Helping students view the world through a mathematical lens

Mathematics comes in handy for answering questions about a variety of topics, from calculating the cost-effectiveness of fuel sources and determining the best regions to build high-speed rail to predicting the spread of disease and assessing costs and benefits of repurposing squandered food. Seeing the value and usefulness of applying math to problems in the world is a huge take-away for participants in MathWorks Math Modeling (M3) Challenge.

“Participating in M3 Challenge opened my eyes to fields in applied math that I didn’t know about before. It allowed me to consider new career possibilities and helped me to work well within a team and under pressure. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever done before,” says Eric Chai, member of the 2019 champion team from High Technology High School in New Jersey. “Another teammate and I did the Challenge both years that we were eligible. That just shows how valuable we think it is. It allows us to do what we love–math and STEM–and apply it to a real-world competition. Winning recognizes our effort and it means a lot.” 

M3 Challenge is an annual applied math modeling competition that encourages the use of online collaboration tools and resources.⁠ A program of Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) that is funded by leading technical computing software developer MathWorks, M3 Challenge motivates students to study and pursue careers in applied mathematics, computational science, and technical computing. It has been a virtual competition since its inception in 2006.

 

An opportunity your math students won’t miss out on this year

While many extracurricular activities are being cancelled due to the inability to hold them safely, M3 Challenge is one competition that promises not to disappoint. It’s virtual, free, and is awarding £75,000+ in scholarships to talented math students in the UK and United States! Registration is open until February 19.

“SIAM does a big service to the math community by giving students the opportunity to see how math is more than just a series of formulas and rote memorization,” says Dr. Karen Bliss, director of M3 judging and associate professor of applied mathematics at Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia. “M3 Challenge allows students to produce highly creative solutions to interesting problems, and to see that math can be a powerful tool for solving truly important problems. Sometimes their participation in the competition is enough to encourage them to study math or another STEM discipline at university.”

David Stein is a teacher at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Springs, Maryland who has coached multiple finalist teams in M3 Challenge. When asked how teachers can influence students to study and pursue STEM careers, demonstrate the interdisciplinary nature of the studies, and see the impact that working with math and science can have on the students, their communities, and the world, he suggested the following: 1) base rigorous lessons on real-world issues and problems; 2) focus students’ attention on communication and writing; and 3) provide opportunities like M3 Challenge for them to showcase their work.

Challenge weekend is February 26 through March 1, 2021—students choose their 14-hour stretch

Working in small teams for 14 consecutive hours during Challenge weekend, students devise a solution to a real-world problem using mathematical modeling. Of the hundreds of participating teams, up to nine will be selected as finalists, and will share a large portion of the more than $100,000 (~£79,000) in scholarship prizes available (there are 37 monetary prizes total). Finalist teams are invited to an all-expense paid trip to New York City for the final event, which is scheduled for April 26, 2021. The top-ranking team in all of England and Wales will be invited to participate in the final event, all expenses paid, regardless of their overall ranking. (Disclaimer: COVID-19 implications are likely to cause this event to become virtual.)

“One thing that surprised me a lot about M3 Challenge is the amount of thinking involved,” says Jonathan Zhang, a student at White Station High School in Memphis, Tennessee, whose team was a 2020 Runner-Up. “Throughout the day, we were constantly running into obstacles when trying to create models for each problem, but within 14 hours, we were able to transform our abstract ideas into statistically backed predictions that made sense.”

 

A contest with lasting impact

M3 Challenge has had a profound impact on many of its participants, including Dr. Chris Musco, a 2008 M3 Challenge finalist who is now head of the competition’s technical computing judging and a member of the problem development committee. “Being involved in this program as a judge and using my experience and perspective to help shape the problem the students will work on is really exciting,” says Musco, assistant professor in the Tandon School of Engineering at New York University. “M3 Challenge changed the trajectory of my college major and career, and it’s great to play a part in doing that for the students who are participating now.”

 

Intense judging—and constructive feedback to teams on their work

Submissions are judged by an international panel of 150 primarily Ph.D.-level mathematicians, and almost every team receives specific feedback on their submission from the judges who read their papers during rigorous assessments.

