Let’s have ‘elite sixth forms’ for hospitality, catering, caring and so on, writes Ben Gadsby
My New Year’s resolution was to be more optimistic.
New Year’s resolutions are always harder to keep in February, and it’s not helped by this week’s announcement of “specialist sixth-form free schools”.
According to the government, these are “to ensure talented children from disadvantaged backgrounds have access to the highest standard of education this country offers,” with the aim to support young people into leading universities.
The ever thoughtful Tom Richmond has provided almost as many valid critiques of the policy as there are words in the announcement. I think I agree with all of them. He is far from alone.
How to maintain my optimism?
Well, 16-18 education often does not work for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds – so I am instinctively open to suggestions for ways to do things better.
Critically, the offer to young people who haven’t achieved grade 4 in GCSE English and maths is usually the opposite of the “highest standard of education”.
We also know that young people from disadvantaged backgrounds are only half as likely to leave school with these essential qualifications; and if they don’t get them at 16, they are unlikely to catch up.
They are also unlikely to be able to achieve T Levels, good apprenticeships, or other high quality post-16 options.
Perhaps some of these new sixth forms can address this challenge?
All we have so far is about three sentences’ worth of policy intention, so there is room for the policy to develop.
When you think about how much has changed in the four years since the Augar review of post-18 education was announced, it’s not totally mad to imagine there will be opportunities for tweaks before a single sixth form starts seeing students.
The choices made between announcement and implementation will determine whether the actual result is good, bad, or ugly.
All we have so far is about three sentences’ worth of policy intention
And it is possible to imagine a set of choices that results in something really exciting.
The rest of the Department for Education’s announcement is very skills-focussed with the new Future Skills Unit, more skills bootcamps, a boost for Institutes of Technology, and supported internships.
The skills agenda is the heart of the government’s programme, and these new sixth forms will be dragged towards that by the equivalent of gravity.
Indeed, Tuesday’s sixth form announcement was an explicit precursor to Wednesday’s broader levelling-up white paper.
This is supposed to be the key guide to all government policy for a decade, and ministers are likely to be thinking about tailoring policy to address the 12 new missions.
So only a skills approach to sixth forms fit the bill.
There are two relevant levelling-up missions, to ensure “the number of people successfully completing high-quality skills training will have significantly increased in every area of the UK” and that “pay, employment and productivity will have risen in every area of the UK”.
Academic and skills sixth forms both have a role to play and shouldn’t be in competition.
They should have different high-quality offers – true parity of esteem.
And it’s obvious which bit of the landscape is missing, and therefore ripe to be addressed by this week’s announcement.
So, here’s my pitch for what the announcement might end up meaning in practice: Institutes of Technology for non-STEM skills.
A suite of new sixth forms that specialise in hospitality, catering, caring – a state version of famous nannying institution Norland College?
As a part-qualified accountant, I always think that industry is ideal for this, giving teenagers the chance to get their AAT qualifications.
Lots of people end up doing evening classes anyway in their early 20s.
Let’s offer T levels, apprenticeships and recognised professional qualifications and routes not just into jobs but into careers. And let’s use employment outcomes as the measure of success.
It may be optimistic. But it also seems to be the only thing that makes sense for the policy environment we live in.
By the time this policy is fleshed out and delivered under the next minister (or even the one after that), who knows where we will be.
We are fast approaching a special time of the year for everyone working in education, and no, it’s not the summer holidays! We are talking about The Pearson National Teaching Awards, an annual celebration of teaching staff across the country designed to highlight the life-changing work that takes place in schools.
Entries are now open – enter your school/college today! It’s completely free and very easy to do but be quick because the deadline for nominations is fast approaching – past midnight March 4th it will be too late to shine a light on the amazing work your colleagues (and yourself!) have been doing.
As the deadline looms we are reminded of what past winners had to say about the Awards: “I cannot stress how much of a positive experience this award has been, not only for me but for the whole school community”. (2019 Gold Winner)
Since the Awards were founded in 1998 by Lord Puttnam, we’ve seen the immense impact these Awards have on the whole community, bringing everyone together in celebration of all of the amazing educators in their area.
