More than 400 of the UK’s most talented students and apprentices have been named as finalists for this year’s WorldSkills UK national competitions, where they’ll battle it out to be crowned the country’s best across dozens of skilled trades.
WorldSkills UK revealed the finalists participating in 47 events at the national competitions in November. As well as gold, silver and bronze medals, winners get a chance to represent the UK at the global “skills Olympics” in Japan in 2028.
This year’s finals will be held in colleges and universities across south Wales for the first time after Greater Manchester passed over the baton.
Wales has a strong association with Team UK and sent three competitors to last year’s WorldSkills event in Lyon.
The 417 finalists were selected from nearly 7,900 young people who registered to showcase their skills and competed in regional events.
The national finals will take place at three FE colleges and two university campuses from November 26 to 28.
The 47 competitions include aircraft maintenance, welding and horticulture.
Medallists will be announced at an awards ceremony on the evening of November 28 at the International Convention Centre.
Foundation skills medallists will get their awards at a ceremony at Cardiff and Vale College earlier in the day.
Meanwhile, WorldSkills UK has made online benchmarking resources accessible to competitors on its Learning Lab platform.
Ben Blackledge, CEO of WorldSkills UK said: “With employers all over the UK crying out for high-quality skills this is a fantastic opportunity for hundreds of learners to show they are ready for work. I can’t wait to see the finalists in action.”
Welsh Government skills minister Jack Sargeant hailed the move of the national competitions to Wales as “thrilling”.
“We look forward to showing off our beautiful country to visiting teams while our hard-working competitors prepare to demonstrate their training,” he said. “I’m keen to see our representatives excel once again across a range of disciplines on their home soil.”
Nicola Gamlin, principal at Coleg Gwent, said: “We are incredibly proud to be a host venue for the WorldSkills UK National Finals 2025. It is an honour for Coleg Gwent to host this prestigious event, which showcases the very best of technical education and skills excellence across the UK.
“Congratulations to all the finalists who have reached this stage. It’s a remarkable achievement and a reflection of your hard work and determination.”
Yearning for Herning
EuroSkills Herning 2025 will take place this September
The next international competition is EuroSkills 2025, which will be hosted in Herning, Denmark, in September.
The event will bring together 600 young professionals from 33 countries across the continent for a smørrebrød of competitions.
The Team UK line-up for Herning was announced in April, with 19 apprentices and students selected who are currently undergoing an intense training schedule.
Last month FE Week revealed WorldSkills UK’s government grant would be trimmed by 15 per cent for 2025-26.
WorldSkills UK told FE Week the cuts will not affect the national competitions. But it will cull some competitions at next year’s 48th WorldSkills international competition in Shanghai, China.
Contests being ditched include logistics and freight forwarding, software testing, and cloud computing.
It will also cancel its international skills summit, pause its equity, diversity and inclusion heroes awards, reduce its “international insights work” and scale back its careers resources.
However, the UK will continue to participate in the bricklaying competition in Shanghai, seven years after the UK last competed.
Squad UK for Shanghai has already been chosen, and training is underway.
England’s only ‘inadequate’ rated further education college is set to merge.
Furness College has been in FE Commissioner intervention since the Ofsted blow in November 2024. A structure and prospects appraisal was carried out to assess the college’s “future sustainability and long-term resilience”, and Blackpool and The Fylde College (B&FC) was “unanimously” selected as a merger partner.
Leaders at both institutions have now agreed in principle to a merger, citing a “complementary” curriculum offer, particularly in defence
Both boards will now commence due diligence and hope to have merged by this time next year.
Alun Francis, CEO of B&FC, said: “We are delighted and honoured to be selected as the preferred partner for Furness College.
“This is a strong endorsement of the impact our colleagues deliver every day and of our ambitious plans for the future.
Furness College principal and CEO Nicola Cove, who is standing down in October, said: “This is an important step in defining the future of Furness College.
“Our board unanimously approved B&FC’s selection and we’re now entering a period of due diligence and planning to ensure our future merger is shaped collaboratively and is in the best interests of all stakeholders”.
Out of the Furness…
Furness College, based in Barrow-in-Furness, was dealt a grade four judgment by Ofsted in November 2024. Inspectors warned that falling achievement rates, poor attendance and weak quality assurance meant that “too many learners do not receive a high-quality education”.
The 2,000 learner college was subsequently placed in formal intervention with the FE Commissioner, who, in a published report in April, urged the board to act “with urgency” to rebuild its reputation and improve learner outcomes. Within weeks, the chair of governors stepped down and Cove announced plans to leave in October.
A follow-up monitoring visit in April found Furness was making ‘insufficient progress’ on improving teachers’ use of assessments to check what learners and apprentices know and using that information to plan learning. But on improving the leadership of quality, information for governors, teachers’ use of feedback and personal development curriculums for apprentices, the college was making ‘reasonable progress’.
Alun Francis
Despite the poor inspection outcome, Furness College has a financial health score of ‘good’ according to its latest accounts.
