FE Week has spoken to a number of specialist colleges to uncover the impact the Covid-19 crisis is having on the country’s most vulnerable learners, many of whom are residential and have “complex needs”, and found the extraordinary efforts staff are putting in to keep provision going…

“Try to envisage not being able to easily verbally communicate, having significant physical disabilities, profound and multiple learning disabilities, struggling with sensory overload or not being able to manage changes in your world.

“Add in Covid-19, mixed guidance, public panic and the potential removal of one of the safest environments you know… and you are a little closer to understanding how many of our students must be feeling.”

That’s how Adrian Sugden, principal of Henshaws College in Harrogate, sums it up for his day and residential learners, aged 16 to 25 and with a variety of complex needs.

However, it is not just students who have had to come to terms with Covid-19: Sugden says senior leaders and staff were “rocked” by the government’s decision to keep education settings open for vulnerable learners.

Specialist colleges were initially asked to stay open for all students with education, health and care plans, which would apply to their entire cohort, says Clare Howard, chief executive of specialist post-16 provider organisation Natspec.

As that “seemed inconsistent” with the social distancing guidance, Natspec worked with the Department for Education and now only those learners who cannot safely be provided for at home should still attend college.

“We are a very small cog in a great national effort and we will keep turning.”

Sugden says his staff now agree specialist settings should stay open as: “It was about supporting the NHS and providing the safest environment we could for our learners.

“We have done everything we can, in these challenging times, to maintain that.”

However, it is becoming increasingly difficult, as they are losing staff to self-isolation, childcare, family care and illness.

Henshaws, along with the other specialist providers FE Week spoke with, are not furloughing or laying off any staff – the college has even re-employed ex-staff.

The college will remain open over Easter, and expects around ten per cent of the total cohort of 97 to attend – the students who are full time residents or whose families are key workers.

“The challenge,” Sugden says, “will be maintaining a strong staff cohort when Covid-19 fully hits our region”.

Portland College near Mansfield, meanwhile, is taking on even more young people, as it is set to run a “holiday club” for a small number of them, at the request of the local authority, over Easter.

It is currently supporting up to 20 learners and five day-service users, about ten per cent of its usual cohort, as well as 25 in residential provision, around 80 per cent of that cohort.

It’s all “part of the national effort,” says principal Mark Dale. But it does not hurt that the college sits on 32 acres of Sherwood Forest and includes a fully wheelchair-accessible Woodland Adventure Zone.

He said they are treating the whole campus as an isolation “household unit”, so “we have strict policies in place regarding who can access the site during the lockdown period,” he said.

Learners who attend on a daily basis are supported in separate areas with separate staff to residential learners.

Yet Portland too is not without troubles: delays in delivering supplies have led to staff making face shields for their colleagues.

Another problem is funding: as a charity, the crisis is taking a bite out of their fundraising abilities and commercial operations. It was reported earlier this week the Covid-19 pandemic will mean charities will lose around £4 billion in the next financial quarter.

Funding is an “ongoing concern” for the sector, said Howard, as is securing food, cleaning products and personal protective equipment.

For many specialist colleges, a “significant proportion” of income comes from non-education budgets, and Howard says there is “question mark” over whether these sources will be guaranteed.

What adds extra impetus was the fact, she said, “for a small number of students, college is their home for 52 weeks a year; there is no other to send them back to”.

Dale said this was “uncharted territory” and it was “difficult to know” what their long-term future held.

“For now our focus is the health and wellbeing of our learners, residents and staff.”

This can-do spirit exhibited by Sugden and Dale can also be seen at National Star College in Gloucestershire, where chief executive David Ellis says staff “have gone above and beyond at this very challenging and difficult time” by keeping in touch with students at home and providing education and therapy resources for their families.

While there are currently about 33 residential and day students and 29 long-term residents in attendance, National Star will still provide respite care for an additional 17 students over Easter.

And out of a total cohort of 142 at Linkage College in Lincolnshire, around 20 of its 16 to 25-year-old learners have continued to attend. One of its campuses will remain open over Easter for three learners whose parents are key workers.

