One of the country’s largest manufacturing sectors has hit out at the “frustrating” and “bureaucratic” process of adding courses on to the level 3 lifetime skills guarantee offer.

The Food and Drink Federation (FDF) was left “puzzled” in December when their industry was one of many key economic sectors overlooked in the original list of 380 qualifications being offered to some adults aged 24 and above for free from April.

The federation, which represents around 900 employers, has since been lobbying for a number of food manufacturing courses to be added but has found the process “difficult”.

Only mayoral combined authorities and awarding bodies can submit bids for qualifications to be added, and the Department for Education is only allowing applications every other month. The first was in January, which was too soon for FDF’s bid to be ready, so they’re having to wait until the end of March.

Mark Corbett, the federation’s education and skills policy manager, told FE Week that food manufacturing “shouldn’t have been in this position in the first place” as the sector, which employs nearly half a million people, is perfectly placed for people who have lost their jobs and want to retrain.

“We are one of the sectors that has kept the nation fed throughout the pandemic,” Corbett said. “We were hailed by government as hidden heroes, but then for courses in our sector to be missed off, and then to be asked to go through this quite difficult process of getting courses added, is disgruntling.”

Industries such as hospitality, tourism and the media were left off the government list because they were deemed to be a low priority with low wages.

Corbett said there was “clearly something wrong” with the methodology adopted and claimed the DfE confuses food manufacturing with hospitality and catering. This led to the industry being omitted while the engineering and manufacturing technologies sectors were included, he added.

Explaining his experience of the application process so far, Corbett said: “It is very bureaucratic. As a trade association we are not allowed to submit any application to get courses added.

“We have pulled together different stakeholders and created a working group. We’re currently pulling together all the courses we think should be added and align our application together to submit it through mayoral combined authorities and make this case as strong as possible.”

He continued: “We have to make a case for the number of learners we expect to have, how we will support the local economy – is it part of local skills plans and the industrial strategy.

“We are a national sector so to have that regional criteria are a bit frustrating.”

Corbett said the situation is additionally frustrating because last month’s Skills for Jobs white paper “sold itself as putting employers at the centre to influence the skills system and yet employers do not have any role in this current system of getting courses added”.

 

The process is based on existing and well-understood processes

The level 3 courses chosen by the DfE will be fully funded for adults aged 24 and above without a full qualification at level 3 – equivalent to two full A-levels. The policy will be rolled out from April, funded by the National Skills Fund.

At the time the list was unveiled, the department said it had chosen qualifications that were “valued by employers”.

Defending the process for adding courses, a DfE spokesperson said: “The process for suggesting additional qualifications to include in the level 3 adult offer is based on existing and well-understood processes.

“We encourage these organisations [mayoral combined authorities and awarding bodies] to work with employers and put forward their suggestions, to ensure the offer provides people with chance to gain the skills they need to get ahead.

“We have been engaging with sector representatives – including those from the food and drink manufacturing sector – since the publication of the qualifications list in December and will continue to do so.”

The new offer builds on a similar policy that has been in place since 2013. It allows adults up to the age of 23 to be fully funded for their first full-level 3 qualification from the adult education budget. Those aged 24 and over have since had to take out an advanced learner loan to pay for the course.

An embattled sixth-form college being propped up by a £3 million bailout has seen its merger delayed for a second time.

Cheadle and Marple Sixth Form College in Stockport was originally due to join Trafford College Group last August, before this was pushed back to October after coronavirus delayed the due diligence process.

The college has now told FE Week the merger date has been delayed a further six months to May 2021.

Chair Alison Hewitt said “significant” progress has been made, but the change “was deemed prudent, given the ongoing work required to ensure the merger at a time of unprecedented upheaval”.

The extended timeframe has also led to the need for emergency funding to keep the college afloat.

Cheadle and Marple’s latest accounts reveal the Education and Skills Funding Agency stumped up £750,000 at the end of 2020, which is being paid in instalments, so that it could pay the bills between January and March 2021. 