…and into The Fylde
Francis, who also chairs the government’s Social Mobility Commission, said: “I held an informal briefing with Furness colleagues last week, and we’re looking forward to working more closely together in the months ahead to explore how we can combine strengths and create even greater opportunities for our students, colleagues and communities”.
B&FC, rated ‘good’ by Ofsted, trains around 13,500 learners a year and has ‘outstanding’ financial health.
The colleges are around 22 miles apart as the crow flies, but fall on either side of Morecambe Bay. The trip by road is around 75 miles.
Mergers on the table
This comes amid several other recent merger announcements as colleges seek to shore up their standards and finances.
FE Week revealed this week that Northern College, one of the country’s last remaining independent residential adult education colleges, is in talks to merge with Barnsley College.
Two Cheshire-based colleges, Cheshire College South & West (CCSW) and Macclesfield College are set to partner in July 2026.
In Leicestershire, SMB Group has announced plans to dissolve and merge with Loughborough College on August 1.
Meanwhile in the south west, Bridgwater and Taunton College and Strode College will merge to become University Centre Somerset College Group on August 1, and Exeter College has opened merger talks with Petroc.
You don’t have to spend long at an FE college to realise the sheer scale of the pressure young people face today.
As a governor, I’ve come to appreciate just how hard staff work not only to support learners academically, but to protect their wellbeing, navigate safeguarding concerns, and increasingly challenge the digital ideologies shaping their worldviews.
Colleges like those in our group are doing far more than delivering qualifications. We are being asked to defend against social division, rising anxiety, misinformation, and, in many cases, genuine harm.
We rightly prioritise safeguarding and wellbeing. But we need to face a broader, more difficult question: how do we help young people feel they belong in a society where so much online content promotes division and distrust?
Online harm is more than a safeguarding issue
At STCG our latest termly safeguarding report showed issues related to mental health, self-harm and suicidal ideation. These are indications of a broader context in which young people struggle to find identity, belonging and safety.
Alongside this, there’s a quieter but persistent concern – the influence of ideologies online. We’re aware of students trying to access extremist content, and we’ve had to develop staff understanding around radicalisation pipelines, incel cultures and misogynistic narratives targeting vulnerable young people.
This is a new and emerging cultural and ideological landscape that our students are navigating daily, often alone, often late at night, and always without a filter.
To be clear, colleges are not standing still. We embed Prevent into our tutorial and enrichment programmes. Our “Be Safe, Be Successful” events cover everything from online safety and grooming to radicalisation and healthy relationships.
The data shows positive student engagement, and we are proactive in our partnerships with police, charities and local agencies.
But we have to be realistic about our limits.
FE learners are with us, on average, for two years. Staff have only a few hours each week to connect with learners, build trust, and equip them with life skills. Meanwhile, divisive voices – often high-profile political figures or online influencers – have 24/7 access.
As educators we can offer structure and support. But we can’t monitor their algorithm. We can’t undo a viral TikTok. And by the time a concern reaches us the damage may already be done.
What does community cohesion look like in FE?
There’s growing policy interest in “community cohesion”, and rightly so. But the sector needs clarity. Cohesion is not easily measured in data dashboards or inspection frameworks.
Students from different backgrounds are learning to trust and respect one another. It’s recognising when misinformation is being fed to them. It’s choosing dialogue over division. You can’t capture that in a multiple-choice test.
And when it works, it often goes unnoticed because it prevents problems from arising rather than reacting to them after the fact.
Colleges are expected to act as a final safety net, and we’re proud to do that. But we cannot and should not carry that responsibility alone.
If community cohesion is a shared national priority, then:
● Funding must match the complexity of need, particularly around mental health and digital safeguarding.
● Curriculum space should be protected for personal development, critical thinking and civic responsibility.
● National messaging must support educators, not undermine them with contradictory narratives.
Crucially, we need a cross-sector response to the online landscape young people inhabit. Social media platforms cannot remain unaccountable while colleges are left to mitigate their impact.
FE is resilient but cracks are showing
I believe deeply in the power of FE. I see it in our students who overcome challenges daily. I see it in staff who go beyond the job description, because they know they might be the only adult a student trusts.
But I also see the cracks.
We are witnessing too many young people falter not just academically but socially and emotionally. And it’s not because they’re failing us. It’s because, in many ways, we are failing them by not meeting the scale of what they’re up against.
Colleges are doing what they can. But we cannot do it quietly, and we cannot do it alone.
We need a national conversation and shared commitment to equip young people not only with skills but also with the strength to stay grounded in a world that often feels unsteady.
The new industrial strategy states that the government will use the 16-19 high-value course premia to uplift funding to courses that support key sectors. It also acknowledges that the nation’s skills pipeline starts at school.
But as things stand, technical education courses at pre-16 will receive no such uplift. This leaves schools and colleges in the 14-16 space to deliver expensive technical courses that support high-growth sectors, with no extra funding.
For Baker Dearing, which works to support University Technical College secondary schools, we believe that pre-16 providers should receive a technical subject funding uplift, as post-16 providers do.
