The government plans to remove bubbles and social distancing rules in FE providers from July 19, the education secretary confirmed today.
Gavin Williamson told the House of Commons that most Covid-19 restrictions in education settings will be eased under step 4 of lockdown.
Department for Education guidance for colleges and FE providers has also been published outlining the changes.
Here is what Williamson said can be expected.
‘Bubbles’ recommendation to be removed
Under current guidance, FE providers are recommended to reduce the number of contacts between students and staff by keeping groups in separate “bubbles”.
Williamson said this advice will be lifted from July 19.
“Keeping children in consistent groups was essential to control the spread of the virus when our population as less vaccinated, we recognise the system of bubbles and isolation is causing disruption to many children’s education.
“That is why we will be ending bubbles.”
He added that the DfE will also be transferring contact tracing to the NHS test and trace system.
Only Covid-positive children to self-isolate from August 16
Williamson said his department is setting out new rules that mean from August 16, “children will only need to isolate if they have tested positive for Covid-19”.
It is not clear at this stage if this will also apply to adult students in FE providers.
The education secretary said: “In education settings, guidance on isolation of contacts will stay in place until the end of this term, in line with isolation rules for the rest of the population.
“As more adults are vaccinated settings will continue to have a role in working with health protection teams in the case of a local outbreak. Where necessary, some measures may need to be reintroduced from August 16. Those under the age of 18 years old will no longer be required to self-isolate.
“Instead, children will be contacted by test and trace informed they have been in close contact with a positive case and advised to take a PCR test. 18-year-olds will be treated in the same way as children until four months after their 18th birthday to allow them to have the opportunity to get fully vaccinated.”
No staggered start and finish times
In addition to ending bubbles, Williamson said it will “not be necessary” to stagger start and finish times.
“Schools and colleges may of course continue with these measures until the end of the summer term, if they so wish,” he added.
Face coverings and social distancing not needed
Williamson said that some protective measures including enhanced hygiene and ventilation will remain in place for the autumn term.
But from step four face coverings will no longer be advised for pupils, students, staff and visitors, either in classrooms or in communal areas.
Social distancing will also “no longer be necessary”.
Testing to continue in September
As FE Week revealed last week, schools and colleges have been told to prepare for the return of onsite Covid testing from the start of the autumn term.
Williamson confirmed today that secondary schools and colleges will be asked to provide two onsite tests to their students at the start of the new academic year with regular home testing continuing until the end of September.
Education settings still operating over the summer will “continue to test twice a week with asymptomatic test kits still available to families over summer break as well”.
Eligible students and staff encouraged to get vaccinated
Williamson said it is “incredibly important” for all staff and adult students to get vaccinated, and in particular for “all staff to get to the second dose of a vaccine as soon as they are eligible, so they secure the strongest possible protection against Covid-19”.
He added that in line with wider changes to isolation from August 16, if in close contact with someone who has tested positive for Covid-19, staff will be able to remain in the classroom from the autumn term.
Jo Saxton has said she would “absolutely speak out” as Ofqual boss if she felt any government decisions were going to “undermine the interests” of students after being quizzed over her independence by MPs today.
Education secretary Gavin Williamson named Saxton, his policy adviser and a former academy trust boss, as his preferred candidate for the Ofqual chief regulator role. The current interim chief regulator, Simon Lebus, leaves in September.
MP Ian Mearns asked whether she was “too close to government” to lead an independent regulatory function.
Interim Ofqual chief Simon Lebus
Saxton, a former Ofqual board member, said that “anyone that knows me knows that I am not afraid to speak my mind and act independently”, adding that she has an “entirely professional relationship” with Williamson.
She added: “I’m not a member of a political party, I was involved in the Labour party review of the national curriculum and for me, I’m interested in children, young people and learnings, I’m interested in policy, not politics.”
Committee chair Robert Halfon said the exams chaos in summer 2020 “did raise a number of questions” about DfE and Ofqual’s relationship “such as who had the ultimate authority and accountability”.
Saxton said that Ofqual “needs to use all the powers that it has to speak out about government policy if it has concerns about capacity,” adding: “I would absolutely speak out if I felt that any government decisions were going to undermine the interests of children, young people and learners”.
