Over half of FE college boards have no black board members, while less than a third have no Asian members, new research by the Association of Colleges has found.
The report also shows nearly half of boards surveyed had 10 or more male members, but only eight reported 10 or more female members.
Association chief executive David Hughes said there is “more work” to be done “to be representative amongst senior staff and leaders” as colleges are “some of the most diverse institutions in the country in terms of students”.
This report, carried out by education and skills questionnaire provider QDP Services, provides a “baseline to work from and highlight the challenges that remain around representation, diversity and inclusion in our sector,” Hughes said.
David Hughes
As well as 32 per cent of boards having no Asian members and 51 per cent having no black members, the report also found 63 per cent had no members declaring a physical disability.
Ninety per cent of boards had fewer than three members aged under 24 and less than one per cent had a member who identified as non-heterosexual or which had a gender reassigned member.
Despite this, 70 per cent of governance professionals – paid employees who work with the board – described their board as diverse.
Only 36 per cent of board members felt their board pays sufficient attention to equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI), and one third felt their board was failing to implement EDI.
Boards most commonly monitored EDI within the organisation using an annual report on the matter, but the report called this “often a rather token mechanism”.
The report recommends all boards have a clear and contextualised definition of EDI, as it found: “Confusion over their meaning and relative stature is a common ground on which EDI stalls.”
Boards must put in place evidence-based strategies to promote EDI and “bookend” efforts to improve it with audits of issues and outcomes.
The most effective training interventions to promote EDI should also be promoted and government needs to put resources into supporting the FE sector on this.
A call for further research to come up with objective measures with a “360-degree view of EDI” is also needed.
Diversity in FE leadership has become a hot topic in the sector, with FE Week reporting in July 2019 that less than seven per cent of college principals were non-white.
The following October, the Education and Training Foundation announced its Diversity in Leadership programme including one-to-one coaching for aspiring black, Asian and minority ethnic leaders.
Ofsted has bagged an extra £24 million from government to inspect every school, college and further education provider by summer 2025.
For colleges specifically, they will receive a full inspection from September 2022 regardless of whether they are rated ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’. These colleges would typically receive a short inspection.
The inspections will also be “enhanced” to take account of “local skills needs”, in line with proposals set our in the skills for jobs white paper.
Ofsted said the decision to accelerate inspections has been made to give a quicker assessment of how well education is recovering from the pandemic.
Without the new cash, funded through the spending review, it would have taken a further year for all schools, colleges and providers to be completed, according to a spokesperson.
Chief inspector Amanda Spielman expanded on the announcement at today’s Association of Colleges conference.
She said: “I’m confident that this is a positive development and one that will be welcomed by the sector. It followed discussions with the DfE about how inspection can respond to the focus on local skills needs.
“I’m in favour of assessing the extent to which colleges have regard to local skills. We’ve had concerns about mismatches in the past between courses that are popular and courses that really open doors. There is a moral imperative here on two fronts – both to help the economy thrive and to present students with realistic pathways.”
Spielman added: “It’s really important that we get a true feel for the local economy so we can properly consider the contribution of colleges. This work clearly doesn’t lend itself to light-touch inspection. We need full inspections, with some enhancements, which I’m pleased government has recognised.”
The chief inspector said Ofsted has already started to pilot its methodologies for inspecting skills needs, and the watchdog will be seeking the sector’s input.
FE Week understands Ofsted is on a recruitment drive to hire between 18 and 25 new inspectors to build capacity for the accelerated inspections of colleges and other FE providers.
Following today’s announcement, Julie McCulloch, director of policy at the Association of School and College Leaders warned “the government has some strange ideas about the priority for education recovery”.
She said the “government hasn’t committed anything like the level of investment which is needed” to deliver recovery programmes at the scale provided. The prospect of having “deal with a visit from an inspection team isn’t particularly helpful” when schools and colleges are still dealing with pandemic disruption, she added.
Ministers’ one-year delay to defunding many BTECs and other applied general qualifications does not go far enough, the Labour Party has warned.
