Apprenticeship starts appear to be recovering after new data showed a less dramatic percentage drop amid the pandemic.
Figures published this morning by the Department for Education show there were 91,100 starts recorded from August to October 2020, compared to 125,800 reported for the same period pre-Covid-19 in 2019/20 – a 28 per cent fall.
It is an improved picture on the previous quarter of the pandemic, when 43,600 starts were achieved between May and July 2020, compared to 75,500 starts for the same period in 2019 – a 42 per cent fall.
The DfE points out that the 2020/21 data “covers a period affected by varying Covid-19 restrictions, which will have impacted on apprenticeship and traineeship learning and also provider reporting behaviour via the Individualised Learner Record”, adding that “extra care should be taken in comparing and interpreting data presented in this release”.
For the data recorded in the first quarter of 2020/21, those aged under 19 accounted for the biggest fall, with starts for this age group dropping 42 per cent from 40,700 last year to 23,800.
Starts for level 2 apprenticeships similarly dropped by 43 per cent – from 41,000 to 23,300 – while the only increase in starts in quarter one of 2020/21 was seen among higher apprenticeships, which rose by 1 per cent from 29,800 to 30,100.
As at 8 January 2021, a total of 18,670 starts were planned under the scheme. The Treasury had budgeted for up to 100,000 incentive payments for new apprentice hires.
Association of Employment and Learning Providers chief executive Jane Hickie said her organisation had previously warned that the incentives for apprenticeships “weren’t enough to make a significant difference”, as today’s data suggests.
“The chancellor recognises that young people are being hurt most by this recession, as today’s figures show, but his March statement has to do a lot more to reverse these falls,” she added.
Responding to today’s figures, skills minister Gillian Keegan said: “Apprenticeships form a vital part of our new Skills for Jobs White Paper which will transform post-16 education and training, helping to deliver the skills individuals, businesses and the economy need to build back better from the pandemic.
“As of January 8th 2021 almost 19,000 applications had been submitted from employers for our offer of a cash boost of up to £2000 to hire new apprentices, showing the value they know apprenticeships can bring to their business. This offer is available until March 2021, so businesses can create even more opportunities and give more people the life changing chance to kick start or upskill their career.”
She added: “I know the pandemic is continuing to impact businesses across the country and some apprentices have lost their job, or are facing redundancy. Our Redundancy Support Service continues to offer free advice to apprentices and help to find them alternative options.”
Newly-honoured principal, Dipa Ganguli could teach us all a thing or two about keeping calm and carrying on, finds JL Dutaut
If college leaders feel aggrieved at being an afterthought to so many ministers’ education announcements, then look no further than Dipa Ganguli for advice on how to stay calm and carry on.
Take the New Year’s Eve announcement on the delayed start of term and compulsory mass testing, for example. Initially, it lacked any mention of adult education at all. And that’s just standard.
But the Sutton College principal is as sanguine as it’s possible to be. With smiling acceptance of the new lockdown, she simply offers the following: “It’s okay. Most of our courses were online anyway. Except for, you know, the practical courses.”
Context matters to understand quite how much resilience is on show from Ganguli here. On New Year’s Day of 2020, with Covid only beginning to make distant headlines, the Learning and Work Institute published its latest report revealing that 4 million adult learners had been lost in a decade.
It’s not tutors’ fault we can’t run courses, so we just take the hit
This new closure – the second since that report – is hitting Sutton College in its pocket. “The college run a mixture of fee paying as well as funded courses. Whatever we could move online, we have. The rest – like pottery and floristry – we’ve just have to cancel.”
Such cancellations hit the college’s revenue stream hard. “We still pay the tutors because it’s no fault of theirs that we can’t run the course,” says Ganguli. “So we just take the hit.”
Not that the college would have any other choice when it comes to closures. The average age of learners at Sutton is 45, which puts many of them in high-risk categories. So even if it was treated as the business it fundamentally is – as opposed to a public sector body like a school – and allowed to stay open as an essential service, the simple fact is that many of its courses couldn’t operate.
A year ago, when LWI CEO, Stephen Evans warned that “with our economy set to undergo transformational change in the coming years, lifelong learning has never been more important,” he couldn’t have imagined the depth of crisis Covid would represent.
In November, the organisation’s head of research, Emily Jones interpreted the results of their latest Adult Participation in Learning survey. In her article in these pages, she voiced concern that while the pandemic and its varied economic consequences correlated with an increase in interest, the survey revealed stark inequalities. People who were younger, better off, in work and already had qualifications were more likely to have engaged, regardless of furlough.