If 14-16 providers are expected to prepare young people for the workplace, the technical education courses that deliver this should be supported by a corresponding funding uplift similar to that received by post-16 provision.
The Department for Education already gives different weightings to technical subjects at key stage 5. Key stage 4 providers facing high costs to deliver those subjects should receive the same support. This will ensure consistency, addresses cost disparities, and ought to encourage progression to T Levels and apprenticeships.
The high value course premium, for example, gives providers £600 for each student taking certain level three courses in specific subject areas; including engineering and manufacturing technologies.
The government guidance states the premium is “to encourage and support provision that leads to higher wage returns, to enable a more productive economy”.
An uplift to KS4 technical subjects would support this objective, through initiatives that can progress young people into high-paying careers such as the college sector’s expanding 14-16 provision and Baker Dearing’s own UTC Sleeve initiative. The latter involves placing a high-quality, technical pathway within mainstream schools to reverse the decline in key stage 4 technical education and promote progression to T Levels, apprenticeships, and STEM university courses.
Uplifting destinations
Technical education is expensive at any key stage: Specialist teachers must be recruited and industry-standard equipment must be purchased. Then the teachers must be trained to use the equipment, whether that be 3D printers, CAD/CAM (computer-aided design and manufacturing) or, eventually, quantum computers.
There are also the associated costs: maintenance, increased energy costs, and consumable materials. The DfE recognises the increased costs of this provision, which is why it provides the post-16 programme weightings.
The benefits from a KS4 technical funding uplift would be seen throughout the skills pipeline. Last academic year, a fifth of UTC Year 13 leavers progressed onto an apprenticeship – four times more than the national average. We put that down to the fact most UTC students start at 14, or maybe earlier. They have the opportunity to study the technical subjects needed for work at a relatively early age. Also, as one UTC leader said to us recently, they learn what they do not want to do and can target their preferred destination.
That sort of progression is good for the student but also good for the economy, as more young people will be prepared through apprenticeships and T Levels for careers in high growth sectors like advanced manufacturing that were identified in the industrial strategy.
Youth unemployment could also be tackled
Technical education at key stage 4 can also be enjoyable and engaging for students. Ben Lydon, writing for FE Week last October, stated that 14-16 college provision shows students from disadvantaged backgrounds “a future more hopeful than the one they left behind”.
Young people are navigating an increasingly divided world, with the hostile rhetoric and fearmongering spread on social media sometimes casting a dark shadow over college life.
Further education colleges are renowned for welcoming students from all backgrounds; their corridors and classrooms are often more diverse than the towns and cities they’re based in.
But the divisive forces they are up against risk conflict on campus and costly legal battles. Experts argue that traditional methods of managing cohesion and inclusion are no longer good enough.
Riots in town centres across the country, fuelled by false claims that the perpetrator of the murders of three young girls in Southport was a Muslim asylum seeker, brought those tensions into sharp focus last summer and sparked panic amongst many college ESOL learners. Around 147 children were among the 1,590 arrested during the unrest.
A judge-led inquiry, The Southport Inquiry, began its first live hearings in Liverpool last week.
In Middlesbrough, mobs of hooligans set fire to cars and smashed windows.
Middlesbrough College staff were on holiday at the time, but that did not stop them coming into town the next day, brooms in hands, from homes across the region to lead a clean-up effort (see main picture).
Community work taking place at Sunderland College in the aftermath of the riots
“That’s us. That’s what we do,” said Aimey Adamson, Middlesbrough College’s vice principal for students and communications.
A significant proportion of students at the college’s town centre campus are ESOL learners who the college are “supporting to make a new life”.
“Our work was around showing them that we stand with you – it’s really important that we’re creating a sense of community for them,” says Adamson.
Similarly, after the riots ripped through Sunderland, its college staff sprung into action against the divisive rhetoric. Drama staff members Matt Waller and Jonathan Wharton penned a poem, ‘Open Yer Eyes’, and its creative arts students collaborated on an immersive series of artworks celebrating the city’s rich cultural tapestry.
And crucially, a conference for leaders was held specifically to discuss colleges’ role in community cohesion; part of the FE Commissioner’s ‘One More Thing’ series, and hosted by college group Education Partnership North East.
The group said at the time that “in the wake of the 2024 riots and an era of increasing inequality and economic challenges, building cohesive communities has never been more important”.
Professor Ted Cantle, advisor to Belong – The Cohesion and Integration Network, who spoke at the conference, praised Education Partnership North East for “grasping the nettle”.
Sunderland had, he said, engaged its students in discussion “in a constructive way” so “genuine reflection and learning took place”.
A debate around digital safety, for example, helped them to “understand how algorithms work to build on their emotions and develop into groupthink”.
But he warned that “all too often, what takes place is ignored” by colleges.
“There’s this pretence that this hasn’t happened, it’s put in the too-difficult box which compounds the problem. It means the stereotypes are never challenged, the myths never disconfirmed. There’s just no opportunity for those young people to come to terms with the change that is taking place in their communities.”
