It’s that time of the year when tutors and teachers are extra busy showcasing course options to prospective students. With options evenings or open days already in the diary, helping learners choose qualifications that suit their learning style and needs, can be tricky. Which is why Pearson has launched a free BTEC Options tool, which will help you showcase the specific BTEC courses your centre offers.
It’s never been easier for current and prospective learners to explore how a BTEC qualification can open doors to university, an apprenticeship, or into the world of work.
BTECs are important qualifications for preparing young people and adults with the knowledge and skills needed for the jobs of the future. Particularly in these times of economic flux and uncertainty. BTEC qualifications give learners a balance of the skills and knowledge they need to progress into the careers they want and by teaching BTEC, colleges can create a broad, balanced and diverse curriculum in their local community for all learners.
Career-focused education is also a powerful driver of social mobility that benefits employers, our economy and our communities. The jobs of the future will require uniquely human skills.
Studying a BTEC can help learners of all ages apply their study in real-life scenarios, ensuring they are uniquely prepared with a range of entrepreneurial and employability skills. Those skills enable them to flourish in our competitive world of rapid technological change, and to enjoy a career fuelled by passion and purpose.
The new BTEC Options tool is specifically designed to help you talk to students and parents about their next steps. The tool is easy to use, engaging and interactive. What’s more, it allows you to focus solely on the BTEC subjects offered by your centre, offering a wealth of customisable information that will help you recruit and retain learners on their journey to success.
Students and parents can access:
A tailored online webpage that shows the BTEC courses your centre offers
An interactive careers quiz
Subject-specific information
Employability skills students will develop on the course
A range of career options after studying BTEC
Stories from BTEC students and employers in all subject areas
A unique URL so that they can browse in their own time.
If you have specific questions about BTEC or need further help or support for Options 2021 you can also contact Pearson on Twitter at @TeachBTEC with your questions, and they’ll get straight back to you.
Explore what a BTEC can do for you and your students at btecworks.com
“It means that UC claimants are now in an even better position to access sector specific training as part of the Department for Education’s Lifetime Skills Guarantee and the skills bootcamp initiatives,” she said.
This went up to 16 weeks if the claimant was on a skills bootcamp – which train adults aged 19 and over in fields such as digital, construction and green skills.
“It allows people across Great Britain to take part in work related training to get them those key skills and be ready with them for what employers really value and need,” Davies added.
The scheme of £3,000 incentive payments for employers to take on new apprentices were also extended from September to the end of January.
The eight-week Universal Credit rule has been criticised by the FE and skills sector, with the Association of Colleges publishing a report in June saying it meant claimants are “prevented from developing skills that would allow them to get into better-quality, more stable, better paid employment over the longer term”.
The latest DWP data reveals 5.8 million people were receiving Universal Credit in September 2021.
The chancellor’s spending review should include a “major investment” so that every prisoner has access to a digital device and the internet in their cell, according to the Prisoners’ Education Trust.
Rishi Sunak, who will deliver his spending review next week, has been called on by the charity for the investment after the Covid-19 lockdown exposed how prisons are “stuck in the digital dark ages”.
The Centre for Social Justice published a report in January and found that only 18 out of the 117 prisons in England and Wales have the cabling or hardware required to support broadband in cells.
And when the pandemic struck, face-to-face learning was replaced by worksheets posted under doors which were deemed unhelpful to more than half of those who received them, according to a survey published by the HM Inspectorate of Prisons in February.
Prisoners were kept in their cells for 23 hours a day during the 18-month prison lockdown.
The Prisoners’ Education Trust believes digital devices and “secure, limited access” to the internet in every cell would allow prisoners to use their time to “access educational materials, helping them to ‘level up’ and better prepare for digital life on release”.
The charity said it could not put an estimated figure on how much funding would be needed exactly, but it would be over £100 million.
This year’s Centre for Social Justice report noted that the Ministry of Justice estimates that the cost of installing the hardware necessary to support broadband throughout the country’s prison estate would be in the region of £100 million.
Devices for each prisoner are estimated to then cost around £207 per prisoner, according to think tank Reform. Considering there are around 79,000 prisoners in the country, the devices alone would cost over £16 million.