Judges look forward to seeing creative, outside the box approaches to predicting, quantifying, and/or providing insight into the Challenge problem, which is unknown until teams download it on Challenge weekend. “The questions can be approached in a variety of ways depending on students’ skills and experiences,” says problem development committee member and judge Dr. Katie Kavanagh of Clarkson University in Potsdam, New York. “For example, participants may use simulation and programming, probability and statistics, or even algebra and basic math to model aspects of the open-ended problem. We are always eager to see how the students approach the issue,” says Kavanagh. “They offer unique perspectives on what factors are important to consider, particularly at that critical, transitional time in their own lives and influenced by their unique circumstances.”

Past competition topics have had students address issues such as the transition of trucking from diesel to electric, substance abuse, food insecurity, plastic recycling, and car sharing.

 

 

Learn more and register

Interested students, teachers, and parents can review how the contest works, the rules, and see some great ways to prepare for success using free resources and sample problems at M3Challenge.siam.org.

“Every year without fail, we hear from students who refer to their participation in M3 Challenge as a transformative experience that helped open their eyes to how important, useful, and valuable the application of mathematics can be,” said Michelle Montgomery, M3 Challenge program director at SIAM. “I am confident that this year’s Challenge will do the same.”

Since 2006, M3 Challenge has awarded more than $1.5 million in scholarships.

Registration is open until February 19, 2021. The competition will take place February 26 to March 1, 2021. For more information and to register, visit http://m3challenge.siam.org.

Revealed: Almost 50 T Level colleges sharing £48.5m to refurbish buildings

Almost 50 colleges set to deliver T Levels from 2021 will share £48.5 million to refurbish their buildings.

Successful projects include a new civil engineering centre at the Lakes College in Cumbria, and a brand new teaching block at Burnley College that will include classrooms, an elite athlete gym and a sports therapy space.

The £48.5 million being dished out today comes from the £95 million capital pot set aside for wave two T Level providers. The remaining funding has been held back to allocate to providers so they can upgrade specialist equipment. The government expect to confirm amounts for equipment for each provider in February.

The government has also today launched a new £135 million capital fund for providers offering T Levels from 2023 (click here for full story).

The first three T Levels – the technical equivalent to A-levels – in construction, digital and education and childcare were launched in September 2020.

A further seven will be available from 2021 in subjects including health, science and onsite construction and subjects including finance, media and legal will be introduced from 2022 and 2023.

A total of 49 colleges have been awarded a slice of the capital funding announced today, which between them bid for 56 projects.

The DfE has not released the values of each allocation.

The successful colleges:

Provider Name  
Barking & Dagenham College  
Bedford College  
Bexhill College  
Blackpool and The Fylde College  
Bridgwater & Taunton College   
Buckinghamshire College Group  
Burnley College  
Cardinal Newman College  
City College Norwich  
City of Sunderland College  
Derby College  
DN College Group  
Dudley College of Technology  
East Norfolk Sixth Form College  
Fareham College   
Farnborough College of Technology   
Harlow College  
Havant and South Downs College   
Hopwood Hall College  
Hugh Baird College  
Kendal College  
Lakes College – West Cumbria  
Leeds City College  
Leicester College  
Loughborough College  
LTE Group trading as The Manchester College  
Middlesbrough College  
New College Swindon  
Oldham College  
Preston College  
Sandwell College  
Shipley College of Further Education   
South Essex College  
Strode College  
The College of Richard Collyer   
The College of West Anglia  
Trafford College Group  
Truro and Penwith College  
Ursuline High School   
Walsall College  
Weston College  
Wigan & Leigh College  
Wilberforce College  
Wyke Sixth Form College  
Yeovil College  

 

Projects approved in principle:

Provider Name  
Bath College  
Bury College  
Grimsby Institute of Further & Higher Education   
Stanmore College  

Revealed: Williamson sets out his plan for replacing exams this year

Education secretary Gavin Williamson has this morning outlined his expectation for how exams will be replaced this year.

In a letter to exams regulator Ofqual, he said that grades should be issued “as late as possible”, with teacher assessments only changed as apart of the moderation process in the “exception”, and wants the idea of externally set exams to be explored.