Addressing today’s Association of Colleges annual conference, shadow education secretary Kate Green called on the government to introduce a four-year moratorium on scrapping any of the qualifications so that none are removed before 2025 – as called for by the House of Lords.
Education secretary Nadhim Zahawi last night announced that qualifications like BTECs, which will be subject to a planned cull of level 3 qualifications that overlap with T Levels and A-levels, would not have their funding stripped until at least 2024 instead of the original plan of 2023.
He also revealed that the requirement for T Level students to achieve level 2 English and maths by the end of their course will be removed.
Green said today: “For me this doesn’t go far enough. Some BTECs will survive – but the secretary of state won’t tell us which. That undermines confidence among employers and students.
“The announced removal of the requirement for GCSE English and maths to access T Levels came without any indication of what support will be put in place to ensure students do achieve these essential skills, or how the additional need for work placements that might result will be accommodated.
“Meanwhile, pilots continue with the English and Maths GCSE requirement in place – what does last night’s announcement mean for these students?”
She added: “Ensuring the right choices remain for all students, is so important especially for the most marginalised, and that’s why Labour will continue to urge ministers to take the time to get all this right and to accept our amendment passed in the Lords with cross party support for a four-year moratorium on scrapping BTECs.”
Green also used her speech to reiterate Labour’s plans for skills.
It includes the creation of a new “further education recovery premium” – which would essentially be a post-16 pupil premium – as well as a commitment to giving every school and college access to a professional careers advisor one day a week.
A Labour government would also reinstate the equivalent of at least two weeks of compulsory work experience, Green said.
FE Week is media partner for this year’s AoC conference. Read our edition coming out on Friday for full coverage of the event.
We work in a sector that is notoriously diverse. Further education and skills is an ecosystem of differences; national and local funders, global and micro employer customers, large and small qualifications in every subject imaginable, and massive college groups and small local training providers serving learner populations that are often more diverse than the communities they come from and who are learning for all sorts of reasons.
Ask people why they work in FE and skills, though and you’re likely to get a unified response – it’s all about the opportunity for the learners we serve.
Education is a values-driven service with a social as well as economic purpose. The best educators know this and thrive in those ‘light bulb’ moments with their learners and get their kicks developing a curriculum and experience that they know sets them up for their next steps.
We also know that a worthwhile curriculum isn’t just about the trade, the craft or the academics. Getting a learner through a study programme, apprenticeship standard or qualification spec is only half the job. We also want our learners to be good people that can understand and thrive in the world around them.
That’s why the equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) agenda is so important and why I wanted to shine a spotlight on the important work being done, and that is yet to be done, on making FE an inclusive place to work and learn.
Eyes are, rightly, on the sector’s national organisations to show leadership and on provider leaders to take action.
In this special supplement, you will find honest appraisals and critical reflections from leaders at all levels as well as insights from expert EDI practitioners who are at the cutting edge of culture change in their organisations.
You will find some emerging themes, like the importance of role models and smart use of data. What I hope you don’t find in these pages is complacency.
All of this, I hope, will inspire accountability, more self-reflection and, crucially, even more change.
When we think of Further Education, we tend to think of specific subjects that may lead to university courses or vocational and professional qualifications that give students ‘hard skills’. But what of the ‘soft skills’ – the art of social interaction, empathy and self-awareness? Do colleges bring enough emphasis to these? And is there a college equivalent to PSHE studied at school that will give students a good steer on their personal wellbeing, diet, lifestyle and exercise choices?
On leaving college and seeking employment, students with life skills and social skills will be favoured by employers. Candidates who display health, confidence, self and social awareness will stand head and shoulders above other candidates.
The welfare of workforces during the pandemic put workplace wellbeing in the spotlight. Employees’ mental health and physical health were of as much a concern as their work performance. Employers were increasingly being held to account for managing the wellbeing of their staff. Not surprisingly, as people struggled to adapt and cope, empathy and social awareness became of paramount importance. As further education, internships and recruiting youngsters into their first job return to a more ‘normal’ pattern, it’s important we don’t forget the value of life skills and soft skills among students.
