FE minister writes to colleges about COVID-19 response

This evening the apprenticeships and skills minister, Gillian Keegan, wrote to all FE and sixth form colleges in England. Read the letter in full below, or download it from here.

Dear Colleagues,

I wanted to take the time to write to you and thank you for all of your hard work and continued commitment during what I know is a very difficult time.

We are facing an unprecedented challenge and I recognise that as teachers and leaders working to provide education and support to learners in your institutions, you are on the frontline of our national effort.

UK COVID-19 response

I appreciate that the decision announced by the Secretary of State on Wednesday 18 March, that FE providers should stop classroom delivery from 23 March, other than for vulnerable young people and dependents of critical workers, will have a huge impact on you as college leaders, as well as your staff members and learners.

I have already heard some hugely impressive stories on how colleges and other providers across the country are reacting – including using online resources to continue to deliver education for your learners, offering support to schools in your areas and establishing crucial communications channels with learners and parents. These illustrate how you are pulling together with ingenuity at this time and typify the spirit that runs through our brilliant further education sector. I’d like to thank you for all the work you have put in so far and for all that is surely to come in the coming weeks.

Funding

I understand that, alongside your priority to deliver learning and care for your students, the situation we are in does carry financial implications for many institutions. I am aware of some of the issues you are facing, including those raised by the Association of Colleges in a letter to the Secretary of State on 17 March, and  we are working hard to mitigate this impact as much as we can. The Chancellor has also announced a series of wider measures to support employers and employees, recognising the significant impacts caused by COVID-19.

I can confirm that the ESFA will continue to pay grant funded providers their scheduled monthly payments for the remainder of the year. Your allocations for 2020/21 will have been confirmed by the end of March, and payments will be made as scheduled. I hope this can provide you with the funding certainty you require as you seek to address the impact of responding to COVID-19.

Because of the activity-based funding model for apprenticeships specifically and independent training providers generally, we are urgently looking at the impact of the current disruption and how we can help to mitigate that. For other funding streams, we will be making decisions on where existing rules and models may need to be modified in relation to any planned reconciliation and future year allocations.

For colleges in significant financial difficulties, the existing support arrangements remain in place including emergency funding. Please do speak to your ESFA territorial team about this.

We are also working on more detailed operational guidance, which will be circulated as soon as possible.

Alternatives arrangements for exams

You will also be aware that we have taken the difficult decision to cancel all exams due to take place in schools and colleges in England this summer. This is not a decision we have taken lightly, and we know that this will be disappointing for students who have been working hard towards these exams. So that we can ensure students can progress to the next stage of their lives, including going onto university, further study or an apprenticeship this autumn, we have been working closely with the exam boards and qualifications regulator Ofqual to put in place alternative arrangements.

There are a very wide range of different vocational and technical qualifications as well as other academic qualifications for which students were expecting to sit exams this summer. These are offered by a large number of awarding organisations and have differing assessment approaches – in many cases students will already have completed modules or non-exam assessment which could provide evidence to award a grade. We are encouraging these organisations to show the maximum possible flexibility and pragmatism to ensure students are not disadvantaged.

Ofqual is working urgently with the exam boards to set out proposals for how this process will work and will be talking to teachers’ representatives before finalising an approach, to ensure that the approach taken is as fair as possible. For more details please read our news story. More information will be provided as soon as possible. 

Support

In terms of other avenues of support at the moment, Richard Atkins the FE Commissioner (FEC) and his team of highly experienced Deputy FECs and FE Advisers have offered their services to college leaders that would like to talk through plans, concerns and issues. Our pool of National Leaders of Governance (NLGs) also stand ready to offer any support they can. If you would like to arrange a phone conversation between yourself and a member of the FEC team or an NLG, please do email FEC.OPERATIONS@education.gov.uk.

Communication with the sector.

I recognise that the current situation is throwing up queries and concerns that many of you are working through and my officials are already speaking regularly with provider bodies including The Association of Colleges, and with unions, to make sure we are alive to the issues that you are all facing and the questions that you have. I am also in contact with representatives of the sector on the impact of COVID-19 and will continue to engage over the coming weeks.   

Accurate information is clearly vital at a time like this, and the latest government guidance is available on GOV.UK, including advice for all education settings and critical workers classifications.

