Education secretary Gavin Williamson has said teachers’ “hard work” in producing grades for their students this year has “earned the trust and admiration of the whole country”.
In a letter thanking teachers ahead of A-level results day tomorrow, Williamson said teachers have given students “their passports to the future”.
It follows Dr Mary Bousted, National Education Union joint general secretary, saying that “any attempt” to blame teachers for grades “will be met with fire and fury”.
Earlier this year, in an exclusive interview with FE Week, Williamson pledged to back teachers “all the way” in their efforts to award teacher access grades and said he would share responsibility of there is a backlash on results days.
Let me just say this. Any attempt by a government minister, or Ofqual, or anyone else, to blame teachers next week’s GCSE and A level grades will be met with fire and fury. Teachers are the heroes here.
In his letter, Williamson says: “Right at the start of the pandemic I said that people would now have a far greater appreciation of what teachers do and this will only have increased as the months passed.
“Your hard work will have earned the trust and admiration of the whole country. In fact, I think that, as a nation, we have perhaps never valued education as much as we do now.
“In the next few weeks students across the country will be taking up apprenticeships, preparing for university, moving on to A levels and other further qualifications or starting their first job. They can take those next steps because of everything you’ve done to support them.”
Williamson said teacher assessed grades process has taken a “significant amount of work” but teachers “took it on and worked, as you always do, for the greatest benefit for your pupils”.
He added: “For all these ground-breaking achievements I want to say a heartfelt thank you on behalf of the Prime Minister, my department and the ministerial team.”
Both the workload and the level of responsibility staff have shouldered in providing accurate results need to be duly recognised, writes Julie McCulloch
With vocational and technical qualifications and A-level results imminent, let’s just remind ourselves how we got here. Because this is, of course, a results day like no other.
The global pandemic and the educational disruption it has caused have had a massive impact on learning and led to the cancellation of public exams for the second year in succession.
Indeed, it would be fair to say that no cohort of students has had to cope with such educational turbulence since the second world war.
They have experienced two lockdowns in which colleges were closed to most students, and intervening periods in which many students have had to periodically self-isolate because of Covid and the associated safety processes.
Some will have fared better than others because of a wide variety of factors – whether they had access to technology and a suitable space at home in which to study, the severity of the pandemic in their area of the country, and the emotional impact of coronavirus in their own lives such as bereavement and family financial problems.
In short, the learning experience of these students will have differed widely and the system of teacher assessment introduced in lieu of public exams was deliberately designed to be flexible enough to take into account this differential experience.
Teacher assessment was designed to be flexible enough to take into account differential student experiences
In truth, it’s a system that could and should have been put in place a lot earlier than actually happened. We were warning the government about the need for a contingency plan in case exams couldn’t go ahead way back last summer.
Unfortunately, the government failed to act on those warnings and this resulted in an almighty scramble to set up and implement a teacher assessment system once the decision was made in January to cancel public exams.
It is to the enormous credit of teachers and leaders that they implemented this new system from scratch in such a short space of time and that they worked so diligently to give their students grades that are fair and accurate.
They have gone the extra mile and then a few further extra miles.
And it is also to the great credit of students that they have shown such fortitude in applying themselves to their studies and the assessment process as well as coping with the pressures of the ongoing pandemic.
There is, inevitably, speculation about grade inflation this year. It would certainly not be a surprise if the grade distribution is different than in normal years because this is essentially a different approach to assessment.
Crucially, the approach this year is based on teachers’ holistic judgements of a student’s performance across a range of assessments.
But this does not mean that grades are devalued. On the contrary. This cohort of students have experienced an extraordinary level of disruption and pressure and their achievements in such difficult circumstances should be celebrated.
So too should the work of their teachers in turning round these results amidst the chaos of the last few months. It has involved an incredible amount of additional work alongside all the pressures of continuing to operate Covid safety measures in their colleges.
And it is not only the workload involved that has been so demanding but also the level of responsibility involved in providing fair and accurate grades which are so important to young people in our high-stakes system.
Despite the stories about parental pressure, the possible involvement of lawyers in appeals and all the other controversies, what we’re hearing from college leaders across the country is that the process has actually gone as well as it possibly could.
What we’re hearing from across the country is that the process has actually gone as well as it possibly could
That’s testimony to a profession that has stepped up to the plate, and a generation of young people who are remarkably resilient – contrary to the opinion of some commentators.