In other words, those Sutton College students who have seen their courses cancelled twice were already those on the fringe of engagement – on self- or community-funded courses. That doesn’t bode well for future attendance, but Ganguli is an optimist and “hopeful we’ll be able to offer those courses” when the lockdown ends.
Optimism isn’t enough though. As Jones reminded our readers in November, “learning is addictive” and under Ganguli’s leadership Sutton College has been versatile in its attempts to hook those potential learners.
The digital divide continues to make headlines in this new lockdown and the focus is entirely on the government’s efforts to get laptops and internet into the homes of disadvantaged families. But what about making use of those laptops?
“They’re talking about digital and how there’s no access to computers,” says Ganguli, “But there’s no digital skills. We also found parents don’t have the basic literacy and numeracy skills to be able to support their children with homeschooling. So we’ve done quite a lot of work with local primary schools and through our family learning provision, giving them the skills to support their children with their work.”
A policy win-win. Parents see their skills improve. Their children are better supported. And those parents get a taste of learning too – a direct sense of accomplishment and pride in the outcomes.
Sadly, as Ganguli says, “that doesn’t get a mention”.
Laptops? Many parents lack the skills to support home schooling
It does get noticed though. Delhi-born Ganguli was listed in the New Year’s honours list for her contributions to adult education and will receive her OBE when Covid restrictions allow. She says of the pending award that it’s “a validation for all of the Adult and Community Education sector that works with some of the most disadvantaged learners in our community, providing opportunities to upskill, reskill and succeed in their lives.”
For all that enthusiasm though, Ganguli does have “slight” concerns for her beloved sector. She is stoic, but she concedes that “there are quite a few tensions we’re working with”.
Not least among them is the ongoing consultation on adult education funding. Typically, her worry is first and foremost for what’s right for students rather than the college’s purse. “There is definitely a need to have entry level qualifications, levels one and two,” she tells me, “Not everybody is ready to move straight on to the level three qualification.”
And adult funding comes from multiple sources – all of them are concerning, not just because of the pandemic. “Now we’re concentrating on what this lockdown means and financial sustainability for a lot of us. We’ve got the added tension of working with local authorities. I am lucky mine’s very responsive, but there are some who are in trouble. They look at adult education as easy funds.”
Born to a family of accountants, Ganguli knew early on that profession wasn’t for her. Nevertheless, she has made college business her business and the story of how she came to do that is itself one of upskilling and reskilling.
Convent school-educated, she was funnelled by the Indian qualifications system towards maths and business. While studying for her degree in economics and envisioning a career in commerce, she met her future husband, then an English tourist visiting the area, who happened to attend a party she was at.
They fell in love, married and Ganguli moved here with him, completing her degree with the university of Delhi at a distance before the conveniences of ‘remote learning’, let alone email. Her final exams were invigilated at the British High Commission offices.
She worked as she settled here too, and it was as a panel secretary for social services that she “first encountered racism”. Demeaned in the pursuance of her role, she eventually got a post teaching ESOL (English as a Second or Other Language) “and there, in that environment, when I saw the respect my colleagues gave these learners who were coming through with such struggles, it was completely different. It was truly inspirational.”
But that was after the experience of working in social services had caused her to have a crisis of confidence, to doubt that she belonged here, and to return to her parents in India. Adult education has them to thank for her return, and her marriage has long outlived that early crisis too (27 years!).
As a mother of three young children, Ganguli had taken a step from ESOL into college business, making good on her economics education as MIS and business manager for Croydon Adult Learning and Training. But finding herself on the leadership team, she was frustrated that teachers ignored her feedback because of her lack of teaching experience.
So she showed them. She joined Sutton College as a sessional tutor in numeracy while she qualified part-time as a teacher – all the while taking a promotion as Croydon’s service strategy manager. Her feedback is heeded now!
Cancelling courses again has been hard on our students
And she showed the racists too. Two more career steps to attain principalship of Sutton College via assistant principalship at the Westminster Adult Education service. Lengthy service as a HOLEX policy forum member. Board member of the Association of Adult Education and Training Organisations. Her continuing contribution will see her meet the Queen this year.
And when she does, Her Majesty will be in good company to remind us all of the virtue of keeping calm and carrying on.
“When students came back in September,” Ganguli tells me, “they were saying how grateful they were just to be able to come into college and get a bit of human interaction. So [cancelling courses again] has been hard. But at least the funded provision is all online. So I’m grateful for what we can provide.”
Perhaps the monarch can be persuaded to explain to ministers what Ganguli knows and government research has shown. Beyond the blunt measure of outcomes and preconceptions about pottery and floristry courses, investment in adult education is a net benefit – to health both physical and mental, to social and community cohesion including democratic participation.