To help maintain the flow of information and ensure we are alive to the issues affecting you all, I would encourage you to keep in touch and raise any queries via your ESFA territorial team.

We are certainly in an extraordinary situation and I am extremely grateful for the huge amount of work being done across the sector to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on our staff, students and institutions.

Yours sincerely,

Gillian Keegan, Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills

 

 

UTC turns the tables and comes to the aid of a MAT

A north-west England university technical college has become the latest of its type to move towards joining a multi-academy trust – but this time the tables have turned.

The leader of UTC Warrington, Lee Barber, has been appointed by the North West Academies Trust (NWAT) to be the interim headteacher of Rudheath Senior Academy, following the resignation of its second headteacher in as many years.

Rudheath, which teaches pupils aged 11 to 16, joined NWAT 18 months ago following a fire that burned down half the school, and its departure from University of Chester Academies Trust, which collapsed in 2018 after forecasting a £3 million deficit.

This marks a rare example of a successful UTC supporting a multi-academy trust (MAT) with a struggling school. MATs have traditionally come to the aid of at-risk UTCs in the past.

UTC Warrington, which teaches students aged 14 to 19 and specialises in science, engineering and cyber, is rated ‘good’ by Ofsted.

Barber said, although Rudheath is also rated ‘good’ by Ofsted, it “has suffered significant turbulence, fallen on tough times and needs some strong leadership and management”.

While discussing with NWAT the opportunity for UTC Warrington to join the trust, the idea of Barber working across both schools “seemed like an obvious start to a strong future partnership,” he said.

While he splits his time between the two, the UTC’s vice principal Amanda Downing has become associate principal and conducts the day-today running, though Barber insists he is still “proactively” involved at Warrington, and staff at both providers are supporting one another.

Barber says that as Rudheath’s curriculum is very academically focused, the UTC is taking the opportunity to inject some technical education into its provision.

The school’s students have gone to the UTC for engineering and construction taster days. There is even talk of the UTC delivering specialist GCSEs for Rudheath from September.

The boards of NWAT and the academy will be discussing the UTC possibly joining the trust in the coming weeks and months, Barber said.

The chief executive of NWAT, Steve Docking, called this a “great opportunity” for both organisations to benefit from working together and sharing resources.

He also believes the partnership will strengthen their work ensuring “every student deserves the best possible education”.

UTCs that have been brought into MATs following academic or financial difficulty include Sir Charles Kao UTC, which joined the Burnt Mill Academy Trust and rebranded itself the BMAT STEM Academy in May 2018.

After Ofsted slapped it with a grade 4 in its first-ever inspection, UTC Swindon joined the Activate Learning Education Trust in 2017, which also includes UTCs in Reading, Oxfordshire and at Heathrow.

UTC Bolton was told to join a MAT in March 2018 when it was issued with a notice to improve because the Education & Skills Funding Agency found it had “inadequate” financial controls. It was announced last month UTC Bolton would be joining The Keys Federation MAT and renaming itself the University Collegiate School.

UTC founder and former education secretary Lord Baker has previously warned that UTCs would be “watered down” if they joined a MAT.

But in a U-turn last year, he and then-academies minister Lord Agnew wrote to the principals and chairs of every UTC urging them to join a trust.

Speaking at a public accounts committee hearing on Monday, the Department for Education’s permanent secretary Jonathan Slater said that around 30 UTCs will be part of a MAT in the next year. There are nearly 60 UTCs open in England.

Ofsted watch: UTC climbs out of ‘inadequate’

A university technical college has pulled itself out of ‘inadequate’, while two other FE providers, including an accountancy giant, slumped to the lowest rating this week.

Health Futures UTC has been given a grade three, nearly two years after the 14 to 19 provider was hit with a grade four.

Inspectors said it was previously “not clear” that the college had a health focus, but students are now in “no doubt” it aims to provide a career in health-related industries.

The reception area is “flanked by mannequins dressed as paramedics and surgeons,” the report reads, and at key stage 4, students study health and social care alongside English, maths and science.

While this provider escaped a grade four, others were less successful: Shrewsbury Colleges Group told FE Week it would be appealing after Ofsted dropped it from ‘good’ to ‘inadequate’ this week, because it found “not all students feel safe”.