Then there would also be the cost of any necessary educational content plus the cost of installing the devices, training for staff, along with ongoing running costs.
Jon Collins, chief executive of the Prisoners’ Education Trust said: “Everyone in prison, wherever they are in the country and whatever their background, should have access to education. Digital technology can help to make this happen.
“It is possible to provide safe, secure intranet and internet access to people in prison and in-cell devices would open up a world of educational opportunities. Without this, the digital divide will become a chasm, with prison leavers re-entering society ill-equipped to cope in a digital world. It is time prisons move out of the digital dark ages.”
A prison service spokesperson from the Ministry of Justice said: “We’ve kept education running throughout the pandemic with digital technology and in-cell learning.
“Education is key to reducing reoffending and we are restarting face-to-face learning where it is safe to do so.”
The spending review will take place on October 27.
The government has said colleges will be “key” to hitting their target of supporting 440,000 net zero jobs by 2030.
The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy published its long-awaited Net Zero Strategy today, which details how ministers plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to reach an aim of net zero by 2050.
It comes less than two weeks before the COP26 summit in Glasgow, where world leaders will discuss how to reduce the effects of climate change.
Today’s strategy document states that it is the government’s ambition to “support up to 440,000 jobs across net zero industries in 2030, contributing towards a broader pivot to a greener economy which could support two million jobs in green sectors or by greening existing sectors”.
Reforming the skills system is a critical part of this plan, according to the document.
It states that new measures outlined in this year’s Skills for Jobs white paper will be “central” to this.
For example, the government is legislating through the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill to put employer leadership of new local skills improvement plans on a statutory footing and ensure they have “regard to skills needed to help deliver on our net zero target, adaptation to climate change, and other environmental goals”.
Colleges’ place at the “centre of their local communities and economies means that they are key to unlocking opportunities across the country,” the document says.
It adds that the government is reforming the adult skills funding and accountability system for colleges and other training providers to make sure they are “better supported to focus on helping their students into good jobs; reduce the complexity of funding so that colleges can focus on their core role of education and training; and define clearer roles and responsibilities for the key players in the system.
“This means that, for the first time, we will be able to reflect the value that relevant courses deliver to the taxpayer in the funding rate colleges receive for putting on courses.
“We will hold colleges to account for delivering good outcomes, and are consulting on proposals to introduce new accountability agreements setting out national priorities against which we expect colleges to deliver, for example enabling students to access opportunities in the green economy.”
While there is no mention of extra investment in FE providers to achieve the net zero goal, the government’s strategy lists off recent new policies they hope will contribute.
This includes green skills bootcamps, available in areas such as housing retrofit, solar, nuclear energy and vehicle electrification; and the adult level 3 offer under the lifetime skills guarantee which gives people access to free qualifications linked to green sectors.
The government recognises the “transition” through the skills system will require teachers in the further education sector to have a “strong understanding of sustainability”.
To this end, the government points out that employers have developed a refreshed apprenticeship standard for further education teaching – the level 5 learning and skills teacher apprenticeship standard – which came into effect in September 2021.
This apprenticeship, for the first time, requires that sustainability is integrated into their teaching, including through “modelling sustainable practices and promoting sustainable development principles in relation to their subject specialism”.
According to today’s strategy, “early estimates” from the apprenticeship’s trailblazer group suggest around 1,500 teachers each year could train using this apprenticeship standard.
It adds that this standard will “soon be incorporated into all future further education teaching qualifications, so that all teachers across all subject areas will be able to embed and promote sustainability in their teaching”.
COP26 is upon us. Agreements will be reached, hands shaken and agreements with the potential to drive rapid change across the world signed. Heads of state will return home ready to act on new targets or agreements, or at the very least, to figure out how to make it look like they’re doing so.
As a result of the agreements that come out of this make or break moment, business leaders will be compelled to adapt these changes into their vision and strategies to meet net zero, decarbonisation or even carbon negative targets.
What will this mean for the education sector and the new skills it will need to lead on? Earlier this year, FE News published an article on the sustainability roadmap for FE and HE institutions in the UK. The UNESCO 2030 roadmap is clear in its call for climate-ready learning environments, empowerment and upskilling of educators and more support for youth mobilisation on climate action.
