on the ‘lifelong learning’ commitment.
“Think of all the retail outlets that have closed down that are sat empty!” he says enthusiastically. “Why can’t we have a community learning centre in every town? It could be the Sure Start for adults.”
Fifty-five areas with “weak” education outcomes will be prioritised for new “elite” sixth forms and a fresh “skills mission” will be launched as part of the levelling up white paper, the government has said.
There will also be a new “future skills unit” established, a £550 million boost to skills bootcamps over the next three years and Institutes of Technology will be able to apply for a Royal Charter.
The plans have been trailed today by the Department for Education ahead of levelling up white paper’s publication tomorrow (Wednesday).
Today’s announcement is light on detail, but the DfE claims the package will “transform education and opportunities for the most disadvantaged”.
New “elite” sixth forms instead of investment in existing FE providers
The government said it has identified 55 cold spots of the country – primarily in the north, midlands, east of England and south west – where school outcomes are the “weakest”.
They will be known as “education investment areas” and be prioritised as the location for new specialist sixth form free schools “where there is limited provision to ensure talented children from disadvantaged backgrounds have access to the highest standard of education this country offers”.
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, questioned why the government wouldn’t invest in existing FE providers instead.
“We are not so sure about the idea of setting up ‘new elite sixth forms’,” he said. “This sounds like they will serve children who already do very well and could put pressure on existing provision when the simplest solution would surely be to improve the lamentable state of post-16 funding.”
Similarly, Association of Colleges chief executive David Hughes said he “would question what evidence there is for the need for new ‘elite sixth forms’ in our education system.”
‘Ambitious’ skills targets
The DfE said it would also set a new “skills mission”, which will target 200,000 more people in England to “help them complete high-quality training” each year by 2030, including 80,000 more completing courses in areas of England with the “lowest skills levels”.
The new target will be measured against pre-Covid (2018/19) 19+ further education and skills training achievements, a spokesperson told FE Week. The number of achievements that year was 1,467,600. For comparison, that figure was 1,040,800 for 2020/21.
The spokesperson also told us that the courses in scope to reach the new target will be subject to consultation but that the existing offer including apprenticeships, skills bootcamps, the free courses for jobs scheme and free basic skills entitlements will play a part.
More detail on which areas of the country will be categorised as having the lowest skills levels will be published in the white paper tomorrow.
More data – a new ‘future skills unit’
The education secretary will establish a new “future skills unit” to look at the “data and evidence of where skills gaps exist and in what industries”.
It will be in addition to the existing skills and productivity board, which was set up by the DfE last year to identify skills gaps and provide “expert advice” on how courses and qualifications should align to the skills that employers need post-Covid-19.
It is unclear exactly how the new future skills unit will differ from the DfE’s skills and productivity board and the local skills advisory panels.
Bootcamps expansion
Skills bootcamps will also be expanded under the government’s levelling up plans, with an additional £550 million to be invested between over the next three years.
Skills bootcamps offer free courses of up to 16 weeks, with a fast-track to an interview with an employer, in sectors such as green, digital and construction. A tender is currently live for wave three of the rollout.
Employer co-funding of bootcamps is set to be reduced for small businesses. Employers must currently pay 30 per cent towards the cost of skill bootcamp training for their employees. This will be reduced to 10 per cent for SMEs.
The DfE said prisoners can also now take advantage of skills bootcamps as part of a new trial to support them to find work on their release.
Royal Charter for ‘successful’ IoTs
The levelling up plans will also set out a government commitment to making Institutes of Technology the “pre-eminent organisation” for technical STEM education in England, through which “successful ones” may apply for a Royal Charter.
The DfE said this will “help secure their long-term position as anchor institutions in their regions, placing them on a par with the UK’s world-leading historic universities”.
A DfE spokesperson said the criteria and application process for Royal Charter status for IoTs will be set out in the spring.
‘Skills, schools and families are at the heart of levelling up’
Ahead of tomorrow’s white paper, education secretary Nadhim Zahawi said: “This white paper sets out our blueprint for putting skills, schools and families at the heart of levelling up. It focuses on putting great schools in every part of the country, training that sets you up for success in a high-skilled, well-paid career and ensuring no one misses out on opportunities simply because of where they live or their family background.”
The 55 areas selected as education investment areas:
The document, by senior civil servant Gray, is described only as an update on her investigation into alleged gatherings on government premises during Covid restrictions.
Gray stated that 12 of the 16 events in the investigation’s scope are now being investigated by the Metropolitan Police.
However the DfE gathering on December 10, 2020, was “not considered to have reached the threshold for criminal investigation”.