Colleges will begin reopening to more students from 8 March if the government’s Covid-19 vaccination targets are met, the Department for Education has confirmed.
Prime minister Boris Johnson (pictured) announced yesterday that this would the earliest that schools could reopen, but failed to mention whether this would apply to the further education sector.
Last night the DfE confirmed colleges are part of the same plan. If all the people in the four most vulnerable groups are vaccinated by 15 February, the government will look at fully reopening schools and colleges three weeks later, by 8 March, as that is when those groups will have developed immunity to Covid-19.
Since January, only vulnerable young people and the children of critical workers have been given face-to-face tuition at FE providers. The DfE has confirmed this will continue for the time being.
Johnson said yesterday the goal “must be to buy the extra weeks we need to immunise the most vulnerable and get this virus under control so that together we can defeat this most wretched disease, reclaim our lives, once and for all”.
The DfE has also announced an extra £300 million for early years, providers, schools and colleges to provide catch-up tutoring and a collaboration with the education sector to develop plans for summer schools and a “Covid premium” to support catch-up.
In light of the “huge impact” extending school and college closures will have on students’ learning, the DfE has said it will work with providers, parents and teachers to develop a “long-term plan” for students to make up their learning over the course of this parliament.
Education secretary Gavin Williamson said it is the country’s “priority” to get students back to face-to-face education, “but it is crucial we do this at the right time and I want to assure parents, teachers, children and young people that schools, colleges and universities will be the first to fully return as soon as the public health picture allows it”.
The restrictions on face-to-face education will be reviewed again in the middle of next month, and the government has said it is committed to publishing a plan for leaving lockdown by the end of February.
Responding to the prime minister’s statement, the University and College Union called for all but essential teaching to be kept online until at least April for colleges.
Jo Grady said staff “need to be able to plan their work over the coming months in the knowledge they will not be forced to do unnecessary and unsafe in-person activities,” including working in offices on campus, libraries, laboratories and classrooms.
“College staff are burnt out from the chaotic and unsustainable demands which the sector has placed on them this year. We need certainty and stability if staff are to continue delivering the best possible remote learning for students.”
She added that it was “scandalous” that the prime minister had “not even bothered to mention further or higher education as part of his statement on plans to fully reopen school sites”.
Employers can claim the government’s promised £1,000 for a completed traineeship work placement using an online form from today.
The form is now live on the gov.uk website and it is understood claims will be checked against the monthly Individualised Learner Record data submitted by traineeship providers before payments are made.
The £1,000 payment is limited to 10 trainees for each of the nine regions in England, per employer.
The Department for Education confirmed the £1,000 can only be claimed for work placements that were “started and completed” from 1 September 2020 to 31 July 2021.
The employer bonuses were first announced back in July in chancellor Rishi Sunak’s Plan for Jobs and as part of a £111 million funding injection into the traineeships programme, in a bid to triple the number of starts in the current academic year, to the end July 2021.
Commenting on the launch of the incentive payment claim form, Sunak said: “My number one priority is to support, protect and create jobs, which is why for the first time ever we’re giving businesses £1,000 to cover the cost of trainee work experience, because we know that traineeships are a proven way to give young people the skills and opportunity, they need to be ready for work.
“We also know that our young people will be vital in the national effort to recover from the pandemic, so I urge businesses to seize this opportunity and help us harness the talent of our young people and offer hope for the future.”
Keegan added: “We’re pulling out all the stops to help young people get the skills and confidence they need to progress. This cash boost will help employers of all sizes provide more traineeship opportunities, to invest in their workforce so they can rebuild and grow, giving young people a vital route to start their apprenticeship journey, get their first job or go on to further study.”
Introduced as a flagship pre-employability programme in 2013, traineeships are eligible for 16 to 24-year-olds and training providers are funded by the Education and Skills Funding Agency to deliver pre-employment training and arrange work placements from six weeks to twelve months.
Starts on the scheme hit a high of 24,100 in 2015/16 but have been dropping since and reached just 12,100 in 2019/20.
A £65 million tender to expand the number of 19 to 24 traineeships was recently run and outcomes were revealed last week – the funding of which is hoped to fund an additional 20,000 starts between 1 February and 31 July 2021.
In a bid to triple starts, growth funding has also been handed to providers to deliver more 16-to-19 traineeships, the funding rate for the 19-to-24s has risen from £970 to £1,500 and the eligibility of the scheme has been expanded to include people that already hold full level 3 qualifications, such as A-levels.