Importance of life skills
Life skills enable us to adapt and manage day-to-day events – from interacting with others and dealing with our emotions to behaving appropriately in any given situation. Knowing and valuing oneself is key to success, as well as having empathy for colleagues, friends and people at large. People with strong life skills have a greater awareness of themselves and those around them. As such, they make good managers and leaders and can expect to progress well at work.
It could be argued that time is the best teacher of many life skills and social skills as experience at work and in the wider world helps to shape a person. Learning from your mistakes rings very true for us all and is referred to as ‘learning the hard way’ for good reason.
But what if there was an easy way for further education providers to guide the student journey from college to work? By supporting their personal and social development, building an appreciation of their personal wellbeing and raising their awareness around healthy eating and drinking?
Ready-made menu of wellbeing courses
It can be a minefield for tutors to find the right courses and put them together for the best effect. But help is at hand thanks to a new collaboration between two of the UK’s most highly regarded Awarding and End-point Assessment Organisations – Active IQ and Skillsfirst.
They’ve joined forces to create a unique Wellbeing Package to meet the growing demand from employers for staff to have both physical and social wellness skills.
The new Wellbeing Package comprises eight qualifications and offers a broad range of topics at Level 1 and Level 2, making them accessible to the majority of learners.
The qualifications complement each other and dovetail nicely. Two or more can be studied in tandem thus maximising the opportunity for learners to gain multiple skills in a short space of time.
“We are increasingly aware that employers are looking for multi skill sets in the wellbeing field,” says Gavin Baxter, Active IQ Business Consultant. “Our bespoke Wellbeing Package will equip learners with a number of skills that are sought after in the workplace.”
“We each chose four qualifications to offer a good range of social and interpersonal skills,” says Faye Moore, Skillsfirst Head of Business Engagement. “All of our qualifications can be delivered face-to-face or in a blended model and meet the requirements of funding provision.”
Wellbeing training can be embedded into apprenticeship programmes, offered as standalone or provided within the induction programme when students join the college. Before embarking on delivering these new qualifications, Faye advises colleges to set time aside to develop their staff so that they, in turn, can support their learners.
Important life lessons
Why is it important for FE facilities to offer training / qualifications in wellbeing?
Individuals, employers and learners are increasingly invested in wellness, especially in the current climate. It’s increasingly expected that colleges will offer such qualifications and training as people realise that education plays a key role in helping young adults understand their own wellbeing.
“Students who undertake wellbeing courses will be well rounded and have a better chance of employment,” believes Gavin. “The aim is that not only will they learn about their own mental and physical health, but also gain an appreciation of the health and wellbeing of those around them.”
A good balance
The Wellbeing Package enables colleges to offer social/mental wellbeing skills training alongside physical wellbeing.
“Although we commonly think of the mind and body – our mental wellbeing and physical wellbeing – as separate, we need to think of them as a whole,” says Faye. “Physical wellbeing – being fit and healthy, having strong bones and muscles and good posture – has a positive effect on our mood and general wellbeing, as do our social connections. Training students in these complementary disciplines makes perfect sense.”
The Wellbeing Package also includes personal and social development and personal wellbeing to give learners confidence to manage their day-to-day needs. Much sought after by employers, self-awareness of one’s own wellbeing is itself a key employability skill.
Broaching sensitive topics
Some of the qualifications on offer – smoking cessation, alcohol awareness and LGBT inclusion – broach important topics that may be sensitive for younger learners. However, as these issues are highly likely to affect young adults, shying away from them in the classroom is not the answer.
Focus on the person – not just the skill
Responsible employers will look at the whole person, not just their skillset, as they understand that optimum productivity can only be achieved by an individual who is physically, mentally and socially on top of their game. The best skilled person in the world won’t see their competency fulfilled if they don’t have life skills and soft skills.