“We are fortunate to have a relationship manager at the Education and Skills Funding Agency, who has kept in regular contact and confirmed we will receive normal funding, in line with our payment schedule,” a spokesperson said.

But specialist providers also rely on funding from local authorities, and that is proving more troublesome for Linkage.

Its location means it is commissioned by seven authorities and there is no consistency in the paperwork being sent to providers, while the councils are expecting Linkage to complete all the administration of this – which is hard when you have over 30 per cent of staff off work.

For learners who are staying home, Linkage is “working hard” to ensure they can engage in learning through hard-copy and electronic work packs, telephone tutorials and online academic and pastoral support.

Specialist learning is not easily moved online, Howard says, as much of it is based on experience and observation. But her members have been “creative” in devising ways to get around that, including using adaptive technology and online classes.

Perhaps their commitment is best summed up by Mark Dale: “We are a very small cog in a great national effort and we will keep turning.”

The government is driving forward with plans to launch the first three T-levels from September 2020 despite the disruption being caused by the Covid-19 outbreak.

Last month, FE Week revealed that the awarding bodies designing the qualifications had called on ministers to delay their rollout by a year.

At the time the Department for Education said they were keeping the rollout date “under review”.

But in a sector-wide email sent to training providers and colleges this afternoon, seen by FE Week, apprenticeships and skills minister Gillian Keegan said: “We are aware that the coronavirus will impact those providers due to start delivering the first T-levels from September.

“We are working closely with providers as the situation develops. However, we are continuing to work with all involved to ensure we can continue to roll out the first three T-levels from this September as planned.”

She added that if providers have specific questions or concerns about this “please do flag these with your regional ESFA contact”.

In a letter to education secretary Gavin Williamson sent on 19 March, Federation of Awarding Bodies chief executive Tom Bewick warned that colleges, and therefore the “delivery network”, will be in “crisis management and recovery mode up until the autumn term”.

Similarly, asking employers to provide high-quality industry placements at this time “looks very challenging when you consider that the deep economic shock we are experiencing will pre-occupy company survival plans for at least the next 12 months”.

He added: “Following consultation with our members and, specifically, those awarding organisations that have to date successfully secured licences from you to design these new technical qualifications, I am requesting that you postpone the wave one commencement of three T-Levels in September.”

Fifty providers are signed up to deliver the first three routes – in digital, construction and education – from September 2020.

T-levels were originally meant to commence from September 2019, but former apprenticeships and skills minister Anne Milton announced in July 2017 that she would delay delivery of the first qualifications by 12 months.

Then, in a ministerial direction in May 2018, the then-education secretary Damian Hinds refused a request by the Department for Education’s permanent secretary Jonathan Slater to delay their start from 2020 to 2021.

The latest calls for a delay follows numerous concerns over the rushed timescales for T-levels.

A study in 2019 by the National Foundation for Educational Research, which conducted interviews with half of the 50 providers that will deliver the first T-levels, found that “extremely tight” delivery timescales, a lack of viable industry placements and limited public transport all threaten a successful rollout.

Detailed information on T-level content, assessment and the industry placement was not scheduled to be available until March – less than six months before teaching commences.

And just last month, this newspaper reported on how the government has embarked on a very last-minute mission to find out if students could fail to secure the mandatory T-level industry placement.

Colleges that deliberatley under deliver their adult education budget allocations this year will have their funding clawed back, the government has warned.

This will apply to either direct delivery or through subcontractors.

The Education and Skills Funding Agency revealed the rule today in an update to its operational guidance for FE providers during the coronavirus pandemic.

It said: “We reserve the right to clawback funds where it can be demonstrated that a grant funded provider has not sought to continue delivery wherever possible online or otherwise, either directly or for ESFA funded AEB through their existing subcontractors.”

Training Providers have shared instances with FE Week, in recent weeks, of colleges no longer wanting to undertake subcontracting of potential AEB underspend.