Keith Berry, the winner of the Lifetime Achievement award in 2019, describes the buzz he felt throughout the community: “… of course the Pearson Teaching Awards are not purely about individuals or groups of teachers. They are, most importantly, about celebrating and recognising the achievements of whole school communities. From the moment we returned to school, following the Awards Ceremony at the Roundhouse Theatre in London, children, their families, staff and Governors were buzzing with pride and excitement that Park Community Academy Blackpool – their school, had been in the news and on national television. Children are still asking to look at and hold the Gold Lifetime Achievement Trophy on a regular basis!”
So what does it take to win an Award? We care about the impact that the nominee has had on learners, colleagues and the community. That might be in the form of extracurricular activities, unique and creative approach to teaching, results or something else entirely that you know will wow the judges.
What doesn’t matter for the judges is the type of school or college – small, independent, new, old, big, rural, state – all are equally considered for the awards.
With 15 categories to choose from you will definitely find one that suits the educators you wish to celebrate. Whether it’s a teacher who’s made a real impact on your pupils, a whole school/team you wish to recognise or a member of support staff, there’s an award to honour them. Categories include ‘Outstanding New Teacher of the Year’, ‘The Award for Excellence in Special Needs Education’, ‘Teaching Assistant of the Year’ and ‘Headteacher of the Year’ both at primary and secondary level. There is even the Unsung Hero Award for anyone working in education including support staff. It is the only category open to nominations for parents and carers so encourage your community to get their nominations in!
Once you pick the category, all you need to do is fill out the form online and tell us all about your nominee. Each category might have slightly different points that you need to cover, however, those are explained thoroughly in the application form.
Don’t forget that The Pearson National Teaching Awards holds a variety of celebrations throughout the year – Silver Winner Announcements on Thank a Teacher Day, a Silver Winners Afternoon Tea in July, and an Awards Ceremony and BBC One Coverage in November. So get entering and make it a year to remember for your school/college!
It takes more than rhetoric to transform a country.
The Conservatives have been dining out on ‘levelling up’ since they elected Boris Johnson as leader. It’s been a handy catchphrase despite vociferous criticism for its lack of substance.
So the drawn out wait for sight of a comprehensive, transformative levelling up strategy raised expectations high. The hype was real.
Now we’ve had sight of the full document, many in the sector will be feeling unfulfilled.
More than that … people are angry.
The Department for Education trailed plans to open new 16-19 sixth forms yesterday. Their press notice literally described “new elite sixth forms” that will be opened up across the country as a headline contributing policy to levelling up.
The sector’s sighs of exasperation were palpable. Yet again, this government’s approach to education reform is setting up new institutions. Lessons have not been learned from the closures, dissolutions and forced mergers of university technical colleges, national colleges and studio schools over the years. Then there’s evidence, like the AoC’s 2020 report on the impact of competition in post-16 education and training which points clearly to competition “undermining sufficiency, efficiency, quality and equality”.
The only certain beneficiaries here are the lawyers and professional services firms.
More than that though, the idea of ‘elite’ academic achievement being the pinnacle of educational achievement is deeply problematic, not least at a time when the skills system is in the midst of reforms to technical education and training. Perhaps that’s one reason why the word ‘elite’ had disappeared from policy proposals when the full document was published today.
It looks a lot like Michael Gove, as secretary of state for levelling up, is once again calling the shots at the Department for Education.
In the past, Gove has had a habit of shouting down criticism of his academic-first approach to education policy. “How dare you say that young people from disadvantaged communities shouldn’t get a fair shot at the best university education” he would sensationally say if he reads this.
Yet, introducing even more competition in the funding-starved post-16 system risks taking precious resource away from the opportunities of the very people he proposes to be acting in the interests of. I find it hard to believe that Nadhim Zahawi, who introduced himself to the sector as a secretary of state that would “follow the evidence”, is comfortable with this approach at all.
Elsewhere, one of the government’s 12 levelling up missions was to boost the number of adults completing FE and skills training by 200,000 a year up to 2030. Forty per cent of those, 80,000, should come from fifty local authorities identified as the lowest skilled.