The government’s approach to college intervention takes too long, costs too much and is not effective in making them more sustainable, influential MPs have said.
A Public Accounts Committee report today warns that ministers “cannot keep putting sticking plasters over this gaping wound” as it delivers a damning verdict on how college finances are being managed while funding for courses has been cut.
Based on evidence it received, the PAC states that colleges’ autonomy can “hamper” the DfE’s ability to protect learners and safeguard taxpayers’ money as, for example, colleges are free to borrow sums that they may struggle to repay, and to run with financial deficits year after year.
As reported by FE Week, MPs heard from the Education and Skills Funding Agency’s director of provider market oversight on how a college can “bury its head in the sand” to keep officials away until the last minute and that he would “definitely like more power”, while colleges themselves described the existing intervention regime as “very negative”.
During February 2020, the government was intervening in nearly half of colleges for financial health reasons and the PAC discovered how seven of them have remained in formal intervention for five years or more, while 75 colleges have been in and out of early intervention more than once.
Between November 2014 and March 2019, the DfE spent £253 million public money to bailout 36 colleges with cashflow problems. This emergency funding was originally intended to take the form of repayable loans, but much of the money is now not expected to be repaid, today’s report says.
It goes on to explain how two colleges – Hadlow and West Kent and Ashford – have been in the new education insolvency regime since mid-2019 and the ESFA expects these cases will end up costing it over £60 million.
Payments to the education administrators additionally amount to £6 million so far – a cost that was described as “gut-wrenching” by the DfE’s permanent secretary Susan Acland-Hood at a PAC hearing in November – and could increase further.
The PAC has now called on the DfE to set out within three months what actions it plans to take to improve its intervention arrangements, and how it will assess the success of these actions.
Today’s report builds on Dame Mary Ney’s 2019 report on college financial oversight arrangements, which recommended the ESFA develop a more nurturing relationship with colleges.
It also follows a recent National Audit Office report which found nearly three-quarters of a billion pounds in public funds has been spent on bailing out and restructuring colleges while core funding has tumbled by 20 per cent in real terms over the six years from 2013/14 to 2018/19.
Last week the DfE published its FE white paper which outlined plans to introduce “new powers” for the education secretary, so the government can “intervene quickly and decisively in cases where there are persistent problems that cannot otherwise be addressed, either with colleges not delivering effectively or where local providers are unable to deliver the skills priorities for that area”.
Through legislation, this strengthened power would enable the education secretary to take greater preventative action to tackle failure before it happens, as well as to “intervene locally to close or set up college corporations, bring about changes to membership or composition of governing bodies or review leadership”.
FE Week has reported extensively on the government’s expensive intervention regime in recent years, most recently at Hull College Group. Its chair Daf Williams resigned as the FE Commissioner’s team visited last Friday and shortly after FE Week revealed the new interim chief executive had launched an investigation into a £240,000 three-year rugby stadium naming sponsorship deal.
The college has been in intervention for a number of years and received a £50 million bailout in 2018.
Following his resignation, Williams told FE Week that he has a “strong view that if the charge that we have failed as governors is to stick”, then there is “also a failure on the part of our regulators”.
“They have had all of the same information as we have had over the last four years of intervention and if we have missed things not being done correctly then so have they,” he said.
“Whilst we as governors are all enthusiastic amateurs volunteering our time to try to help, they are specialist professionals from the sector, paid to spot these matters, which sadly they have not.”
Responding to the PAC report, skills minister Gillian Keegan said: “As set out in our Skills for Jobs White Paper, we will overhaul the funding and accountability rules so funding is better targeted at supporting high quality education and training that meets the needs of employers and individuals.
”We will also introduce new powers to intervene when colleges are failing to deliver good outcomes for the communities they serve.
“We will consider the PAC’s recommendations carefully and will respond in due course.”
You can read more proposals from today’s report here.
The Public Accounts Committee has set the Department for Education a list of tasks to address the “fragile” financial health of the further education sector.
Its report published today on ‘Managing colleges’ financial sustainability’, includes proposals on amending the college funding formula, how they pay VAT, and the expensive yet ineffective intervention regime.
Here are the seven recommendations from the PAC report.
1. DfE should make clear when it will commit funding for FE white paper reforms
The college sector has lacked a “proper, integrated vision for too long,” the report argues, saying the FE Commissioner-led area reviews in 2016 and 2017 were “successful to a degree, but significant strategic challenges remain”.
However, many in the sector have voiced their concerns they have only received a one-year funding settlement, rather than a multi-year one like schools have.