Providers cited examples of colleges saying there was potentially no requirement for them to spend their allocation and therefore they would rather retain all monies and not subcontract.

Today’s ESFA guidance update said that for 2019 to 2020 only, the agency will “not carry out the final reconciliation for grant funded providers in receipt of AEB and the advanced learner loans bursary fund”.

These providers will be “funded in line with the current agreement schedule with no clawback”, but they must “continue to deliver learning online wherever possible including for ESFA funded AEB via existing subcontracting arrangements to support existing learners to successfully complete their courses/qualifications or retain evidence where this is not possible”.

They must also “support furloughed workers to enhance existing or develop new skills”.

Where it is not possible to deliver online, for example where learning requires physical access to specialist equipment or materials, colleges should “keep and provide records of where this applies and keep evidence of efforts made to remain in contact with learners and prepare them for a return to learning in the future”.

However, there will be “exceptions for grant funded providers who had already forecast significant under-delivery in their mid-year returns for ESFA funded AEB and/or Advanced Learner Loans Bursary Fund, in advance of the impact of COVID-19”.

ESFA will contact affected providers to “discuss their forecasts and potential clawback”.

The agency added: “When planning ESFA funded AEB allocations for 2021 to 2022, we will consider how we set a fair baseline given our default position would have been to use funded delivery in 2019 to 2020.”

 

Ofqual has revealed how students will be assessed for GCSE and A-level qualifications this summer, following the cancellation of exams.

The exams regulator has published guidance for schools and colleges, along with separate guidance for teachers and a letter to learners.

Here’s our explainer on how it will all work… 

 

1. Schools and colleges must provide a grade and rank for each student in each subject

Schools and colleges are being asked to provide a centre-assessment grade for each learner.

This will be the grade that each pupil is most likely to have achieved if they had sat their exams, and will be based on evidence held by schools and colleges and reviewed by subject teachers and heads of department.

Schools and colleges will also have to provide a rank order of students within each grade.

This is because the statistical standardisation process will “require a more granular scale” than grades alone, Ofqual says.

If a school or college had 15 pupils for GCSE maths with a centre assessment grade of 5, they should be ranked from 1 to 15, where 1 is the “most secure/highest attaining”, 2 is the next most secure, and so on.

Ofqual has said schools and colleges  won’t need to send this data to exam boards any earlier than May 29, giving them at least eight weeks to collect it.

They expect results will be available no later than the usual dates in August, but potentially earlier.

 

2. Students should not be set extra work

Ofqual said it recognises that, given the timing of the announcement, schools and colleges may have “incomplete evidence”.

However, the regulator is adamant that judgments should be made “on the evidence that is available”.

This means there is “no requirement” to set additional mock exams or homework tasks to help determine grades, and Ofqual states that “no student should be disadvantaged if they are unable to complete any work set after schools were closed”.

Where additional work has been completed since schools and colleges closed on March 20, leaders should exercise caution where that evidence suggests a change in performance.

There is also no requirement to send any supporting evidence to exam boards, though schools and colleges should retain records of this in case exam boards ask about the data.

Schools and colleges should also not ask students to complete any non-exam assessment work, and marks do not need to be submitted for this.

 

3. What grades will be based on

Ofqual says judgments must be objective and based only on evidence of pupil performance, including…

• Records such as progress review data, classwork, bookwork and participation in performances in subjects like music, drama and PE
• Performance in non-exam assessment, even if not fully completed
• Previous grades (for re-sitting pupils)
• AS-levels (for A-level pupils who took an AS)
• Performance in class or homework assessments, and mock exams
• Tier of entry (in tiered subjects)
• Previous results of the school in the subject
• Performance of this year’s pupils compared to those in previous years
• Any other relevant information

 

4. What exam boards will do

Exam boards will use a statistical model being developed by Ofqual to standardise grades across centres in each subject.

The model will combine a range of evidence, including expected grade distributions at national level, schools’ and colleges’ results in previous years and the prior attainment of students at school and college level.