Great – the decline in adults participating in education and training has been severe and it’s about time there was a serious plan to tackle it.
But that’s not what we’ve got. There was a list of projects and programmes; lines we’ve seen before about bootcamps, LSIPs, IoTs and the free level 3 offer. Disappointingly, there were no new ideas.
Except perhaps plans to hand what’s left of the adult education budget to local areas that want it. But devolution, whether that’s to a combined authority mayor, an employer representative body or one of the new county deals announced today, can’t be an end in of itself.
There’s an opportunity now, with the 200,000 a year target for example, for the centre – DfE – to introduce some much needed accountability and transparency here. There is a balance to be found between the flexibilities that colleges and providers have enjoyed by being part of a devolved adult education system while also demonstrably contributing to national skills priorities.
New 16 to 19 free schools will be opened by the Department for Education to help “ensure that talented children from disadvantaged backgrounds have access to a college, school sixth form or 16-19 academy, with a track record of progress on to leading universities”.
The white paper contains little additional detail on what was trailed earlier this week about new “elite sixth forms” in some of the 55 education investment areas (EIAs).
These areas have been selected primarily as the focus for school performance interventions. While all areas could apply for one of these new sixth forms, the EIAs will be prioritised.
The white paper provides no evidence on the need or demand for new institutions in the EIAs. However, the white paper is clear that these new free schools will be focussed explicitly on academic education and progression to “leading” universities. The highly selective Harris Westminster Sixth Form is used as an example.
The white paper also does not set out how much funding has been set aside to open these new institutions.
Interestingly, the word “elite” appears to have been dropped by government communications around these new sixth forms despite the DfE trailing the announcement using the term earlier this week.
Alongside these new free schools, the white paper outlines plans to open eight new 16 to 19 maths schools, at least one in each English region. They will be in Cambridge, Durham, Imperial College London, Lancaster, Leeds, Surrey, West Midlands and another one in the East of England. This would be in addition to the three already operating in Exeter, Liverpool and Kings College London.
A skills mission
One of the government’s twelve levelling up “missions” is to increase the number of adults in training by 200,000 more people every year between now and 2030.
Today’s white paper shines a little more light on how this mission will be measured. We now know that the headline measure will be 19+ FE and skills achievements but excluding community learning.
In 2018/19, the year used as the government’s baseline for this skills target, there were 1,045,100 achievements. For comparison, in 2020/21 that figure was just 797,100.
In addition, supplementary measures will also be considered. Those are apprenticeship starts and achievements per 1,000, percentage of 16- to 64-year-olds with qualifications at level 3+ and 19+ further education and skills participation.
Fifty local authority areas have been identified as “low skilled” and have a special target of 80,000 extra FE and skills achievements within the 200,000 figure.
They’ve been identified as the bottom third of local authorities with the lowest proportion of 16- to 64-year-olds qualified at level 3 or above. Sandwell has the lowest proportion, 36.9 per cent and Medway has the highest, 53.3 per cent, within this grouping.
Three areas have been selected as new “pathfinder areas” where the intention is for local employment and skills services will be more closely aligned. Blackpool, Walsall and Barking and Dagenham have been chosen because both unemployment and vacancies are high.
UK Shared Prosperity Fund gets underway next year
The white paper said that the £2.6bn UK Shared Prosperity Fund will be used to invest in three main areas, including: improving communities and place, people and skills, and supporting local business.
Pre-launch guidance for the fund, said it will focus on communities and place and local business interventions in 2022-23 and 2023-24.
Further investment into people and skills will follow from 2024-25, when the funding pot reaches its full extent.
As part of the investment into people and skills, the government will boost core skills and support adults to progress in work.
They will also reduce levels of economic inactivity and move those furthest from the labour market closer to employment.
The government plans to support disadvantaged people to access the skills they need to progress in life and into work, support local areas to fund local skills needs and supplement local adult skills provision.
In terms of delivery, all places across the UK will receive a conditional allocation from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.
To access their allocation, each place (via local government) will be asked to set out measurable outcomes they are looking to deliver, and what interventions they are choosing to prioritise in an investment plan.