His letter outlining the process to decided alternative arrangements for exams, which also includes vocational and technical qualifications, can be read here.

Ofqual has also published a responding letter from its chief regulator Simon Lebus, which can be read here.

 

Teacher assessments should be informed by ‘breadth of evidence’ …

Williamson said he wants to support teachers to assess their students in a “fair and consistent fashion. A breadth of evidence should inform teachers’ judgements, and the provision training and guidance will support teachers to reach their assessment of a student’s deserved grade”.

He’s asked this is “drawn out in the consultation”.

 

… But plans must ‘minimise additional burden’

Ofqual has been told this need for evidence must be balanced against minimising additional burdens for teachers and schools and colleges.

“It is my view that the consultation should set out proposals which allow students to be assessed based on what they have learnt, rather than against content they have not had a chance to study,” Williamson said.

“This will need to be balanced against the need to ensure good enough coverage of the curriculum for all students to support successful progress.”

 

Grades to be issued “as late as possible”

Williamson said it is “vital we maximise the remaining opportunity for them to be taught for as long as possible, so they have every opportunity to catch up.

“It is my view that a teacher’s final judgement on a student’s grade ought to be as late as possible in the academic year to maximise remaining teaching time and ensure students are motivated to remain engaged in education,” he added.

Ofqual agrees. Lebus said doing so will “give students a greater sense of agency, which is critical to securing widespread acceptance of the outcomes”.

 

Ofqual to explore setting external exams

The education secretary has also asked the exams regulator to explore the “possibility of providing externally set tasks or papers, in order that teachers can draw on this resource to support their assessments of students”.

“We should seek views in the consultation on what broader evidence should determine a teacher’s assessment of a student’s grade and whether we should require or recommend the use of the externally set tasks or papers,” he added.

Ofqual is in favour of this. Lebus told Williamson: “We know that the more the evidence comes from students’ performance in externally set papers, the fairer and more consistent teachers’ assessments are likely to be, because all students are given the chance to show what they can do in the same way.”

 

Warning over results ‘looking different’ to previous years

When exams were going ahead, Ofqual had pledged that results would be as generous as those issued last year. However the new plan seems to have changed that.

Lebus warned it was “important that the consultation makes clear to all, especially those who rely on the results to make selection decisions, that overall outcomes this year will likely look different from 2020 and previous years”.

He said told Williamson this will be “important for your work with the post-16 and higher education sectors to secure orderly progression and to protect the interests of disadvantaged students”.

 

But definitely no algorithm

As already announced, there will be no algorithm to standardise grades.

Instead, Williamson wants schools and colleges to undertake quality assurance of their teachers’ assessments and “provide reassurance to the exam boards”.

“We should provide training and guidance to support that, and there should also be external checks in place to support fairness and consistency between different institutions and to avoid schools and colleges proposing anomalous grades.”

 

Any grade changes should ‘be the exception’

After the fallout of last year’s algorithm, where 40 per cent of teacher grades were marked down, Williamson now wants any changes to grades as a result of quality assurance to “be the exception”.

He added: “The process will not involve second-guessing the judgement of teachers but confirming that the process and evidence used to award a grade is reasonable. Changes should only be made if those grades cannot be justified, rather than as a result of marginal differences of opinion.

“Any changes should be based on human decisions, not by an automatic process or algorithm.”

 

There will also be an appeals route

Williamson said there should be a route for any student who doesn’t believe their grade reflects the standard of their work to appeal, details of which should be “explored fully” in the consultation.

He also said a plan needs to be developed for private candidates – such as home schooled children – to get a grade.

 

International Baccalaureate ‘should be same’ as GCSEs

Williamson said he believes other general qualifications, such as core maths and the International Baccalaureate, should have a similar approach to GCSEs and A-levels.

 

Alternative arrangements for BTECs and other vocational quals

External exams scheduled to take place in the next few months for vocational and technical qualifications students that enable a student to demonstrate the proficiency required to enter directly into employment should “continue to proceed with protective measures put in place to ensure they are conducted in line with PHE measures”.