Professor Ted Cantle, advisor to Belong – The Cohesion and Integration Network
A ‘low level’ shift
While last summer’s race riots reflect the most extreme end of the political divide, Lisa Humphries, chair of the National Association for Managers of Student Services (NAMSS), believes colleges are seeing a “low-level shifting of divisive attitudes” and “disengagement with society” from their learners.
She believes the divisive rhetoric of political players, including Donald Trump and Elon Musk, means “young people are seeing people saying whatever they like with no accountability”, which is leading to an “increase in division” and a lack of “common moral ground”.
NAMSS chair Lisa Humphries
In a 2024 NAMSS survey of 62 colleges, over two-thirds of respondents felt that student disaffection with wider society had worsened in the last year, with social media identified as the top cause.
Colleges are seeing “regular classroom conversations about immigrants”, with legal immigrants being viewed similarly by many students as those who arrived illegally”, she said.
And FE colleges are on the front foot in teaching learners how to identify and call out extremism; ‘radicalisation’ was referenced in 18 out of 56 Ofsted reports published so far this year, with only five colleges criticised for not doing enough and 13 praised for their teaching in this regard.
In April at Southport College (just a five-minute drive from where the knife attack on young girls took place last July), adults and apprentices were found to “articulate well their understanding of fundamental British values and know how to keep themselves safe from the threats of radicalisation and extremism”.
Feeling unsafe
Feeling unsafe in their communities was flagged as one of the “biggest concerns” of young people in the last Youth Voice Census by Youth Employment UK.
Last year, the census found that only 62 per cent of young people in education felt safe in their learning environment, a nine percentage point decrease from the year before.
Fears around personal safety were felt most by young women, those eligible for free school meals and transgender respondents.
The preliminary findings of its 2025 census also reflect growing anxieties around “feeling part of a community, that sense of social cohesion,” said Youth Employment UK deputy CEO Lauren Mistry. “For lots of young people, the social divide is really heightened.”
Discrimination all round
Anecdotally, Youth Employment UK has also noticed a rise in derogatory and racist comments on its social media posts and in the “general commentary” this year, said Mistry.
For the last three years, the census has found more young people in education reporting high rates of discrimination.
Over a third of young people (35 per cent) in last year’s census scored discrimination as one of their top three concerns for the country.
The biggest factor for NEET white boys is that they feel they cannot access work or training because of their colour and gender.
Every group feels discriminated against, which is a real worry
“They feel like they’re getting less and feel more and more disconnected from a system that’s going to work for them and support them,” said Mistry.
“Every group, no matter their race, gender or age, feels discriminated against, which is a real worry. Particularly around social media, that sense of divide is really high.”
One of the trends that colleges have expressed concern about is a perceived rise in misogyny among young men.
But the real picture may be more nuanced. Natasha Eeles, CEO of Bold Voices, which promotes critical awareness of gender inequality, believes that although the debate around misogyny now is “very emotive and heightened”, she is unsure whether misogyny is really worsening among young males or whether “we didn’t have the language or even the recognition of it, even five years ago”.
And Humphries is concerned about “extreme feminism” in colleges as well as misogyny.
Sharon Mangoma and her daughter at a culture day at Suffolk’s ONE college
Culture days ‘don’t work’
Events that aim to lessen the sense of discrimination by celebrating diverse cultures have become commonplace fixtures on college calendars.
This year, such events took place at One Sixth Form College (ONE), Newham College, New College Swindon, Runshaw College and Middlesbrough College among others.
Adamson said that at Middlesbrough College’s recent Festival of Culture,“to see our Muslim female students in their finery dancing in public was just beautiful”.
And an Iftar the college held was particularly appreciated by 16-18 ESOL learners, around half of whom were classed as unaccompanied minors, in foster care or supported living. “It was really important for them to have that sense of community,” she said.
But such events are not always embraced by the whole community.
Runshaw was slammed by some parents for ‘totally ignoring’ VE celebrations that took place on the same day.
And there are other cultural sensitivities to bear in mind. BMet was accused by some students of being “insensitive” for holding its first culture day event two years ago during Ramadan, said the college’s student experience director Kay Burton-Williams.
The event nonetheless proved to be popular and students felt one day was not enough, so the college now holds two culture days a year and is being asked to extend to a “culture week”.
However, it is hard to quantify the impact of such events.
Middlesbrough College Festival of Culture
Sunita Gordon, co-founder of SaferSpace and governor at South Thames Colleges Group, points out that community cohesion is “not easily measured in data dashboards or inspection frameworks”, and “when it works, it often goes unnoticed because it prevents problems from arising rather than reacting to them after the fact”.
But Cantle argues that culture days “generally don’t work” when it comes to community cohesion. “Unless there is some meaningful and longer-term engagement and debate, it won’t change anybody’s attitudes. In fact, in some cases it will harden them.”
Attendees, he claims, are often people who are already multicultural in their ethos, or from those communities being celebrated.
“The people who don’t go are the ones who probably should go.
“In order to change people’s attitudes and behaviours, you’ve got to be able to debate and challenge what’s around you, you can’t do that just by flashing cultural tokens in front of somebody.”