Also, as part of the launch of the fund, adults across the whole of the UK will benefit from the Multiply numeracy programme.
This will offer national and local support for people to gain or improve their numeracy skills, worth £559m over the spending review 2021 period. The programme will be dished out by central government.
Future skills unit and winding down of skills and productivity board
The Department for Education is setting up a new “Unit for Future Skills” which will bring together skills data and information held across government.
This data will be used across central and local government and will be accessible to providers and the general public.
The new unit will work with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Department for Work and Pensions.
It will produce information on local skills demand, future skills needs of businesses, the skills available in an area and the pathways between training and good jobs.
“Good granular data is critical to enable the skills system to respond positively to emerging skills needs and provide valuable skill provision,” the white paper said.
The white paper said the unit will be a “multi-year project”. However, several short-term goals have also been set.
“The unit will aim to improve the quality of data available within and outside [the] UK government in the short-term to strengthen the quality of local plans and provision, and their alignment with labour market need, as well as enable the updating of apprenticeship standards, qualifications, and accountability measures,” the white paper said.
The unit will be in addition to the existing skills and productivity board, which was set up by the DfE last year to identify skills gaps and provide “expert advice” on how courses and qualifications should align to the skills that employers need post-Covid-19.
A DfE spokesperson told FE Week that once the skills and productivity board has completed its reports set by previous education secretary Gavin Williamson, the board’s work will be subsumed into the unit and it will be wound down.
Royal charter for Institutes of Technology
The white paper said that successful Institutes of Technology may apply to receive a royal charter, which will secure their “long-term position as anchor institutions” within their region.
IoTs are collaborations between colleges, universities, and employers, specialising in delivering higher technical education in areas across England.
The paper said they are the “preeminent organisations for technical STEM education” and said that a royal charter will place them on the same level as UK universities.
The DfE will set out the criteria and application process for royal charter status this spring.
In December 2021, the government announced nine new IoTs across England, building on 12 that were established from 2019. This took the total number of IoTs to 21.
More areas to be offered devolved AEB
More local areas will be given the opportunity to take control of their adult education budget even if they do not have an elected mayor.
Read the full FE Week story on this proposal here.
More local areas will be given the opportunity to take control of their adult education budget even if they do not have an elected mayor under proposals announced today in the government’s long-awaited levelling up white paper.
Funding for the AEB will be part of a new “devolution framework” which is described as “clear menu of options” to be offered to every part of England.
Nine new “county deals” are set to be negotiated in areas that do not currently have an elected mayor, with the aim of agreeing some by this autumn. The nine areas are: Cornwall; Derbyshire and Derby; Devon, Plymouth and Torbay; Durham; Hull and East Yorkshire; Leicestershire; Norfolk; Nottinghamshire and Nottingham; and Suffolk.
The white paper, launched today by levelling up secretary Michael Gove, also announces negotiations for a new mayoral combined authority deal for York and North Yorkshire.
All areas will be offered control of their AEB, and be expected to provide input into local skills improvement plans which will influence the courses offered by colleges and training providers in each local area.
Over half of the national adult education budget is already devolved to nine mayoral combined authorities in England; Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, Greater Manchester, Liverpool City Region, North of Tyne, South Yorkshire, Tees Valley, West Midlands, West of England and West Yorkshire plus the Greater London Authority.
Currently, these mayors have full control over how to spend their devolved adult education budgets, with the exception of basic skills entitlements.
The government has said it will open negotiations on “trailblazer deeper devolution deals” with the West Midlands and Greater Manchester combined authorities to act as the “blueprint” for other MCAs to follow, with bids for more powers “welcome”. It is not clear whether this could include further devolution of skills funding.
It is also not clear at this stage how much funding will total for each new local area being offered the AEB.
The white paper says the government’s “preferred model” of devolution is one with a directly-elected leader covering a “well-defined economic geography with a clear and direct mandate, strong accountability and the convening power to make change happen”.
However, because this may not suit all areas, the framework sets out a “flexible, tiered approach, allowing areas to deepen devolution at their own pace”.
“By 2030, every part of England that wants one will have a devolution deal with powers at or approaching the highest level of devolution and a simplified, long-term funding settlement,” the white paper said.