She added that being independent “doesn’t mean that you can’t have effective working relationships” with government.
School leader relationships is ‘what Ofqual needs now’
Saxton was previously in charge of Turner Schools, which she established in Kent in 2016. She was previously chief executive of Future Academies, the trust set up by former academies minister Lord Nash.
She told the committee that the appointment of a former school leader “who has good relationships with other school leaders is the thing that Ofqual needs now”. This will help “reassure the wider sector that it understands what school leaders need, what the young people they serve need and is open to positive relationships with them going forward,” she added.
Labour this week claimed Saxton was unqualified for the role. But she defended her CV today, saying she has management and accounting officer experience.
“I’m so fascinated by regulation that I’ve studied it at the London School of Economics in my spare time,” Saxton said. “So while I don’t have as much experience in being a regulator, I have worked in highly regulated sectors.”
Asked about the regulator’s diversity, she said “there’s some diversity on the Ofqual board, of course if could be improved”. Saxton wants to work on diversity in the senior executive.
She also wants exams in 2022 to go ahead, but “if I can caveat that with the one thing we’ve learnt about the pandemic is that it’s unpredictable”.
Saxton would also like a student panel, and will explore that with the Ofqual board.
The committee will now put together a report on whether they believe Saxton is suitable for the role. Williamson will then consider it before deciding whether to proceed with the appointment.
Jo Grady, general secretary of the UCU, swept to the leadership at a young age pledging to improve wages in FE. Here she explains why members shouldn’t wait for others to make it happen
“What would Dolly Parton do, essentially? That’s what I ask.”
The blonde country singer does not at first seem the most obvious role model for Jo Grady, general secretary of the University and College Union, formerly a lecturer in employment relations at Sheffield and Leicester universities. Grady is young for a trade union leader, having won the leadership at just 36 years old, and, like her heroine, is blonde and grins widely. But it’s taking action that won Parton to Grady’s heart.
“I know it’s going to sound like an absurd thing to say, but Dolly Parton didn’t just sit around saying, ‘Isn’t it awful children can’t read?’ She set up the Imagination Library,” says Grady, referring to the singer’s huge literacy initiative.
Rolling your sleeves up and getting stuck in was the platform on which Grady won the leadership in 2019, securing 64 per cent of the vote (almost double the runner-up’s) on a turnout of 20 per cent. It was a platform of fighting talk, sweeping in after her predecessor, also a woman, had spent 12 years at the helm.
Despite never having run an organisation before, Grady entered confidently and in particular said it was FE where the union had “made the least progress in protecting or improving our members’ wages” and that it should spend more of its “fighting fund” to support striking workers.
Grady on the picket line at Nottingham College
In the past two years, Grady appears to have put her money where her mouth is. Right now, UCU members across 11 colleges are casting ballots on whether to go on strike over pay (the pay gap with schoolteachers currently stands at £9,000) and redundancy plans. The ballots close in mid-July and strikes would take place in the autumn.
Meanwhile, 600 prison staff across almost 50 prisons and young offender institutes have walked out four times since May, with two strikes just last month. The union leader has also been found on picket lines everywhere from Nottingham College to Islington College. As at January, the union had about 38,000 FE members.
But her drive for action doesn’t mean Grady sees herself as a charismatic trade union-Dolly Parton type, leading the charge for a fairer 9 to 5. When she arrived, she says, many members had forgotten it was they – not the UCU leadership – who should be taking action.
“I get really annoyed when people say, ‘Someone should do x’ or ‘The union should do y’. And I say, ‘Why don’t you do it, you’re in the union? Stop using third-party language. Find other people, find your community.’”
Grady with a campaign banner in Wales
A more passive attitude towards union membership arose during the New Labour years, says Grady, and was the subject of her PhD at Lancaster University (she got masters funding and then stayed on). “It was on the extent to which trade unions had collaborated with a neoliberal agenda, with New Labour,” she explains.
“I think there was an internalisation following the 1980s, with the huge attacks on the trade union movement, that winning was difficult. I think there had been a loss of courage.” As a result, trade unions moved to a “service model”, rather than a collective action model, she says.
