(Advertorial) | Your chance to recognise and celebrate the outstanding achievements of BTEC learners and educators around the world in an unprecedented year

As 2020 draws to a close, it’s my pleasure to announce that we have just opened the nominations for the 2021 BTEC Awards.  It’s a real highlight of every year for me and I’m already looking forward to celebrating with, and learning about, our inspirational winners next June – whether that’s in person, or in a virtual ceremony as we did for the 2020 awards.

We are calling on educators across the UK and internationally to nominate young learners, adult learners, colleges and schools for their outstanding achievements in what has been an unprecedented year for the BTEC class of 2021. 

Nearly a million learners globally completed BTEC courses in the past year alone, so there is a wide pool of potential nominees.  I’d like to ask you to take a moment to think about any tutors or teachers you work alongside, or learners you teach, who have achieved exceptional things this year and deserve recognition, and then nominate them at btec.co.uk/awards. Please make sure your colleagues know about this too, encouraging anyone you think could be interested in making a nomination this year.

2021 will be our 11^th BTEC Awards. Over the past 10 years, the BTEC Awards have recognised those that demonstrate the exceptional knowledge, skills and behaviours that go into preparing for the jobs of the future and this year is no different. 19 category award winners will be celebrated from around the UK and internationally in subjects such as Health and Social Care, Construction, Engineering, IT, Business, Performing Arts and Sport.

While the Awards are always a chance to celebrate the power of BTEC, next year they will rightly have a particular focus on the resilience and commitment of the learners, who will be nominated for their achievements when studying through unprecedented times.  We will also celebrate the dedication and professionalism of the BTEC teachers and tutors who have continued to deliver outstanding vocational education in this exceptional year.   

Applications for the Awards are open now and close on Friday 2nd April 2021. The winners will be invited to the awards ceremony, which will take place either in person or online subject to Government guidelines and restrictions, with the overall BTEC Adult Learner of the Year and BTEC Young Learner of the Year also receiving a £1000 cash prize and featuring in a short video dedicated to them and their journey. 

As the world continues to adjust to the pandemic and widespread change across global industries, it’s never been more important to celebrate those in college, in school or studying as an adult who are taking vocational courses to equip themselves with the knowledge, behaviours and practical skills that employers need. The past year has brought into sharp focus the value of key workers and the crucial role that vocational and technical education plays in supporting the economy and communities across the country, something that we believe will continue long into the future as existing and emerging industries continue to develop.

There will be some extra special BTEC stories to celebrate in 2021 and we want to hear about those outstanding students and colleagues – the learners, teachers and tutors that shone during an extraordinary year. We look forward to celebrating them.

To find out more about the BTEC Awards and how to enter visit: btec.co.uk/awards

An MP has hit out at a college group’s decision to close and sell a historic adult education site.

Harriett Baldwin, the Conservative MP for West Worcestershire, said she was “shocked” by an announcement made by Warwickshire College Group (WCG) on Friday that it will shut Malvern Hills College by August 2021.

It is the latest case in a string of colleges looking to sell off a campus in order to balance the books.

Malvern Hills began delivering to students in 1886 but WCG says it has conducted an 18-month review of its provision and found it was no longer viable to run due to “reduced adult education funding and a diminishing customer base”.

The college currently has around 900 adult learners on part-time arts and craft commercial courses but also offers government-funded vocational programmes including hair and barbering via the adult education budget.

The government-funded provision moved to WCG’s Evesham College campus in September owing to the Covid-19 outbreak while Malvern Hills stayed closed.

Under WCG’s plans, government-funded provision offered at Malvern Hill will be moved to Evesham College permanently – which is 40 minutes away by car and over an hour away by public transport.

The college group said they could not say how many jobs were at risk at this stage.

Baldwin (pictured above) said: “I am shocked with the Warwickshire College Group for taking this decision at a time when training young people could not be more important, and I am saddened for those people taking courses like hair dressing or beauty therapy who are faced with a long diversion to Evesham to continue their studies.

“They also have done it without even a consultation or the courtesy of sharing their thinking with me. In fact, when the group took over the Malvern site they promised they would invest. Last week’s spending review delivered a £375 million investment in skills.”

She added that this feels like a “very short-term decision” and has asked for an “urgent conversation” with WCG chief executive Angela Joyce to “understand her thinking and to reassure me that this is not just an asset-stripping exercise”.