However, for all other VTQs with written exams, including BTECs and other vocational qualifications in league tables, it is “no longer viable for these exams to go ahead” in February and March and views on alternative arrangements for these qualifications “should be sought in the consultation”.

All Janaury VTQ exams can go ahead where providers “judge it is right to do so”, as previously announced.

Williamson added that functional skills assessments can continue to take place online, but if students are unable to access the tests in this way, there “should be alternative assessment arrangements put in place following the outcomes of the consultation”.

Williamson also said that VTQs for April onwards will need to have “alternative arrangements to examined assessments and that we should use this consultation to seek views on the detail of these arrangements and the qualifications in scope of this approach.

“These arrangements may need to be different in some cases to those put in place last year to take account of the different circumstances.”

As reported previously by FE Week, Ofqual has indicated that the grading solution for VTQs is unlikely to be consistent with GCSEs and A-levels. Lebus’ letter today reiterated that “our starting point is that we cannot prescribe a single approach” to VTQs.

DfE launches £135m capital fund for wave three T Level providers

Colleges and training providers in the third wave of the T Level rollout are being invited to bid for a slice of £135 million to help upgrade their facilities.

The capital fund, launched today, is being made available to those that will offer the new technical qualifications from 2022. It follows previous funds that totalled £38 million for wave one, and £95 million for wave two.

Winning bidders can use the cash to upgrade classrooms and buildings, as well as to pay for specialist kit that meet industry standards.

The first three T Levels – the technical equivalent to A-levels – in construction, digital and education and childcare were launched in September 2020.

A further seven will be available from 2021 in subjects including health, science and onsite construction and subjects including finance, media and legal will be introduced from 2022 and 2023.

Education secretary Gavin Williamson said: “The successful launch of T Levels earlier this year represents the start of a transformation in our technical education system – giving young people the vital skills they need to get ahead and giving employers the talented workforce they need to thrive as we build back better from the pandemic.

“To deliver world class qualifications providers need to have world class facilities and cutting-edge equipment, this funding will help to make sure students have the skills and knowledge to succeed when they finish their T Levels.”

As previously revealed by FE Week, colleges and training providers will have to keep on running T Levels for at least 20 years if they want to avoid handing back the millions they will receive in capital funding.

Forty four providers are in wave one of T Levels delivery. A further 64 will begin offering the qualifications in 2021, and a further 88 have been chosen for wave three beginning in 2022.

All providers delivering 16 to 19 study programmes will be able to deliver T Levels from 2024.

The deadline for bids to the wave three capital fund is 26 March 2021.

 

Ofsted visits to be conducted remotely until Feb half term

Ofsted’s planned monitoring visits will take place remotely until after the February half term, the watchdog has announced.

The inspectorate had been due to begin in-person “supportive” inspections of schools from next week, but had yet to say whether its plans for restarting FE provider monitoring visits would go ahead during the national lockdown.

However, Ofsted said tonight that in “light of a change in emphasis from the government and clear advice to ‘act as if you have the virus’ over the next few weeks, we have decided that all planned inspection activity will be undertaken remotely until after the February half term”.

This applies to schools, early years and further education.

“We have sought regular advice from Public Health England and we remain satisfied that our planned on-site activity would be safe and appropriate under current restrictions. However, the new government messages and the practical challenges of deploying inspectors across England have prompted this change,” a statement said.

Remote inspections of schools and FE providers will begin from the 25 January.

Ofsted announced in December that monitoring visits, including to those with grade three and four ratings and new apprenticeship providers, would resume in January.

Inspectors were also planning ‘support and assurance’ visits to colleges, which would result in a report, but no grade, similar to the interim visits which took place last term.

Funding for popular apprenticeship cut by £4k as MBA is axed

The popular level 7 senior leader apprenticeship will have its funding slashed by 22 per cent when a revised version is made available in March and its controversial MBA component is axed.

In a blog post published this afternoon, the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education announced that the revision of the standard is now complete following a request for it to be reviewed by education secretary Gavin Williamson last February.

The funding band for the standard had previously sat at £18,000, but will now be lowered to £14,000 when it is launched for new starts on 29 March 2021.