This is on top of a £2.3 million emergency loan from the government, which has been received in tranches since July 2019,
during which time the college has incurred restructuring costs, additional invoices related to the pandemic and had to prepare for the merger, Hewitt said.

The loan is due to be repaid by July 31 this year.

The period between December and March is when cash is most needed by colleges as that is when providers receive the lowest proportion of core funding, a Cheadle and Marple spokesperson told FE Week. They said that they receive about 20 per cent of their annual income in that time.

The spokesperson added that the college “should not require additional funds to meet its day-to-day obligations in relation to the May date for merger”.

Hewitt said the exceptional cash from the ESFA “reflects the difficult position that had developed in the past.

“The college’s operational performance is significantly improved and on an improving trend,” she added.

College finances had been ‘terminal’

The college has been in formal intervention with the FE Commissioner since June 2019, and a report by Richard Atkins published in November 2019 revealed the college had asked the ESFA for emergency funding so it could meet staff salaries and other operating costs, because its cash was “exhausted”.

After it was handed a financial health notice to improve in July 2019, the commissioner’s report considered the college’s finances to be “terminal” due to “over-optimistic” forecasts, “seriously lacking” financial oversight and a £3 million deficit in 2018/19.

Its latest accounts show the college generated a £2.2 million deficit in 2019/20. The FE Commissioner’s recommendations included a change in leadership “as soon as possible”, the board to work with the ESFA to ensure “short-term stability”, and for governors to be trained in the insolvency regime.

The report also noted Cheadle and Marple was “relatively small and lacks the critical mass to be sustainable on a stand-alone basis”.

College now has ‘stable’ financial position

Hewitt said the college had met all the commissioner’s recommendations since the report and is “now confident of having achieved a stable financial position from which to move forward in a controlled manner and be able to meet its day-to-day cash requirements”.

In February 2020, former John Ruskin College principal Mohammed Ramzan was made transition principal and chief accounting officer for Cheadle and Marple.

Hewitt was appointed chair in October 2019, having previously served as vice chair.

And as part of cost-saving exercises the leadership team was cut from 14 to eight.

“With the collaborative and hugely supportive relationship with its merger partner, The Trafford College Group, Cheadle and Marple Sixth Form College looks forward to a successful and sustainable future,” Hewitt said.

The government has finally reintroduced a flexibility that allows apprentices to take their end-point assessment (EPA) before their English and maths functional skills test.

Updated Department for Education guidance, published today, says this this can be applied to “eligible” apprentices from February 25.

To be eligible, apprentices and providers must have “exhausted all possibilities to access functional skills assessment via face-to-face and remote assessment, and they have confirmed their intent to continue and complete their functional skills within three months of starting their EPA”.

Confirmation of this must “also be evidenced in the learner file/evidence pack”.

The DfE said this flexibility will be available until 31 May 2021.

FE Week first revealed the move was on the cards in October, but it has taken the DfE until now to roll out. This is despite thousands of apprentices being reportedly “stuck in limbo”, delaying their end-point assessment because they could not take their functional skills since September owing to Covid-19 restrictions.

Apprenticeships and skills minister Gillian Keegan said: “Our priority is making sure apprentices gain the skills they need to progress. That’s why we are introducing a new temporary flexibility which allows training providers and awarding organisations to deliver training and assessments to ensure apprentices can continue to progress.”

 

‘Apprentices must not be on a break in learning’

The rule was first put in place in May 2020 following the first national lockdown, but it only applied to those due to take their functional skills assessment up until the end of July that year.

Its reintroduction comes on the same day the government confirmed that teacher assessed grades can also be used for functional skills learners unable to take their assessment in person or remotely.

DfE’s guidance provides further details on the eligibility criteria.

It says that apprentice must not be on a break in learning; meet all other gateway criteria to progress to their EPA; have been confirmed by their provider and their employer as ready for both their EPA, and to take a functional skills qualification assessment; start their EPA on or before 31 May 2021.