The signs are good that the pandemic will soon pass. The young people receiving their results this week will move on to the next stage of their lives and they will have every chance of bright futures ahead.
That is certainly what they deserve after such a torrid 18 months. We wish them well.
Hull’s chair of governors Lesley Davies said Malish had been faced with “no small task” embarking on the provider’s “ambitious plans for the future”.
Lesley Davies
The scale of which had been exacerbated by him “working away from home with a young family,” so: “Chris has taken the difficult decision to leave the college. We understand the reasons for Chris’ decision and wish him well for the future.”
Malish himself said: “This has been an incredibly difficult decision and while I am sad to be leaving the college, I know it isn’t the right time for me personally to take the college on the next phase of its journey.”
The board is working to find an interim replacement as soon as possible, the college added.
College has faced multiple financial and management problems
They will be the fifth interim principal at Hull since Swithenbank left: the college’s then-vice principal for finance Darryn Hedges was first; followed by Hull’s former deputy principal turned Hopwood Hall leader Derek O’Toole; followed by then Newcastle College principal Tony Lewin; culminating in former Dudley College boss Lowell Williams.
Williams had been working as a consultant for the college before he stepped up to the top job and oversaw the decision by the college to close its campus in Goole, which he said they had “no need for”.
This came after the college faced multiple financial and management problems, which first became public when it received a £42 million bailout from the government in 2018 as part of a Fresh Start process.
Michelle Swithenbank
Swithenbank resigned after an investigation into nepotism and financial wrongdoing at the college found “no impropriety” on her part. Around that time, the then FE Commissioner Richard Atkins launched his own investigation into the college and a report leaked to FE Week last year revealed how the close family of senior postholders had been handed jobs at the college while staff did not speak out for “fear of being exited at short notice”.
In April 2019, the college announced it would offload its Harrogate campus to Leeds City College as part of restructuring plans following the Fresh Start bailout.
Gavin Williamson says he wants T Levels to be a world-beating “gold standard” qualification. Just saying that doesn’t make it so, writes Niamh Sweeney
I have been sounding the klaxon about T Levels since they were first mooted.
Williamson seems to have heard the klaxon, but instead of doing something proactive or listening to the profession, he has taken what appears to be an ideological decision to end the funding for their competing qualifications, BTECs.
I have been teaching a range of general applied qualifications for 20 years. They are popular with students, many of whom know the employment direction they wish to travel in.
I have had students go on to study everything from midwifery, to law and primary education. They give access to the world of work and give students experience of project work, managing deadlines, critical thinking and problem solving.
Vocational, technical and applied qualifications are often considered “easy” and that simply isn’t true.
A whole load of “lockdown haircuts” prove just how difficult level 1 or 2 hairdressing is and how much we should value those who complete the qualifications to distinction level.
‘Lockdown haircuts’ prove just how difficult level 1 or 2 hairdressing is
We currently have an “academic” education system policed by exams. We have a lot of rote learning. Students come to me at post 16 and they are exhausted.
They have lost the love for learning and often don’t have independent learning skills.
In fact in my 20 years of teaching, I have witnessed a decline in the level of independent study skills that 16-year-olds possess, even amongst the high flyers.
Vocational, technical and general applied qualifications, like the ones I teach in criminology and health and social care, spark a student’s interest and provide an excellent stepping stones into the world of work or higher education.
Not only this, but they tackle complex subjects that help our young people become the active, global citizens we need them to be.
If T Levels are the “gold standard” Gavin, why has the number of colleges offering the qualifications fallen and roll out slowed?
Just 50 colleges were initially chosen to roll out the qualification, which fell to 46 as four pulled out.
Quite staggeringly Scarborough sixth form, which is Williamson’s old college, pulled out of offering construction and digital pathways from 2020 because of a lack of availability of placements for the mandatory 315-hour work placements locally.
The expectation for T Level students to complete 315 hours or 45 days of work placement is aspirational at best.
It’s all well and good for Williamson to say that Rolls Royce and British Aerospace are designing programmes of assessment, but the reality is we struggle finding employers to take our Health and Social Care students for 100 hours at the moment.
And at the height of the pandemic, the DfE stopped its marketing and advertising of T Levels. Literally when it had a captive audience, it stopped telling people what they were.