“It was an assumption that people were joining not because they were committed to progressive politics and social justice, but they just wanted stuff. They wanted representing, almost like an insurance card.”
At the same time, she says, unions had begun to accept a watered-down vision for members. She joined UCU aged 25 as a lecturer, and by age 35 had been left unimpressed. “It seemed to be about just managing the decline of terms and conditions,” she frowns. “It doesn’t mean they weren’t fighting, but there was a sense of just defending what we’d got or making the decline palatable.”
“What that does,” she continues, “is create quite a passive membership, that fosters a sense of dependency that someone else should be doing things for them. For me, it should be the opposite. That is not the union I want. It’s changing to be more member-led.” It’s a heady mix of collective action via personal responsibility.
Grady with Jeremy Corbyn outside Islington College
Grady credits her Catholic grandfather with encouraging her towards university, and, once there, regularly checking when she’d be a professor. But her meteoric career was not expected by her family: “It was seen as a bit of an unusual thing, but it was also like, ‘Oh, that’s Joanne’,” she laughs.
I comment she’s a self-made woman, but am carefully corrected. “I don’t really like that idea of a self-made person, someone who’s escaped their working-class roots,” says Grady lightly, and you can see the teacher coming through.
“It completely erases the communities that working-class people are brought up in. The success for me is fundamentally embedded in the community I came out of.” She laughs again. “I genuinely credit a lot of my skillset to working in a pub.”
Her father was a miner in west Yorkshire earning a good wage, and Grady was brought up in Wakefield on a council estate she remembers as a “triumph of social housing – beautiful, with wide roads, trees, terraces, everyone had a garden”. But pit closures meant the household, with three children under four, went without a salary for a whole year. Afterwards, her parents opened a pub and some of Grady’s earliest memories are heading through the pub tap room to the flat upstairs.
Grady doesn’t attempt to ham up a childhood of hardship, as politicians occasionally will. “We could afford books, and when I wanted to go to university, we had money to help me go. I sailed through with a lot of material comforts, but for the gift of birth, it could have been different.”
Grady recalls those differences. On non-uniform day, some children couldn’t afford the pound for charity. One particular incident stands out. “There was a girl who I think was one of seven, the rest were boys. The household got nits and they all had their heads shaved, including the girl. I remember as a child being horrified that things that didn’t cost a lot of money, like shampoo, were being denied to people.”
The environment fostered a strong sense of unfairness, and also grounded Grady. “You’d meet such an array of people in the pub,” she recalls, chuckling about a millionaire regular. “It was the social living-room of the community. It’s a really grounding experience – that no one is better than you, but you’re not better than anyone else.”
Jo Grady with former Labour MP Tony Benn
Steeped in community, Grady has been intent on building community among UCU members. Last year under the union set up a “strike school”, she says, which 800 members have been through already. It’s a deliberate inversion of the service model Grady sees as so disabling.
“It’s about, if you want to win, campaign, ballot, these are the things you need to do.” The first school was in September last year, with two classes a week over six weeks, and the second school finished this week.
It’s also a pushback against the Trade Union Act 2016. Fiercely opposed by unions, it requires industrial ballots to attract a 50 per cent turnout in order for any vote to be legally valid. But the real catch, says Grady, is that ballots cannot be electronic.
“The struggle is the paper ballot. You have to let people know it’s coming, post it to them, they have to post it back,” she says. “I would argue the government did it to make it as difficult as possible to take part in action.”
Another key barrier to creating effective pressure is the lack of coverage of FE in mainstream media. Grady thinks the prison strikes – held over Covid concerns for staff, as well as the “barbaric” lack of education resources for prisoners, she says – were well covered “because they get what prisons are, even though they’re part of FE”. But there was a “silent avalanche” of Covid in colleges that failed to get proper attention.
“I don’t know why the media is intent on erasing FE from copy. I’ve been constantly pointing out colleges must be treated differently to schools. They are adult spaces, there’s a huge range of people – stop talking about them like they’re for children.”
For September, Grady says “if the government fails to offer young people vaccines before the start of term then appropriate steps need to be taken to protect students and staff”, with colleges needing to “have plans in place for remote learning in case of further Covid outbreaks”.*
I ask why UCU has argued for remote teaching when schoolteachers were giving face-to-face lessons.