Although the Met has not requested that “any limitations” be placed on the description of events it is not investigating, Gray has “decided not to publish factual accounts in relation to those four dates”.
“I do not feel that I am able to do so without detriment to the overall balance of the findings.”
Last year, DfE permanent secretary Susan Acland-Hood told MPs that the party for “two dozen” staff at the department’s canteen had been instigated by Williamson, and that she had also attended.
She said Williamson said a “few words” at the event, attended by around “two dozen” staff “principally” from ministers’ private offices.
Drinks and snacks were “brought by those attending and no outside guests or supporting staff were invited or present”.
She confirmed that if any staff were found to have broken rules, they would face disciplinary action. This would include Acland-Hood herself, she said.
Behaviour ‘difficult to justify’
Overall, Gray’s report found “some of the behaviour surrounding these gatherings is difficult to justify” when government was asking citizens to accept “far-reaching restrictions”.
It states that “at least some of the gatherings in question represent a serious failure to observe not just the high standards expected of those working at the heart of government but also of the standards expected of the entire British population at the time”.
“At times it seems there was too little thought given to what was happening across the country in considering the appropriateness of some of these gatherings, the risks they presented to public health and how they might appear to the public.”
Some of the events “should not have been allowed to take place”, Gray said, while others “should not have been allowed to develop as they did”.
The report also found that the “excessive consumption of alcohol is not appropriate in a professional workplace at any time”.
Gray concluded that there was “significant learning to be drawn from these events which must be addressed immediately across government”.
“This does not need to wait for the police investigations to be concluded,” she added.
The Met is investigating a leaving do on December 17 for the Cabinet Office’s Covid-19 taskforce chief Kate Josephs.
She was previously director of national operations at the DfE and then director of funding at the Education and Skills Funding Agency until July 2020.
Josephs has admitted attending the gathering and is now reportedly on paid leave from her current job as chief executive of Sheffield City Council.
That’s a real pity. Because by all accounts, the scheme had been an incredibly successful way of arresting the slump in employers hiring more apprentices.
For the first time since coronavirus became a part of our national consciousness, the numbers of recorded apprentices being taken on are now at their highest levels since 2017.
As reported by FE Week, the Treasury “bonus” handed out to firms (with an eligible start of any age) available up until today had resulted in over 161,000 taking up the opportunity.
Meanwhile, the Australian government has made its apprenticeship incentive scheme permanent. Employers can access payments of between AUS$750 and AUS$4,000 for hiring apprentices depending on the prior attainment level of the apprentice and the extent to which the occupation is a priority skill area.
It adds up to a far more comprehensive incentive package, with both “commencement” and “retention” bonuses linked to the types of apprentices and the kind of skilled roles the federal government is trying to incentivise.
The list of 65 skilled trades are mainly at level 2 (academic equivalent to five GCSEs in England). Incentives are geared towards helping Australian employers take on more cooks, hairdressers, gas fitters, vehicle body repairers and welders.
Closer to home, France has also taken a proactive approach. Its apprentice incentive scheme is exclusively about giving a boost to the hiring of young people under the age of 26.
The “1 young person, 1 solution “ plan earmarked €1 billion in the initial period, with wage subsidy grants handed out to employers of up to €8,000 per apprentice. It’s a far more generous scheme than just across the Channel here in the UK.
What all the international evidence shows, however, is that England’s apprenticeship programme is increasingly an outlier.
The majority of opportunities go to much older workers. Is this fair?
In world leading systems like Germany and Switzerland, two-thirds of apprentices are under the age of 21.
Great Britain ranks 19th out of 32 countries for the quality of industry placement for 15-year-olds, behind Albania and Bulgaria
They are taken on at level 3, and trained up to sub-degree level education (levels 4 and 5) – precisely the areas where most skills gaps and shortages occur.
The great success of these systems is the fact that youth unemployment has been virtually eradicated by these countries.
The availability of work experience placements, leading to quality 3-year apprenticeships, is one major reason for why the “Germanic systems” top all the international league tables.
Yet the OCED has ranked Great Britain 19th out of 32 countries for the quality of industry placement for 15-year-olds, behind Albania and Bulgaria.
In England, the latest data shows that while over 40,000 starts went to under-19s last autumn (30.8 per cent), these figures were easily dwarfed by the two-thirds of older adults aged 25 plus who currently benefit.
This simply continues a worrying and long-standing trend.
Of course, we should continue to support an all-age, all attainment level programme.
But when 453,000 under 24s are unemployed (11.3 per cent), serious questions have to be asked about whether the current focus is the right one.
It is why switching off the Treasury incentives is so short-sighted.