Take up from schools, colleges and young people is way below the expectation, given they are “gold standard”.
I know of one school sixth form with a cohort of 12 who are delivering the programme “nested” in the same room as the established BTEC qualification because parents and students are not yet convinced by it. It would be too costly to run a cohort of just 12.
The secretary of state is managing to do the very thing that no education secretary should want to do.
His legacy will be a system that pits unchanged, 1950s-style, linear A levels against the untested T Level.
It will be a legacy that increases the education attainment gap and worsens the skills gap that big business warns us all about.
Ofqual has confirmed teacher-assessed grades are to end and exams will return next year for vocational and technical qualifications.
But awarding bodies will be allowed to adapt assessments in 2021/22 for qualifications like functional skills and T Levels, in light of how Covid-19 has affected students’ learning, the regulator has said.
What adaptations could be used will be left mostly up to individual awarding bodies, as: “The variety in assessment structures and delivery across the VTQ landscape mean that a one-size-fits-all approach is not suitable for these qualifications.”
A consultation began in July on proposals by Ofqual and the Department for Education for how 2021/22 exams should go ahead.
The announcements for how exams will run next year have been published alongside the decisions document from the consultation, which confirms teacher-assessed grades will end, with all qualifications being awarded based on evidence from exams and other assessments from 1 September.
Adaptations will be allowed for assessments and qualifications to free up time for teaching and learning and “to build in resilience in case of any further disruption”.
Formulae sheets will not be permitted for functional skills assessments from next year, as had been proposed, but awarding bodies may be allowed to push back the assessments for occupational specialisms further in the academic year to give learners more time to develop required skills for example.
The document says only changes to delivery, such as timing, will be allowed for occupational specialism assessments, and no change will be allowed to be made to content in order “streamline the skills which are taught or assessed”.
Any adaptations to assessments will need to be agreed with Ofqual and the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education, the decisions document reads.
Students who are “mid-flight” and not receiving qualification certificates this year will be able to carry forward centre- or teacher-assessed grades from 2020/21 and will not be required to sit that assessment in 2021/22 or any subsequent year, unless they wish to improve their grade.
Today’s announcement comes ahead of next week, when the results for BTECs, GCSEs and A-levels will be revealed to students after their grades were decided by teachers once exam were cancelled for a second year in a row.
Colleges are calling on the government to move to an “in-year funding model” after their membership body projected an extra 90,000 students will be in their classrooms by 2024/25.
The Association of Colleges has today demanded the government provide an automatic guarantee of additional funding for extra 16-to-18-year-olds recruited each year, and said the Treasury should set multi-year revenue and capital budgets.
The Department for Education has also been called upon to annually publish student number projections for that age group, as currently they only provide them for students aged up to 15, three years before the minimum participation age of 18.
David Hughes
The association’s chief executive David Hughes said the lack of official projection data, combined with how government funds college students on a one-year lag “will make it increasingly difficult for colleges to cater for every student.
“The government wants more students to study in colleges but is not providing the funding needed and things will get worse as numbers rise, every year over the next decade.”
Difference between college and university funding ‘not fair to students’
The association has released a report, ‘Forecasting 16-to-18 education growth to 2030’, to explain the calculations, which highlights how universities will be fully funded for every single extra student in the year they are recruited while colleges have no such guarantee because their funding is based on lagged learner numbers.
“That is not fair on those students, nor does it support colleges to plan for and develop the capacity for the growth in numbers,” Hughes writes in the report.
The 90,000 figure is partly based on how the birth rate has risen since 2002, meaning more students will be of age for leaving school and starting college over the next few years.
Based on the association’s calculations, there will be a further 100,000 young people in colleges in the second half of the 2020s.
It is possible apprenticeship delivery could cease in colleges
The recent fall in apprenticeship starts – 28 per cent between 2019/20 and 2020/21 according to figures released this year – is another factor cited by the AoC.
Apprenticeships as a percentage of the college population halved from four to two per cent between 2019 and 2020, so the report warns: “It is possible there will come a point when apprenticeship delivery numbers are so low within colleges that the provision ceases altogether.”
The “profound” changes the coronavirus pandemic has wrought in the economy are another factor, as it has had “a significant negative impact on young people as the number of entry level jobs in hospitality and retail sharply reduced”.
This has resulted in an eight per cent rise in unemployment among the 16 to 24 population, without a guarantee of any “bounce back” in the economy this year.
