In this episode, Shane is joined by deputy news editor Billy, commissioning editor Jess, and senior reporter Fraser to discuss their top story picks from the last year.
We wish you a merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!
IfATE grants extensions to more apprenticeship assessment flexibilities
The Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education has extended three more flexibilities for apprenticeship assessments into the new year in response to the Omicron variant.
Instead of being switched off at the end of this month, the trio of discretions which apply to all apprenticeships will now run until midnight on 28 February 2022.
The three flexibilities allow:
- Changes to be made to who sits on the end point assessment interview/discussion panel (when someone in addition to the independent assessor is specified)
- Suitable evidence of achievements to be used in place of functional skills qualifications at gateway. IfATE say other mandated qualifications are covered under temporary discretions
- Extension to the length of the end-point assessment period where specified
Delivery director for the institute Rob Nitsch said: “Our priority remains the safety of employers, apprentices and off-the-job training and assessment providers, whilst allowing apprentices to carry on and complete their apprenticeships with minimum disruption whilst maintaining quality.
“We hope that the extension of the flexibilities for two months will play a significant role in doing just this and we will monitor the situation and make any further adjustments as necessary.”
This comes after seven other flexibilities, also introduced to help the sector through the Covid-19 pandemic, were extended for use until next March.
Education officials have scrambled together a response to the Omicron variant after prime minister Boris Johnson announced the imposition of new restrictions this week.
Ofsted suspended inspections set for next week, except where there are concerns about safeguarding, so providers can prepare contingency measures for next term.
The Department for Education also published an “urgent” update on Thursday, telling provider leaders what to do about January exams and plans to introduce daily contact testing for students under 18.
IfATE has updated guidance about using more than 60 temporary discretions for specific apprenticeships, some of which have been given a six-month extension following requests from their sectors. Others will be available until midnight 28 February.
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: EDITION 373
Suzanne Slater, Director of operations – apprenticeships, NCFE
Start date: October 2021
Previous job: Assistant principal, Gateshead College
Interesting fact: She took up sailing this year and achieved her Royal Yachting Association certificates, although after the recent cold and windy weather, she has decided “I’m definitely a ‘fair weather’ sailor!”
Tara Roudiani, Managing director, Training Now
Start date: December 2021
Previous job: Quality manager and deputy head of service, Lambeth Adult Learning, Lambeth Council
Interesting fact: When she came to England at the start of the Iranian Revolution, she couldn’t speak any English: “Farsi is my first language, so I learnt to speak English in school when I was 7.”
Kevin O’Hare, Interim principal, Keighley College (part of Luminate Education Group)
Start Date: December 2021
Previous job: Head of visual and digital arts department, Leeds City College
Interesting fact: He has spent the last 15 years making artworks related to the 1970s MB Connect 4 game.
Rachel Butt, Director of excellence, Learning Curve Group
Start date: December 2021
Previous Job: Director of quality and curriculum: teaching, learning and professional development, Warrington and Vale Royal College
Interesting fact: She started her career as a teacher of performing arts and still loves any opportunity to go to the theatre.
Susan James Relly, Professor of vocational education, University of Oxford department of education
Start date: November 2021
Previous job: Associate professor and director of the Skills, Knowledge and Organisational Performance (SKOPE) Research Centre
Interesting fact: She has been learning traditional upholstery since 2008 and previously taught classes in an upholstery school for adult learners.
SEND review may be folded into schools white paper
The leader of the government’s long-awaited SEND review has hinted its results could be rolled into the upcoming schools white paper, as concerns mount about affordability and student attainment.
The Department for Education is set to bring forward the white paper in the new year, while also releasing the results of a review of special education needs and disabilities (SEND) provision in the first three months of 2022. A review of children’s social care for the DfE is also ongoing.
Speaking at the Association of Colleges’ annual SEND conference on Tuesday, the DfE’s SEND review team leader Helen Nix discussed wrapping reforms from a SEND green paper, set to follow the review’s publication, into the white paper.
She told delegates “close readers of Schools Week [FE Week’s sister newspaper] will have read that there will be a schools white paper at the same sort of time” as the two reviews.
“There are closer links between those three pieces of work than I’ve ever seen before,” she said.
Sector leaders have welcomed the idea of a more “seamless” and “joined-up” system linking pre-16 and post-16 provision after young people in many parts of the country have seen official support drop off a cliff edge once they reach their 16th birthday.
