The government has set up a national helpline for colleges to report positive coronavirus cases following some schools being left in “limbo” waiting three days to get official health advice.
The Department for Education has now overhauled the current protocols for reporting positive cases, just weeks after schools and colleges opened.
Education providers have been told that instead of contacting local public health teams, from tomorrow there will be a new “dedicated” advice service to advise leaders.
The department, in an email to providers seen by FE Week, said it “recognises that there have been some difficulties getting through to the local public health protection teams”.
The email read: “This means that instead of calling your local health protection team when there is a confirmed case in your education setting, we will now be asking you to call the DfE’s helpline and you will then be directed to the dedicated NHS advice team for nurseries, schools and colleges with confirmed cases.”
Colleges will be put through to a “team of advisors who will inform you what action is needed based on the latest public health advice, and work through a risk assessment to identify close contacts”.
The email stated this would “free up capacity of the Public Health England’s local health protection teams to deal with more complex cases, for example special schools and universities, or outbreaks where there is more than one confirmed case”.
Advisers will be responsible for escalating the cases as necessary “following a triaging of your circumstances during the call”.
In a letter to the prime minister today, headteacher unions said the delays in getting advice following positive cases were leaving leaders in an “impossible situation”.
“Schools are left in a position of either leaving close contacts of the infected person in school while they wait for guidance, or making a public health call themselves and deciding on who to send home,” the letter stated.
FE Week revealed how two schools had been waiting nearly four days for advice. Another school reported being told to make their own decision – but was then told by their local health protection team they had been “too heavy handed”.
The government has promised schools and colleges will get “rapid” assistance from health officials who will “guide them through the actions they need to take” following positive cases.
James Bowen, director of policy at the NAHT school leaders’ union, said the new hotline has the potential to be a “step in the right direction – as long as it works”.
“It’s vital school leaders get advice in a timely fashion, they can’t be sat around for hours waiting for advice. We’ve been told this will deliver more capacity.”
The new helpline can be reached by calling the DfE’s existing helpline on 0800 046 8687 and selecting the option for reporting a positive case.
However it will only open from Monday to Friday from 8am to 6pm, and 10am to 4pm on Saturdays and Sundays.
It covers early years settings including nurseries; schools including primary schools, infant or junior schools, middle schools, secondary schools, boarding schools, special schools; and further education providers.
The education secretary faced questions about this year’s exams fiasco and the reopening of schools and colleges when he appeared in front of the Parliamentary education committee this morning.
Gavin Williamson’s appearance in front of MPs follows a hearing last week with leaders from exams regulator Ofqual.
Here’s what we learned from him.
1. DfE looking at holding 2021 exams in public buildings
The government is assessing whether public buildings may be needed to host exams next year.
Asked about the department’s work to prepare for next summer’s exams, Williamson said the DfE was planning “for the fact that there may need to be a different approach in terms of creating additional capacity within schools and wider use of public buildings for exam centres if that is required and needed in local communities”.
His comments suggest there will be a similar approach as is being prepared for this year’s autumn exam series, during which schools and colleges can opt to hire external spaces if they don’t have the capacity on site.
2. Exam timings will be confirmed in October
The timetable for exams in 2021 will be announced next month, Williamson said today.
Although Ofqual has already published its response to a consultation on the 2021 exam series, a decision on whether to delay exams, one of the key questions in the consultation, was delayed for further consideration.
Williamson told MPs today the idea of pushing exams back later in the summer was still under “active consideration and discussion”.
Pushed on when the timetable would be announced, Williamson said it would come “very shortly. Definitely the month of October.”
3. DfE knew of algorithm’s impact on poorer pupils in July
The government was given data on the impact of its algorithm for calculating grades on poorer pupils in July, a senior DfE official has said.
It was revealed on A-level results day that pupils from the lowest socio-economic background saw the biggest drop in calculated grades at C or above, although more detailed analysis subsequently published by Ofqual shows the same group actually saw a smaller reduction in the very top grades.
Michelle Dyson, director for qualifications, curriculum and extra-curricular at the Department for Education, told MPs this morning that the impact on pupils of different socio-economic backgrounds was known in July.