It comes at a time when withdrawal (non-completion) rates are higher on new apprenticeship standards, compared to the old frameworks .
The government accepted the recommendations at the time.
Yet, a decade on, and we find the sector still asking many of the same questions.
Who are apprenticeships for? Why aren’t more employers making use of them? And how do we boost quality?
As we approach another celebratory National Apprenticeship Week, I believe it’s time that ministers at the Department for Education ordered another major review.
The first 11 scholars chosen to undertake funded research into areas of further education with little to no data currently available have been named by the Association of Colleges and NCFE.
Topics to be researched by the FE staff, who all work at a UK college, will cover areas such as racial inequality, regional outcomes, culture and finance.
For example, Patricia Jones, the executive director of finance at Bedford College Group, will look at “achieving sustainable financial health for the FE sector”.
The group of 11 are the first cohort of Research Further – a joint scholarship programme from the AoC and NCFE that will support practitioners to carry out Masters or doctorate level study.
Each scholar’s college has committed to giving them one day per week of remission to carry out the research.
AoC’s senior research policy manager, Julia Belgutay, said the scholars are “already real experts in their fields and their work will help us fill crucial gaps in evidence”.
“At the same time, their knowledge and experience as they go about their chosen qualifications will inspire and help grow the blossoming practitioner research community across the sector,” she added.
The scholars’ work will be tracked through a webinar series hosted by AoC and NCFE, who have promised that new knowledge on pedagogy or policy will be shared with the sector through think-pieces, reports, articles and blogs.
David Gallagher, NCFE’s chief executive, said: “Up until now there has been a shortfall of truly practitioner-led research. This programme is all about untapping potential and we believe that those closest to learners and learning have a huge role to play in the future of FE.”
The first 11 scholars are:
Rachel Arnold, English Lecturer, English Teaching & Learning Coach, Solihull College – whose research will focus on engaging the disengaged: what happens when the teenagers become the experts
Caroline Dunstan, Lead Learning and Development Practitioner, Riverside College – whose research will investigate the impact of self and peer analysis of recorded lessons on teaching
Neale Gardiner, International Business Advisor, Edinburgh College – whose research will look at the impact of further education on regional inequality and labour market outcomes
Martin Hoskin, Head of Teaching, Learning & Quality, HSDC –focusing on the gamification of CPD and teacher agency
Laura Kayes, Advanced Practitioner and Performing Arts Educator, Leeds City College – her research will consider poverty-informed practice
Catherine Lloyd, Director of Land Based Studies, Shuttleworth College (Bedford College Group) – who will research the delivery of courses at a time of significant change in the wider agricultural sector
Sian Mantovani, Tutor of Sociology, York College – focusing on the experience of students of colour in a predominantly white FE college
Katie Stafford, Deputy Principal, New City College – the research will consider how a college’s organisational culture impacts teacher’ engagement with professional learning
Rachel Whitton, Lecturer in Education & Training, Coaching and Mentoring, Coleg Cambria – whose research will explore the strengths and limitations of hyflex delivery within professional work based learning programmes
Evan Wood, Curriculum Leader Creative Industries, Barnsley College – whose research will look at best practice and educational culture within the creative industry sector
Patricia Jones, Executive Director of Finance, Bedford College Group – whose research will look at achieving sustainable financial health for the FE sector
Time outdoors develops confidence and communication in learners, writes James Plant
The concept of forest schools has grown in popularity over the past two decades. The idea of supporting children to experience the natural environment, while building their confidence and independence, has been hugely successful.
It became clear to me that the same principles would apply to the young adults I teach, who have a variety of moderate to complex learning needs.
Many of our 16-to-24-year-olds do not have any experience of the “great outdoors”, despite our borough having some of the greenest spaces in London.
This is often due to the physical challenges that many of our learners face – from restricted mobility to visual impairment. Parents and carers can also hesitate to venture into woodland, unaware of the many benefits that can come with the outdoors.
This problem is exacerbated by the unfortunate trend among young people of feeling removed from the natural environment.
There is an unfortunate trend of young people feeling removed from the natural environment
The government’s latest Monitor of Engagement with the Natural Environmentreport shows this age group are least likely to report being near to green spaces and least likely to visit the outdoors for health or exercise.
That’s despite the report finding that 97 per cent of visitors to the natural environment stating afterwards that they had “enjoyed it”, with 88 per cent saying it had made them “feel calm and relaxed”.
I am also an accredited advanced forest school leader and keen student of traditional woodland crafts. So I wanted to give my students access to this very different way of learning.