WCG was formed through the merger of Warwickshire College Group and South Worcestershire College in 2016, at which point WCG’s name was kept. The group now has seven campuses – three of which are in Worcestershire.

When announcing the closure of the Malvern Hill campus on Friday, Joyce said her group has “worked hard to maintain” its colleges in Worcestershire, all of which had “quality or financial issues when they merged into the group”.

“Given the widely-known pressures in the FE sector, linked to a decade of funding cuts, we have had to continually drive improvements and like almost all organisations and businesses, Covid-19 has impacted WCG significantly,” she continued.

“The type of education offered at Malvern Hills College is sadly no longer viable for WCG as Malvern Hills College has been financially supported by the rest of the Group since. We recognise the important role the college plays in supporting part of the community and we hope we can find a way for the courses to continue for local people to attend.”

WCG was also keen to point out that it will be retaining a training facility in Malvern for digital and cyber skills at a site in Science Park, aimed at training young people and adults “in the skills to meet local employer demand”.

According to WCG’s latest accounts, for 2018/19, the group generated a deficit before other gains and losses of £2.9 million. The group also recorded net debt of £7.3 million.

The accounts state that as of the end of July 2019, the group was in its fifth year of a “debt reduction strategy linked to a series of property transactions and an attendant debt amortisation schedule”.

Other site sales for WCG in recent years included selling its Henley College campus to Wasps Rugby.

As well as closing and selling Malvern Hill, the group plans to sell buildings that are part of Evesham College as it is a “currently under-utilised site”.

WCG is one of a number of colleges that have announced plans to close campuses and been met with MP opposition in recent years.

Other cases have included the RNN Group, Cornwall College Group, BMet, Warrington & Vale Royal College and Askham Bryan College.

 

The FE Commissioner’s 2019/20 annual report has been published this morning – the last before Richard Atkins steps down from the role next March.

Here are six things we learned.

 

1. Number of colleges entering formal intervention stayed the same

Thirteen colleges were referred for FE Commissioner intervention during 2019/20 – same number as 2018/19.

Meanwhile, three local authorities also entered formal intervention.

Of the 13 colleges entering last year, 11 received their first assessment visit during 2019/20. The other two colleges were subject to FE Commissioner intervention in previous reporting periods and were “re-referred”.

The majority (eight) of the 11 to receive their first visit entered intervention due to financial triggers.

A further three colleges were subject to a “refreshed intervention during this period” due to having been in “intervention measures for an extended period of time”.

 

2. Colleges in intervention hits 35

As of 31 July 2020, a total of 35 colleges and other institutions, such as local authorities, were subject to FE Commissioner intervention – a 50 per cent increase on the 23 in intervention at the end of 2018/19.

This number included 19 colleges that remained in intervention from 2018/19, three of which were subject to “refreshed intervention”. It also included the 13 colleges and three local authorities that received their first assessment or were re-referred into FE Commissioner intervention in 2019/20.

Five colleges left FE Commissioner intervention last year, two as a result of mergers, two as a result of the lifting of financial health notices and one where the college had “put in place the necessary improvements” and no longer met the criteria for intervention.

 

3. Fifty principals are being supported by national leaders

The commissioner has a team of “national leaders” of further education (NLFEs) who are serving college leaders that have a “strong track record of delivering improvement”.

Atkins also has a team of national leaders of governance (NLGs) who are “experienced college governors and clerks with a strong record of supporting college improvement”. Both NLFEs and NLGs provide “strategic mentoring” to other colleges that need to improve.

As of November 2020, NLFEs and NLGs are currently supporting 50 principals, chief executives and governing bodies. 

During the 2019/2020 academic year, an additional five NLFEs and four NLGs were recruited, taking the total number offering support to colleges to 19 – ten NLFEs and nine NLGs.

 

4. Lockdown ‘support’ given to 54 colleges

Formal commissioner visits to colleges paused as a result of the lockdown in March 2020, which led to Atkins’ team moving to a “new programme of direct support work for colleges, offered remotely”.

This support included reviewing finance forecasts and advice on staff restructuring as a result of the restrictions put in place due to the outbreak of Covid-19. 

In total, 54 colleges “benefited” from this support during the lockdown period. Today’s report says the amount of time offered ranged from one to three days.

 

5. One out of 11 diagnostic assessments led to formal intervention

Diagnostic assessments occur at the request of individual colleges and involve the commissioner’s team looking at improvement plans and deciding whether those plans are fit for purpose or need strengthening. The goal is to prevent major problems from arising.