There are three levels to the devolution framework:
Level 3 – A single institution or County Council with a directly elected mayor (DEM), across a functional economic area (FEA) or whole county area
Level 2 – A single institution or County Council without a DEM, across a FEA or whole county area
Level 1 – Local authorities working together across a FEA or whole county area e.g. through a joint committee
Only levels 2 and 3 areas will be able to take control of their AEB.
Students should be tested “when ready” rather than made to sit “cliff-edge” exams, a review into qualifications has said.
The Independent Assessment Commission, funded by the National Education Union (NEU), has published an 80-page report today on the future of assessment and qualifications in England.
IAC say their evidence suggests qualifications are “inequitable and unreliable” and do not provide young people with skills to “thrive” in the 21st century.
In a series of 10 recommendations, they say alternative approaches to high-stakes exams as the only assessment mode should be trialled.
One solution is allowing students “opportunities to demonstrate achievements when ready” through 14 to 19 education.
Dr Jo Saxton, Ofqual chief regulator, told Schools Week last year that any developments towards online exams could help with a “test when ready” approach in GCSEs and A-levels.
But Geoff Barton, general secretary of school leaders’ union ASCL, said the idea is “good in theory but hard to land in practice” requiring such changes in the system that “it may not be realistic”.
ASCL’s Geoff Barton
He said: “The difficulty is that a large number of pupils move on to colleges and training at the age of 16 rather than going on to a sixth form at their secondary school.
“With the best will in the world, it is exceptionally difficult to plan and coordinate pathways across different institutions over the course of several years, and establish an appropriate and manageable qualifications system to match.”
Tim Oates, the director of assessment research and development at Cambridge Assessment, added the sector had moved away from early entry to GCSE as it had “many problems”.
He added: “Who decides ‘when ready’? What if an extra year would have brought a much higher grade? It readily can lead to a proliferation of assessment.”
The IAC’s commissioners include Dame Alison Peacock of the Chartered College of Teaching and Olly Newton of the Edge Foundation think-tank.
Professor Jo-Anne Baird, who sits Ofqual’s standards advisory group, is also a commissioner on the review. It is chaired by Louise Hayward, professor of educational assessment at the University of Glasgow.
Hayward said the “time has come for change” and urged policy makers to act upon their report.
Rethinking Assessment, Pearson, NCFE and the Times Education Commission are also carrying out their own reviews of the education system.
A Department for Education spokesperson said exams are the “best and fairest” way of testing students and “ensure young people leave school or college prepared for the workplace and higher study”.
Funding to support SEND learners is being used to separate them from peers, writes Simone Aspis
You may or may not know, but this government has signed and ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This is an international treaty setting out disabled people’s human rights. In particular, Article 24 sets out the requirement for states to develop a fully inclusive education system.
So what does this mean?
It means inclusive education is meant to be at the heart of our education legal framework. This covers the presumption of mainstream education under the 2014 Children and Families Act, to the reasonable adjustments duties in the 2010 Equality Act.
So further education institutions are under a duty to enable all disabled students (regardless of ability) to be educated alongside their non-disabled peers on mainstream courses.
However, in practice the overwhelming majority of disabled students (particularly those with learning difficulties) remain segregated within further education institutions.
For instance, disabled young people are often unable to follow their academic and vocational interests because of the funding arrangements of local authorities and colleges.
This funding is often attached to segregated courses such as preparation for independent living, employment courses and supported internship programmes. This serves to segregate, rather than include, disabled students.
At the Alliance for Inclusive Education, we have set six actions that local authorities and FE institutions can do to make inclusive education happen.
Promote disabled students’ human rights in all aspects of learning and campus life, including mainstream courses, political and social education, and extra-curricular activities.
Support must follow the disabled student instead of vice versa. More specifically, education, health and social care support must be tailored to meet the needs of individual students instead of groups of disabled students. And whatever support the student needs must be made available throughout their chosen vocational, academic or professional courses.