I don’t know why the media is intent on erasing FE from copy
“The argument for schools was more about the mental wellbeing and educational development of children, and the fact parents would have to stay at home,” she replies. “The complexities and concerns were not transferrable to the HE and FE sector.” Given the mental health crisis engulfing FE and university students, it seems odd to assume these issues were not massive for these students too. Many college staff I speak to say their students can’t take any more time online.
But Grady is fighting for her members – or rather, helping them fight for themselves. She says she ran as general secretary in large part because as a lecturer she was burning out, and was either going to “change the sector or walk away”. And she’s not finished yet.
“There would be nothing stopping me running again if I felt the job wasn’t done, and there would be nothing stopping me going back to teaching. Time will tell.”
As Dolly says, she’s holding out for When Life is Good Again.
*This article was updated on 6 July 2021 to make clear Grady is calling for young people to be vaccinated before the start of term
The training providers and colleges chosen to deliver the remaining national skills bootcamp programmes have finally been named.
FE Week can today reveal that 24 organisations have won funding in the government’s £18 million tender.
Among them are 13 independent providers, six colleges, four mayoral combined authorities or local enterprise partnerships, and one university.
FE Week analysis shows that ten of the providers appear out of scope of Ofsted inspections, while four have never had a full inspection. Two of the winners are rated ‘requires improvement’, six are ‘good’ and two are ‘outstanding’.
The winners announced today bid for lot 1 of the tender that totalled £36 million. Winners of lot 2 were announced in May. Contracts were supposed to start at the end of March but have suffered delays.
No reason for the delays has been forthcoming from the Education and Skills Funding Agency.
The lot 1 tender is currently in a ten-day standstill period, in case any of the unsuccessful applicants to the tender wish to challenge the results.
Lot 1 providers will be delivering 12- to 16-week digital skills courses to adults aged 19 and over across the nine geographical regions in England.
Lot 2 winners will be covering additional sectors such as electrotechnical, nuclear and green energy, at a local or national level.
The ESFA anticipates that at least 75 per cent of all bootcamp trainees will “move into a new job or role within six months of completing training”.
Skills bootcamps were announced by prime minister Boris Johnson in a speech at Exeter College last September. He said they were a response to the “huge number” of people who are “going to have to change jobs – to change skills – and at the moment, if you’re over 23, the state provides virtually no free training to help you”.
This year’s Skills for Jobs white paper pledged the government to run bootcamps as “a flexible way to gain high-quality skills that are relevant to employers”.
Before this tender came two waves of pilot bootcamps launched last year with £8 million of funding in areas including Derbyshire-Nottinghamshire, the south west and Leeds.
These were inspired by programmes run in Greater Manchester, and the West Midlands Combined Authority’s ‘Beat the Bot’ scheme.
Lot 1 tender winners
BCTG
Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority
A domestic abuse survivor and a learner who retrained in engineering after losing her chef career in a motorbike accident are among this year’s Festival of Learning Awards winners.
Twelve students, tutors, colleges, providers, and employers were recognised at this evening’s virtual ceremony, run by the Learning and Work Institute, and have been congratulated by skills minister Gillian Keegan.
“These awards shine a light on the power of education to change people’s lives,” she said. “I hope the inspirational stories of the outstanding adult learners motivate others to fire up their own learning journeys.”
Injury, disability and violence could not stop awards winners
One such story belongs to Nikki-Ann Wyatt, who worked as a pastry chef for a Michelin star restaurant before “life-changing” injuries to her legs sustained in a motorbike crash, meaning she could not spend a long time on her feet in a busy kitchen, brought an end to that.
While the institute says it took her time to come to terms with losing her career, she has won its new directions award after embarking on a new career in civil engineering through Trafford College Group, and is currently studying for a masters degree.
The return to learning award was won by Kirsty Young, who faced domestic abuse from a young age. But following help from the police, she started a new life with her three children and was encouraged by her mum to study at East Riding College.
Kirsty is now progressing onto a degree and will shortly begin her PGCE.
The winner of the Patron’s Award, chosen by LWI patron Princess Anne, was Matthew Turner from Bradford. He won for refusing to be held back by his autism and progressing from level 1 to 3, gaining employment and volunteering in the autism community.