‘We cannot go on as we are’
The SEND Review, originally due to be released earlier this year before being repeatedly delayed, is evaluating reforms made under the Children and Families Act 2014.
These include the SEND code of practice, which sets out legal duties for education providers, local authorities and health bodies to provide for young people with special educational needs (SEN).
The act also led to the introduction of education, health and care plans (EHCPs), which set out the needs of young people with SEN which authorities must meet.
A schools white paper was first mooted by then-education secretary Gavin Williamson in June as a means to widen the academies programme. It was reaffirmed in October by current education secretary Nadhim Zahawi, who said a schools white paper would be brought forward next year and “outline plans to tackle innumeracy and illiteracy”.
Nix stressed that: “I genuinely can’t predict whether or not we will want to reflect” the green paper, school reforms and the results of the social care review “in the same sort of bill”.
“The thing I can tell you is I think we’ve reached a point with SEND where there is a recognition that we cannot go on as we are.” This is due to three reasons: “The first is just the sheer unaffordability of the system as it currently stands.”
SEND experts previously told FE Week that SEND students are “phenomenally expensive” compared to their peers. All young people with SEND going for an EHCP has also put “pressure” on public finances, Nix said.
The second reason Nix listed was: “When you look at the outcomes of these children, their achievements are substantially lower than their nondisabled peers. And that can’t go on either.”
A third reason, she said, was when people are trying to access the support they need, “it is really very poor and frankly, at its worst, none of us likes it very much”.
Despite “loads of brilliant practice” generated by the sector, Nix said this is “not consistent”.
Multiple Ofsted reviews of local area SEND provision published this year have identified that provision for young people with SEND falls of a cliff-edge once they reach age 16.
Government SEND reforms ‘should complement each other,’ say experts
Natspec chief executive Clare Howard “can see there would be benefit in linking the SEND green paper with other proposals to create a joined-up system”.
But she hopes “this will not prevent us from ensuring that FE and the needs of those aged 16 to 25 do not get overlooked in the SEND review”.
The Association of Colleges’ senior policy manager for SEND, David Holloway, said: “Better alignment between post-16 SEND policy and other policy areas is helpful to ensure a more seamless transition for young people through the education system and to level up employment outcomes for people with disabilities.”
He said the two reviews, the national disability strategy published this year and the schools white paper “should be complementing each other, and college SEND students are much more likely to benefit from government policy that embeds preparation for adulthood throughout.”
Let’s talk about SAKS: Provider scores top Ofsted marks
A hairdressing training provider has retained its ‘outstanding’ rating from Ofsted after a 15-year inspection hiatus.
SAKS (Education) Limited, which has 434 learners studying various hairdressing and barbering apprenticeships at level 2 and 3, was awarded a grade one in every area of its
October inspection.
The report, published on Tuesday, commends educators as “open, friendly and welcoming,” and for “celebrating apprentices’ strengths and supporting them to be resilient in the face of challenges they face,” including Covid-19.
Founded in 1999, SAKS was last inspected in 2006 by the Adult Learning Inspectorate (ALI) – which was absorbed by Ofsted in 2007.
Grade one education providers are being inspected this term for the first time since 2010, after an exemption was removed last year.
Inspectors compliment employer involvement, educators, and governance
Ofsted said SAKS’ educators and leaders work “very effectively and closely” with employers to plan the curriculum, which ensures apprentices develop skills they need and in the right order.
If apprentices do not develop the skills they need rapidly enough, teaching plans are adjusted with employers to help learners catch up.
“Highly experienced” teaching staff keep up to date thanks to frequent training provided by leaders, by updating their product knowledge and by gaining other qualifications.
The workforce is supported “exceptionally well,” with leaders managing staff with compassion and ensuring they are not overloaded with work or have unmanageable caseloads.
Apprentices report feeling safe and that they know how to recognise risks and report concerns. Social media groups have weekly ‘hot topic’ discussions among apprentices, which focus on everyday issues such as the recent spate of drink-spiking incidents.
Inspectors also highlighted the provider’s “highly effective” governance, led by SAKS Education chair and former Ofsted and AIL inspector Phil Hatton.
“Board members share the ambition and vision of leaders to provide high-quality apprenticeships” and “regularly” challenge and support leaders to ensure “continuous improvement”.
