Mentors who support trainees need much more investment, write Dan Williams and Kayte Haselgrove

Here’s a quote for you from the Early Career Framework for schools, as published in 2019:

“Teachers are the foundation of the education system – there are no great schools without great teachers. 

“Teachers deserve high quality support throughout their careers, particularly in those first years of teaching when the learning curve is steepest.”

Bear that in mind, while we turn to the situation in FE.

Every year, around 10,000 FE teachers work towards a level 5 or above in an initial teacher training qualification .

Many FE providers offer robust professional development to support their new teachers. However, training for the mentors themselves seems to be less of a priority. 

Evidence suggests that without appropriate conditions and expectations for mentors, the impact of mentoring is likely to be ineffectual, or even harmful to mentees. 

In schools, school-based ITT and the subsequent early career framework has received a recent boost in funding. So it’s especially concerning that FE providers are given free rein when it comes to the early careers of their teachers. 

There is no minimum entitlement, no consistency across providers, and insufficient time given to support new teachers to the sector. 

In one recent ITT provider inspection in FE, inspectors noted that “it is often left to workforce mentors to use their professional judgement to determine what knowledge trainees need to learn [and this] slows trainees’ learning and development further”. 

This shows us that there is now a greater emphasis from Ofsted on subject specialist mentors being able to support their mentee to apply their learning specifically from the ITT curriculum.

Another issue is that mentoring in colleges can vary significantly. We know that university ITT providers often pay institutions to host trainee teachers upwards of £600 per trainee, per year. 

However, this only accounts for around half of those on ITT programmes.

A significant number of trainee teachers complete their training in-service through partnership colleges or awarding organisation providers.

Here, the mentoring largely relies on good will. 

The mentoring largely relies on good will

Seldom is there remission for mentors and even more uncommon is any form of payment for this important role.  

That’s despite the fact that we know institutions that provide the time for their mentors and their teaching staff through remitted timetables afford the opportunity for both to develop. 

However, time alone is not enough. Evidence shows that successful mentors require sociability, openness and the ability to develop relationships built on shared control (as opposed to dominance). 

None of this can be learnt simply through remission, or indeed payment. Instead, it relies on a willingness from mentors to develop their skillsets. 

Steve is one of the University of Derby’s FE ITT mentors. In a recent interview, he highlighted that the mentor role isn’t just about giving time to the mentee, but also that the mentor should model positivity and how to handle the stresses of the teaching role.

They should encourage the mentee to develop their own authentic style. 

Steve views the role as an honour and a pleasure, which is at odds with some mentors’ perspectives, who see the role in a more transactional way, whilst others find it burdensome. 

So how do we ensure that our trainees are being supported by mentors like Steve?

First, university ITT providers need to invest in their mentors, offering specific training, not just an HR-prescribed list of actions. 

Second, institutions need to engage with the new Education and Training Foundation mentor framework which has comprehensive resources to support leaders, mentors and mentees. 

(At the University of Derby, aspects of this framework are integrated into a ‘mentor journey’, which provides clear milestones for mentors and optional development opportunities to support trainees as they move from novice to expert teachers). 

And finally, providers must identify the right candidate for the mentoring role. 

Is this individual committed to supporting the development of a mentee? Do they possess the skillset to encourage without dominating, to support without leading? 

The successful mentor starts with the individual. But that mentor needs to be better invested in, and valued, in the first place.

The government gave away many of its levers for reacting quickly to a skills shortage, writes Julian Gravatt

On Sunday, the government announced £10 million for heavy goods vehicle (HGV) driver “skills bootcamps”. 

This is understandable given current driver shortages across England, which have been linked to the fuel crisis. 

Ministers wanted to act quickly on a driver shortage so introduced a skills measure and a three-month visa. 

What is interesting is that the Department for Education used the National Skills Fund rather than the bigger apprenticeship budget to help a sector with workforce supply. 

Perhaps this is obvious. No one starting an apprenticeship now would be finished by Christmas. 

But, even if they did, government gave away most of its apprenticeship levers to employers and the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education in 2017. 

So when DfE needs to act quickly, it has to do something else. Apprenticeships don’t help in the short term. 

What about the long term? 

There are standards in place and the post-2017 system puts employers in charge of the money. 

Large firms have two years to spend the levy they pay or they can transfer funds down the supply chain. Smaller firms can access apprenticeship funds, albeit with certain obstacles like co-funding. 

So, is the apprenticeship system part of the solution? I don’t know. What’s worse, I’m not sure the industry or policymakers know either.

A core feature of the current apprenticeship system is secrecy. 

A core feature of the current apprenticeship system is secrecy

Because employers pay their levy to HMRC, their details, how much they pay and what they spend on apprenticeships are kept secret. 

Taxpayer confidentiality is a core principle but it results in an absence of data about spending. 

Employers in the retail, transport and distribution sectors have paid hundreds of millions of pounds in levy since 2017 yet very little of this is being spent on directly relevant apprenticeships. 