Importantly, the process will not change the rank order of students within schools and colleges, and won’t assume that the distribution of grades in each subject or school and college should be the same.

However, if judgments are found to be more generous or severe than others, final grades for some or all students will be adjusted down or up (meaning those pupils at either end of the rankings per grade are most likely to move up or down).

“We will do this to align the judgements across centres, so that, as far as possible, your students are not unfairly advantaged or disadvantaged this summer,” Ofqual said.

Ofqual is optimistic it won’t see any deliberate inflation of results, but aren’t naive that some schools may inflate grades. However they are confident the standardisation process will be able to level that out.

 

5. What about home-schooled and other private candidates?

Some schools and colleges will have accepted entries from private candidates, for example, those who have been home-schooled, or are following distance learning programmes.

These students should be included in the centre assessment process where the head of centre is “confident that they and their staff have seen sufficient evidence of the student’s achievement to make an objective judgement”.

However, students who do not have an existing relationship with a school or college “may instead need to take exams in the autumn to get their grades”.

Ofqual said it is “urgently exploring whether there are alternative options for those students”.

 

6. Ofqual will consult on excluding year 10s

Schools will only be able to submit grades for pupils in year 11 and above, including those taking A-levels in year 12.

Ofqual is proposing that grades are not issued for pupils in year 10 or below, and that schools should withdraw any entries for them. A consultation on this proposal will be launched “shortly”.

“We realise that, if the final decision is to exclude year 10 and below students, this will be disappointing for those students, but our objective in awarding grades based on teachers’ judgments is primarily to allow students to progress to the next stage of their education, or to employment or training.

“Students in year 10 and below will have the opportunity to sit exams in future exam series. We will make a final decision and provide further information before any data needs to be submitted to the exam boards.”

 

7. Don’t share your grades with students

Schools and colleges must not “under any circumstances” share assessment grades or rank orders with pupils, their parents or carers, or “any other individuals outside the centre” before final results have been issued.

According to Ofqual, this will protect the “integrity” of teachers’ judgments, and will avoid school leaders and staff being “put under pressure by students and parents, to submit a grade that is not supported by the evidence”.

Schools and colleges are being reminded that although pupils are allowed to request their personal data under GDPR, exam marks and other information used to determine results are exempt from disclosure under paragraph 25(2) of the Data Protection Act.

 

8. Grounds for appeal will be ‘narrow’

Ofqual says the normal arrangements for reviews of marking and appears “will not apply” this year.

The regulator is considering what arrangements might be put in place “to allow an effective appeal”, and says it will consult on proposals “shortly”

“Centres should expect the possible grounds of appeals to be relatively narrow and based on application of the process. In submitting data to exam boards, centres should make sure that it is correct.”

Pupils who feel their summer grades do not reflect their ability will be given the opportunity to take exams, either in autumn or next summer. If they choose to do this, “both grades will stand”, Ofqual said.

 

9. Take disabilities and personal circumstances into account

Where disabled students who have had reasonable adjustments agreed (for example, the use of a reader or scribe), or where other pupils have agreed access arrangements, schools’ judgments should take account of “likely achievement with the reasonable adjustment/access arrangement in place”.

However, special consideration requests, in the event that a pupil is unable to take an assessment or suffers a traumatic event that might affect their performance, “will not apply this summer”.

Instead, judgments “should reflect how the students would have performed under ordinary circumstances”.

“Where illness or other personal circumstances might have affected performance in mock exams, centres should bear that in mind when making their judgments.”

 

10. Does this process apply to vocational and technical qualifications too?

No. Ofqual said many students will be taking other general and vocational or technical qualifications instead of or alongside GCSEs, AS and A-levels.

While this process does not apply to those qualifications, the same “aims” apply. They are “working as quickly as possible to develop an approach and we will provide further information as soon as we can”.

Treasury officials have given colleges the green light to tap into their coronavirus job retention scheme.

Speaking to FE Week, a spokesperson said staff who work in areas of a college that are not primarily funded by the government and who cannot be redeployed would be eligible for the scheme.