Ofsted grade ‘a real credit to our apprentices and educators,’ boss says
SAKS currently delivers from academies based in Darlington and Maidstone as well in employers’ workplaces.
Tina Ockerby, managing director of the Darlington-based independent provider, called the grade one “a real credit to our apprentices and educators – and of course the salons across the UK who support their learners so wholeheartedly”.
She added that the provider knew it had to make a “huge effort” when coronavirus struck in order not to lose apprentices during lockdown, and a remote learning survey of apprentices gave SAKS a rating of 4.5 out of 5.
Phil Hatton called the provider “the best I have ever seen for self-assessment, quality improvement, professional development of staff, support for apprentices, safeguarding and the focus that all have on developing practical skills.
“I am proud to be associated with them and what they do so well.”
Pictured top (left to right): Sukye Bass, academy hairdressing educator; Eve Lofthouse, hairdressing at Number 4; Tina Ockerby, managing director, Saks Apprenticeships, Conner Heaney, Saks Middlesbrough
Moulton rises from the ashes: College climbs out of ‘inadequate’
The staff of a land-based college received an early Christmas present this week after bouncing from double Ofsted ‘inadequate’ results to ‘good’.
Moulton College has announced plans to restart apprenticeships and aims to score an ‘outstanding’ rating at its next inspection after receiving the grade two on Monday.
The Northamptonshire college, which was ‘outstanding’ in 2008, was slapped with a grade four in 2018 and again in 2019.
It was also placed into financial intervention following a report by then-FE Commissioner Richard Atkins in April 2018.
Corrie Harris, Moulton’s principal, credited this week’s result to her “amazing team”: “They have massively pulled together, and they’ve got a huge can-do attitude.”
The current FE Commissioner, Shelagh Legrave, commended the college on Twitter, posting: “Many congratulations to Moulton College on achieving good from Ofsted. A great achievement which Corrie Harris, governors and staff should be rightly proud of.”
The grade four reports, which included findings such as Moulton’s equine studies and sport teachers paying “insufficient attention to health and safety practice”, were “horrible” for staff, Harris said.
“I can’t begin to tell you how difficult it is. They feel like it’s a slur and that they’re not good enough.”
When she announced the grade two to about 200 staff, she saw “grown men crying because it’s not just a relief, they get their pride back”.
Some staff had been at the college for 20 years and always knew ”that with the right leadership and support” they could get back to results like the 2008 ‘outstanding’ rating, she said.
College strove to improve CPD and curriculum structure
Harris says the improvement on the grade four began before she joined in July 2019.
She credited it to having the right culture, introduced through new procedures and much wider use of staff training.
Both the 2018 and 2019 reports called on the college to improve teacher training.
The latest report notes how leaders “have developed suitable plans to help staff improve their teaching skills”, including training for new lecturers and opportunities for professional development.
Harris put this down to having “great coaches, a great director of teaching and learning, and a great quality director all led by the vice principal”.
As well as doing “lots” of internal CPD, the college brought in a former Ofsted inspector to train staff.
Teacher turnover has gone from 50 per cent when Harris started to just 9 per cent.
The college has also restructured its curriculum, which inspectors said contributed to an improvement in the quality of education.
Staff also now use labour market intelligence and a vector tool, which plots where all students are going to identify gaps in the labour market.
Harris said the process is so good, “we’ve now shared it with other colleges”.
However, Ofsted days attendance still needs to improve, “Leaders and managers have not yet ensured that all learners attend their classes at consistently high rates.”
Harris hit back at what she thought was the watchdog “clutching at straws a little bit”, as attendance was at 90 per cent.
‘Foot firmly on the pedal’ towards Ofsted grade one
Inspectors told her that with “a couple of little tweaks” the college would have been given an ‘outstanding’ for the leadership and management theme.
Asked whether aiming for grade one at its next inspection was realistic, when others had
lost that grade under the new inspection framework, Harris called it a matter of “foot firmly on the pedal”.
The grade four meant the college had to stop providing apprenticeships, which she said was a “bugbear” as there were “pockets” of “fantastic” provision in areas such as civil engineering.
But with a grade two, Moulton is looking to restart apprenticeships in construction – “because there’s a huge need” – and land-based sectors – “because nobody else can do them” in the county.