A number of FE colleges and training providers are already successfully incorporating Active IQ and Skillsfirst personal and workplace wellbeing qualifications. As life skills grow in value and importance to employers and students respectively, wellbeing skills training within colleges looks set to have a very healthy future.
Active IQ & Skillsfirst Wellbeing Package includes:
A college chief executive is stepping down after suffering from a “serious heart attack”.
John van de Laarschot will end his five-year tenure at Nottingham College at the end of this year to “focus on regaining fitness and resilience”.
In a message to the college on Friday, chair Carole Thorogood thanked van de Laarschot for his “significant contribution and to wish him well with his ongoing recovery”.
Martin Sim, a deputy FE Commissioner, took over from van de Laarschot at Nottingham College in May.
The college has 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.
The college has long term debt of £47.2 million and recorded a deficit of £10,million in 2020, according to its latest published accounts.
Thorogood said van de Laarschot “successfully led the college through a challenging and difficult merger securing funding from the ESFA, City Council, LEP and Barclays”.
“He has worked tirelessly to consolidate the college’s estate and deliver the superb city hub campus whilst establishing a positive vision and values which now underpin the college’s future as the preferred destination for students and an employer of choice for staff,” she added.
“Under his leadership the college has successfully navigated challenging financial and quality focused issues and has emerged stronger and well positioned for the future.”
Nottingham College has more than 1,000 staff and teaches around 20,000 students each year.
A spokesperson for the college said leadership will embark on finding a new permanent chief executice to ensure they are in post by the beginning of August 2022.
Sim will continue as interim boss until the appointment is made.
Plans to start removing funding for most BTECs and other applied general qualifications from 2023 will be delayed by a year, the education secretary has announced.
Nadhim Zahawi also revealed tonight that the exit requirements for English and maths in T Levels will be removed.
During the second reading of the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill to the House of Commons this evening, he told MPs: “I am clear that T Levels and A-levels should be front and centre of the level 3 landscape.
“But I am also convinced that we need other qualifications alongside them – many of which currently exist – that play a valuable role in supporting good outcomes for students. It is quite likely we will see many BTECs and other similar applied general style qualifications continuing to play an important role in 16 to 19 education, for the foreseeable future.
“Our reforms to the qualifications landscape are rightly ambitious, but we know that we would be wrong to push too hard and risk compromising quality. That is why I am announcing today that we have decided to allow an extra year before our reform timetable is implemented.”
It means that qualifications affected by the cull will now not be defunded until 2024 at the earliest, compared to the original plan of 2023.
The announcement will be seen as a win for the Protect Student Choice campaign, a coalition of FE and skills sector organisations led by the Sixth Form Colleges Association, which has been calling for the plans to be reversed or at least slowed down.
Many MPs and Lords have also backed the call of the campaign in recent months, which has led to the new Department for Education ministerial team softening their language around the reforms.
Zahawi said tonight that this extra year will “allow us to continue to work hard to support the growth of T Levels and gives more notice to providers, awarding organisations, employers, students and parents so that they can prepare for the changes”.
Bill Watkin, chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges Association, said he was “pleased” by the delay but added it is “vital the government uses this extra year to develop a transparent process for determining the future of these qualifications that involves providers, students and employers”.
Association of Colleges chief executive David Hughes also welcomed the announcement, saying it shows the education secretary “has been listening and examining the evidence”.
In his speech, Zahawi also announced the requirement for T Level students to reach level 2 in English and maths by the end of their course will be watered down.
He said the Department for Education hears “consistently” that some students are being put off taking a T Level because of the rule.
“I can also announce today that we will remove the English and maths exit requirement from T Levels,” he told MPs.
“This will bring them in line with other qualifications, including A-levels, and ensure talented young people with more diverse strengths are not arbitrarily shut out from rewarding careers in sectors such as construction, catering and health-care. The Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education is taking immediate steps towards this.”