Middlesbrough College Assistant Principal Rachel Gray and staff from Adult and Community Learning with Mayor Chris Cooke taking part in the riot clean up
Opportunities for debate
At Nelson and Colne College Group, an extended project qualification is used as a “vehicle for creating arenas for debate”, said principal Lisa O’Loughlin.
“Human libraries” are held in which people from different backgrounds and perspectives are invited in and asked questions by young people.
O’Loughlin believes colleges have a “real responsibility to support and challenge young people to understand that things aren’t just binary answers to every conversation”.
“The more that we can expose them to those opportunities for debate, the more we can offset the social media block-facts mentality and develop the oracy skills they need to go into the world”.
At BMet, Burton-Williams has had to hold difficult conversations with students urging the college to adapt the ‘quiet reflection space’ used by Muslim students as a prayer room into two separate rooms for males and females.
She explains to them that “there are particular concerns if you start segregating” which is “not our place” as “we’re not a place of worship”. “People make judgments, ‘OK, you’re a middle-aged white woman. What are you going to know about that?’.
“The more that FE professionals have that confidence to talk about [these issues], the better, not just people who work in EDI. But for some, the thought of that conversation terrifies them because they think, ‘what if I get it wrong?’”
Steve Wright and the puppets he uses to engage with young people
Hidden from view on social media
Cantle believes the “social bubbles” that form in schools and local communities are “compounded by the bubbles that surround us on social media”, which is making it “more difficult” for colleges to “break down some of these groupthink, insular ideas”.
Steve Wright, a youth engagement specialist working with colleges, was horrified last summer when his own daughter was exposed to messages on Snapchat encouraging young people to attend a local riot, which was foiled by police before it could take place.
He fears the nature of closed social media groups makes it “much more difficult” for colleges to know what messages young people are being exposed to.
Some divisive social media content is flagged by college internet safety firewalls; a June 2024 meeting of the West Nottinghamshire College standards committee reported that so far that academic year, its Smoothwall firewall had flagged 434 concerns, “largely low-level and behavioural”; however, “once or twice a month something is found which raises a significant safeguarding concern”.
But Gordon believes that colleges “have to be realistic about our limits”.
“Staff have only a few hours each week to connect with learners, build trust, and equip them with life skills. Meanwhile, divisive voices often from high-profile political figures or online influencers have 24/7 access,” she says.
“As educators, we can offer structure and support. But we can’t monitor their algorithm. We can’t undo a viral TikTok. And by the time a concern reaches us, the damage may already be done.”
Community work in the aftermath of the riots in Sunderland
Legal minefield
Sometimes, tutors are put off from engaging in debate for fear of inadvertently offending a particular group or inciting hate.
The Higher Education Freedom of Speech Act places stronger responsibility on registered higher education institutions to uphold freedom of speech principles.
The University of Sussex was the first to be fined (£586,000) under new powers given to the Office for Students after its governing documents were found to have not upheld freedom of speech and academic freedom.
Arif Ahmed, OfS director for freedom of speech, told the BBC that exposure to views which students might find offensive was “part of the process of education”, warning there was “potential for higher fines in the future”.
But colleges are operating in a legal minefield, amid concerns they could also be sued for being seen to incite inflammatory speech.
A lawyer with FE and HE clients said there is “a lot of money around for litigation” from “actors outside this country and very wealthy people within this country”.
They added that “grey areas” arise when there are “competing discriminations”, such as “a very extreme religious view butting up against LGBTQ rights in particular”.
“Employment lawyers get very excited, because there’s no right or wrong answer to that – it’s just what the judge feels that he or she needs to do on the day.
“This makes our friends in the sector very, very nervous, they’re looking over their shoulder constantly, worrying about whether they’re about to be sued”.
Community work in the aftermath of the riots in Sunderland
A maths teacher fired by New College Swindon for refusing to use the name and pronouns of a trans student has been granted an appeal against a tribunal decision that ruled he was not unfairly dismissed, which is set to be heard in November. The college argued it dismissed Kevin Lister, who has crowd-funded over £36,000 so far towards his legal costs, for the way he manifested his gender-critical views, not for holding those views.
It’s a tightrope every college has to walk with in the absence of good guidance from the government; protecting students and staff with rights not to be discriminated against under the Equality Act against the freedom of speech and equalities rights of those “expressing beliefs”.
One college manager, whose college had been subject to a campaign by some students against a Harry Potter-themed trip because they disagreed with JK Rowling’s views on gender, said, “Some of the trans narrative over the last 18 months has been really challenging in lots of ways”.
But Cantle believes that although colleges “don’t want to see offensive attitudes expressed” on their campuses, “being offensive is not against the law, and unless you’re prepared to have serious debates, then how do people ever come to terms with difference?”
Humphries pointed out that not only do FE staff now require the skills to be able to “facilitate discussions and confront divisive behaviour”; they also need to “overcome pressures from Ofsted and adhere to Prevent legislation, without funding to upskill our staff to meet these challenges”.