What the institute called an “innovative and holistic” English as second or other language project led by London charity CARAS won the President’s Award, chosen by the institute’s president Nick Stuart. The project helps young people and adults who are seeking asylum or have a refugee background to progress in learning.
Tutor played ‘huge role’ in learners’ welfare
This year’s outstanding individual award was given to Rosie Wainwright who, after a “tumultuous” start in life, where her dyslexia meant she had to retake her GCSEs three times, now has a degree in law and runs a programme supporting young people in care.
The winner of the employer award is West Midlands-based company Salts Healthcare, which over the last six years has created career pathways to upskill workers to become fully qualified engineers. This has created “exceptional growth and productivity, aided retention within the business, and supported staff to overcome personal and professional barriers”.
A tutor and distance learning coordinator at HMP Pentonville, José Aguiar took home the Tutor Award after acting as a mentor for prisoners enrolling in higher education. He continued to play a “huge role” in prisoners’ mental health and wellbeing throughout the pandemic, turning back up to work a week after lockdown started.
The learning for work award went to young mother Naomi-Louize, who took matters into her own hands after her son struggled to get a haircut: she has now completed a level 3 in barbering and is self-employed, cutting the hair of young children with learning difficulties or special needs.
After being diagnosed with a lifechanging condition, Paul Ackroyd enrolled on a range of level 2 courses to improve his understanding of it and to help vulnerable customers he meets as a bus driver for First Group and has now won the learning for health award.
Learner went from zero English to entry level 3
Positive Progressions, an employability project delivered by Craven College, has won the learning provision award. Its learners are parents and carers not currently in work, some of whom have never worked or are long-term unemployed, who the project “encourages and empowers” to continue learning and to find work.
The online learning award went to Daya Mohindra, who enrolled on a digital learning preparation course when the pandemic struck. With the course under her belt, she started arts skills courses again and has now completed several online courses during lockdown.
This year’s English language learning award winner is Hasan Jasim, who fled Iraq with his family to England, but could not speak a word of the language. “Through hard work and diligence,” the institute says he has progressed from ESOL entry level 1 to 3, has passed his driving test and trained as a tiler, “transforming the life of his family”.
Awards showcase ‘how powerful learning can be’
Stephen Evans
Learning and Work Institute chief executive Stephen Evans said the award winners “show just how powerful learning can be and the difference great tutors and providers can make”.
The awards were judged by an array of sector leaders including NOCN managing director Graham Hasting-Evans, the Education and Training Foundation’s Catherine Manning, WEA chief executive Simon Parkinson, and Skills and Education Group boss Paul Eeles.
The award sponsors were NOCN, the ETF, City Lit, Skills and Education Group, and the WEA.
Pictured, top (left to right)
First row: Positive Progressions, Matthew Turner, Nikki-Ann Wyatt, Paul Ackroyd
Second row: Daya Mohindra, Salts Healthcare, CARAS ESOL, Kirsty Young
Third row: Jose Aguiar, Naomi-Louize, Rosie Wainwright, Hasan Jasim
The government’s decision to “cease” a T Level in human resources will cut the industry off from a potentially precious entry route, sector leaders have warned.
The British Institute of Recruiters, a professional body for staffing and recruitment, described the news as “disappointing” as they had big hopes it would be a game-changer in the way people in the industry, especially in small employers, are trained.
A spokesperson said the institute is concerned as the “majority working in HR for small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) have no formal qualification as they never set out to pursue a career in HR.
“This T Level, offering a mix of study and work placement, would have been an excellent route into HR that would have benefitted SMEs.
“HR skills are also needed in the voluntary sector, and this T Level would have ticked a lot of boxes.”
The Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education, responsible for delivering T Levels, launched a tender for awarding bodies to develop eight T Levels in wave four of the qualifications’ rollout – including the one in HR – in November 2020.
Their aim was to award contracts in August 2021.
Announcing that the HR T Level had “ceased” last week, the ESFA said: “We were not able to award the contract for the development of this T Level to an awarding organisation during the recent wave four procurement exercise.