In 2018 I identified a wooded area on the edge of our college playing field. It was inaccessible due to dense undergrowth – but clearly had huge potential. I was supported by the college’s senior leadership team and provided with a budget for tools. Fortunately, local tree surgeons were willing to supply woodchip and logs free of charge.
Many students chose to get involved, clearing the area and restoring the woodland to its natural habitat.
Thanks to their hard work, a nature trail is now in place. This includes a small open-air theatre, an outdoor classroom and views across a fishing lake.
The forest school sessions include outdoor cookery, making hot chocolate, wildlife watching and woodcraft. It’s not just about taking a normal lesson and teaching it outdoors.
The forest school concept turns education on its head by letting the learners lead and developing their own risk-management skills.
We also incorporate an employability focus via our woodland management and sustainability programme.
This gives students the opportunity to play a key role in our college’s sustainability agenda and improving biodiversity in the area – as well as developing their communication and life skills.
The scope for learning is huge: learners build and maintain the wheelchair-accessible nature trail, and create recycled products out of wood to sell in the college shop. These experiences are equipping our students with the confidence they need to help them take their next steps.
Meanwhile, students’ dedication to the project has been incredible. From suggesting what could be done, to physically getting involved in the legwork, everyone involved has developed a sense of pride.
The natural environment is special because it empowers students to be in control of their actions and decisions. This has positively impacted engagement both in and outside of the sessions and has opened our students’ eyes to their own abilities.
Crucially, this is a sustainable initiative that other colleges can replicate.
FE organisations are deep-rooted within their communities and are likely to have existing links with green partners and employers to create a similar project with minimal cost and maximum benefit.
This project is enabling our talented SEND learners to not only play a part in the sustainability and environmental agenda, but to lead on it.
I would love to see other colleges doing the same.
The TEF, which was first run back in 2017 but has been on hiatus since 2019, aims to incentivise “universities and colleges for excellence in teaching, learning and the outcomes they provide for their students”.
First off under the proposals, it will no longer be the case that previous TEF exercises will be voluntary. All providers, including colleges with more than 500 higher education students in England, will be required to participate.
The proposals say that providers must meet a set of minimum baseline requirements for quality and standards, above which they will be judged for the excellence they provide in student experience and student outcomes. This is proposed to run every four years.
For student outcomes, the proposals say the panel should look at the last four years of data, checking three measures: year 1 to year 2 continuation, the rate of course completion, and progression into professional and managerial employment or further study.
Meanwhile, the student experience would consider the national student survey results for teaching, assessment, support, learning resources and student voice.
This data would be benchmarked against providers with similar student bodies. Providers must also submit a 20-page narrative statement (plus an optional student statement).
The panel would then make a final decision on whether to award gold, silver, bronze, or the new ‘requires improvement’ grade.
HE and FE providers found to ‘require improvement’ will not be able to charge the highest undergraduate fees under the proposals. If given the go-ahead, the new TEF will launch later this year and would first report in the spring of 2023.
From my group’s experience of taking part in the 2017 exercise, I would argue that submitting to the TEF can be a useful process. But two details concern me.
1. More inclusive providers could lose out
I am worried about the introduction of non-contextualised, unbenchmarked minimum baseline requirements for quality and standards. FE providers will recognise this problem.
These baseline requirements are currently subject to a separate OfS consultation. If implemented, a provider’s levels of continuation, completion and progression will be introduced as a requirement for inclusion on the higher education providers register.
Aside from the financial impact of missing targets, such an approach will lend itself to more ranking exercises, so that institutions that take students with complex needs will always be at a disadvantage.
This is not because such students are any less able but a reflection of the competing demands upon them, which inevitably mean that they have a higher likelihood of non-completion.
2. FE-HE partnerships under threat
There is a further unintended consequence, which I am particularly mindful of as the chief executive of an organisation that includes both a university and a college. That is the potential effect on HE-FE partnerships.
Higher education could become far more conservative in its recruitment
The proposals could help support carefully crafted partnerships that underpin the development of higher technical qualifications and new learning pathways. But these joined-up pathways are still developing, and the concept of specialist organisations working in partnership needs to gain traction in the media.
Many universities will be forced to take action to improve their outcomes, and for some universities that may include terminating partnerships where they don’t have the resources to invest in more student support, or where stand-alone level 4 and 5 awards have not yet been fully developed.
More widely, it could see higher education becoming far more conservative in its recruitment, prioritising school and sixth-form college leavers who are most likely to help them meet their targets.
A TEF designed to improve teaching quality and new educational pathways should be seen as a positive development, and encourage HE-FE partnerships.
But the parallel development of non-benchmarked baselines has the potential to do the opposite. It could take us back to a place where higher education is for the privileged few.