Following a two-stage level 3 and below review, launched in March 2019, the DfE announced last July it would strip public funding from “poor quality” qualifications which overlap with T Levels or A-levels.
The department’s response to the review consultation revealed that BTEC qualifications would become “rare” once it begins phasing in a new “streamlined” system for level 3 courses from 2023.
Watkin said that funding should not be withdrawn for any BTEC “unless there is clear evidence that the qualification is not valued by students or employers.
“An evidence-based approach, involving those directly involved in delivery, is essential if we are to have a qualification system that works for everyone.”
Hughes added: “Delaying defunding gives more time for greater evaluation of T levels and how they work in the new landscape of qualifications.
“I want all pathways, including T levels to be a success and to be as accessible to as many students as possible. Removing the English and maths GCSE exit requirement in all T levels and the extra flexibilities on industry placements announced last week will open up these new qualifications to many more students.”
His name, and the name of his think tank, gets everywhere. How is one man who left teaching twice so influential in the busy world of education policy?
You have to admire Tom Richmond’s nerve.
There aren’t many teachers who, after three years in the classroom, decided the Department for Education was messing up, thought they’d offer to help out – and ended up doing precisely that, as a civil servant adviser to Michael Gove and then-skills minister Matt Hancock.
He may also be unique in returning to the classroom and finding, in his own words, that “Brexit was sucking the oxygen” out of education policy debates, and deciding to set up his own think tank instead.
Nowadays, Richmond and his think tank, EDSK (which stands for Education and Skills) are featured regularly across the press: his report on reforming assessment was covered across the i, the Mirror, the Express and trade media in January, while another on ‘fake apprenticeships’ hit BBC headlines last year.
A BBC interview in 2018 after returning to politics
Also unlike most think tanks, EDSK gives FE proper attention. Out of ten reports, its first was on Ofsted inspections in schools, but its second was on post-18 individual education budgets. There are two more, on the apprenticeship levy and the purpose of FE. That’s three reports: the same number EDSK has published on schools (the other reports are on higher education).
Yet for a policy obsessive, Richmond says “in the first 25 years of my life, I’d never shown the slightest interest in politics. Until I went into the classroom.”
He is the third of four children, born to a software developer father and a mother who retrained as a modern languages teacher to help pay for his fees at Haberdashers’ Aske’s private school.
Richmond at primary school in 1980
Having “never really fallen for any subjects” at school, Richmond was at a loss what to study next, when he came across a “dusty old psychology textbook” in the library.
“I absolutely fell in love with the subject in the space of a single book,” he says. He studied psychology at Birmingham University, then decided to “dig into the practical side” of the subject and turned to teaching. He took a PGCE at the UCL Institute of Education, followed by a masters in child development, and volunteered for Childline. The initial goal was to “share the love of my subject”.
But this was soon overtaken by another preoccupation, in his first job teaching A-level students in 2004. “I started, like many teachers around the country, being the recipient of how things should work,” he begins. “And it dawned on me that some very strange decisions were being made.”
At the time, New Labour was seeking to switch from six to four A-level units. “I thought, there may be arguments for this, but the disruption it will cause me, compared to any real benefits to my students, is surely wrong. Who is advising these politicians?”
But is someone with only three years’ teaching experience well placed to advise ministers?
“It felt to me there were very few perspectives from teachers getting through.” At the time “there wasn’t really a crop of young teachers trying to make a difference using what they’d learnt” when he left his school in 2007, he says.
First, he became a research intern with Conservative MP Andrew Turner, then a researcher at the Social Market Foundation on reforming benefits.
His first job in education policy was at the Policy Exchange think tank from 2008 to 2009, under education policy expert Sam Freedman, who later also advised Gove. Policy Exchange is seen as right-wing leaning – given his work for Turner, is Richmond?
“I wasn’t strongly political. I’d been a member of a teaching union before,” he shrugs, before saying it was the coming change that appealed to him.
“It was healthy that a new government came in in 2010, and said ‘some things are not working, we’re not convinced by coursework, and attainment around the C/D borderline is a problem’.”