She explained the DfE would usually get “no information from Ofqual until the Tuesday evening before results come out on a Thursday”, but this year they “did get more information beforehand”.
“We did have some data right at the end of July to show us the degree of inflation in particular subject, e.g. music and German so we could think about the impact on universities.
“We did have the data that showed what had happened in England vis-a-vis the issue in Scotland, i.e. the degree to which they’d been downgrading by socioeconomic status. But apart from those two instances I don’t think we had any actual data before the A-level week itself.”
4. DfE approved Ofqual guidance on mock appeals
The government approved guidance issued and then quickly retracted by Ofqual about what would constitute a “valid mock grade”, Williamson has confirmed.
Guidance was issued by the regulator on Saturday August 15 following the decision earlier in the week to allow appeals on the basis of “valid mock grades”.
But the document was withdrawn just hours later, with Ofqual stating it was under review. The decision to allow centre-assessment grades to stand was announced just days later.
Williamson confirmed to MPs this morning that he had approved the guidance, but denied having told Ofqual to take it down, saying he had instead hoped the regulator could “revise” and “open the terms” of the guidance.
While a “lack of clear guidance” from the government had not helped matters, UCU insisted that colleges could not “hide behind the failings of ministers” and had to “demonstrate their commitment to keeping people safe”.
The union cited data released by Downing Street last week which showed the infection rate among 17 to 21 year olds – the main age group found in colleges – is at 50 in 100,000 and increasing sharply.
UCU members will now be encouraged to complete questionnaires about their college’s plans if someone is taken ill on campus or how a college would shut down in the event of an outbreak.
The union will also seek greater information about testing systems in place and will also demand to know what support there will be for staff and students who need to self-isolate.
Earlier this week, ministers were warned that a lack of testing could force schools in England to grind to a halt because students and staff would have to stay at home following a suspected case.
UCU general secretary Jo Grady said: “The evidence suggests that colleges and universities will be hit with further Covid outbreaks and any institution not preparing for how it deals with one is in denial and failing staff, students and the wider community.
“We have already seen warnings that schools could be brought to a halt due to a lack of testing. We want to know what plans colleges and universities have for testing, details of their risk assessments and how they will protect people in the event of an outbreak.
“We accept that guidance from the government has not been up to scratch, but colleges and universities cannot hide behind the failings of ministers. They must step up and do the right things to protect their communities.
“We will be monitoring what comes in from members and will name and shame institutions that are not up to scratch. Our main objective is to help avert a preventable public health crisis. But if our members are concerned with how their college or university is behaving we will back them if they vote to move into dispute, which could result in ballots for industrial action.”
The eye-watering £26.6 million cost of the first two education insolvencies, and how five colleges were bailed out by the government to avoid the same fate, has been revealed by a new report.
Since Hadlow College and West Kent and Ashford College (WKAC) became the first to be placed into education administration, in mid-2019, the government has spent £26.6 million on keeping the doors open and “facilitating a long term solution”.
The government does expect to receive some money from the sale of assets which are no longer required for educational provision, however.
The figure includes £18.1 million spent on financial support related to secured creditors and £2.3 million in payments to administrators BDO.
FE Week reported in May BDO had come under increasing pressure from the Education and Skills Funding Agency to keep their costs down, as they had been running the colleges for far longer than had originally been planned.
The NAO has also reported the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) has provided £14.4 million in emergency funding to five other colleges in “serious financial difficulty”, which the agency wanted to keep out of the insolvency regime.
The agency, the report reads, has recognised that the cost and effort of handling colleges in education administration means “it may need to limit the number of colleges in the insolvency regime at any one time,” depending on each case.
The Department for Education said protecting students is “the over-riding priority for colleges that have entered education administration,” and the “most significant costs” from the two insolvency cases were related to “supporting the operation of the colleges while they were in administration and in facilitating a long-term solution by enabling the transfer of the provision to other local providers”.
The department declined to name the five colleges on the grounds of commercial confidentiality.
It is expected the department’s upcoming FE White Paper will include changes to legislation to enable the government to take ownership of failing colleges rather than force them into insolvency.