There is still a huge piece missing when it comes to the picture of the skills needed to facilitate the social changes required to fight climate change. There has been much focus on ‘green jobs’ , such as the 694,000 of them that are forecast to exist across England by 2030 but the reality is that this is just part of a much, much bigger picture!
Whilst these green jobs will be essential for building a more sustainable economy, the overwhelming majority of us will continue to work in ‘non-green’ jobs in sectors that will still have to transform to become more sustainable. Green jobs alone will not bring the scale of change we need to meet sustainability targets.
It is not just a case of sustainability skills becoming essential for employability, but more that we have the challenge of changing personal and social behaviour across society to ensure that individuals know how their choices, as citizens and consumers, impact on the climate and future generations.
This means that our challenge goes far beyond developing skills for green jobs. We need to embed mass eco-literacy and sustainability skills across all sectors, job roles and society as a whole. The skills sector is the obvious choice to lead on this.
Where does this leave the teachers, students, apprentices and campus staff who could be taking action now but need the resources and training to do so? What can we do to support them?
A transformative solution for challenging times
An education and training solution which empowers the sector to lead on skills to mitigate and prevent the worst impacts of climate change, to equip all learners with the knowledge they need to support sustainability objectives, and the skills they need to be actively involved in change. That is the challenge we set ourselves at The Skills Network.
The solution needs to be accessible, adaptable and available to education institutes to personalise and align with their own focus, employer partnerships and region. It needs to provide practical strategy, support, end to end delivery resource and teacher training to empower education stakeholders to embed sustainability across their delivery to help them become Sustainability Change Makers.
The critical element here is impact. We do not need more people to know more things, but rather to feel able, empowered and ready to do more. To meet this challenge, and to address the huge sustainability skills gap we currently have, we are launching a suite of transformative solutions.
Understanding and applying environmental sustainability (level 2 RQF)
This unique programme is the first in the suite, and has the flexibility to draw relevance from a wide range of sectors, from those working in marketing admissions and finance on campus, to the learners doing their apprenticeships in hairdressers and catering companies, to people working in non green office jobs, or even working from home.
There are a lot of sustainability courses out there, with phrases like “raising awareness” or “equipping with knowledge” but this is not a course in GDPR or health and safety. There is a major lack of training, support and resources available to educators to embed it into the delivery of their own subject.
The Skills Network’s resources are different; designed to provide educators with an end to end solution for developing core sustainability skills and providing adaptable, sector-specific examples and many opportunities for practical application. Our level 2 qualification include project work applicable to each individual sector, and we provide the resources to embed this into full time programmes.
In line with this approach, our content explores key sustainability themes in a way that goes beyond basic knowledge transfer, and is instead relational and co constructed.We have embedded case studies and activities throughout our courses, which apply to a wide range of sectors and roles, ranging from ‘office’ job and service sectors to manual sectors, from large companies to individual sole traders, colleges to communities.
“That’s not co-constructed” you might say, and normally you would be right. In this new offer, however, we have added an additional project unit to our course offer on ‘Impact at Work’. This enables learners to take all of their new skills and knowledge to apply to practical sustainability scenarios in specific job roles and work sectors, which then feeds back into the learning resources as tangible, relatable examples of real impact.
Making real impact
The impact project component is a unique offer. Learners are asked to draw together their learning from the core units and apply it to make real change in their own setting, whether that be college, work, home or community.
From conducting and acting on sustainability audits to analysing sources of emissions and recommending and implementing changes, learners are firmly in the driving seat, and educators and institutions can be alongside in support.
We have created pathways for these learners to share that personal impact with us, so that an ever-increasing diversity of case studies can be fed back into the resources at learners’ disposal. The more a learner can see someone like themselves, making positive change in a context that feels personally relevant, the less distance there is from a sense of agency. In other words, if they do it, why can’t I?