Funding has been cut owing to changes in the content of the apprenticeship. Today’s blog confirmed the “removal of the Masters qualification as a mandated part of the apprenticeship”.

However, it made clear that an employer “would still be free to use such a qualification to deliver the apprenticeship, so long as it aligns to the knowledge, skills and behaviours” that apprentices learn, as previously reported by FE Week.

“Apart from registration and certification costs, these would still be fundable under the levy up to the funding band limit,” the IfATE said.

The institute added: “The knowledge, skills and behaviours apprentices must learn as part of the apprenticeship standard and end-point assessment have been brought right up to date and the apprenticeship continues to align to Institute of Leadership and Management and Chartered Management Institute professional recognition.

“We are confident that this impressive training programme will serve the employers, apprentices and the wider economy well for years to come.”

The MBA component of the programme was set for the chop after Williamson said he was “unconvinced” it provides value for money.

Government publishes guide to home learning

The Department for Education has released a “remote education framework” to support colleges and training providers to identify “areas for improvement” in their online teaching.

The voluntary framework has been designed to be adapted to “fit the context of your provider” and to “signpost them to resources that can help them improve their practice”. 

It comes days after the DfE published operational guidance which asks FE providers to “use your best endeavours to deliver as much of students’ planned hours as possible” during the national lockdown.

There are two framework documents: one for schools and another for FE.

The FE document states that it can help providers to meet “basic requirements” using the resources and tools they “currently have (digital or physical) and to take your remote education provision further”.

It encourages FE leaders to allocate a score of between 1 and 5 to a number of “statements”, which involve six categories: leadership, student engagement, curriculum planning and delivery, capacity and delivery, communication and safeguarding.

“Where possible, identify strengths and areas for improvement, and discuss next steps with members of the senior leadership Team and governors,” the framework says.

“The framework offers suggested actions and links to relevant support depending on scores and any gaps identified.”

For example, under curriculum and delivery, the document asks if the FE provider is “working with employers to ensure continuity of off-the-job training, assessor reviews and planning for end-point assessments”.

There are boxes for the provider to then explain their ‘strengths’ and ‘gaps’ in this area, and directs them to the DfE’s guidance on how to deliver apprenticeships during the Covid outbreak.

Providers are encouraged to work through the entire framework with the senior leadership team, which should take approximately one hour to complete, or “focus on specific sections that have been previously identified as priorities”.

 

AoC Sport challenges colleges to go to the moon during lockdown

Students and staff are being encouraged to keep their bodies and brains active throughout lockdown by walking, running and cycling their way to the moon with their colleges.

AoC Sport, an arm of the Association of Colleges, has launched the ‘Lunar Challenge’ to keep the FE active by travelling 238,855 miles, roughly equivalent to a one-way trip to the moon.

This is not just in aid of fitness; the main focus is on supporting mental health and wellbeing and linking to AoC Sport’s ‘5 ways to wellbeing’ initiative, which covers the themes: get active; give; take notice; connect; and keep learning.

“We want as many staff and students to get involved as possible to encourage physical activity and maintain a positive relationship to physical and mental health during the lockdown,” a post on AoC Sport’s website reads.

Having launched yesterday, the Lunar Challenge already has colleges signed up, and all AoC Sport and Natspec members can get involved by completing an online form.

Using the free Strava app, there will be a national leaderboard for cycling and running/walking, as well as a cumulative activity mileage total, so colleges can compete against one other for prizes, and there will be weekly spot challenges.

Three prizes will be on offer for the colleges which contribute the most miles towards the national total, and there will be a random prize for all participating colleges which complete 300 activities during the challenge.

On top of those, there will be prizes for the weekly spot challenges.

AoC Sport said: “All activity contributes to the college and national total, so whether this is a walk around the park, a 5km run or 15-mile cycle, everything has a positive contribution to the total, so get out and get moving!”

 

Winners of the leaderboard challenge will be announced by Tuesday 2 March.

The Strava app is available on Apple’s App Store or the Google Play outlet, and the Lunar Challenge is running until the end of February.

AoC Sport previously ran an ‘Around the World in 30 Days Challenge’ in November, which tasked staff and students with travelling the equivalent of one lap around the world, or 46,975 miles.