The committee has said the DfE “should make clear when it expects to set out funding commitments to support reforms proposed in the white paper”.
2. What is being done about pension cost pressure on colleges?
While the government provided additional funding to colleges to meet the costs of teacher pension contributions in 2019-20 and 2020-21, and recently announced it would extend support to 2021-22, the MPs report colleges “are worried about the affordability of contributions in future years”.
Colleges’ academic staff usually pay into the Teachers’ Pension Scheme, where employer contributions have risen from 14.1 per cent in 2015 to 23.68 per cent in 2019, an increase of 67.9 per cent.
A deficit in the Local Government Pension Scheme, which support staff use, has grown to £3.5 billion, according to the Education and Skills Funding Agency.
Colleges have had to make additional payments to cover the deficit, creating concerns about the potential impact of these extra payments on colleges, including otherwise financially healthy ones.
The DfE has been asked to write to the committee in three months, explaining what assessment it has made of pension cost pressures on colleges, and how this has been taken into account for funding decisions.
3. ‘Iniquitous’ sixth form colleges pay VAT while post-16 schools do not
There has been a long-standing issue where sixth form colleges must pay VAT, while sixth form academies and school sixth forms do not.
The Sixth Form Colleges Association told the committee the VAT requirement on colleges means they divert around 4 per cent of funding away from frontline provision, which equates to around £20 million a year across sixth form colleges.
The PAC reports 24 sixth form colleges have converted to academies by 2018-19, after the option was offered to them following the area reviews, and FE Week reported in 2019 converted colleges were saving as much as £250,000 by not having to pay VAT.
Today’s report calls the situation “clearly iniquitous,” but despite “frequent” discussions between the DfE and the Treasury on the issue, the department believes this “inconsistent treatment is not a priority” for the latter.
The PAC recommends the DfE push the Treasury to assess the merits of making the rules on VAT consistent for schools and colleges.
4. PAC wants reassurance on T Level industry placements
The committee has said it “remains concerned about the practicability of implementing the T Level programme,” as the colleges have said it has been “difficult” to secure the “crucial” industry placements students are required to complete for the course.
FE Week reported earlier this month colleges were having to suspend industry placements due to Covid-19 and the lockdown.
The MPs have requested another letter from the DfE, giving up-to-date assurance there will be enough placements for T Levels.
The letter should also say what impact the pandemic has had on the availability of placements, and what plans there are to use virtual placements – which are currently banned for T Levels.
5. An end to the lagged funding model
The DfE has been asked to consider changing the formula for funding colleges to take account of real-time, or at least more recent, information about student numbers.
Currently, funding decisions are based on colleges’ student numbers from previous years, and the Association of Colleges reported in November 2020 there were around 20,000 “unfunded” 16 to 18-year-old students in colleges this year.
The PAC reports learner numbers are expected to increase over the next few years, so has asked the DfE to report back to them by the summer on how funding could be delivered better reflecting colleges’ real-time situation.
The FE white paper has committed the government to simplify the FE funding system.
6. DfE needs to ‘improve’ its intervention arrangements
The government’s approach to intervention in colleges, led by the DfE, ESFA and FE Commissioner, “takes too long, costs too much and is not effective in making colleges more sustainable,” the report argues.
In its report, the PAC highlights how the DfE spent £253 million on emergency funding for 36 colleges with cashflow problems between November 2014 and March 2019.
Dame Mary Ney’s review of college financial oversight, published in 2019 and commissioned after the Hadlow insolvencies, called for a “more proactive relationship with all colleges individually,” to “allow a stronger culture of prevention to be developed”.
And the DfE, as part of the white paper, has said it will “introduce new powers to intervene when colleges are failing to deliver good outcomes for the communities they serve”.
The PAC has given the department three months to outline how it will improve intervention, and also how it will assess the success of their plans.
7. Research whether college support services are meeting student needs
Students, the report says, are “losing out” on mental health and other support services, cut by colleges due to financial pressures.
The committee found as DfE funding for colleges fell by a fifth in real terms between 2013-14 and have cut back on activities to improve students’ experience, as well as welfare services like mental health support.
The DfE has accepted it needs to monitor this area, and the MPs have recommended a “firm commitment” to research the extent to which college support services are meeting student needs, which should get students’ input.
The government will make announcements on reopening education providers “in the next few days”, the schools minister has said.
However, Nick Gibb gave no indication of whether the upcoming announcements would include a firm date for schools, colleges and training providers to reopen, or details of any phased approach the government may take.
He also ducked repeated questions about what rate of hospitalisations, mortality, vaccination progress and spread of new variants would need to be seen across the country before education settings can be reopened.