Another existing flexibility – where the government has temporarily suspended the requirement for level 2 apprentices to study towards, and attempt level 2 functional skills assessments – remains available.

The visits have a particular focus on how well learners are being educated remotely. While a report is produced and published, these inspections are not graded.

The government has confirmed its plans for replacing GCSE and A-level exams this summer, with teacher assessments due to be used to give students their grades.

However, the full response to last month’s consultation is not expected to be published until later today. Education secretary Gavin Williamson is also due to brief MPs this afternoon.

Here’s what we know so far…

 

1. Teacher assessment grades, with optional ‘questions’ from exam boards

The government has confirmed it is to press ahead with its plan to use teacher assessment to issue grades this year, and has stressed that unlike last year, there will be “no algorithm”.

Ministers have also promised that pupils will only be assessed on “what they have been taught”, in recognition of the impact the Covid-19 pandemic has had on learning.

Exam boards will provide detailed guidance on how to make grade judgments by the end of the spring term, and will also publish “optional” assessment materials by Easter.

The government said teachers could use a “range of evidence”, including mock exam results, coursework, or other work completed as part of a pupil’s course, “such as essays or in-class” tests to arrive at their judgments.

Teachers will then have up until June 18 to submit their students’ grades, to allow “as much teaching time as possible” before assessments are made.

 

2. ‘Flexible’ assessment approach

Teachers will have flexibility on whether and how they use optional questions set by exam boards, some of which will be based on past papers and others that will be previously unseen.

Questions will be released for all subjects, likely by topic area, and they do not have to be sat in exam conditions.

The government will also recommend that if assessments are used, whole classes sit the same ones so teachers can compare between individuals.

In the results to the consultation, only 26 per cent of students agreed that exam board papers should be provided. That is compared to 51 per cent of parents and carers, 69 per cent of teachers and 72 per cent of senior leaders.

 

3. Results in August, not July

The government’s consultation, held last month, suggested results would “most likely” be issued in early July after the quality assurance process.

However, this has been pushed back by a month, with A-levels results due on August 10 and GCSEs on August 12. Quality assurance will still take place before the end of term.

The DfE said this approach offers “additional time for appeals to be completed”.

 

4. Another autumn exam series

For those students who want a further chance to improve on their teacher assessment grades, the government is expected to announce that a full autumn exam series will be held for the second year in a row.

Last year, almost 60 per cent of students who took an autumn exam in GCSE subjects other than English and maths improved on their grades issued in the summer. The top results at A-level dropped compared to the summer’s centre assessed grades.

 

5. Quality assurance could trigger exam board ‘visits’

The grading process will be subject to three stages of external quality assurance.

First, schools and colleges will have to send exam boards their internal quality assurance processes, which will be checked.

The boards will then conduct sample, random checks of evidence over June and July across a range of different schools and colleges.

Risk-based checks, based on criteria such as changes to entry patterns or new schools, will also then take place.

For example, if results are lower or higher than expected, it could trigger a visit from the exam board, though this could take place virtually.

 

6. Appeals will go to schools and colleges first

Despite concerns from unions, the government has confirmed its plan set out in the consultation which will allow students who believe their teacher had made an error in their grades to appeal to their school in the first instance.

However, there has been a change to the grounds for escalating an appeal to exam boards.

The consultation proposed that appeals could be submitted to exam boards on the basis that a school had not acted “in line with the exam board’s procedural requirements”.

But the government said this “did not sufficiently take into account the workload it would place on teachers, as well as the importance for students of having their appeal heard by a third party”.

Under the revised plan, schools will only have to check for errors and whether their own processes were followed in the first instance.

Then, if pupils want to take it further, exam boards will review both the school’s processes and the evidence used to determine a students’ grade to confirm whether the grade was a “reasonable exercise of academic judgement”.

Where the student disagrees with the final result issued by the exam board after the appeal, and believes the process has not been followed correctly, an application can be made to Ofqual’s Exams Procedures Review Service.