The news will come as a huge relief to college leaders, more than twenty of whom have shared with this newspaper their plans to furlough dozens, potentially hundreds, of staff.

Responding to an FE Week survey sent to senior college leaders, one said they have a proposal being presented to governors to furlough as many as 185 workers from departments across the college including “apprenticeships, nursery, estates, commercial services, health & safety, finance, HR, student services and marketing”.

The finance director at a college in the East Midlands, who did not wish to be named, said the level of savings was still to be calculated but “without the government subsidising wages there would be large financial deficit, breach of banking covenants and redundancies”.

And a vice principal at a college in the south west said they plan to start with furloughing 50 staff “in the very short term, but could extend to up to 300 staff” to save “potentially £100,000 in the first instance”.

The coronavirus job retention scheme is a temporary scheme which will last at least three months starting from 1 March 2020.

The Treasury, due to have the scheme up and running by the end of this month, says “employers can use a portal to claim for 80 per cent of furloughed employees’ usual monthly wage costs, up to £2,500 a month, plus the associated Employer National Insurance contributions and minimum automatic enrolment employer pension contributions on that wage”.

But speaking to FE Week, a leading lawyer has urged caution, stressing “the guidance makes it clear that the government does not anticipate significant claims from publicly funded institutions”.

Analysis of college accounts data compiled by the Education and Skills Funding Agency shows close to 80 per cent of FE college income comes from “funding body grants” (see table).

Ben Wood, partner at the law firm Eversheds Sutherland, said: “The criteria that HMRC will apply to applications from colleges for furlough payments are not yet known and there are potentially serious reputational risks if a publicly funded entity is perceived to be unfairly taking advantage of a taxpayer funded scheme.

“Having said that, in the face of depleting budget income there are obligations on governors and college leaders to look seriously at any potentially available mitigation.”

Responses to the FE Week survey show many principals have already informed their college board of their furloughing decisions whilst others have sought approval.

David Hughes, chief executive of the Association of Colleges said: “College finances are on a knife-edge and many quick decisions are required by college leaders and their governing bodies. This decision is something that the principal would usually make under normal delegations.

“Because of the exceptional circumstances many leaders might engage their governing body if they can before making the decision.

“College governing bodies hold their principals to account for the effective operation of their college, including educational, financial and staff performance.

“Different governing bodies approach this task in different ways and with different levels of delegation. We’re confident that college leaders and governing bodies will be approaching these decisions with care.”

Just one of the 22 colleges that responded to the FE Week survey said they definitely did not plan to top up the 80 per cent government wage subsidy to 100 per cent for furloughed staff.

“What message would it send to those still being asked to work? Most people’s costs have reduced as result of not travelling, lower mortgage rates etc so net difference should be marginal and manageable,” the deputy chief executive of the college said.

The principal at a small college in the North East said they planned to furlough nearly 25 per cent of all staff, 36 out of 155, mainly direct apprenticeship delivery staff and administrative support.

But a spokesperson for the Department for Education stressed that it was not only Treasury guidance on the Covid-19 staff retention scheme that needed to be followed.

Colleges must, they said, have sufficient staffing resource in place to ensure vulnerable learners and the children of key workers are supported.

 

Advice from Ben Wood, a leading lawyer to colleges

“The starting point is that the job retention scheme guidance does not absolutely preclude colleges from applying but they should approach any applications with caution.

The guidance makes it clear that the government does not anticipate significant claims from publicly funded institutions.

Further, the criteria that HMRC will apply to applications from colleges for furlough payments are not yet known and there are potentially serious reputational risks if a publicly funded entity is perceived to be unfairly taking advantage of a taxpayer funded scheme.

Having said that, in the face of depleting budget income there are obligations on governors and college leaders to look seriously at any potentially available mitigation.

The areas where colleges might have some prospect of accessing the job retention scheme are likely to be connected with lost apprenticeship and trading income where activities have ceased as a result of CV19.