“At this stage, we are unable to commit to a date when work on the HR T Level might resume.”
Awarding organisations focused on post-18 education
Two of the big awarding organisations who are delivering other T Levels, Pearson and NCFE, remained tight-lipped about their reasons for snubbing the qualification.
Both have experience in developing HR qualifications for the further education sector.
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, which offers qualifications at levels 3, 5 and 7 and end-point assesses human resources and learning and development apprenticeships, said it had not bid for the T Level because “focus is primarily in post-18 education”.
A spokesperson said it “shares the government’s disappointment” that it was “not able to award a contract” but explained most of the sector’s training is focused on adult education rather than T Levels’ 16-to-18 age range.
Dropped qualification brings total number of T Levels to 23
The cultural, heritage and visitor attractions T Level was the last to be removed from development, which also happened last July.
A government spokesperson said the cultural T Level had been canned because of “insufficient employer demand” for a new technical qualification in that field.
The government’s new flagship qualification, T Levels began rolling out last September, mixing classroom study with an industry placement that lasts at least 315 hours.
Three qualifications rolled out last September in the first wave: digital, construction, and education and childcare.
In September 2021, a further seven will start being taught in classrooms; while an extra six will roll out in 2022.
A further seven qualifications are to be introduced in 2023.
The procurement of awarding organisations for the 2023 wave began in November, with the winners set to be announced over the summer.
Our findings are based on a series of joint visits to local areas, carried out with the Care Quality Commission (CQC). They highlight just how damaging Covid-19 has been for young people with SEND, including those aged 16 to 25.
But it’s clear that the sector has gone above and beyond, despite great adversity, to help young people learn and to keep them safe.
Most independent specialist colleges and general FE colleges stayed open during the three lockdowns for very vulnerable young people and key worker children.
Staff worked tirelessly to provide a service, although this tended to focus more on young people’s health and wellbeing than their education.
While many young people with SEND returned to their colleges in the autumn, it wasn’t possible for all – especially in smaller providers.
Although some learners returned briefly to college in the autumn term, they stopped again when the government’s guidance on shielding was updated.
Learners who couldn’t attend in person received remote education. Many young people coped well, but others struggled – some finding it hard to use the technology and to engage with their teachers through a screen.
We know many providers worked really hard to get paper-based and practical resources, such as cooking ingredients, to learners, delivering them by hand to their homes.
We even heard of providers taking food parcels to young people’s families who were in crisis.
Some young people with SEND had moved to a different further education provider in September 2020, but still weren’t attending in person because of health or other concerns.
Some who returned in person hadn’t made new friends, having missed out on the usual transition activities ̶ although many providers went out of their way to help learners settle in, managing transition 1:1 out of hours, so learners could familiarise themselves with the setting.
Young people told us that the pandemic had been an incredibly lonely time. Not only were they missing out on seeing friends at college, many were also shielding for health reasons.
Some had only left the house a few times since the start of the first national lockdown, and even then, this was only for medical appointments.
While some young people could chat with friends online, this wasn’t possible for others, who have difficulties communicating in this way.
Many providers recognised this, and found new ways of keeping young people in touch with their friends.
All young people missed out on academic learning and had exams and work experience cancelled. For young people with SEND, the pandemic also affected access to specialist therapies and support.
Some were able to carry on with these at home – providers used videos to help young people continue with physiotherapy, and work online with their speech and language therapists.
But in some cases, we heard that young people’s mobility and communication skills have deteriorated.
Many young people have missed out on the vital preparation and training they need to progress to the next stages of education or work, and some said they were anxious about their futures, particularly their employment prospects.
Many providers have extended young people’s learning programmes to provide them with opportunities to develop the skills that they need, particularly for independent living.
It’s clear that across the FE sector, providers have worked incredibly hard to help young people learn and to keep them safe over the past 16 months – and at times this has been an uphill struggle.
As we emerge from the pandemic, the need to put young people with SEND at the heart of recovery plans couldn’t be clearer.
In the coming months, we’ll be working closely with the CQC on new area SEND inspections.
The new approach will help bring improvement in the way education, health and care services work together to get the best possible outcomes for young people with SEND.