For many young people, resitting their GCSEs in English and maths is the final opportunity to secure a qualification that can open doors to further education, training, or employment. It’s a critical moment and one that can shape their prospects long after they leave the classroom.
Teachers and colleges working with resit students know the stakes are high. They also know the reality: many students arrive in 16-19 education feeling disheartened and disengaged, often shaped by repeated setbacks and negative educational experiences. For these learners, rebuilding confidence and motivation isn’t just a teaching challenge, it’s a human one.
Despite these hurdles, resit teachers consistently demonstrate passion, commitment, and resilience. They understand the importance of their role and are determined to help their students succeed. But they urgently need more support, better tools, and access to professional development that’s relevant to their context. These teachers are doing their best with what they have, but the system needs to do better for them.
A clearer picture of the resit landscape
That’s why the Education Policy Institute’s (EPI) new report is so timely.
It offers a clear and comprehensive view of the current resit system and doesn’t shy away from the big issues. This includes reflections from resit teachers that specific professional development to support learners with past negative experience of education would be beneficial to help foster better attendance and motivation for resits.
Their research also highlights the persistent attainment gap for disadvantaged resit students, who are behind their peers by a fifth of a grade in English and one eighth of a grade in maths. This is a systemic issue that continues to limit opportunities for too many young people.
Another interesting finding from the report highlights just how much 16-19 teachers value networks, helping them to share best practice and build relationships with their peers.
Crucially, the report sets out what needs to change: greater investment through a 16-19 student premium, better alignment between policy and practice, and more meaningful support for teachers through training and resources.
Putting evidence into action
At the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), we believe that improving outcomes for resit students should start with evidence. That’s why we’re investing in trials of high-potential programmes and approaches in colleges across England. This will help us understand what works best for resit learners, and why. Our goal is to build the evidence base, so that 16-19 teachers have access to more resources to support their practice.
Building a community of practice
Earlier this year, we launched a new evidence partnership for 16–19 education, a collaborative network designed to help colleges and sixth forms access, interpret, and apply evidence to improve teaching and learning.
We know that change sticks when educators work together. This partnership will help build a much-needed community of practice, particularly for those teaching English and maths resits. It’s about bridging the gap between research and real-world classrooms, so no teacher has to navigate these challenges alone.
A spotlight on CPD
As the EPI report rightly highlights, the sector is crying out for more and better continuing professional development (CPD). It might not grab headlines but it’s one of the most powerful tools we have to support both teachers and learners.
Later this year, we’ll publish our first-ever guidance report tailored specifically for 16–19 educators, with a focus on high-quality CPD. This focus reflects what we’ve heard from the teachers we work with every day: relevant, accessible training can be a game-changer for improving practice and outcomes.
Collaboration is key
None of this can be done in isolation. Fixing the resit system requires collaboration, coordination, and long-term commitment across the sector. Policymakers, school and college leaders, teacher educators, researchers, and funders: we all have a role to play.
At the EEF, we’re committed to playing ours. Every young person deserves the chance to succeed, no matter their background or previous attainment. With the right support in place, resit students can thrive, and better collaboration can help to make that happen.
An influential committee of MPs has demanded six-monthly updates on college teacher recruitment and retention amid warnings shortages put the government’s missions at risk.
Parliament’s public accounts committee (PAC) also slammed the government for lacking a “coherent plan” to boost recruitment and failing to clearly explain how its 6,500 teacher target was calculated.
Committee member Sarah Olney said: “The shortfalls laid out in our report show how urgent it is that DfE lays out the detail behind its pledge for 6,500 more teachers.
“If the recommendations in our report are followed, the government will have an explicit answer, based on its own analysis and evidence, on whether it is time to offer teachers more flexibility, and/or to pay them more.”
Here’s what you need to know…
Set out 6.5k teacher details and milestones
The report noted officials could not give the committee a “clear explanation” of how the government’s 6,500-teacher pledge was calculated or how it will fill workforce gaps. Forecasts suggest up to 12,400 more teachers will be needed in colleges alone by 2028.
“There remains no information on the baseline against which the pledge will be measured, how it will be split across schools and colleges, or the milestones… to be met for the department to be on track to deliver by the end of this Parliament,” it added.
The committee said the department should set out this information and outline how “it will stay focused on teacher retention alongside recruitment”.
Pepe Di’Iasio, of the Association of School and College Leaders, said the pledge “does not seem anything like enough to address future need and we would urge ministers to address actual teacher shortages rather than fixate on a figure which is largely meaningless”.
The government told FE Week last week the pledge would be based on improving the net number of teachers, using the 2023-24 academic year as a baseline. This means not all teachers will be ‘new’, as promised, and they will not be focused on shortage subjects either.
College vacancies threaten Labour’s vision
PAC noted that further education teacher shortages impact “the type and extent of skills developed” by colleges. This “puts the achievement of the government’s missions for opportunity and growth at risk”.
Given this “urgent need”, the DfE has been told to “update the committee on its full recruitment and retention plans for the further education sector as soon as possible”.