I would suggest that if an application is going to be attempted there should be an audit trail that identifies: lost income streams as a result of CV19; individual roles that can legitimately be said to have ceased for CV19 reasons and which cannot properly be said to be publicly funded; an understanding of the letter and the spirit of the job retention scheme and its guidance – and that those principles have been carefully taken into account in putting the application together.

“I would recommend that colleges take a minimalist approach to accessing the scheme and have a plan B in case an application is not accepted by HMRC.”

 

Ofqual’s chief regulator Sally Collier has “reassured” GCSE and A-level students that the grades they get this summer will look “exactly the same as in previous years”.

She has also promised made clear they will have “equal status” with universities, colleges and employers.

Here is her message in full:

 

I understand how unsettling the past weeks have been for you, since the announcement that exams have been cancelled this summer, and that you are urgently waiting for news. I wanted to let you know what we are doing to provide you with grades. Our over-riding aim in this is to be fair to students this summer and to make sure you are not disadvantaged in your progress to sixth form, college, university, apprenticeships, training or work because of these unprecedented conditions.

How will grades be calculated?

Your school or college will be asked to send exam boards two pieces of information for each of your subjects, based on what they know about your work and achievements:

• the grade they believe you were most likely to get if teaching, learning and exams had happened as planned
• within each subject, the order of students at your school or college, by performance, for each grade. This information will be used to standardise judgements – allowing fine tuning of the standard applied across schools and colleges

Your school or college will consider a range of things like your classwork and homework; your results in assignments and any mock exams; any non-exam assessment or coursework you might have done; and your general progress during your course.

This information will allow us, with exam boards, to standardise grades across schools and colleges, to make sure that, as far as possible, results are fair and that students are not advantaged or disadvantaged because their schools or colleges are more generous or harsh than others when making those judgements. That means the final grade you get could be different from the one your school or college sends to the exam board.

Do I need to complete any new work for my school/college to submit a grade?

Your school or college is not required to set additional mock exams or homework for your centre assessment grade, and you won’t be disadvantaged if you were not set, or were unable to complete, any work given out after schools were closed.

Can I see the grades my school/college submits for me?

No, this information will be confidential. Please don’t ask your teachers, or anyone else at your school or college, to tell you the grades they will be sending to the exam boards or where they have placed you in the order of students; they will not be allowed to share this with you.

I am a private candidate – what does this mean for me?

If you are a private candidate (for example, home-schooled, following distance-learning programmes or studying independently) the centre you are entering with should include you where the head teacher or principal is confident that they and their staff have seen sufficient evidence of your achievement to make an objective judgement. We are urgently exploring whether there are alternative options for those students who do not have an existing relationship with a centre and who need results this summer to progress. Unfortunately this is unlikely to be possible for all private candidates, some of whom may instead need to take exams in the autumn to get their grades. We appreciate that this is a matter of real concern to private candidates and will provide an update as soon as possible. We have asked organisations that represent universities and FE colleges to consider the steps that providers could take when making admissions decisions this summer for any private candidates who do not receive a grade. They have told us that they believe that institutions will consider a range of other evidence and information for these students to allow them to progress wherever possible.

When will I get my results?

We’re working hard to get results out as soon as is possible – results won’t be delayed after the dates they were expected in August, and ideally they will be issued a little earlier, so you can have the certainty you need.

Can I take my exams another time?

We are working with exam boards to offer additional exams in the autumn term as soon as it is possible to do so. We’ll let you know about these in the coming weeks. The information we have published covers GCSEs, AS and A levels, plus Extended Project Qualifications and Additional Extension Awards in maths. You can find out more about which qualifications and students are included, and the current arrangements for those which are not, in our detailed guidance; along with answers to other questions that you and your parents or carers might have. We will keep updating our guidance as new information becomes available, including to share details about vocational and technical qualifications as soon as we can, so please keep an eye on our website.

Please be reassured that the grades you get this summer will look exactly the same as in previous years, and they will have equal status with universities, colleges and employers, to help you move forward in your lives as planned.

With every best wish,

Sally Collier

Chief Regulator, Ofqual