There’s no threshold for students to apply, but the grade can go up or down as in normal appeals.

DfE also expects that appeals from students with a university place will be prioritised by exam boards, which they said is similar to arrangements in previous years.

 

 

7. DfE looking at appeals funding

The DfE has said students will not have to pay for appeals, and at this stage they do not believe schools and colleges will have to pay either.

But the department is working through the exact details on how the process will be funded.

The consultation said exam boards would decide whether to charge a separate fee for appeals made to them.

 

8. Students won’t know grades before submission

As set out in the consultation, teachers will not be able to tell students’ their final grade before results days.

Exam board OCR had suggested in its response to the consultation that rules forbidding schools and colleges from telling pupils their grades should be dropped this year to prevent “sudden surprises” and reduce appeals.

But the government has said that although teachers should have a dialogue with students about the evidence that will inform their grade, they can’t tell them the grade itself.

 

9. List of centres for private candidates

Private candidates, such as those not on roll at a school, will be assessed in the same way as other pupils this year, with schools due to be provided with “clear guidance” on evidence they can use to assess them.

A list of available centres will be published “shortly” and the DfE has said it will work with the sector to make sure there are “sufficient centres” available at a “similar cost” to a normal year.

 

10. Plans confirmed for BTECs

Plans for vocational and technical qualifications will depend on the type of qualification.

For VTQs and other general qualifications that are most like GCSEs and A-levels, such as many BTECs and Cambridge Nationals/Technicals, exams will not go ahead.

Instead, teacher assessed grades will be used, based on a similar range of evidence as academic qualifications.

FE Week has the full details here.

The government has today outlined its final decisions for awarding BTEC and other vocational and technical qualification (VTQ) grades this summer.

Following a consultation which ran last month and received just over 3,000 responses, the plans are very similar to the arrangements adopted last year when exams were cancelled.

Awarding VTQs will again be based on three “broad” groups:

• Group 1: those that are most like GCSEs and A-levels
• Group 2: those that are used for direct entry into employment
• Group 3: those not like GCSEs or A-levels but used for progression

Ofqual said it will provide, as they did last year, an online tool that sets out what individual qualifications sit in each category.

Here are the key things you need to know.

 

Teacher assessed grades for group 1

For VTQs and other general qualifications that are most like GCSEs and A-levels, such as many BTECs and Cambridge Nationals/Technicals, exams will not go ahead.

Instead, teacher assessed grades will be used, based on a range of assessment, including coursework, mock exams and internal assessments.

Awarding bodies will issue guidance to providers and colleges about what evidence is needed for teacher assessed grades and timelines for information to be submitted from today (February 25).

 

 

Assessments to go ahead for group 2

VTQs that are used for direct entry into employment and demonstrate occupational or professional competence will see their assessments go ahead as planned in a “Covid-secure way”.

The government says that “alternative arrangements” cannot be used to assess a learner’s competence so their assessment must be delayed and taken at a later date if they cannot be sat at the time scheduled. This might occur in cases where a learner’s practical training has been disrupted by the pandemic.

Subject areas commonly found in this group include construction, accounting, plumbing and automotive.

 

Teacher assessed grades for group 3 if exams  cannot be taken

Assessments for VTQs that are unlike GCSEs and A-levels but are still used for progression, such as functional skills and English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), should still go ahead in a Covid-secure way or remotely.

If neither of those options are possible then “alternative arrangements” can be used, namely teacher assessed grades (read the full story here).

Again, individual awarding bodies will set out what evidence is needed in such cases from tomorrow.

 

What about T Levels?

Teacher assessed grades will be used for T Level core components this summer.

This is a change from what was proposed in the consultation, which said the assessments should be delayed until the Autumn.

The government said the decision to use teacher assessed grades avoids putting too much pressure on students by delaying assessment until the second year of study.

 

When will students receive their results?