Campuses and learning environments must be fully inclusive of disabled students. All parts of campuses must be physically accessible, such as toilets and changing facilities, lectures, labs, workshops, studio rooms and catering. Colleges also need to focus on the learning environments, including sensory and emotional experiences that disabled students may encounter. Room layout, lighting, colour schemes, acoustics, heat and various other environmental aspects of the spaces can create barriers which will need to be removed to promote inclusivity of disabled students with sensory impairments and those who are neurodiverse. The Department for Education capital grants could be used to make campuses and learning environments inclusive of disabled students. The grants must not be used to create dedicated and segregated areas for disabled students with learning difficulties.
Courses must include curriculum differentiation and be accessible for all, including disabled students with different abilities and learning styles. Course tutors and support staff must know how to prepare and deliver inclusive courses. Curriculum materials need to be available in a variety of formats, including large print, braille and so on.
Make reasonable accommodations as provided by examination boards and have assessment arrangements in place that allow disabled students to demonstrate their knowledge and competences in different ways.
The FE workforce must be trained in inclusive education principles, creating and maintaining an inclusive learning environment and campus underpinned by a social model of disability principles.
One of the biggest barriers towards full inclusion of disabled students in FE, particularly those with learning difficulties, is a lack of thinking creatively about how funding can be used to support inclusive practice.
One good example is for councils and FE institutions to transform segregated, supported internships into inclusive apprenticeships so that disabled and non-disabled young people are undergoing training within the same workplace.
That approach must be the same for disabled students for apprenticeships from a whole range of industry sectors.
FE colleges can and must become inclusive of disabled students with learning difficulties.
Local authorities and colleges need to stop funding segregated provision and use their resources to properly invest in inclusive education practice.
Teachers in further education colleges and training providers could soon be in scope for teacher misconduct regulations that can result in lifetime bans from the profession.
The Department for Education is consulting on broadening the rules which allow for the Teacher Regulation Agency (TRA) to issue prohibition orders to anyone “employed or engaged” in teaching work in post-16 settings that is found guilty of serious misconduct.
The agency currently only has the power to take actions against teachers in schools, academies, sixth form colleges and certain forms of youth accommodation and children’s homes.
The move would mean that the employers of thousands of teachers, assessors, tutors and lecturers in post-16 education and training would have a statutory duty to decide whether to refer serious cases of misconduct for the TRA to investigate.
Those in scope would be further education colleges, special post-16 institutions and independent training providers. Providers of online education are also proposed to be added.
According to the consultation, published today, this proposal would keep the teacher misconduct regime in line with the statutory ‘keeping children safe in education’ safeguarding guidance which was recently updated to include requirements across broader range of education settings.
“It is important that the teacher misconduct regime keeps step with current policy and practice in the different ways that young people are being education, and enables the secretary of state to consider misconduct across a broad range of education settings,” the consultation states.
Only cases of serious misconduct can be referred to the TRA. This is broadly defined as “unacceptable professional conduct”, “conduct that may bring the profession into disrepute” or “conviction, at any time, of a relevant offence”. TRA guidance documents go in to these in more detail to aid employers.
Once the TRA receives a referral, a professional conduct panel is formed which makes a recommendation on whether or not to issue a prohibition order. This would ban the individual from carrying out teaching work, usually for life. Their name would also appear on the “prohibited list” for employers, local authorities and teacher supply agencies to be able to check.
The expansion of the providers in scope would mean that a banned teacher from the post-16 sector could not be reappointed in the pre-16 sector, and vice versa.
Powers to bar former teachers from returning
Another proposal in the consultation would give the TRA powers to investigate referrals of individuals that commit serious misconduct while not employed as a teacher.
The secretary of state doesn’t currently have the powers to ban someone from teaching if the person is not currently employed as a teacher. The new proposal would close this loop-hole and allow the TRA to consider all referrals involving serious misconduct by individuals who have at any time been employed or engaged to undertake teaching work in a relevant setting.
This would allow the regulator to probe more cases involving staff only working infrequently in teaching and those on career breaks.
No cap is planned for the length of time that may have passed since someone last worked in teaching.
“An artificial time limit may prevent consideration of extremely unsuitable people,” the consultation documents state.