If the commissioner’s team find areas of concern, the college can be moved to undertake a structure and prospects review, or lead to formal FE Commissioner intervention.

The FE Commissioner’s team conducted 11 diagnostic assessments in 2019/20, of which one led to formal intervention.

“This means that 10 colleges were supported to improve earlier than would have been the case before the introduction of diagnostic assessments, helping to save money and protect learners,” the report reads.

 

6. Five mergers completed last year following structural reviews

During the 2019/20 academic year, seven structural review were started and are due to complete next year, subject to negotiations between the colleges and Department for Education.

Meanwhile, the outcomes of five past structural reviews were “successfully implemented” last year, which resulted in three college mergers and two colleges joining multi-academy trusts.

According to the report, structural reviews are undertaken when a “change to the structure of a college or provision may be needed to maintain financial sustainability and high-quality opportunities for learners”.

One in five colleges will be allowed to keep close to one-third of their allocated adult education budget despite failing to deliver any courses for the funding last year, FE Week can reveal.

Figures shared by the Education and Skills Funding Agency show that 33 colleges missed a generous 68 per cent funding performance threshold, introduced in response to the impact of Covid.

Of the 33 colleges, 27 face a maximum clawback valued at the gap between their actual delivery and the 68 per cent threshold. For example, if a college’s performance was 60 per cent then the agency will consider recovering only eight per cent of the allocation.

The remaining six colleges have submitted a business case in the hope of being allowed to further reduce or simply cancel any clawback.

All colleges that reached 68 per cent of the allocation have retained 100 per cent of their 2019/20 adult education budget funding allocation.

ESFA chief executive Eileen Milner said during a Public Accounts Committee hearing on Thursday that no clawback had yet been taken and that they are offering the opportunity for colleges to submit a business case to show why funding shouldn’t be repaid – insisting they are not simply “seizing” the money.

While the agency would not name the six, Shaun Bailey, the MP for West Bromwich West who sits on the PAC committee, revealed during Thursday’s hearing that Sandwell College is concerned about the possibility of AEB clawback.

Milner said she was in “very close contact” with Sandwell’s principal, Graham Pennington, about the issue. She added that the college does “absolutely excellent work to support students, particularly the most disadvantaged and have done so throughout the pandemic” and she wants to “celebrate what they are doing at the most difficult of times”.

After the hearing, Pennington would not be drawn on how much funding clawback Sandwell College currently faces but told FE Week that colleges “need all the funding they have available in order to support their students in these difficult times”.

The ESFA first told the sector in March that they would not force repayment of AEB funds this year owing to Covid-19. But officials changed their mind in July and announced that colleges would retain their full 2019/20 allocation only if they delivered 80 per cent of activity in the whole year.

Following a sector backlash, the ESFA withdrew these plans one week later. But then, in September, the agency backtracked again and said it would “consider reconciling any under delivery up to 68 per cent” unless the provider can justify why they shouldn’t by submitting a business case.

Speaking at a PAC hearing, Milner revealed that when the agency proposed to not take clawback they had “quite a lot of correspondence from colleges who felt it was unfair and a disincentive in fact to not take money back for underperformance”.

“We are walking a tight line between understanding the particular circumstances and at the same time being able to fulfil that reasonable test of spending public money,” she said.

Milner told the committee that the agency is currently looking “carefully” at a “very small number of colleges” that have so far flagged they want to put a business case in to keep their full allocation despite underperformance, and it is “only then that we will consider taking money back”.

She added that the agency is doing this through “conversation and opportunity, not by bureaucratic approach to seizing money from people”.

Data published on Thursday by the ESFA showed that the number of enrolments on to adult education courses in the months following lockdown dropped by half compared to the same period last year.

There were 208,790 starts on adult programmes between March 23 and July 31, 2020 compared to 420,910 in that period in 2018/19.

A new apprenticeship provider blames the impact of Covid for a second poor Ofsted report and is hoping to be given a rare lifeline by the government.

Doncaster Conferences, Catering and Events Limited (DCCE) could be kicked off the Register of Apprenticeship Training Providers (RoATP) after the inspectorate found it had made ‘insufficient progress’ in consecutive monitoring visits between February and October 2020.

But the provider contests that the restrictions placed on the hospitality industry due to the coronavirus pandemic “hampered” its ability to deliver the progress required.