In using this as a cornerstone resource to inspire change, educators can become instant sustainability champions, even if they are new to the subject. By taking our programme to use ‘off the shelf’ to deliver in-depth sustainability skills or by using our course editing tool to add in additional case studies and activities that are specific to the subject they teach, our resources can be used as a basis to deliver sustainability skills in everything from hairdressing and catering to construction and engineering!
Reflection, reaction, action.
Throughout our intensive, down-to-earth and practical suite of sustainability courses, we have created numerous opportunities to reflect, deepen learning, conduct independent research and to find out more about how each area of sustainability connects to the world around the learner. What do rising global temperatures mean for life in my region? What does the circular economy have to do with an apprentice plumber?
Each unit has opportunities to apply that learning. From small tasks at home, to organisations you can contact, to ideas for projects at work and in college. This approach is designed to build competency-based sustainability knowledge and skills that can be aligned to multiple roles and sectors, making learners more employable and able to use the practical skills developed on the programme to effect positive change at work
At each opportunity we connect the global context of big concepts like the UN SDGs and the big summits on climate change to the actions we see in everyday contexts around us. If we want to connect knowledge and reflection to action, we need to see the thread that runs through all of the narratives, policies and practices around us. Perhaps COP26 might feel a little less distant that way.
To help transform organisational cultures, systems, communities and societies, our offer is designed to find ways to meet people where they are, and shrink the distance between the issues we collectively face and the personal choices we make every single day.
The Leading Solution for Mass Sustainability and Eco Literacy Skills in Non-Green Jobs
As much as we have focused on creating relevance to a range of people, roles, sectors and contexts, nobody knows your setting better than you do. That means flexibility and adaptability will be a critical success factor for a sustainability training that aims at making real change in society.
While our ready to go, off-the-shelf provision will certainly appeal to many, we do offer a course builder tool which allows you to fully adapt, edit, brand and personalise the provision to your institute or subject.
Getting started with sustainability training can be very time consuming, but this way there is no need to start from scratch. You can add in examples from your own institution, your own case studies, extend areas that connect to key lines of strategy, and any number of other tweaks to take personalisation to the next level. Whatever your provision, region, local or national ecosystem, making this work for you is
Learning can be fully online (generally a lower carbon option!) or blended to add, for example, site visits and opportunities for experiential learning. Mass sustainability skills mean the broadest possible access, and online learning supports this.
This way, education institutes and businesses can use our core content to support their own branded, institutionalised sustainability strategy, with clear connections to specific student/institute projects and practical application activities.
Moving forward from there, we have a range of progression routes to more specialised courses for teachers and leaders, as well as consultancy support to help embed ESD within your wider sustainability strategy, from core projects to employer partnerships.
Through these layers of quality skills training and support, embedding sustainability in your institution just became much more accessible. If we are to be bold, we must be willing to say that every job is a green job in a truly sustainable world. That means every job must be supported with the skills training to make that a reality..
Empowering action now, not later
An ambitious sustainability strategy is not just an extra, or a nice-to-have in any business or education institution. Sustainability training is not an added value, but inherent. Minimising our impact on people and the planet is not just good for business and innovation, but a responsibility and an obligation.
The tidal wave of demand for sustainability skills is now coming into full view, but it is also our responsibility to equip the mass workforce with these skills, so that real systemic change is possible.
We need not wait for new rafts of regulations and targets to be handed down, especially those which shift with the prevailing political wind. If the last 20 years have proved anything, it is that we cannot always look up for leadership on climate action.
Arming our staff and students with knowledge of what sustainability means and how it connects to each of them, means they will see the way they live, eat, travel and work in a new light. The invigorating realisation that the worst impacts of climate change need not happen if we all step up, can make all the difference.
Leadership, empowerment, future skills and positive action. What’s not to like?
Keep calm and carry on recycling if you like, but we owe it to generations present and pending to learn more, say more, do more. To give this our best shot, and to do it together we need to be inclusive and make sure everyone gets involved.
We invite institutions to reach out and work with us to ensure that when these targets and strategies filter down from COP26, we have a new generation of graduates and learners, educators and leaders, who know just how to drive them forward.