“Our guidance will allow TRA caseworkers to carefully consider each case on its merits, by weighing up the length of time a person has been away from the profession, any child protection considerations and the likelihood of them trying to return to the classroom.”
The consultation opened today and closes on March 14, 2022.
Simon Parkinson, chief executive and general secretary of the Workers’ Educational Association, has been a lifelong learner himself. He tells Jess Staufenberg why a ‘community learning centre’ in every town must be delivered on now
Simon Parkinson, chief executive and general secretary of the Workers’ Educational Association (WEA), took over at a time of relative crisis for the almost 120-year-old organisation.
He was happily in his first chief executive post at The Co-operative College in Manchester when he was asked to apply for the top job at the WEA, driving its next steps as a specialist in community learning for adults.
The charity, with outgoing boss (and passionate proponent of adult education) Ruth Spellman at the helm, was having a wobble. After years of being directly grant funded, the government announced in 2017 that the regions would get devolved adult education budgets.
In one fell swoop, about one-third of the WEA’s guaranteed government funding, roughly £7 million out of a £19 million contract, was under threat (the rest of its income is from charitable fundraising and learner fees).
Parkinson clearly remembers walking into the interview to joyously congratulate the team on retaining six out of seven of its original contracts– the WEA had only lost Cambridge and Peterborough. But he was met with long faces.
“I believe, understandably, that it absolutely wobbled the organisation,” he tells me. “The thinking was that this could be the start of the end of statutory funding. You know, it will be Cambridge and Peterborough today, then Liverpool, Manchester, tomorrow.
‘It did paralyse the organisation a little bit. It’s not a criticism – we’d been delivering in those communities for over 100 years.”
The general policy landscape was also pretty brutal. Readers will be familiar with the figures, but as a fun recap: in November the Institute for Fiscal Studies revealed adult education funding has been slashed by 49 per cent between 2009 and 2019, and that even with recently announced additional funding, the total will still be one-third below 2009 levels.
But Parkinson also joined the WEA almost exactly two years ago this month, around the time the cabinet, if not quite the Treasury, began singing from a new hymn sheet. You can now barely read a Department for Education press release without “lifelong learning” cropping up somewhere.
And if anyone knows what lifelong learning means, it’s Parkinson.
Time and again, he has built his career with employers who regularly invested in their workers as learners, meaning he completed both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees because someone senior believed in upskilling him.
In Rochdale celebrating the centenary of The Co-op College based in Manchester, 2019
As a 16-year-old, however, the aim was not so lofty. The teenage Parkinson, who had achieved six O-levels at school, simply wanted to get a job he wouldn’t lose.
“Looking back, we didn’t want for anything, it was just a traditional working-class family,” he grins, describing a full home of four children growing up in Salford. It wasn’t an overly political household (“you knew you were red – Labour and Manchester United – but that was it”), but events of the 1980s soon made themselves felt.
“My dad was made redundant. He never found himself a full-time job after that, and he wasn’t unique in that. He never really recovered from that.”
It was Parkinson’s dad who accompanied him to buy a suit for his two job interviews: one with Barclays Bank and one with the local authority. Soon he had a letter back from Barclays, saying they were finalising their successful applicants.
“I thought it was a nice letter, but my dad looked at it and said, ‘that’s a no,’” chuckles Parkinson. When he got a job offer from the local authority instead, the family considered it a real win.
“My dad’s view was, ‘the local authority, that’s a job for life! You’ve done well there, son.’” A few months later, Barclays got back in touch saying they had a job for him, but Parkinson wouldn’t be budged.
“Wanting the security of employment was more important than the money, because you didn’t want to be out of work,” he explains. “There was a massive stigma. I didn’t want to be on the dole.”
In a move that seems unthinkable now, Salford City Council then funded Parkinson through his first degree when he was 18, qualifying him as a building surveyor. “I must be the least talented building surveyor there is,” he chuckles again – but the qualification took him interesting places.
He interviewed with Golden Lane Housing, the property arm of Mencap, the huge national charity supporting people with learning disabilities. From the interview onwards, he was “hooked”, he says – in part because his boss, Jan Tregelles, was a deeply inspirational leader – but also because the cause lay close to his heart.