Both colleges’ boards, Atkins reported, failed in their fiduciary duty and put “the sustainability of both colleges and learners at risk”, having only found out about the financial situation at the college shortly before Atkins arrived to intervene in the colleges, despite the situation being so dire the college had to ask the ESFA for exceptional financial support.
The commissioner also found the colleges’ principal and deputy principal, Paul Hannan and Lumsdon-Taylor, had cut the boards out of decision-making, and Hadlow College’s financial health score was only ‘good’ because it did not take information about loans into account.
Hannan and Lumsdon-Taylor, as well as a swathe of governors at both colleges, resigned after the college was placed into intervention.
Betteshanger Park, a country and business park owned by Hadlow College, was also sold off for an undisclosed sum last December.
The National Audit Office report also revealed how the government is intervening in nearly half of all open colleges, and had spent nearly three-quarters of a billion pounds on bailing out and restructuring colleges.
Nearly three-quarters of a billion pounds in public funds has been spent on bailing out and restructuring colleges, while the government is intervening in nearly half of them, a new report has revealed.
As of February 2020, the government was intervening in 48 per cent of all open colleges – with more than a tenth being in formal intervention.
FE Week has also calculated that £725.8 million has been spent on bailouts and restructuring funding, based on NAO figures – with £431 million alone being provided to 45 colleges for mergers and other structural changes.
The chair of the influential Commons Public Accounts Committee, Meg Hillier, said the report “paints a stark picture of the college sector’s plight”.
Meg Hillier
“The government has propped up some colleges at great expense, but this has only papered over the cracks in the system,” she continued.
The Department for Education has promised its “forthcoming White Paper will strengthen our colleges” but refused to reveal how.
As first reported by FE Week in May, it is believed changes to legislation will enable the government to take ownership of failing colleges rather than force them into insolvency.
The government also spent £253 million on 36 colleges which had “serious cashflow options” under the Education and Skills Funding Agency’s ‘exceptional financial support’ scheme.
However, the NAO has now found the ESFA has given up on getting back almost half – £99.9 million – of the funding, which was originally meant to be repayable. The scheme was discontinued in March 2019.
Colleges in, or near to being in, education administration swallowed £41.8 million of ESFA emergency funds, the NAO reports, with £26.6 million being spent on the insolvency of Hadlow College and West Kent and Ashford College, both of which were placed in administration in mid-2019.
The report did say the DfE’s area review programme had “likely to have helped limit the financial deterioration of the sector”, citing DfE projections that a fifth of colleges would have inadequate financial health in 2020 without the reviews, as opposed to 11 per cent of colleges that are in that category.
But while the DfE has been financially propping up colleges that would otherwise have been forced into education administration, funding for students has tumbled down.
We recognise the issues facing colleges and other providers
Funding for 16 to 19-year-old students fell by seven per cent in real terms between 2013/14 and 2018/19, with the funding rate for 18-year-olds being directly cut in 2014/15 from £4,000 to £3,300.
Adult education and support services (excluding apprenticeships) fell by 35 per cent between 2013/14 and 2018/19, says the NAO.
The NAO has recommended the government evaluate and improve the effectiveness of its intervention regime, which was also criticised by Dame Mary Ney’s 2019 report into government oversight of colleges.
The government has also been urged to “learn lessons” from the two college insolvencies, and evaluate the cost, timeliness and impact of the education administration process.
A DfE spokesperson highlighted how the report notes standards in the FE sector are high, with 82 per cent of colleges being ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ in 2019, “but we recognise the issues facing colleges and other providers”.
They pointed to the £400 million funding boost for 16-19 students which came into effect this academic year and actions taken to stabilise the sector during COVID-19, such as guaranteeing grant payments, providing extra investment through the 16-19 bursary fund.
For the first time Ofsted is exploring a move to directly inspect all FE subcontractors, something until now it has ruled out.
Subcontracting in FE is big business, with 2,221 subcontracting arrangements at 856 subcontractors accounting for “around 14 per cent of the spending on apprenticeships and adult education” in 2018/19, according to Ofsted.