For more information on The Skills Network’s sustainability courses and to sign up click here
Baroness Stowell is a born-and-bred FE college alumna from the Midlands who ended up leading the House of Lords. Now she’s calling for an end to the ‘disrespect’ of non-graduates
“I’ve spent a lot of time working in places where there are public crises and dramas. I’m not fazed by that, I don’t panic, I’ve seen it all before. It’s like bread and butter to me.”
Tina Stowell, or Baroness Stowell of Beeston (the Beeston in Nottinghamshire, not Leeds, she clarifies), is not exaggerating. She has seen it all before. She’s worked for RAF chiefs, in Washington when the Berlin Wall came down, under William Hague when the Conservatives were in their late 1990s crisis, and at the BBC during the Hutton Inquiry.
In that time, she has risen from a girl training to be a secretary in a further education college in the Midlands to being appointed the country’s Leader of the House of Lords. At one point, I just ask: how did she do it?
“I think it’s that I could make things happen. I could take charge of organising things, I was very good at building relationships and influencing people to be able to make things possible. I was like a mini-fixer.”
With William Hague and Michael Portillo in 2000
But while Stowell, who says her strength is “defining and redefining something down to its most simple point, to drive through change”, is comfortable in a major crisis, she is disturbed by a quieter crisis – an underlying trend rather than a front-page scandal. And education, she says, is at the heart of it.
It’s not a new argument: the country, and the western world, is increasingly divided along lines of educational attainment, rather than the old categories of class. The phenomenon is behind big fallouts over things like Brexit and Donald Trump.
That’s how she came to FE Week’s attention: her report calls for an end to “disrespect” for non-graduates, once and for all. She explains.
“The education divide is showing up as a proxy for something else, and that’s the lack of respect for the people who sit on one side of that divide,” Stowell begins.
“What’s happened is over time, most people in positions of responsibility or leadership are graduates. These decision-makers among us then tend to define success in their own image. And they tend to think that the best way of serving everyone else is to encourage people along the same path as themselves.”
Stowell leans forward. “And that has led them to concentrate on academic qualifications as the main kind of credential that determines whether someone is worthy of respect or not.” She raises her eyebrows. “They don’t do it deliberately.”
This has several consequences. First, the longer people have been going to university, “the more that degrees have become seemingly the only currency that allows you to travel”. The government is arguably hoping to change this, with its focus on technical education reform through T Levels, degree apprenticeships and the wider Skills Bill proposals, including a lifelong loan entitlement.
But “ramping up” further education is not a sure-fire solution, Stowell warns in her paper.
It will “only assist in bridging the educational divide if it is not seen as a consolation prize for those who do not go to universities”.
Second, among the older generation are “successful people without degrees who can feel quite frustrated that their contribution is not understood”.
On the Red Benches in 2017
Stowell knows this all too well, as someone who got to the top with a vocational qualification from an FE college. Her father was a painter and decorator, her mum worked in a factory, and Stowell was brought up believing in work.
“I wanted to be a grown up, and work was grown up. I was in a family where work was talked about a lot. You put work first, you worked hard, you never turned down overtime.”
At the end of school, which Stowell persisted at but didn’t love, she set her sights on a prestigious secretarial course at college. “I wanted to be a hot-shot secretary!”
There was no sense this was a sub-par choice over university, she continues. “Those who went to university had always been known as the brainy ones. For those who went to college like I did, that was something to be proud of.”
Stowell was the only girl from her school year accepted on to the course, where she studied for the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry private secretary certificate. “I thought college was fantastic. It was because it felt different to school. The lecturers treated us like adults.”
From there, Stowell’s career took off. But not many other secretaries are making speeches in the Lords now. Stowell’s vocational qualifications gave her a leg up – she became private secretary to an RAF commodore and then got a job in Washington through the Ministry of Defence – but her attitude built her career. Or, as she calls it, “standards”.
With the Queen in 2015
“People like to talk about values, but they shy away from the word ‘standards’. However, values can be quite nebulous: be kind. Who doesn’t agree with being kind?
“But standards are more specific. The reason they are so critical is they allow us to judge behaviour. The only way we can judge someone’s motives is through their behaviour. You can’t judge what’s really in someone’s mind.”