Harris expects her college to come out of intervention this year and for it to generate a small financial surplus in 2021-22, after a £6.5 million deficit in 2019-20.
Shrewsbury Colleges Group is currently the only grade four college in England.
New DfE skills board: scanty minutes lead to ‘closed shop’ accusations
The Department for Education has been accused of turning its skills and productivity board into a “closed shop” after publishing fewer than two pages of minutes for each of their meetings.
Details from seven meetings of the group of experts, stretching from December 2020 to September 2021, were recently and quietly published by the DfE.
But each set of minutes runs for just a couple of pages each, with most of the first page taken up with a list of who had attended the meetings.
Agenda items are covered in as little as two lines of text.
Minutes from a meeting in August revealed a discussion was held on how the skills system promotes productivity in areas that are underperforming economically, but simply states: “Board members provided updates on the four research proposals agreed under question 3. All leads shared high-level research plans with the secretariat.”
A member of the board, who was previously sworn to secrecy about the board’s work, admitted the minutes are “very brief” but insisted their work will help improve the design and planning of FE provision.
A meeting from this January, the only one attended by an education secretary, revealed the following about a discussion between then-minister Gavin Williamson and board members: “The secretary of state for education shared his priorities for skills reform and expressed his enthusiasm for the board’s work. Board members engaged in Q&A with the secretary of state.”
‘DfE’s work ought to be open to scrutiny, not a closed shop’
After being shown the minutes by FE Week, chair of the Commons education select committee Robert Halfon demanded the board “publish more detailed minutes” as the public “should be able to access proper records of the advice and evidence that is being passed on to ministers and informing their decisions.
“Education for adults will be absolutely fundamental to driving our economy and enabling people throughout our country to live fulfilling lives,” he said.
“Therefore, the department’s work in this sector ought to be open to scrutiny, not a closed shop.”
The board was commissioned by Williamson in October 2020, with six top researchers led by a chair from industry to provide independent advice on how courses and qualifications should align to the skills employers need following Covid-19.
So far it has had two chairs: Stephen van Rooyen from Sky, who left after a year in post due to “family reasons”, and was replaced in August by Siemens’ Angela Noon.
FE Week reported in October how, a year on from the board being set up, it had yet to publish any minutes.
The DfE previously came under fire for how sluggishly it published board minutes: a drop of seven sets of minutes in August 2020 were the first to be released since February 2018.
A report published last month by the cross-party Lords Youth Unemployment Committee called on the department to make public the skills board’s findings and annually publish data on skills gaps.
Speaking about this latest release, committee chair and Liberal Democrat peer Lord Shipley called it “very surprising that minutes of meetings are so incomplete”.
A DfE spokesperson said: “The published minutes reflect the issues being discussed by the board, and all products from the board’s work will be published in the spring.”
‘We need to stop fixating about qualifications,’ says board member
Board member and Oxford University emeritus professor in education Ewart Keep told FE Week a “fundamental problem” with the board is its name, which he argues implies they are a policy body that makes “huge decisions and what not,” rather than a research body.
“Most of what we discuss is actually really rather minute technical stuff.”
Having read the minutes, Keep said they are “very brief” but he certified there was nothing missing.
One of the board’s key findings so far, he said, was that the country has a “reasonably good understanding” of its stock of qualifications, but not of what skills are in the labour market.
This is because people may attain a qualification and then go on to complete more, uncertified training during their careers.
As such, Keep believes, “we need to stop fixating about qualifications,” which cannot be “the sole analytical frame” for working out skills shortages.
Through the board, he had also found soft skills, such as communication and team and project management, are in “short supply… More and more employers are asking for more of them at a higher level, so ultimately, it’s important those skills are embedded in both qualifications and teaching.”
Asked how the board’s work will impact on the sector, he answered that the “quality of labour market information, which will help course planning and course design, will improve”.
This will be through “finely grained indicators” on future skills demand, which will inform student numbers, what sectors are most in need, and what each qualification will be required to do.
Top university places up 28% after record A-level results
The number of places offered by top universities has soared by almost a third in two years, after A-level results hit a record high.
The increase at the most competitive universities comes after two years of teacher-assessed grades sparked grade inflation.
Data from the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) shows 103,010 young people secured places at “higher tariff” universities – which have stricter academic entrance criteria – at the end of the 2021 admissions cycle.