The inspectorate told FE Week that the Education and Skills Funding Agency has responded positively to resolving issues with the data they supply and discussions will now take place with the Department for Education to consider this major change.
Researchers found their own inspectors were being hampered by a lack of “access to timely and accurate data on the number and size of subcontracting arrangements held by a directly-funded provider”.
And “the current approach to inspection means that some subcontractors are visited more than once [as part of an inspection of a direct contract holder], while others are not visited at all.”
Ofsted is only funded to inspect the direct ESFA contract holder and will sometimes consider the quality of their subcontracted provision but even then, only if they have access to reliable data from the ESFA.
An Ofsted spokesperson told FE Week: “One of the best things to come out of the research report is the dialogue that researchers have had with the ESFA colleagues and the acknowledgement and understanding of how the data issues hamper inspection and the agreement to do whatever they can to improve and enhance the data.”
And the DfE told FE Week: “Better quality subcontracting data will provide a great range of benefits to the FE sector so we welcome Ofsted’s report. We are improving the data that we have about subcontracting and as part of our reforms, the ESFA will develop improved tools for collecting better and more timely data.
“We will continue to work with Ofsted about what data we can share with them to assist them in their work.”
This positive response from the DfE and ESFA appears to open the door to a major change to the inspection regime.
Amanda Spielman, the chief inspector said: “We are open to exploring how we could directly inspect subcontractors in the future, but that would need significantly more financial resource and better data.”
In the meantime, Ofsted has today also committed to:
increasing awareness among inspectors of Ofsted’s available inspection resource, in order to investigate more subcontractors
changing the way evidence is recorded to systematically and consistently include information about all subcontractors visited
where appropriate, highlighting more subcontractors in inspection reports.
The research does not appear to include any analysis of 16 to 18-year-old study programme subcontracting and invited 25 apprenticeship and adult education budget funded subcontractors to participate in interviews but only proceeded with the 14 that agreed to participate.
And the researchers do not pass judgement on the overall quality of subcontracted delivery compared to provision directly delivered.
A spokesperson for Ofsted told FE Week: “We found elements of good and poor practice, but what the report is not doing is giving a state of the nation report on subcontracting quality.”
The government has for many years been concerned about the lack of oversight, risk to public funds and the value for money of subcontracting.
Subcontractors typically pay the direct contract holder a significant management fee for the privilege of access to public funds and without direct inspection little is publicly known about the quality of what they deliver on the reduced funds.
There have also been high profile cases of colleges being caught up in multi-million pound subcontracting scandals.
The principal subsequently resigned and an investigation into the relationship with SCL Security Ltd resulted in the ESFA demanding the college return millions of pounds.
FE subcontracting has been on the decline in recent year following a series of funding rule changes and in recent months the ESFA has been consulting with the sector to introduce further policies to shrink its use further.
As colleges re-open their doors after a summer like no other, staff have had to cross their fingers and hope new learners turn up, on the right courses for them.
The outlook was nerve-wracking – schools that would usually hold students’ hands until they reach college hadn’t seen their pupils in months. Employers normally offering apprenticeships are shutting up shop. Then the exam results debacle saw students receive higher teacher-assessed grades at the eleventh hour.
After a mad few weeks of prepping sites, adjusting timetables and redeploying staff, how is enrolment looking now? As the numbers come in, Jess Staufenberg speaks to college leaders…and finds a changed landscape.
‘Shift up through the levels’
On 17 August the government announced a huge education policy U-turn – after a national outcry, it largely abandoned exam watchdog Ofqual’s calculated grades in favour of teacher-assessed grades.
Overnight, the GCSE grades delivered the highest pass rate and the highest proportion of top grades in England in recent years. About 76 per cent of entries scored a “standard” pass 4, the grade needed to access level 3 courses in colleges. It was a huge 9 percentage point leap from 67 per cent the previous year.
Of the seven college chief executives and principals FE Week spoke to, every one has reported a big rise in 16 to 18-year-old level 3 numbers. “We’ve definitely got more learners on those higher level courses than we typically expect,” says Julie Mills, chief executive at Milton Keynes College. Currently 193 more learners are on level 3 courses at the college this year than last year, with 145 more on level 2 and just 81 more on level 1.