This was achieved in just 11 days and colleges ended up travelling 154,310 miles in the 30 days.

Polly Lovell

Jess Staufenberg meets a leader bending the UTC model to build the pipeline of post-16 technical learners

In March 2016, Polly Lovell was standing in front of 20 people pleading for the life of UTC Plymouth. It wasn’t even officially hers yet – the leader had departed, she’d only been in the place for three years and was now “caretaker principal” of an institution that had just got the worst exam results in the city. Sat in front of her were representatives from the Department for Education, the Baker Dearing Trust and the Royal Navy, a big employer in the port city. Nothing like a rear admiral staring at you to focus the mind.  

The challenge facing Lovell, an English and drama teacher from near Liverpool, will be familiar to FE Week readers. One-third of learners at the UTC had behavioural issues, with many nearby schools using the institution as “an opportunity to move on challenging students”, she explains. There had been changes of leadership, the 2015 exam results were a “disaster” and the pressure from the DfE to close was growing. The student roll – that anxiety-inducing measure for all UTCs – was dropping. “I had to present what I was going to do with this school,” laughs Lovell, who is a mass of glorious hair and dark eyebrows. “There was me, the drama girl from the Wirral, surrounded by all these STEM people…”  

After her presentation, then-national schools commissioner David Carter took Lovell outside. “We went for a little walk around the UTC, and he asked, ‘What do you need?’,” she says. “And I said, ‘Well, I really need to know if I’m going to be head, because I’m happy to do this and I’ve got ideas for it. But I just need to know.” Carter went back to the governors and called for her to be made the substantive head.   

Lovell with staff in the UTC’s uniform

Two weeks later Ofsted rolled up and promptly awarded a grade 4, placing the UTC in special measures. By 2018, Lovell was again facing a cliff edge. Since 2015, when there were 220 students, following the Ofsted report she was down to just 70. Looming large nearby was City College Plymouth, also offering an engineering- and technical- focused education.  

“At that point, it looked like the DfE was going to close us. We didn’t take in a year 10 group because I thought it was going to shut.” But Lovell did not give up. After speaking to her local MP, she secured an appointment with schools minister Nick Gibb and travelled to see him. “We did a begging meeting with him,” she laughs. “We explained, we’re in Plymouth – this is the home of STEM! We worked tirelessly.”

The UTC remained open and, extraordinarily, today has 320 learners on roll. Given the timeframe, it’s nothing short of a miracle. Of course, the UTC has capacity for 650 students and so remains significantly under capacity, and Ofsted has yet to return – but it’s a rise from the ashes nevertheless. How has Lovell done it?  

To understand, it’s worth understanding Lovell. The daughter of a travelling salesman, she appears to know how to take risks, pull them off and sell them to others.  

“My parents had missed out on their education because of the Second World War, but they were very aspirational. My dad in particular was a big influence on me around my work ethic,” explains Lovell. “He was really determined for me and my sisters to be independent and have a profession. I’d go on work experience with my dad, helping out with sales.” Her mum, meanwhile, was a “taskmaster – you went to school even if you were sick or didn’t want to. That’s influenced the way I am and my values.”   

Lovell at home in the Wirral as a young child

Lovell is that rare mix of creative, curious and restless – she says she’s lived in about “56 places” – alongside a disciplined, tightly organised approach, qualities that together have likely got her to where she is. Having got poor GCSEs, she attended an FE college in Cheshire and blossomed under good lecturers within the drama department. During her degree Lovell spent a year in Portland, Oregon, enjoying “the freedom of America” so much that after graduating she “bought a one-way ticket to New York” aged 22 and didn’t look back. She moved to Chicago to work in music festivals and for a theatre company. But aged 29, it could have looked a bleak scene. Her father had passed away and she returned home from the US with two young children, disillusioned with the “life of a starving artist”, some sales experience and no maths GCSE.   