With fewer jobs on offer, more young people will turn to training, the report predicts.
The government pushing students to study higher technical qualifications between levels 4 and 5 instead of degrees, and the possibility students will favour courses with a set industry placement, like T Levels, could also mean more of them enrol at colleges.
Student projection methodologies cannot account for colleges’ ‘potential variation’
Colleges can apply for in-year growth funding if they see a spike in student numbers, but the AoC has previously pointed out this is based on affordability and not guaranteed.
The AoC warned last November 20,000 “unfunded” extra 16-to-18-year-olds were already studying in colleges, owing to a surge in enrolments due to Covid-19.
The same week, the Institute of Fiscal Studies warned that, owing to FE’s lagged funding system, exceptional rises in student numbers could generate a real-terms fall in funding per student in 2020/21.
As part of its report, the AoC revealed it had asked the DfE a few years ago why student projection numbers stopped at 15, and were told the methodologies used for the projections were “relatively simple”.
So, as there are “many factors which can affect the number of children who choose to a) continue post 16 in a formal education setting and b) do that within a school,” the methodologies could not take into account the “potential variation” when enrolment is “entirely voluntary,” the DfE told the association.
A DfE spokesperson said: “The system of lagged funding, whereby an institution’s funding allocation is based on student numbers from the previous year, is well established and understood because it provides institutions with clear allocations each year, allowing them to make plans with confidence.
“Where institutions see a particularly large increase in student numbers in a year, they typically qualify for exceptional in-year growth funding, in addition to the lagged funding, to help them with the extra costs of these students.”
They highlighted that the department has amended the methodology for calculating growth so institutions with even modest growth were eligible for extra cash.
They also pointed to the £83 million Post-16 Capacity Fund, which was launched to ensure colleges can accommodate an expected demographic increase in 16 to 19-year-olds in 2022/23.
Funding for beyond 2021/22, including anticipated increases in the 16-19 population, will be considered as part of the upcoming spending review, they added.
An independent review has been launched to ensure the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) “remains effective into the future”, the government has announced.
The review will look at the “operating model, governance, accountability and impact” of the organisation. It is part of wider programme of reviews into arm’s length bodies.
The ESFA is accountable for £65 billion of funding for the education and training sector. It regulates academics, further education and sixth form colleges, and training providers, as well as delivering the National Careers Service, apprenticeships and T Levels.
Professor Sir David Bell, vice chancellor at the University of Sunderland will lead the review, which will run until early 2022.
It comes after the ESFA’s chief executive Eileen Milner stepped down this year, as revealed by FE Week. She has been replaced on an interim basis by former regional schools commissioner John Edwards.
READ MORE: ESFA boss Eileen Milner to become combined authority chief executive
Academies minister Baroness Berridge said the ESFA is responsible for ensuring funding “gets to where it is needed and is properly spent, among a wide range of other vital functions.
“We will examine the ESFA and will identify opportunities for improvement, and areas of success on which we can build, so that it continues to deliver for the public and continues to represent a responsible use of taxpayers’ money.”
Bell will be support by “a team of civil servants” and will have access to a “challenge panel” who will provide “insight and feedback drawing on their personal experience and expertise”. The panel is yet to be appointed.
Remote delivery of apprenticeship assessment will become a permanent option that providers can use beyond Covid-19, the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education has announced.
The institute said today that the apprenticeship flexibilities and temporary discretions introduced to support the sector through the pandemic will run until the end of 2021, but a number will then cease.
Seven of the ten (see full list below) flexibilities which apply to all apprenticeships will however be retained as permanent adjustments, where it is “clear they represent an improvement on the arrangements which were in place before Covid-19”.
They include allowing remote delivery of assessment; simulated environments being used instead of observation in workplaces; and exams being online instead of on paper.
Temporary discretions, which only apply to specific apprenticeships, will all begin their notice period from today and be switched off on 31 December 2021.
However, it will be possible for providers to ask for these to be retained “where there remain exceptional challenges to apprentices being able to complete their end point assessments”. Interested parties will have until October 1 to do so. The institute said it will be prepared to take a sectorial approach if this is “justified”.
Association of Employment and Learning Providers research director Paul Warner welcomed the move to remote assessment.