Further updates should then be made “every six months until summer 2028 on its progress”.
An estimated 1,600 new teachers will be needed by 2027-28 in secondary schools, whereas between 8,400 and 12,400 will be needed in further education by 2028-29 to meet skills needs and rising student numbers.
‘No coherent plan’
DfE has been told it “lacks a coherent plan, suitable targets, and sufficient evidence” showing its funding is focused “on what works best” to boost teacher numbers.
While it has evaluated “some” of its school recruitment and retention initiatives, it has not undertaken a “full” review, despite “a recommendation by a previous public accounts committee in 2016”.
Evaluations of DfE’s further education initiatives were even “less mature”.
Understanding competition with schools
Ministers have been urged to develop a “whole system strategy”, based on a “fuller evidence base”, which establishes “the preferred balance between recruitment and retention initiatives”.
Higher salaries in schools and industry are flagged as key reason why high numbers of FE teachers quit the profession. The PAC took aim at the DfE’s understanding of the competition for teachers between colleges and schools in particular.
It found that the department’s only recruitment strategy since 2019 had been for schools, and that teams of schools and FE officials until recently “worked in silos”.
The report said: “The department has now started to think in a more joined-up way, to help better understand what works and the trade-offs of its decisions”.
Value for money of pay rises
The committee recommended that officials evaluate “value-for-money of pay against other recruitment and retention initiatives, to make an explicit decision on whether it needs to do more to ensure teachers are paid the right amount”. This would inform decisions on “whether it needs to do more to ensure teachers are paid the right amount”.
The report added that the benefits associated with being on the teachers’ pensions scheme are a “hugely valuable yet easily under-sold perk of the job”.
David Hughes, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, dismissed the recommendation.
“My response is that we have to face up to the reality that pay is the biggest barrier to recruitment and retention in FE. Until that is addressed, colleges will struggle to recruit the right staff and the government’s ambitions for skills will be thwarted,” he said.
Most of us could easily name a few GCSE subjects. The same goes for A-levels. And while degree titles are a little more complex, ask any person on the street and most will give you a recognisable summation of said subject.
These qualifications are familiar. The academic journey is, by and large, linear: school, then sixth form or college, then university – with a well-known single door of entry in UCAS. It’s neat, tidy and widely understood.
Now consider vocational and technical education through the lens of the labour market. How many occupations are there in the UK? In the NHS alone, there are over 350, many of which even seasoned professionals might struggle to define. What exactly does a clinical coder do? A phlebotomist?
Multiply that complexity across the economy and you get an ever-changing, sprawling network of routes, job roles and specialisms. The labour market is constantly evolving.
If academic qualifications develop at the pace of a gently flowing stream, then vocational and technical ones should move like a raging torrent – because the labour market does too!
Unlike the academic route, technical education doesn’t have a single path with a clearly marked entrance. Today’s economy demands breadth, depth and talent wherever it can be found. That means many paths and doorways to jobs and better jobs.
Some roles are hyper-specialised, requiring mastery of a focused skill set. Others, particularly in SMEs, demand versatility; from multi-disciplinary technical skills to running a business end-to-end.
So, when people talk about simplifying technical education, making it ‘more like academic education’, they’re misunderstanding the complexity and dynamically changing nature of the economy and labour market.
Edward De Bono said it best: “Simplicity before understanding is simplistic; simplicity after understanding is simple”.
The age-old trope ‘can’t vocational and technical qualifications just be a bit more like GCSEs and A-levels’ isn’t just tired, it’s deeply flawed. The labour market isn’t simple. To simply reduce the complexity is to ignore the reality of what employers need to grow and how all learners can succeed throughout their lives.
As a wise boss once told me: “One person’s simplification is simply another person’s lack of important detail”.
So, the better exam question is: What should a system optimised for coherence and high-quality look like?
Coherence gives learners and employers the ability to navigate complexity. High-quality delivers the requisite trust and confidence.
Skills supply must keep pace with the labour market. When my sons sit GCSEs three years apart, I wouldn’t be overly comfortable if the content changed radically. But if they started the same apprenticeship three years apart, the idea that nothing would have changed is frankly ludicrous.
I’ve long felt that comparing technical to academic education is like comparing my two sons. One is a natural sportsman, the other has to work at it. One is naturally academic (i.e. good at remembering and regurgitating information), the other needs to study hard and often needs to learn in a few different ways before things really sink in. One follows the rules, the other challenges them without hesitation.
Would I ever say one is better than the other? Absolutely not. They’re different – and that difference is what makes them brilliant in their own way. Do I hold one or the other in higher esteem? No, I love them for their differences, because that’s what makes them who they are.
It’s the same with education. Different doesn’t have to mean unequal.
That applies to assessment, too. Written exams are still seen as the gold standard. Ironic that we don’t think this for the driving test, yet this glaringly obvious fact has become increasingly obfuscated by our years of ‘simplification’. Written examinations are absolutely right for some disciplines or situations, but they are deeply inadequate for others.
Would you hire a chef based on an essay about sauces? Or would you rather taste their cooking?