Stowell’s point is that by adhering to certain standards of behaviour, people can trust one another. “Standards like punctuality and working hard, they are an exercise in self-discipline, and they force us to show respect to someone else, and that cultivates a mutual understanding.”
To illustrate her point, Stowell describes returning from Washington to a job as Number 10’s press secretary’s assistant. She soon oversaw the travelling press parties overseas and was an important contact for lobby journalists.
After a break from politics, she returned to work for William Hague, with Sebastian Coe as chief of staff and George Osborne as political secretary. There she was, surrounded by graduates from vastly different backgrounds to her own.
The reason someone like me has progressed is the fact I have brought to my work my commitment and standards
But if Stowell’s preoccupation is what divides people, then her solution is these standards. “The reason someone like me has progressed is the fact I have brought to my work my commitment and standards. These have been reciprocated to me by people who have been educated in a different way, and gone through a different system.
“We’ve seen and recognised in each other common standards, which has made it possible to trust each other and form serious bonds.” It’s a powerful argument.
Finding common standards is how Stowell works. After standing unsuccessfully to be selected as an MP in 2009, she was appointed by David Cameron to the Lords, from where she guided the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 through the House.
She did so by “telling the doubters it was OK to be doubtful”. The argument became less divisive and more were inclined to back the bill, she says. By 2014, she was Leader of the House.
Her other superpower is articulating the problem in hand. Take this one: reform of the Lords. “The purpose of the House of Lords is to complement the House of Commons by working in a different way […] less combative, more thoughtful, less political.” But this is changing with the move away from hereditary peers towards directly appointed peers instead, says Stowell.
“I don’t think the House of Lords is adding as much value as it might have done in the past, because it’s becoming increasingly, in its practices and its methods, more like the House of Commons.” Successive prime ministers have appointed people to get legislation through, so there are more former MPs, she explains.
“So they’re continuing what they were doing in the Commons.” There is a real danger people will “legitimately” ask what the point of the Lords is, she warns.
First day in the House of Lords in 2011
In terms of solutions, Stowell says she favours a more elected model, but she doesn’t have a blueprint.
However, she does have solutions for the educational divide.
Everyone has “got to see FE as a route to leadership and positions of authority. It’s really important we see people who go down that path as potential leaders themselves.”
Meanwhile, employers should stop valuing a university degree over the “standards” a person displays. “Too many entry-level jobs seem to value a university degree for no good reason. Beyond qualifications there are social norms or standards, and these are things we ought to recognise.”
But here the rub. Does Stowell realise that having these “standards” (self-efficacy, self-discipline and self-belief, often arising from a stable home life) is itself a dividing line? How do we help the people whose lives are too chaotic, or too traumatic, to learn such standards?
We know the long-term solutions for changing behaviour (high-quality social workers, coaches and therapy) are expensive.
“I don’t know if there’s a structural answer to that question, but today’s leaders have a responsibility to demonstrate and promote those standards, to argue for them and to back people who uphold them.”
It’s not an evasion, but there are many college staff working with the most vulnerable who would say such a solution is really not sufficient.
Nevertheless, Stowell makes a powerful case, when others have given up ̶ or wouldn’t express it half so clearly, or bravely.
If all the documentation doesn’t benefit the apprentice, why is it necessary? asks Tim McHanwell
I’m going to start with the most important point: I really, really enjoy my job. I enjoy working with the apprentices, supporting them and helping them to progress.
The most enjoyable part of the experience is spending time with apprentices from a variety of backgrounds and working with them to develop their knowledge, skills and understanding.
This could be younger apprentices who have moved away from classroom-based education and have not always thrived in education. It’s very valuable working with them because you’re getting to re-engage them.
We help to smooth that transition into an apprenticeship with employers like the NHS where there are good opportunities for career progression.
Then there are those apprentices who may have been out of education for ten to 15 years. They may be motivated, but sometimes lacking in self belief. Many of these apprentices will get to a point where they say “I can’t do this”, and it’s a challenge to get them through.
When they do, it’s really rewarding. Many of them progress on to higher level qualifications that allow them to get promoted.
Just this week, I had an older learner who was very anxious about her end-point assessment. So I drove out to her, sat with her for an hour and a half, and showed her she was ready.