He said: “The pandemic has driven the need to embrace technology in apprenticeship delivery and assessment and this really positive announcement is moving away from temporary flexibilities at a standard level to implement permanent delivery flexibilities at a holistic level.
“Remote assessment will help ensure proper scalability that has yet to be properly tested as we emerge from the lockdown. The sector could be delivering 300-400,000 of them a year and doing them face to face would be a significant challenge.”
An IfATE spokesperson said: “Over the last year and a half, flexibilities have made a huge difference to tens of thousands of people, helping apprentices to move forward despite the pandemic.
“We want to take what we have learnt and keep on improving, but also give stability – which is why nothing is changing until 2022.”
7 flexibilities to be retained
The seven apprenticeship flexibilities to be made permanent are:
remote delivery of assessment (including invigilation);
assessment gateway sign off being done remotely;
pauses being allowed between elements of end point assessments;
assessment element delivery being in any order;
simulated environments being used instead of observation in workplaces;
assessments taking place outside of usual venues;
assessment exams being online instead of on paper.
The institute said it will be “necessary to make some minor adjustments to make sure that quality can always continue to be protected once the impact of Covid-19 is significantly diminished”. It plans to publish full guidance to explain exactly how the seven flexibilities above should be applied from 2022 “later this summer”.
Three types of flexibilities will be discontinued from 1 January 2022. However, the institute said that this deadline may be extended for specific sectors still experiencing disruption due to Covid-19.
The three are:
The extension to the length of the end assessment period – because it “disadvantages apprentices to have a long wait for their end point assessment after passing through gateway”.
Changes to who sits on assessment panels – during the Covid-19 period it wasn’t always possible to have an employer sit on a panel as many were furloughed or busy elsewhere. As the economy returns to normal, the original assessment plan can now be delivered, “helping to protect quality for apprentices, maintain validity and improve learning for future apprentices”.
Allowing other suitable evidence of achievement to be used in place of mandated qualifications – this is no longer needed because “the mandated qualifications should become available as restrictions are relaxed”.
These will be switched off from 31 December 2021 but it will be possible to ask for the discretions to be retained beyond this period where there “remain exceptional challenges to apprentices being able to complete their end point assessments”.
Providers have been advised to speak to their end point assessment organisation or the external quality assurance provider in the first instance to discuss. EQAPs can then formally pass on the request to the institute, but must do so by October 1 to “guarantee a resolution before the cut-off date”.
The institute plans to announce those discretions that will be retained no later than 14 December 2021.
Today’s announcement added that the Department for Education has agreed to continue the flexibility waiving the requirement for level 2 apprentices to take level 2 functional skills tests. The institute said this was communicated to the sector via an update on 31 June and is in the new 2021/22 funding rules.
The register of apprenticeship training providers will be opened to all corners this month, but new applicants will only be successful if they can prove they “fulfil unmet employer demand”.
“As Covid-19 restrictions have now been lifted, the market entry exceptions process for critical worker – linked provisions will cease on 15 August 2021.
“From 16 August 2021, the register will only be open for new providers that are able to fulfil an unmet employer demand. Full details on this new process will be shared on GOV.UK on 16 August 2021,” the update reads.
The ESFA announced in April 2021 a complete refresh of RoATP, which organisations need to be on to receive funding for training apprentices.
Association of Employment and Learning Providers chief policy officer Simon Ashworth criticised the government from “bouncing from one extreme to the other”.
He said the AELP “understood” the government “may feel that there are now too many apprenticeship providers in the market after it invited so many new ones into it when the register was first set up”.
But there ought to be “some transparency about how the government will go about defining, identifying and measuring unmet employer demand, given that it has set up a digital apprenticeship service for employers that meets demand in real time”.
“New providers are often specialists offering niche provision or they serve areas out of easy reach of a local college.
“Having a responsive system to meet the needs of employers is critical and the government needs to keep this under regular review instead of opting for a black or white solution,” Ashworth argued.
There are currently 2,123 providers on RoATP; made up of 1,464 main providers, 482 supporting providers, and 177 employer providers.
Providers, the agency previously said, will be randomly selected to apply to RoATP in phases between May 2021 to March 2022.
Under this new application process, providers must, for example, prove their “experience of managing and delivering training to learners and are established within the sectors in which you intend to deliver”.
This is the third RoATP refresh since 2017, with refreshes costing about £1.2 million a turn.