The obvious fact is that practical skills need practical assessments. The relentless push towards written exams as the default smacks more of academic elitism than real-world relevance. And skills policy could do with a good seasoning of real-world relevance.
All this said, employers do say they want simplicity, but not necessarily in the qualifications themselves. Yes, maybe a greater degree of standardising the qualification labels that we use would help. But what employers are really calling for is certainty in policy, funding, eligibility, provision and pathways. A joined-up system that makes sense.
Why don’t T Levels align better with apprenticeships or Higher Technical Qualifications? Why are English and maths seemingly crucial to underpinning competence in an apprenticeship at 16-18 but not at 19+? Why do skills bootcamps offer huge flexibility while other provision is prescribed in fine detail?
There are, of course, answers to these questions, but they fall short of describing a coherent system. Without coherence, simplicity is simply a dream – one we’ve had for 20 years or more. And this is what we need to fix.
So let’s stop chasing simplicity through false comparisons. Let’s build a system that’s coherent, high-quality, responsive and empowering. One that gives real agency to both learners and employers.
Vocational and technical education doesn’t need to be more like academic education. It just needs to be properly understood, respected and given the latitude and resources to grow into the very best VTQ system in the world. Simple.
Our college is subcontracted by Heart of Worcestershire College to deliver all aspects of learning, therapy and care to students at their campus.
Innovative thinking is part of our charity’s DNA, so when we entered conversations with Heart of Worcestershire College about a collaboration, we could see endless opportunities for students and all parties involved.
Creative, aspirational thinking is at the heart of specialist further education. Every day our multi-disciplinary teams – learning, therapy and care support – come up with innovative approaches for students. There is nothing standardised about disability, individualised solutions to overcome day to day and lifelong challenges is key.
The project evolved from the lack of suitable provision in Worcestershire for young adults with complex needs. National Star couldn’t support them as the families felt the daily commute to its campuses in Hereford or Ullenwood was too much. Heart of Worcestershire’s team didn’t have the expertise to work with those with the most complex needs.
Our focus was around, ‘what can we do to make it work’. Heart of Worcestershire shared the desire, so we set about identifying various approaches.
The students are registered on Heart of Worcestershire’s individualised learner record, who are accountable for the outcomes and the welfare of the students. The sub-contract to National Star means the full team delivering the programmes are employed by National Star, who assess the learners, confirm if a programme can be offered through to delivering and managing all aspects of their programmes.
What you don’t see in a business plan and costings is the value of trust and the importance of shared ethos and culture. You can’t calculate that in a tender bid, yet it is critical for this type of partnership to work.
The relationship between the colleges began in 2021 when we partnered as part of the DfE’s edTech demonstrator programme. Heart of Worcestershire subcontracted National Star to help deliver training and support as a specialist in the field of technology. That partnership was so successful that United Learning extended the colleges’ contract.
What we discovered was that our colleges shared the same values and ethos. One of National Star’s strategic objectives is to promote the best quality education and care for young adults with complex needs across the country. Heart of Worcestershire is passionate about providing further education to all young people, including those with the most complex needs.
And so, the discussions began. Heart of Worcestershire had available space to deliver, but not the expertise. National Star had the expertise and the appetite to deliver specialist education in Worcestershire.
Let’s be clear. Despite our best intentions this project would not have come to fruition without the full support of Worcestershire County Council. The local authority is a core part of the partnership. They believed in what we wanted to do and provided a grant to refurbish a Heart of Worcestershire building that would be appropriate for students with complex needs.
That shared vision and the case for the provision was so compelling that we maintained the momentum through changes of key personnel at all three partners, including the appointment of new CEOs at both Heart of Worcestershire and National Star.
The two colleges and the local authority sat down together to do the financial modelling. Again, we had a shared vision. This project is about providing desperately needed local specialist education. It is about creating a service that is viable, not about making a profit.
There were challenges because we were creating something new, a service and an approach not being delivered anywhere else. We learned as we went along. It was satisfying that both Dame Christine Lenehan and the FE and Skills Minister, Baroness Smith, commented on the partnership in their speeches at the recent Natspec conference, stating it was the best way forward for the future.
‘Without shared beliefs and trust, it will never be sustainable’
As we enter the final term of our first year, we are thrilled with how the provision has gone. More importantly, the five students have thrived. We have interest in more places for the academic year and will have eight students enrolled.
This project can be replicated elsewhere but what is critical is that the values and leadership of all partners are completely aligned. Without shared beliefs and trust, it will never be sustainable. The local authority must also be committed to the project. Without their support, first to provide the grant to pay for the essential building work and then to agree to fund student places, this project would never have got off the ground. It demonstrates very clearly what local authorities can achieve when it embraces innovative approaches.
The government also has a role to play to encourage such relationships between specialist and mainstream by reviewing sub-contracting rules and the tendering process. As part of the tendering process emphasis should be weighted on ensuring the values and vision of both parties are aligned, this must be built into the due diligence.
It is the working relationship, shared values and trust which will ensure the success.