Results for level 2 and 3 VTQs that are needed to secure college or university places will be issued on or before August 10 and 12 to align with GCSEs and A-levels.

But results for other VTQs, such as teacher assessed grades for functional skills learners, will continue to be issued throughout the year like usual but only from April.

 

Appeals will go to schools and colleges first

The government has confirmed its plan set out in the consultation which will allow students who believe their teacher had made an error in their grades to appeal to their school or college in the first instance.

However, there has been a change to the grounds for escalating an appeal to exam boards.

The consultation proposed that appeals could be submitted to exam boards on the basis that a school or college had not acted “in line with the exam board’s procedural requirements”.

But the government said this “did not sufficiently take into account the workload it would place on teachers, as well as the importance for students of having their appeal heard by a third party”.

Under the revised plan, schools and colleges will only have to check for errors and whether their own processes were followed in the first instance.

Then, if students want to take it further, exam boards will review both the school’s or college’s processes and the evidence used to determine a students’ grade to confirm whether the grade was a “reasonable exercise of academic judgement”.

Where the student disagrees with the final result issued by the exam board after the appeal, and believes the process has not been followed correctly, an application can be made to Ofqual’s Exams Procedures Review Service.

There’s no threshold for students to apply, but the grade can go up or down as in normal appeals.

 

Functional skills students can receive teacher assessed grades this year but only if it is not possible to sit their exam either in-person or remotely, the government has finally confirmed.

This will apply to those who have been unable to take the assessment since September 2020 right through to the end of the 2020/21 academic year.

FE Week understands learners who receive their results through this route will be able to do so from April, but questions remain over how many will be in line to receive teacher-assessed grades as many remote proctoring solutions are now being rolled out and lockdown restrictions eased.

Awarding bodies will issue guidance to colleges and providers about what evidence is needed for teacher assessed grades and the timelines for information to be submitted from today (February 25).

The Department for Education and Ofqual confirmed this approach as they set out their final decision on awarding grades for GCSEs, A-levels and vocational and technical qualifications this summer following the cancellation of exams and a consultation.

Providers and thousands of learners, particularly apprentices, have been stuck in limbo and unable to complete their functional skills programme due to Covid-19 restrictions since the start of the academic year.

The issue lies mostly with those in health care settings such as nursing homes, who have not been able to attend their provider’s site to sit the exam, to prevent the spread of the virus.

Association of Employment and Learning Providers chief executive Jane Hickie said that after five months of “battling”, the confirmation that teacher assessments will be permitted “seems almost like a pyrrhic victory for the thousands of apprentices who have been unable to progress”.

She added that it was also “disappointing” that the assessments can’t begin until after Easter on technical grounds which “don’t seem to trouble the Welsh government”.

 

‘Apprentices have been let down very badly by this sorry episode’

Functional skills learners were able to receive calculated results last summer following the cancellation of exams, but Ofqual has until now refused to reintroduce them.

Awarding bodies have meanwhile struggled to introduce remote solutions that allow apprentices to take the assessments either at home or in the workplace without face-to-face invigilation.

But many awarding organisations have now got over this hurdle. The majority are offering remote solutions where learners and apprentices can sit the assessment at home.

The AELP does however anticipate that teacher assessments will be needed despite the lockdown restrictions being lifted and warned that it “may take up to the end of July to clear the logjam of untaken functional skills tests”.

Hickie said that independent training providers, assessors and apprentices are at the “back of the queue” in receiving Covid home testing kits and therefore “safety considerations are likely to lead in a demand for the alternative arrangements allowed by this consultation outcome”.

“Young apprentices have been let down very badly by this sorry episode of complete indifference during an unprecedented pandemic and many of them are now beyond the planned ended dates of their apprenticeship programmes, meaning that they are reliant on their providers to support them unfunded,” she added.

“Not exactly the apprenticeship guarantee that the prime minister had in mind.”

Ofqual has published a guide to awarding functional skills in 2021, which you can read here.