It is easy to speculate why transport apprenticeship numbers are low but, without any data on what transport employers are doing with their levy funds, I’m not sure anyone knows which reason is relevant. 

HMRC rules reduce scrutiny of actual employer spending and contribute to a situation in which Treasury had to find £10 million in a crisis.

Another factor may be the way employer decision-making is individualised in the English apprenticeship system. 

Employers are given an apprenticeship account, some of which they can transfer, but there is no mechanism to pool funds. 

This may be fine for some parts of the economy but it’s different from most levy systems in other countries or those that operated in UK the 1970s. 

The Construction Industry Training Board and a few other sectors still operate a pooled levy. Perhaps this approach needs a review.

And then there’s the question about migration and skills. 

There is some controversy about whether Brexit is a direct cause of the immediate HGV driver shortage but there should be no disagreement on the fact that this is a long-term issue. 

The 2021 migration rules exclude jobs at level 2 from skilled worker visas and this has been clear policy since 2018. 

Transport, food and care have been clearly identified as sectors affected by this change, but only in Home Office documents. Where’s the policymaking to work through the implications? 

The post-Brexit migration rules were a hefty government intervention in the jobs market but our current approach to skills relies wholly on employers to work out a response individually. This just doesn’t work. 

We know that leaving everything to the market in education often doesn’t work. Adults under-invest in themselves and are reluctant to borrow for training. Employers focus on short-term needs. 

If UK migration policy cuts inflow of people to some sectors, skills policy needs to react.

Workforce planning is difficult and often fails, but sometimes it might be better to have a go. 

DfE is moving forward with local skills planning arrangements with the intention that these should guide the single skills fund. Perhaps they need to be a tad more ambitious. 

So they should think about planning apprenticeships and definitely publish more information. 

Finally, they must use the forthcoming spending review to allocate a bigger budget, and set some national objectives.

There are some logistical challenges to an international placements scheme during the pandemic, but they’re solveable, writes Sam Parrett

With Brexit spelling the end of the successful Erasmus scheme for the UK, the launch of the Turing Scheme as a replacement was positive news.

Under the scheme, the government funds international placements between two weeks and 12 months long. FE applicants receive up to £1,360 for travel costs and up to £109 per day for living costs.

Unlike Erasmus, the funding is available to go anywhere in the world that a college can set up a partnership. There is no funding available for a return trip from students in the host country to come to the UK: they must secure that funding from their own governments.

However, for us the Turing Scheme is set to be a really important part of our mission to help our students develop a range of employability, communication and social skills. We did not previously belong to Erasmus, so this is our first move into international placements.

But with a global pandemic, we’ve had to find a way to get the programme up and running.

We also know that uptake in FE has varied. In August the Department for Education revealed 110 further providers had won £22 million of funding. But £35 million had been allocated to FE, meaning not all the money was dished out.

The DfE also anticipated 10,000 FE students would be involved. However, colleges applied for funding to cover only 6,000 students.

Here’s how we overcame some challenges, so you can too.

We have initially focused on establishing our programme within Europe; utilising country contacts we already have, with partners we can trust. This will ensure high quality placements in Dublin in Ireland, Seville and Valencia in Spain, Lisbon in Portugal and Larnaca in Cyprus. We plan to develop further partnerships outside of Europe over the course of this year.

Six groups of 20 students (120 in total) will participate in the first year. Placements will happen between February and July 2022, with each one lasting two weeks, plus a six-week placement in the summer.

These students will undertake placements in vocational skills sectors, including cybersecurity, digital marketing, healthcare and early years.

Our students were identified for placements via their vocational area, and their profiles shared with relevant employers in the target countries. Over the next three months a member of our college placement team will visit the employers in each country.

This will help us to ensure their safety and agree on working practices.

The benefits to every student will be immense – albeit not quite on the ambitious global scale we would have aimed for pre-Covid. But that will come.

And by building our programme in a realistic way during extraordinary times, we are giving ourselves the scope to expand.

Positively, 57 per cent of the 120 learners going on placements this year are from disadvantaged groups, of which 10 per cent are from SEND groups. This is higher than the government expectation of 48 per cent of disadvantaged students.

In terms of logistics, managing a multi-country placement programme requires local, specialist knowledge and high levels of quality assurance. Each of our partners has a track record of working with UK VET organisations.

Our head of student placements manages the relationships with partners. With their team, they will accompany the trips physically “in country” as well as coordinate arrangements.

It is a shame that not more colleges are currently taking part

We are keen to establish links further afield in time and hope to work with the Association of Colleges to develop these once we have scoped out this early work.

It is a shame that not more colleges are currently taking part. It is perhaps due in part to the concerns over travel in the current climate.

So although the full scope of the scheme can’t currently be maximised, with careful planning colleges can still hugely broaden our students’ horizons.

At a time when young people have missed out on so many important experiences, educators must now work harder than ever to help fill gaps wherever possible.