Ministers have come under increasing pressure to reveal their plan for lifting restrictions on attendance implemented on January 5. Schools and colleges have been closed to all but the most vulnerable pupils and the children of key workers for three weeks.
Answering an urgent question on the matter from Labour today, Gibb repeated a pledge made by his boss Gavin Williamson last week to provide two weeks’ notice of reopenings to allow schools and colleges to prepare.
But he remained tight-lipped on what approach the government would take, with staggered returns being touted as potential options.
During the debate, Gibb acknowledged that both education staff and families “need time to prepare for reopening”, which was “why the secretary of state made it clear last week that we will give two weeks’ notice to schools, colleges and universities so that they can prepare for a return to face-to-face education”.
“We want to give two weeks’ notice so that parents can make arrangements for the care of their children, and we will be making announcements in the next few days.”
Gibb insisted that any decision to reopen schools and colleges would be based on four metrics – hospitalisation rates, mortality rates, the progress of the vaccination programme and the “challenge of the new variant”.
“Ultimately it was the pressure on the NHS that caused us to move into a national lockdown, and the government is monitoring NHS capacity carefully as it reviews whether easing lockdown might be possible,” he added.
However, he would not say what level each of those metrics must reach before schools and colleges reopen.
Kate Green, the shadow education secretary, criticised the government for failing to come up with a “credible plan”.
“The schools minister mentioned some metrics, but was was vague about the required performance against them. Can he give us some more clarity? Will schools only return if the R is below 1?”
Green also asked in what order pupils would return, whether exam students, primary children or pupils in certain regions would be prioritised first, and whether a “credible testing plan” would be in place.
But Gibb claimed there were “clear criteria” for emerging from the lockdown, referring to the metrics he mentioned earlier.
“We’ve always been clear that schools will be the last to close and the first to open as we emerge from the national lockdown.”
T Levels bring with them important new expectations of educators, says Zac Aldridge, NCFE’s operations director for technical education
It hardly needs stating that beginning to teach the first T Levels in this, of all years, poses challenges for providers. If the position of T Levels in the senior leadership team’s league table of priorities had dropped during the last six-months, we’d understand why. However, at NCFE, we’ve seen no decrease in appetite from providers to get T Levels right. We’re delighted with this; T Levels are important.
The first few thousand students who enrolled on a T Level at the start of this term expect providers to get T Levels right first time. The many hundreds of employers that awarding organisations like NCFE engaged with to write, review and validate T Levels expect to recruit students with enhanced technical skills and knowledge. There’s therefore a lot riding on the quality of T Level teaching. From our development work with industry representatives, we’d encourage colleagues with responsibility for teaching and learning to think about the following things:
The first T Level students are pioneers
When something new comes along, it’s often easy to rein yourself in for fear of getting it wrong. Over the next few years, as teaching staff get more familiar with the methods of assessment for T Levels, they’ll take more risks with their delivery. They’ll try something different that might just stretch students enough to get them the distinction grade they’re on the cusp of achieving; they’ll trust themselves more to be able to pull it back if those risks don’t quite pay off. Current students deserve those chances, too. Therefore, make taking a risk less risky; lower the stakes. On your T Level provision, use peer observation rather than a formal approach; allow T Level teachers to observe and coach each other; allocate them time to develop a project-based improvement activity aligned to the T Level assessment strategy. Pioneering students learn best from trusted, pioneering teachers.
Industry Placements: not just for students
A great CPD programme allows time for teachers to go back into industry and update their skills and knowledge every year. T Levels were written by employers and providers need to keep up. The ETF’s Industry Insights programme will fund this for you, but even without discrete funding, industry placements for teachers are essential to high quality T Level teaching. If your T Level students are all on placement at the same time, why not get teachers to join them? The contemporaneous assessment opportunities this will provide doubles the benefits.
Contextualise maths and English
We know the entry requirements for T Levels will be high – the content is new and challenging, and good GCSE passes are tempting minimum thresholds. Remember, though, that the condition of funding does not apply to T Levels. In this context, your T Level Transition Programmes become key drivers for imparting maths, English and digital skills in ways that prepare students not only to pass GCSEs, but to support their T Level occupational specialism. Talk to employers about industry-relevant content, speak to your AO about the support they can offer, and don’t forget that Functional Skills may allow you more scope to directly target T Level preparedness than GCSEs.