Candace Miller, Non-executive director, Federation of Awarding Bodies
Start date: May 2021
Concurrent job: Managing director, SFJ Awards and executive director, Skills for Health, Skills for Justice and People 1st International
Interesting fact: She enjoys walking her dogs in the local woods and gardening, both at home and at her allotment.
Sarah McGrath, Principal, Carlisle College
Start date: May 2021
Previous job: Assistant principal for quality and curriculum, Carlisle College
Interesting fact: She is very keen on crafts – in particular dress-making and textiles – and makes a lot of her own clothes and soft furnishings.
Paolo Fresia, Vice chair, UfiVoc Tech Trust
Start date: June 2021
Concurrent job: Investment director, 100% Network
Interesting fact: His passions include classic boats sailing and the alternative medicine Ayurveda.
Andy Green, Chief executive, Chichester College Group (CCG)
Start date: October 2022
Previous job: Interim chief executive, Greater Brighton Metropolitan College
Interesting fact: He led Chichester College students to perform at the Edinburgh Fringe Festivals for the last three festivals, including driving the van with set and costumes all the way from Chichester to Edinburgh.
Many struggling UTCs are lowering their age of entry, but they could have more impact by going the other way, writes David Phoenix
Technical education is critical for filling the UK’s huge skills shortages, raising productivity and giving students opportunities to learn and build successful careers.
But holes in our education system are restricting students from studying higher technical education.
The creation of UTCs in 2010 was aimed at tackling some of those challenges by offering school pupils a four-year technical education.
Unfortunately, starting at 14 years old created recruitment challenges, which some UTCs have addressed by “extending down” to 11 or 13 years old.
At South Bank UTC, we took a different path by “extending up”, rather than down, into year 14 ̶ an extra year of learning, from 18 years old.
That’s possible through the UTCs’ membership of the LSBU Group, a partnership between London South Bank University, South Bank Colleges (including Lambeth College) and Southbank Academies Trust, which has South Bank UTC.
Most pupils at 18 years old go on to university or to work. Few go on to study standalone technical qualifications at level 4, which are the equivalent of the first year of a degree.
Moreover, this year, some of our UTC students were unable to take their planned path when employers withdrew pre-arranged engineering apprenticeship places due to the impact of Covid-19.
Faced with this challenge, the UTC collaborated with other members of LSBU Group to find a solution and quickly spotted areas of overlap across the two institutions.
The BTEC engineering programme covered much of the content in the higher national certificate mechanical engineering course at university.
Working together, South Bank UTC and LSBU created a new year 14 to enable UTC pupils to stay on for an extra fifth year.
So we are enabling pupils to gain a level 4 higher national qualification and to go directly into the second year of higher education (level 5) at university if they so wish.
South Bank UTC pupils have the option to stay on for an extra year to study for a BTEC extended diploma in engineering.
By working with the university on curriculum content and enrichment activities, that additional year gives students the opportunity to enhance their level 3 BTEC study to meet the HNC requirement at level 4.
Students have the option to take the exam with the fees covered by scholarships from LSBU.
Second-year entry to LSBU is possible because we identified BTEC modules that matched the university’s first-year requirements.
It creates a distinctive five-year programme much closer to the German model
So we equipped pupils who achieve a merit in the requisite elements of the HNC to transfer directly into the second year of our mechanical engineering degree.
“Extending up” to year 14 creates a distinctive five-year programme much closer to the German model, enabling pupils to enter the workplace with a level 4 qualification or to complete a degree in two years.
Any UTC could provide a year 14, but major challenges are there for those without a strong university partnership, including funding, teaching capacity and course restrictions.
That’s how our partnership enables us to go the extra mile and offer students new learning choices.
The benefits of “extending up to year 14” are huge. For pupils, it provides free access to a higher technical qualification without moving their institution or home and an accessible route to level 4 without committing to a full degree programme.
For UTCs it offers a unique point of difference to other providers by enabling them to provide an easier transition from school into higher level technical education.
And South Bank UTC’s recruitment is strong this year, with 149 enrolled pupils in year 12.
Finally, for the government, this model helps fill gaps in the UK education system that contribute hugely to skills shortages.
Let’s recognise the importance of specialist institutions and start extending up ̶ not just down.