Grant Glendinning, executive principal of NCG North, who oversees Newcastle and Carlisle College, has similarly seen a 10-15 per cent increase in numbers of students with standard passes or higher in English and maths. “We’re seeing many more applicants for level 3 courses, as they’ve got their grade 4 requirement,” he says, adding that STEM and engineering courses are particularly popular as learners avoid hospitality, tourism and travel courses in response to the pandemic.
Grant Glendinning
It’s a “shift up through the levels,” says Michelle Brabner, chief executive of Southport College – “particularly on vocational and technical courses. Our level 1 cohort has been much smaller.”
As a result, colleges have scrambled to redeploy staff to the fuller courses. Christine Ricketts, chief executive at Brooklands College, has added an additional level 2 group of about 20 learners and employed another level 3 lecturer. Meanwhile there’s only five learners on level 1 hospitality and catering, which is “unheard of”, she says. “It is a bit of a timetabling nightmare, but we’re managing.”
The real concern, however, is whether students are arriving with the English and maths skills to handle a level 3 course. College principals are clearly torn between real worry about this and wanting to honour the judgments of school sector colleagues.
“I am worried that some students will be forced, by virtue of their awarded grade, to enter a higher level than they should be on,” explains Stuart Rimmer, chief executive of East Coast College in East Anglia. “A functional skills course might be more appropriate for them, where it’s about number handling and sentence structure. Instead they could be stuck doing quadratic equations.” As a result, Rimmer warns, college staff “are going to have to work harder to plan for differentiated learning”.
Yet Rimmer notes an unexpected positive to the higher grades this year – not as many students will have to take English and maths GCSE re-sits until they pass (a condition of funding for level 3 courses). “One of the upsides of the grade inflation is it means students aren’t taking re-sits they really don’t want to. Some of it is torture for kids.” The other advantage for students is being able to head straight into a higher level course, which could “potentially raise aspirations”.
Christine Ricketts
Echoing his words, Ricketts is “less concerned about the level 2 to level 3 shift, and more about those in level 2 instead of level 1. If they’ve been on a level 1 programme, they develop skills, confidence, resilience – all those things they could transfer to cope better with level 2.” To tackle the issue, Brooklands College are looking at combining level 1 and 2 groups together in hospitality and catering and motor vehicles courses. “With this model they’ve got the flexibility of moving between levels without students feeling put down.”
There is also worry that some students have remained at schools during pure A-level provision. Claire Foster, who took up her post as chief executive of Boston College during lockdown, has seen AS-level numbers halved. “Our A-level numbers are significantly down – even where they’ve got grade 3s they seem to be staying in school more. I think there’s a nervousness at the schools about parents, so they’ve been allowed to stay on. The worry is they may not cope with the A-level provision and we will be taking them in later.” At the same time, Boston College has nearly doubled numbers on healthcare courses.
Claire Foster
College principals accept they must honour the grades students have arrived with. Brabner says “we must be really mindful that these grades may be allocated, but they are still the grades the students achieved.” Rimmer echoes her. “I think as a sector we should professionally honour and respect school teachers’ decision, just as we’ve asked universities to respect ours.”
‘Drop in apprenticeship starts and HE courses’
The area of provision that has undoubtedly taken the biggest hit is apprenticeship starts – not applications, but placements.
At Newcastle and Carlisle Colleges, Glendinning is predicting a 30 per cent decrease in apprenticeship starts this year, based on current job postings. Yet applications from aspiring apprentices are up about 50 per cent. “We do have far fewer employer opportunities. So we’re looking at some innovative ways that we can develop pre-apprenticeship programmes for those young people, using the government’s high value qualifications list, for example.”
Similarly at Milton Keynes College, Mills is considering an apprenticeship theory programme for learners while they wait for hands-on placement to start. “It’s so that if the apprenticeship only starts in six to 12 months, the person has already done all that theory,” she explains. Not all have struggled – Foster says apprenticeship placements remain strong. But many hope the government’s “Kickstart Scheme” announced last week, which funds employers to create six-month job placements for young people currently on universal credit, will prompt employers to make enquiries again.