Introduce mentors
HE institutions and employers will expect T Level students to assimilate as well as any other student or employee. The Industry Placement and rigour with which assessment is applied to T Levels will certainly support the transition. Many HE institutions and employers offer the opportunity for students to be mentored – we think this will be invaluable for early T Level cohorts and can help to link you with the right people. A mentor to support with the general experience of university or working life is useful. Even better is a mentor who can embed the connections between your T Level teaching and a future potential HE course or technical job.
Formative assessment scaffolds the summative
Providers have no past cohorts of T Level students to learn from this year. Couple this with grappling to introduce the dramatic and necessary increase in blended learning, and measuring the progress of your T Level students against untested assessment criteria becomes a huge challenge. You should take as many opportunities as possible to formatively assess your students – and use employers to help. Ask them to set industry-relevant assessments that embed learning; ask them to interview your students – remotely – about their T Level content; set up employer panels to which your T Level students present termly progress. All of these activities will complement formal, summative assessment and enhance learning.
T Levels represent a considered, fundamental change to the post-16 education system, a chance for students who take an applied, vocational pathway to secure genuine parity of esteem with their academic peers. We’d be delighted to work with you on what we know is a shared determination to deliver outstanding T Levels.
Students and staff let the cat out of the bag on one of the most specialist courses in further education ̶ animal care in land-based colleges
“Animals don’t care about lockdown, you know? They still need feeding, cleaning out, mucking out, looking after. That pressure hasn’t changed. We’re just glad the students can still come along to help us out.” Helen Martin, land-based curriculum manager at Bishop Burton College in east Yorkshire, is one of the lucky ones. Her specialist site, to which learners travel miles and miles from across the north, is so remote it has space for 100 resident students. All bored of remote learning, they regularly emerge from their rooms in masks and protective equipment when emailed to help with livestock on site.
But for most colleges delivering “land-based courses” – a term used to describe a whole array of qualifications in animal care, animal management and agriculture – the challenges of the pandemic have been unique even for the further education sector. And most staff have had to fend for themselves.
Students in socially distanced equine lessons at Askham Bryan College
Take Herefordshire, Ludlow and North Shropshire College. Animal care unit manager Rebecca Walker oversees no fewer than 400 animals, covering 74 species, each one with its own enclosure requirements, feeding timetables, clean-out regimes and “enrichment” activities (which, as far as I can tell, means fun).
I ask for a quick list of the animals on site, and a David Attenborough programme wouldn’t cover it: boa constrictors, corn snakes, iguanas, crested geckos, tortoises, tarantulas, millipedes, cockroaches, turtles, toads, frogs, owls, buzzards, falcons, alpacas, goats, sheep, cockatoos, canaries, rheas (like ostriches, apparently), hamsters, chinchillas and gerbils. “And sadly our hedgehog passed away, so we’ll be getting a new hedgehog soon,” says Walker. “Oh, and monkeys.”
It must be one of the most high-stakes logistics FE tasks around. “We were seeing animals in other places around us being rehomed or euthanised, because they weren’t open to the public so no tickets were being sold,” frowns Walker. Ferrets have had to be particularly well-protected, she tells me, because, just like the mink culled in their thousands at farms across Denmark, they are susceptible to coronavirus.
We were seeing animals in other places around us being rehomed or euthanised
Death is not good for business; land-based colleges are often not just places of learning but tend to have commercial operations running on site as well. So it was all the more worrying that just as income was dropping off, food became very difficult to get hold of too. “We were trying to get our food and they were saying they couldn’t get it in, which was not good. The specialist and exotic food was especially difficult.” When the food finally came back on the market, the college bulk-bought just to make sure animals had enough to get through the winter.
Moving sheep at Oaklands College
Usually, Walker and course leaders like her would have tens of learners on hand to help her team out amid such challenges. But unless there are residential placements, all these students have had to return home. “We’ve gone from having 120 students in a week helping us look after the animals to literally a team of just four of us. It’s been hard.”
The staff worked through the entire summer without a break, she tells me. “When there’s only a handful of you, to make sure the animals are safe, you just can’t take the time off. I feel so grateful to the staff, their commitment has been unbelievable.”
Charlotte Pugh, a former student now employed as an animal technician at the college, said when students were allowed back in between lockdowns they tackled the animal feed shortage by planting many fruit and vegetable seeds in the college’s huge greenhouse on site. “I think the hardest thing has been not having the students. We didn’t realise how much we relied on them and how much freedom they usually have on the unit to help out.”
Meerkats at Herefordshire, Ludlow and North Shropshire College
Land-based colleges are a deeply specialised part of the further education sector, with only about 15 scattered across the country. Without them, learners wouldn’t be leaving with level 1, 2 and 3 qualifications and extended diplomas to move on to workplaces that include conservation centres, wildlife parks, equine training centres and zoos, as well as on to various higher education qualifications, such as zoology and marine biology.