This is yet more evidence that the value of HE has never been so treasured
It marks an 11 per cent increase on the 92,650 accepted in 2020, and a 28 per cent rise on the 80,380 accepted before the pandemic in 2019.
The increase over the past year significantly exceeds the 3 per cent rise in the size of the 18-year-old population.
UCAS said its new figures revealed the most detailed insight yet into the impact of awarding grades based on teachers’ assessments after Covid forced exam cancellations.
It noted the number of applicants who had achieved three A* or equivalent grades at A-level, at 19,595, had almost doubled on 2020 levels and almost quadrupled on 2019 levels.
University ‘flexibility’ praised
Clare Marchant, the service’s chief executive, said thousands more students were benefiting as their “hard work throughout the pandemic has been rightly recognised” by teacher assessments.
The “flexibility shown by universities and colleges” had also boosted numbers, particularly at the most competitive institutions, she added.
Many other high-achieving students were also choosing to reapply in the current admissions cycle.
Marchant has previously highlighted the “squeeze on available places”, particularly for competitive courses, amid increased demand and continued growth in the number of 18-year-olds.
Some Oxbridge colleges slashed offer numbers by as much as 15 per cent to avoid an admissions bulge this year.
Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, said it was “yet more evidence that the huge value of higher education has never been so treasured as it has been during the pandemic”.
But he said universities needed to be careful that they did not expand so fast that their student experience suffered.
Story by Tom Belger
A class of their own: The school that enrolled one T Level student
A school handed £1.2 million for a new six-classroom, purpose-built block to teach the government’s flagship T Levels has recruited just one student, FE Week can reveal.
Salesian School, in Surrey, began delivering the education and childcare route this September after a one-year deferral that was blamed on Covid-19. It planned to recruit 15 learners.
But the school struggled to sell the technical course to students who opted to stick with “qualifications that they know”, such as A-levels, because universities and employers “better understand” them.
The school, which completed its new T Level block last summer, is now delivering one-to-one tuition to just one learner as a result.
The government has committed £183 million in T Level capital funding for providers for buildings and equipment to help deliver the new qualifications.
Painsley Catholic College, in Staffordshire, has built a £1 million hub intended for exclusive digital T Level use, including “state-of-the-art learning pods”.
It aimed to recruit eight students this year – but only two signed up. Both providers said some rooms were now temporarily being used for other courses.
Rules on the grant funding require providers to deliver T Levels for two decades. The DfE can reclaim funding if courses cease, or if funding is used for other purposes.
Salesian executive headteacher James Kibble said: “We believe that T Levels offer a real opportunity, so decided that the best way for us to overcome the perceived barriers was to start to deliver them.”
While he said it was a “positive addition” to student options, he admitted students “feel they know very little” about them.
On the sole pupil being recruited, he added: “This is not viable for any more than a short period of time, but the potential longer-term benefits of offering this qualification make this is a strategic investment.”
Adam Reynolds, computer science head and T Levels lead at Painsley, said it was doing “everything we can” to promote courses. But he added: “There needs to be a massive drive from government to raise awareness.”
Government has already run an initial £3 million marketing campaign. Education secretary Nadhim Zahawi has more recently vowed to make T Levels “as famous as A-levels” by the next election.
But Reynolds warned many pupils do not want to put “all their eggs in one basket”. T Levels are the equivalent of three A-levels, in one subject.
Not being able to study science or maths alongside digital courses was a “nightmare” as students “instantly get switched off”, Reynolds added. Leaving one-third of each course for other subjects would make them “more appealing”.
Kibble agreed most students wanted to study T Levels alongside other qualifications. “It’s a pity it has to be all or nothing.”
Ofqual chief regulator Jo Saxton also said last month she would prefer T Levels to be slimmed down so students can study another qualification alongside it.
Tom Richmond, a former Department for Education special adviser turned director of think-tank EDSK, said tiny cohort sizes in some institutions were “almost an inevitability”.
“It was perfectly sensible for the DfE to push capital investment towards T Level providers, given the focus on meeting employer needs, but it was always going to be difficult to convince learners and parents to take a chance on an untried and untested qualification,” he told FE Week.
A DfE spokesperson promised to work with providers that have not hit their student target numbers to “ensure successful long-term success” of T Levels.