When asked whether DCCE would be removed, the ESFA equivocated by saying that, while it “will always take action to protect apprentices if a training provider is not fit for purpose”, they were “currently assessing Ofsted’s findings” and would contact the provider to set out what actions they will take “in due course”.

In DCCE’s latest report, published on Monday, inspectors pulled the provider up on how: “Almost all the apprentices that remain on their programme are beyond their planned end date and are making slow progress towards achieving their apprenticeship.”

The report says DCCE had 20 apprentices at the time of writing, all of whom were employed by the charity that owns the provider, Doncaster Culture & Leisure Trust, which runs several leisure facilities in the town.

At the time of the visit, ten apprentices were studying a customer service practitioner programme at level 2, six were studying a level 3 leisure duty manager or team leader/supervisor programme, and four were on a level 5 operations/departmental manager apprenticeship.

A “great majority” of them, the report reads, “have not acquired substantial new skills or knowledge since the previous monitoring visit”.

Furthermore, DCCE’s staff had not ensured apprentices receive their entitlement to off-the-job training, so the provider’s delivery “still does not meet the principles of an apprenticeship”.

Apprentices who were beyond the end date for their apprenticeship are “yet to be provided with any work” to prepare them for their assessments in English and maths, the report continues.

The apprentices were put on furlough following the UK’s first lockdown in March, and inspectors found once they returned, tutors had been “too slow” to make contact with them, limiting the progress the apprentices have made.

DCCE has protested that when the apprentices returned to work in July or August, their position had changed “significantly” due to the changes put upon the leisure and hospitality industry because of Covid-19.

A spokesperson told FE Week: “It is fair to say the lockdown period and then the restrictions placed on our industry have undoubtedly hampered our ability to deliver the progress required at this point.”

DCCE has since moved to improve its apprenticeship programme, saying it has already completed a structural review of teaching, and recruited a trustee with school governor experience.

There was also a further review to ensure its programme is “fit for purpose”. 

Providers who receive ‘insufficient progress’ ratings at two consecutive monitoring visits are “normally” pulled from the Register of Apprenticeship Training Providers, according to ESFA rules.

This means that, although the provider can continue to deliver to its existing apprentices, it cannot start any new apprentices and must wait at least 18 months from the date of the monitoring visit report that judged them to have made ‘insufficient progress’ before reapplying to the register.

A college leader has scooped a prestigious lifetime achievement award at the Pearson Teaching Awards for his transformational work.

The “inspirational” teachers and school and college staff to win the awards have been revealed throughout this week on the BBC’s The One Show.

Now in its 22nd year, the awards celebrate the best teaching across the UK and thousands of nominations were received for the gold award winners in what has been a challenging year for the sector. 

Ten schools and school teachers have also been awarded, as covered by our sister paper FE Week.

Here are this year’s winners…

 

Lifetime achievement award

Dr Paul Phillips CBE – Weston College, Weston-super-Mare

Paul is described as having “transformed” Weston College into “one of the finest schools in the country”.  He was appointed as principal in 2001 and in 2017 he was recognised as one of the National Leaders of Further Education.

Aside from his own students, he leads prisoner education in 19 prisons across the country involving 11,000 learners and has built positive mental health partnerships with the Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire NHS Trusts.

 

FE lecturer of the year

Phil Brookes – Dudley College of Technology

Phil is described as having spent his career achieving some of the best results in the country with some of its most deprived students.

Aside from the academic, he has arranged placements in Berlin, Spain, Italy and India for his students, has set up live magazine photoshoots so his students can work with renowned industry professionals, and leads on the regional ‘Living Memory’ project to promote Black Country art and history.

His work has been exhibited at the New Art Gallery in Walsall, as well as published in his own book 60 Degrees North.

 

 

FE team of the year

ETC Prince’s Trust – Stockton Riverside College, Teeside

The team was nominated for their “exemplary” work helping young people, many of whom were facing significant challenges in their personal lives.

They also work with a number of military veterans, turning around their lives helping them find a new purpose through their outstanding partnerships with employers and training organisations.

 

 

Digital innovator of the year

Stefanie Campbell – South Eastern Regional College, Northern Ireland

Stefanie is recognised as a “force of nature” at her school for her drive to use technology to enhance learning at all levels.

She has created 1 minute CPD sessions for all staff to learn new skills and better teachers, and has a constant supply of digital innovations to support her colleagues.

This groundwork was essential when the college moved to online teaching in March due to Covid-19, with no delays in learning, and some departments even reporting better engagement online than they had previously had in person.