The practical element of the course is particularly important, given that handling a large bull, pregnant ewe or – rather you than me – a tarantula inexpertly comes with no minor consequences. Some of the solutions dreamt up by lecturers are model lessons in not only fulfilling the practical experience assessment component, but also how to keep flagging students onboard.
At Brooksby Melton College in Leicestershire, which has about 290 animals, learners needed to demonstrate they could pick up an invertebrate (an insect) around the right part of the thorax (body) for internal teacher assessments that go towards their final grade. While some assessments can be done on students’ own pet if they have them, not many people have a giant spiny stick insect from Papua New Guinea.
Lydia Bradwell, curriculum coordinator for animal management, explains that learners made life-like replicas from Blu Tac and cocktail sticks, and were then assessed on their correct handling via video link. Students have even, extraordinarily, been assessed on correct bandaging techniques using stuffed toys, as long as the proportions are similar to real life animals. “We need that evidence, and this is one way of getting around the problem,” she hoots.
Doing things in miniature is also proving a popular learning route. Bradwell asked her students to set up a complete enclosure in a Tupperware box with all the correct elements, space, feed and proportions clearly labelled. A similar solution was proposed at Barnsley College near Leeds, where Charlotte Bantock, animal management course leader asked learners to design a zoo. “We looked at zoo maps and they had to answer questions such as, how has this zoo been designed and why? Why is that animal near that one, because they have similar requirements, are they are from the same continent, or for the visitor experience? Then they created their own zoos.”
But it’s not quite the same, and learners and staff are well aware of it. Back at Bishop Burton College, twins Charles and Will Smith, and friend Jack Fray, do lessons in livestock husbandry that features skills that are hard to pick up without hands-on learning. “If we were checking the sheep, for example, we would learn how to put them in the turnover crate, look at their teeth and feet and do a full check, make sure there’s no damage or disease,” says Fray. “It’s a skill in itself using the turnover crate, and you’re not learning that online, you’re looking at a pictureof what could be wrong with your sheep. It’s a very different thing.”
You’re looking at a pictureof what could be wrong with your sheep. It’s a very different thing.
Will chips in with a business-like stoicism. “The only good thing about Covid is the price of meat and countryside game has gone up.” So there are financial upsides to looking after livestock during Covid – but it’s a poor return for young people who like the outdoors.
Helen Wiffen, curriculum leader in animal management at Capel Manor College in London, is realistic about what the pandemic means for students. “I think it’s going to be really difficult for them to have the skills they normally would. We’re just trying to prioritise practicals as much as we can, whenever we can.”
Students under her care were tasked with creating individual projects such as setting wildlife camera traps. “They’ve seen a huge range of animals on there, foxes and all kinds of birds!” Video links inside veterinary surgeries have allowed students to ask questions, which can both contribute to work experience units as well as help students demonstrate competence in behaviour observation, a core component of animal care.
A fox on the wildlife camera traps at Capel Manor College
Keeping an eye on the animals is reaching Big Brother levels at Oaklands College in Hertfordshire, where a live video feed is currently being installed in the lambing barn. Colin Elcombe, the livestock manager, acknowledges that getting students the required skills has been “obviously very difficult” but that other technology, such as GoPros, should help students watch lecturers carry out tasks in real time. “With the lambs, students can log in any time, 24 hours a day, to check for signs of lambing,” he explains. “Then, if they see anything, they can engage with me and I’ll go rushing up there.”
It’s a bit like a high-intensity Spring Watch. Jay Jay Johnson, who is studying a level 3 technical diploma in animal management at Oaklands, puts a brave face on the situation. “What’s been difficult for me is we got really used to working with the animals and being independent with them. Now we’re not really doing practicals, and we can’t act independently with them.” He adds, a little sadly, “At the minute, we’re not seeing the animals at all.”
East Durham College in the north east shows the vast grounds and facilities of many animal care units
Purposeful work and animals have both been proven to be of great benefit to mental health ̶ so to have both removed at once must be quite tough for learners. The level of passion for animal care is infectious, however, and I find myself becoming quite excited as they send me pictures of tiny hedgehogs being weighed and foxes caught on camera at midnight. It seems there’s little risk of these students not returning to the courses again.
But staff have worked flat out and could do with some recognition from those on high. Walker reflects as we end our Zoom. “You know, on the news there’s even mention of vets and zookeepers, but we do get bypassed. For all of us, this has been one of the hardest years ever. I hope people find out what we do now.”