Julie Mills
For learners wishing to join higher education courses, however, it looks as though some colleges have lost out to universities this year. David Lambert, deputy chief executive at London South East Colleges, said his team had seen “fewer higher education students enrol – possibly due to students receiving higher grades than they may have expected and taking up offers at universities, rather than choosing to study locally at college”.
‘Where are the vulnerable young people?’
But the group of students bothering college principals the most is the one they haven’t seen enough of – those at risk of being not in education, employment or training (NEET). The majority of principals said enquiries from young people in this category seem to be down. It makes flexible timetables and course start times all the more important.
Rimmer says: “The student group I’m going to worry about are those who’ve not turned up yet. There’s a group of NEET learners who will have been mostly cut off from school since March. That’s a lot of disengagement. We’re behind the curve with that group arriving.” Without summer schools and buddy days, it’s been tougher than usual to get less engaged learners to turn up in September, adds Mills.
Stuart Rimmer
Adults, meanwhile, seem to be less willing to take on loans but are still signing up for courses. “We have seen a significant drop in the number of learner taking out loans, with far more self-paying,” explains David Lambert, deputy chief executive at London South East Colleges, pointing to the fact people may wish to avoid debt. Online adult provision numbers have also risen across several colleges as people anticipate a possible second lockdown.
‘Going forwards’
While college leaders tell FE Week they are grateful for the £150 per learner “tutoring fund” for learners who have not passed English or maths GCSE announced in July, the majority warn it will not be enough. Brabner, whose college is expecting about £190,000, says “it’s not an insignificant amount of money, but we’ve had very little to support us through lockdown, so it’s whether this will be enough to cover everything. We will need to do a lot in terms of mental health.”
Michelle Brabner
Overall, however, the sector can breathe for a minute – total enrolment numbers look steady. Colleges have always had to be flexible about courses and timetables, and in this sense leaders only stepped up a skill this year they demonstrate every year. The biggest outlier issue is that a certain cohort of disadvantaged students is quite clearly out in the cold somewhere. At the Department of Education, alarm bells should be ringing.
Meanwhile, principals are looking ahead to a year packed with potential and change. As Ricketts says: “This year, one of our key actions is to really reflect on the lockdown, and think about what worked well and that we want to learn from – and then be flexible going forwards.”
A college has dropped plans to alternate students between on-site provision and studying from home after an outcry from parents.
After local media outlet The News reported, followed up by FE Week, parents’ anger over plans for students to partially study from home, with a review planned for the end of this month, Havant and South Downs College has said they will accommodate all students for face-to-face teaching from next Monday.
Principal Mike Gaston told FE Week: “We have always believed that the best place for students to learn and develop is in the college supported by our staff.
“The decision to implement an alternate week on site timetable coupled with blended learning on two of our campuses for this September was taken during enrolment following feedback from staff and students. It was put in place for safety and social distancing reasons, with a review scheduled for the end of September.”
He said the decision was changed after the induction period allowed the college to test systems and listen to concerns from a range of stakeholders.
But Gaston warned the decision may need to change depending on the local and national situation, and updates to guidance.
The general secretary of a leading college union who lambasted colleges for how much their principals earn was handed a £400,000 pay-off according to published accounts.
The “post employment” payment to University and College Union boss Sally Hunt, as referred to in the UCU’s accounts, was in addition to salary, pension contributions and a car benefit. For the full year to 31 August 2018, Hunt’s basic salary was £107,448 according to the accounts
A University and College Union spokesperson told FE Week they could not comment on the settlement.
In 2018, after analysis showed a third of principals enjoyed a pay rise of more than 10 per cent in 2016/17, Hunt said those leaders who “pocket huge pay rises while pleading poverty on staff pay look greedy and hopelessly out of touch”.
And in response to FE Week analysis in 2017 showing seventy-one college leaders had earned salaries of £150,000 or more in 2015/16, Hunt said the pay awards “show it’s one rule for staff and another for those at the top”.