He adds: “Policy Exchange became an ideas-generating machine, and I found that very exciting.”
Graduating from Birmingham University in 2002
It was here that Richmond became a school teacher deeply interested in skills. Freedman was clear this was a “huge blind spot” in policymaking, partly because so few MPs, civil servants and policy advisors had experience of the FE and skills system, he adds.
Digging into apprenticeships and colleges has made a lasting impression on Richmond. “One of the things it rammed home to me was that we have these enormous cliff edges in our education system, and we have no concept, it seems, of making a smooth transition from the world of education to employment. I’ve never seen another country treat it like that. They work much harder to blend the world of education and employment, where employers are much more freely involved in the world of education.”
He raises his eyebrows. “We know the scarring effects. I find it immensely frustrating.”
After advising the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, and being head of policy on the Welfare to Work programme for unemployed adults at G4S, Richmond soon found himself being interviewed by Hancock to advise the government on skills in 2013. (It perhaps says a lot that the government still looked to a former school teacher who had learnt about the skills system, rather than an FE member of staff, to be their skills adviser.)
He was kept busy. Both the Wolf Report on vocational education in 2011 and the Richard Review of apprenticeships in 2012 were a “sign” to Richmond that “the government realised there was a really important agenda that hadn’t been finalised”, he says. He worked on everything from reforming the apprenticeship system to helping with the introduction of traineeships and new vocational qualifications.
Outside No 10 in 2008 after leaving teaching for politics
But after two years at the DfE, Richmond wanted to return to working with young people, and so joined a sixth- form college in 2016. It had been almost ten years since he’d been a teacher. How was it this time?
“I was working 60- or 70-hour weeks, which was strangely reminiscent of me being in teaching before,” he says. “I was not able to shave off any hours in the week, even though I knew the reforms were coming!”
The job was clearly not done. So in 2018 Richmond took a couple of research fellow posts: working on the apprenticeship levy for the Reform think tank, and writing a report on T Levels for Policy Exchange.
In that, he acknowledges the “entirely justified concerns” around timescale for T Levels, and calls for awarding organisations to join employers in consortium, in an attempt to head off delivery woes early.
Then in 2019, he founded EDSK. The output has been immense, with each report snappily titled and usually around 60 pages.
The Requires Improvement report on Ofsted calls for government to scrap the four overall grades and to introduce a ‘score card’ packed with information instead (you can imagine the suggestion being welcomed by colleges, but it focuses only on schools).
His second report, Free to Choose, also from 2019, calls for post-18 students to get a ‘learning account’ with up to £20,000 (depending on how disadvantaged the student is) to spend on a “single tertiary education system” of universities, colleges and apprenticeships. Again, you can hear colleges cheering.
The third report on FE hit the headlines in January 2020 for claiming that half of all apprenticeships started since 2017 were ‘fake’ and had been wrongly allocated £1.2 billion.
Richmond called for a new world-class definition of an apprenticeship decided by the DfE (not employers), and said the term ‘apprenticeship’ should apply only to level 3, not to levels 4 to 7, which should be called ‘technical and professional education’ instead.
“Bearing in mind other think tanks have had a 20-year head start, setting up a new think tank in this environment is a steep learning curve,” smiles Richmond. It’s funded through sponsored research, events and an annual ‘partnership’ scheme for supporters. You can see he’s pleased with how it’s turning out.
Charity trek to the Himalayas to raise money for Childline
The success is likely down to a multitude of factors. First, Richmond can write exceptionally clearly, and makes bold recommendations aimed straight at the DfE – a win with journalists and policymakers alike.
Second, he can think around the stickiest of problems. Take the fourth report relevant to FE, Further Consideration, this time co-authored with another researcher, Andrew Bailey.
Although Bailey is, again, a former school teacher, the report was funded by the Further Education Trust for Leadership and included interviews with the great and good of FE.