There’s a huge value in just being around someone. That takes time.
But in the ten years since I’ve been a trainer and assessor, paperwork has become a bigger part of the job.
This isn’t specific to my college, because it’s a system-wide issue. Myself and colleagues are spending more and more time writing about what we’re going to do, instead of doing it.
It’s been a “mission creep” scenario. Every year we have a little bit more to record. Every year new funding rules come out, and new things have to be documented.
Every year we have a little bit more to record
Of course, I’m not saying documentation is bad. Actually, it can be very important. Possibly ten years ago we weren’t documenting things we should have.
It’s important, for instance, that apprentices can see on paper what they will be doing in the next session. It’s helpful for them to see what I’ve written in the “actions” section of their portfolio, so they can follow this up.
But there are things we are now required to document for auditing purposes that don’t have clear value for the apprentice. I feel the amount that needs to be documented has tipped too far the other way.
Spending time filling out forms can reduce the time we spend on the most enjoyable and important part of the job ̶ working with the learner.
Sometimes you feel you have to hurry when working with a learner, just to do the paperwork. You think, “If I don’t get it logged now, I won’t have time to come back to it”.
This can cause problems, as the paperwork can start building up. I’m a Unison union representative as well, and I know people who feel they have to work extra hours just to get it all done.
An assessor needs time to plan and come up with creative solutions, and that time just disappears. This can leave staff feeling they’re not supporting apprentices as well as they would like.
So how can we solve this?
First, we need to look again at what we are documenting and why. I feel we should place the emphasis on documenting the things that make a difference to the learner.
Trust in the professionalism of staff and their commitment to do the best for their apprentices. Who am I writing this for if it doesn’t help the learner?
Second, it’s about funding. If the Education and Skills Funding Agency attached more money to each student, then each staff member wouldn’t have to take on so many apprentices.
This in turn would reduce paperwork and stress.
If those changes can be made, I can get on with the job I love.
Media reports about the Baker clause fail to understand it’s only one part of the careers guidance picture, writes Janet Colledge
There is much that’s positive in the move to strengthen the teeth of the Baker clause.
Coming from working-class stock, I particularly see the value in high-quality skills and technical education. I meandered into university by way of college rather than via A-levels. And I’m well aware that schools and society at present seem to value the university route over technical.
So I’m strongly behind any move to ensure that young people hear about all routes into working life, and as such, I welcome the Baker clause, which requires schools to do this.
But media reporting seems to conflate meeting the Baker clause with “you’ve done a great job in delivering careers guidance”.
Headlines such as “Baker’s back: could schools be sued for careers advice?”, or “Careers advice law change among three DfE amendments to Skills Bill” seemingly enforce this erroneous view.
But sorry, I have to tell you, it’s just not true.
Twenty-first century careers guidance consists of multiple aspects. This is a natural consequence of the profession adapting to the changes in the working world.
We no longer leave school, get a job and stay in it for many years before retiring. We now change careers on average five to seven times in a lifetime. This has necessitated different, many-pronged approaches to career preparation.
It’s like someone trying to drink from a hydrant without a cup
In other words, the Baker clause when properly delivered ensures that all young people get information about all the routes open to them after their GCSEs. What it won’t do is provide careers advice or guidance or help them to make the decision.
Think of it as like asking somebody to drink from a hydrant, with water gushing out at top speed, and what’s more, they don’t have a cup. There’s too much to make sense of.
Every training provider must recruit and, as such, has (an albeit well-meaning) bias. Every employer that visits a school has his or her own experience and the advice they give will be coloured by this.
The Department for Education’s own statutory guidance says advice given should be in the best interests of the child. Young people must be able to process the information they are given, and this requires two things:
1. A good-quality careers learning programme
To make sense of all the information students will be exposed to, and to be able to filter and make sense of it, a proper careers programme is crucial. Students must gain the skills needed to apply the knowledge they gain from the providers to their own situation.
This aspect of careers learning can be demonstrated through the Gatsby benchmarks established by the Gatsby Foundation.
2. A trained careers coach
Young people also need access to good-quality careers guidance from what used to be called a “careers adviser”.