Again, Lovell turned to FE colleges. “I did night school courses, in A-level psychology and computer courses, and I did my maths GCSE, whilst working a full-time job with two children.” An application to a primary school PGCE was turned down on the basis her degree was not in a “core” subject; but undaunted, Lovell used the Monday she had off from her retail job to volunteer in a school. She was eventually accepted on to a secondary PGCE, going on to work under Dame Sue John in west London, became head of year at a secondary in Exeter, a deputy head at an emotional and behavioural difficulties school in Devon and an assistant head at a pupil referral unit. At the same time, she trained as a special educational needs co-ordinator.

Lovell’s acting headshot in Chicago

Then, just when everything was getting “very parochial”, Lovell moved back to Chicago with her teenage children to take a role with publishing company Pearson, setting up online learning for schools, years before Covid-19 arrived and when everyone was still using Webex. Did she know much about online learning, I ask?  

“I had no experience in online learning. It was scary at first!”  

Time and again, Lovell has taken risks. She speaks often about making a “sales” pitch to convince others to get on board with her, whether it’s the importance of drama studies for all students (in one school she increased uptake from 40 per cent to 90 per cent); or, as with the UTC, the case for its continued existence. Despite having had her Scouse accent elocutioned out of her in her drama degree, she retains all the charm of a Liverpudlian. Also, it turns out, all the no-nonsense. 

I blink rapidly when Lovell tells me, only half-jokingly, that she believes in the “militarisation of the UTC” – a smart, disciplined workforce of learners who are expecting to meet their prospective employer any minute. “I gained a lot from the Royal Navy on ideas of how to turn around a school. If you look at recruits in a passing out parade, there’s three sets: the ones who have just arrived, the ones in training and the ones passing out. The ones passing out present themselves and stand differently.” She looks at me. “What I want to know is, what did the Royal Navy do that we can do?”  

Lovell, her husband and their dog

Now Lovell has applied this mix of entrepreneurialism, risk-taking and strategic focus to the very model of the UTC itself. To start with, in October 2018 UTC Plymouth joined the Reach South Academy Trust. This was the very same year in which Lord Baker said he didn’t want UTCs “watered down, and that is the danger if they get into a MAT”. But just a year later Baker had revisited his position, saying instead that “membership of a MAT is an important way to help UTCs succeed”. The interesting point is that Lovell and her headteacher, Jo Ware, now have a direct line of access to other schools in the same group. As Lovell puts it, “I’ve got eight Reach primaries around Plymouth.”  

Her second move was to begin accepting year 7s for the first time in 2020, breaking with the UTC model of accepting entrants in year 10, aged 14. There are currently 94 year 7s, and 96 are expected next year for a year group with capacity for 120 – fairly healthy numbers. Her student roll today reads like a history of the UTC’s fortunes: year 9 has 92, year 10 has 50, year 11 has 42, year 12 has 30 and year 13 has just 17. But if Lovell and Ware can keep it up with the younger years, they’re developing a formidable pipeline for post-16 technical and vocational education. These are learners who, by the time they reach year 12, will have been embedded in the industry-focused, skills-based ethos of UTCs since they were 11 years old.  

And although Lovell was not the first to do this (Leigh UTC in Kent was an early pioneer), others are following. Engineering UTC Northern Lincolnshire, for instance, welcomed year 7s this September. 

In many ways, Lovell herself encompasses the UTC model – having failed GCSEs, taken unusual paths, been career- rather than academically focused and suiting FE more than school life, she understands these learners. She breathes pride in the model, describing how one of her most challenging students has just been taken on as an apprentice technician at the UTC, or how other students developed an app that is now in regular use by the Royal Navy.  

I gained a lot from the Royal Navy on ideas of how to turn around a school

But to prove the model, Lovell has also had to change it – she is in a multi-academy trust of schools, and the pretence that recruiting at 14 works has been dropped. When I ask if year 7 recruitment is the future for UTCS, she says, “If you’re in a large area where you’ve got a number of students who can come to you, it’s fine. But if it’s a smaller town like ours, it makes sense.” I suspect more UTCs will follow her example, and recruit in year 7. 

In which case, won’t UTCs arguably be schools rather than colleges? The way they have evolved is unlikely to be what Lord Baker anticipated when he proposed them in 2010.  

But as a route to technical education post-16, it’s got legs. Lovell is seeing to that.