The report makes the intriguing proposition that all FE colleges should be split into separate institutions with “their own brand and identity”: community colleges (for entry- level courses), sixth-form colleges (for A-levels), and technology colleges (for all technical, vocational and apprenticeship training, with a monopoly on T Levels).
It also called for an ‘FE director’ in every area. Even if you don’t agree, it’s a comprehensive effort to plan a more unified system, and well worth a read.
Finally, it definitely helps when journalists can say “a former Michael Gove advisor says”. Now he’s even set up a new podcast to discuss the issues of the day. Taken together, these factors have made Richmond an unusually powerful former teacher.
Richmond recording a podcast episode
Yet the fact remains he was pushed out of the classroom, twice. Richmond admits of his last stint: “They were two very tiring and exhausting years.”
Leaving the classroom has worked out for Richmond, and he is doing a commendable job thinking up rigorous system ideas for FE in a landscape where too few think tanks treat colleges, training providers, schools and universities on a par.
Perhaps, however, until his think tank – and other think tanks, and ministers – prioritise the policy crisis of workload and teacher demotivation, then bright minds like Richmond’s won’t make half the impact they really deserve to.
Graduation day is one of the rituals that can help students feel they belong, writes Daniel Phillips
“She worked so hard. We’re so proud.”
It’s in that moment that graduation is no longer about daft hats, but glistening eyes and proud smiles. That’s when you find out what it means to your students.
The weight of word counts, observations and grading criteria is lifted, replaced with recognition.
This week was the turn of our college students from both 2020 and 2021 to don gowns and take the stage. While 2020 had a smaller ceremony last year (thanks to you-know-what), this time they had the full treatment.
And it was during that smaller occasion that I saw the meaning of passing through and being accepted as a degree holder.
When I was a student, I just rented the gown last minute, skipped across the stage and went on to the next thing. I’m not sure I saw the point of pomp and ceremony.
But when I hear the cheer from my students’ families at their graduation, this rite of passage, this public display of togetherness, gives wider meaning to that piece of paper. I’m talking about a sense of community and a shared meaning that I think we can forget as teachers.
Away from making our lesson objectives, workshop and classroom practices ‘just right’, how do we build that wider sense of belonging that cannot be described through data? Do we have time to create community in our colleges? Why does it matter?
You’ll be pleased to hear that I’ve done the research so that you don’t have to.
For many students enrolling in education, but especially those who are the rare breed of ‘HE in FE’, this process of starting a degree feels new and ‘risky’.
For these students, who may be the first in their family to do this route, the delayed gratification of graduation can feel distant on day one.
As teachers we may bemoan that students look to what their friends are doing, but this is a phenomenon that has an impact on outcomes.
Students’ “investments in education… depend not only on individual benefits, such as test scores and grades, but also on social benefits, such as whether a particular level of effort is consistent with the behaviour of one’s social group”.
That’s according to a 2014 paper by Lavecchia et al in the National Bureau of Economic Research.
So anything that gives your experience a broader community meaning creates the ties that bind. In other words, it’s not just about teaching the technical ‘how-to’ of a subject or course.
It’s also about finding the space for students to develop their perspectives, come together as a student body and have the opportunity to make an impact in their college society.
But coming together is a huge challenge in further education. Our students’ timetables are more fluid than those of a school, and the campus does not have the ‘completeness’ of a university.
Our student timetables are more fluid than a school’s
And austerity’s screw has turned tightest in FE, leaving us with limited capacity to build links and ‘do extra’.
The building of a community also needs direct sustained leadership. Perhaps, for example, this week your staff and students marked Armistice Day together.
As a teacher, I’ve often been guilty of forgetting this social aspect of learning, too consumed by my technical tasks to see the community.
My colleagues have been better, with new student mentorship schemes, cross-course projects and social events, especially after lockdown. But before I become another ‘do as I say, not as I do’, I’ve started to find the time to do this.
Because how students experience this small society while at college has as much potential to shape their approach to learning as our pedagogy.
That’s really why graduation day matters so much to them.