They’re not called that nowadays – “guidance professionals”, “coaches” or “counsellors” tend to be the terms used now. This reflects the extensive training they receive.
The DfE statutory guidance says that guidance professionals in schools should be qualified to level 6, post-grad level or above.
The career guidance profession uses theories of career development that are backed by academic rigour, plus coaching and psychological techniques to support those they work with.
They also undertake regular CPD which enables them to keep up to date with current labour market information, course information and dozens of other factors that could impact on a young person.
This helps students make a well-informed choice about their pathway, instead of a “stick a pin in a map and see where we end up” approach.
So to sum up, the Baker clause + careers programme + professional careers advice = careers guidance.
If you want to know more about what really good careers guidance looks like in a college or school, have a look at the Quality in Careers Award. The DfE strongly recommends it.
Government rhetoric not rooted in reality will cause colleges to choose the easy options, writes Ian Pryce
As a fan of country music, the untimely death of Nashville-based singer-songwriter Nanci Griffith gave me an excuse to play all her old albums. She never achieved great fame because she championed traditional American folk music, rather than court a wider audience.
I wish government could show a similar appreciation for, and pride in, the long and quiet tradition of further education.
To quote from my favourite Nanci song, “If wishes were changes we’d all live in roses”. This wonderful line points out the harsh truth that you cannot wish away reality.
Much current FE policy-making at the moment seems rooted in wish rather than reality. And if colleges believe they are being set up to fail, it is inevitable they will retreat and hunker down, rather than take risky bets.
It seems pretty clear that government wants fewer people going to university full-time and many more taking sub-degree higher education or degree apprenticeships.
It seems equally clear government wants young people to stop doing applied general courses and do T Levels instead.
The former education secretary also said “the future is further education”. This rhetoric seems to wish more young people would choose technical and vocational courses over A-level equivalents. Carpenters not classicists, as Mary Beard might say.
Unfortunately, this bumps up against awkward reality. Numbers taking traditional degrees are at record levels. Colleges are struggling to maintain even their relatively tiny higher education enrolments.
Covid has battered apprenticeships and, based on 2020 starts, the average apprentice is now a thirtysomething advanced business administrator. Last year fewer than ten per cent of starts were young people aged under 19.
Meanwhile, teacher-assessed GCSEs have resulted in more students taking A-levels, a trend that Ofqual is not planning to reverse quickly.
At the same time, whether down to Brexit or Covid, pay rates in jobs with relatively low qualification thresholds in areas such as retail and hospitality are shooting up. It makes these jobs, rather than apprenticeships and VTQs, attractive as a choice for those aged 16 to 18.
To top it off, the “fingers in ears” assault on BTECs only adds to the risk. A switch to T Levels involves sourcing a 500 per cent increase in work experience hours.
Meanwhile at policy level, the Skills for Jobs white paper makes clear a college’s offer will be heavily determined by bodies with no skin in the game. There is no evidence that skills panels will share, let alone fully underwrite, the risk of colleges doing the panels’ bidding and finding no demand.
In such circumstances, and faced with more years of low funding, surely the logical behaviour is for a college to shrink to a stable set of popular bestsellers. In other words, to enrol low-maintenance students and show good financial margins.
If a college wants to take risks, then logic would dictate looking to expand academic provision for those with good GCSE grades, rather than moving too fast towards qualifications like T Levels (which depend on third-party employers and are little understood by parents).
In The Crisis of the Meritocracy Cambridge University academic Peter Mandler shows that democracy and social change trumps political ideology. His study of the success of the comprehensive system shows that, in education, the government follows, rather than leads, the public.
So the British education system is built on what parents want – not politicians, not employers.
We’ll find student numbers falling and finances crumbling
The fact that 70 per cent of young people change institution at 16, most don’t study A-levels, and more post-16 young people are in college than schools, shows that colleges have been right to focus on serving their public, sometimes for over a century.
If we start to move away from what the public wants, we’ll find student numbers falling and our finances crumbling further.
So the danger of wishful thinking is that we end up with fewer students. As well as Nanci, we’ll all be channelling Pink Floyd’s “Wish you were here”.