His parents were foster parents and had adopted his brother, Gary, who has Down syndrome.
“Once he came to us as a baby, I don’t think my mum could ever let him go.” Although his brother was never directly bullied, Parkinson’s peers sometimes called his brother a “retard” – nowadays considered a completely unacceptable word for anyone with neuro-developmental or physical differences – behind his back. “I had an awareness of learning disability,” he nods.
Over the course of a decade, Parkinson helped buy 100 properties a year for Mencap, so that people with learning disabilities could live in them independently.
“We came up against a fair share of prejudice as well, with people who were really nervous about someone with a learning disability living on their street,” he continues. “It was about breaking down those stereotypes.”
Next, he worked on helping them access education and employment. This was partly possible through three specialist residential colleges Mencap owned at the time: Dilston College outside Newcastle, Lufton Manor College in Somerset and Pengwern College in north Wales.
From the way Parkinson talks about it, it was clearly inspiring work: the team were throwing open doors for people with learning disabilities at a time when the awful treatment of them in other contexts was being rapidly revealed.
He remembers the Budock Hospital scandal in Cornwall in 2006, which found “widespread institutional abuse” of people with learning difficulties. The scandals continue today: just last month, a family reported that their autistic son in care was being fed meals through a hatch.
“We could just decide, as a society, to just stop this,” grimaces Parkinson. “The way to provide people with a better life is there now.”
WEA student Sam, who studied ‘Start your own business’, website and social media courses to launch her art business
Once again, Parkinson was able to continue with his lifelong learning, as his boss sent him on a master’s in public administration at the University of Warwick. It was “fantastic” and “paid back, because I stayed for 19 years in the end!” he laughs.
It was only when he was ready to be a chief executive himself that he looked elsewhere. This took him to the Co-operative College in Manchester, helping workers access education and training, before joining the WEA.
Parkinson’s lifelong learning, and close work with the most vulnerable learners, makes him a fierce defender of community adult education. The government may be recent converts to that cause, but it is relying on an FE sector that is largely focused on young people – as Parkinson points out.
“Part of the issue is that colleges are generally seen as provision for 16-to-19-year-olds,” he says. “People returning to learning in their 30s and 40s are scared of being the oldest person in the classroom.”
Instead, the WEA is one of nine specially designated ‘Institutes for Adult Learning’. These are adult learning organisations that support about 130,000 adult learners each year: City Lit in London, Fircroft College in Birmingham, the Mary Ward Centre in London, Morley College in London, Northern College in Yorkshire, Richmond and Hillcroft Adult Community College in London, Ruskin College in Oxford and WM College (Working Men’s College) in London.
WEA student Selma, who studied English for Speakers of Other Languages to gain a job as classroom support assistant
What makes institutes for adult learning different is the greater variety of courses available than in general FE colleges, continues Parkinson.
As he puts it: “The reason the WEA has survived for over 100 years is we’re genuinely responsive to meeting adult learners’ needs. That doesn’t mean sitting here and saying, we only deliver level 2 technical qualifications.
“People trust us to respond to their needs. Maybe that starts on a cookery course.”
The question now is whether the institutes of adult learning will need to prove their outcomes in line with government skills agendas in order to keep winning contracts. This year the WEA won nine out of ten contracts it bid for, but failed in the Tees Valley Combined Authority.
This has clearly frustrated Parkinson, but he’s up to the challenge, bolstered by the fact learners in the area are still turning to the WEA via its online offer (6,000 courses are now online).
“Increasingly, we need to show the impact community learning has,” he tells me. “It gets stereotyped as old people doing the same thing again and again, and that’s just not true. We’ve got to carry on fighting.”
WEA student Kenny, who joined the ‘Reach Out’ programme for confidence and community connections
As we conclude he points out, eyes gleaming, that in 2020 the education select committee called for a ‘community learning centre’ in every town, as a way to actually deliver on the ‘lifelong learning’ commitment.
“Think of all the retail outlets that have closed down that are sat empty!” he says enthusiastically. “Why can’t we have a community learning centre in every town? It could be the Sure Start for adults.”