Meanwhile, one of the ‘big four’ accountancy firms, KPMG, was also slapped with the grade for a lack of unbiased careers advice and poor support for high needs learners with dyslexia for its 933 apprentices who all work in the civil service.

Fellow independent provider B-Skill Limited was branded ‘requires improvement’ for its provision to 274 adult learners and 423 apprentices, as while all of them “demonstrate a keenness to learn and take pride in their work”, the report said “too many” apprentices do not receive their full off-the-job training entitlement.

After avoiding losing its contracts after a grade four report in 2018, DV8 Training (Brighton) Limited has improved to ‘requires improvement’ in a report published this week.

While the great majority of students, of which DV8 has 178, complete their studies, “too many” do not attend lessons and when they do, they often arrive late.

Leaders were pulled up on this as it was an area for improvement from their last inspection, but inspectors did report progress had been made in improving the quality of education.

Cherith Simmons Learning & Development LLP made ‘insufficient progress’ in all areas of a monitoring visit as no apprentices have completed their qualifications, despite passing their end dates.

Leaders and managers “did not understand the need for end-point assessment to be completed by the planned learning end date” for apprentices commencing programmes before August 2019”, inspectors found.

They “expected this to take place after apprentices complete their planned training”.

Doncaster Conferences, Catering and Events Limited made ‘insufficient progress’ in two areas of an early monitoring visit: leaders and managers do not enrol apprentices onto “sufficiently challenging” programmes, instead requiring them to complete specific courses irrespective of prior experience.

New independent specialist provider The Michael Tippett College made ‘significant progress’ in an early monitoring visit of its provision to 30 students.

Leaders were commended for their “enterprising actions” in developing provision: they have put in a café where students can learn catering skills and set up pop-up outlets in the local community for students to sell products.

Phoenix4Training LLP made ‘reasonable progress’ in two areas of a monitoring visit conducted after it made ‘insufficient progress’ in safeguarding at a previous one.

Since then, leaders and managers have “worked quickly and effectively to correct and deal with concerns identified” and have established relevant policies and procedures.

Waltham Forest College, which this week revealed to FE Week it was due a diagnostic assessment from the FE Commissioner, had a monitoring visit after concerns were raised about its culture of safeguarding and its responses to notified concerns.

Inspectors found a “suitable” culture of safeguarding, but a few staff were dissatisfied with the outcomes, so decided to air their grievances outside established procedures.

UTC Sheffield City Centre achieved a grade two this week, its second consecutive one, because of a “well thought through” curriculum and because the provider “understands its specialist character well” and students are drawn to it in the hopes of becoming engineers or digital designers.

Hertfordshire County Council also kept hold of its grade two, after senior leaders acted “very swiftly” to further education colleges reducing local provision, by opening three new area.

Teachers at Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College, which has maintained its ‘good’ rating, structure classes “very well” to build on what learners know, and learners “demonstrate high levels of motivation and are keen to share their enthusiasm”.

Caroline Pauling and Equestrian Training Limited both made ‘reasonable progress’ in every area of an early monitoring visit.

GFE Colleges Inspected Published Grade Previous grade
Waltham Forest College 26/02/2020 19/03/2020 M 2

 

Independent Learning Providers Inspected Published Grade Previous grade
B-Skill Limited 21/02/2020 18/03/2020 3 2
Caroline Pauling trading as Peak Accountancy Training 05/03/2020 18/03/2020 M N/A
Cherith Simmons Learning & Development LLP 26/02/2020 18/03/2020 M N/A
Doncaster Conferences, Catering and Events Limited 20/02/2020 19/03/2020 M N/A
DV8 Training (Brighton) Limited 06/03/2020 19/03/2020 3 M
Equestrian Training Limited 20/01/2020 18/03/2020 M N/A
KPMG Limited Liability Partnership 07/02/2020 17/03/2020 4 M
Phoenix4Training LLP 04/03/2020 17/03/2020 M M

 

Sixth Form Colleges (inc 16-19 academies) Inspected Published Grade Previous grade
Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College 05/03/2020 19/03/2020 2 2
Shrewsbury Colleges Group 26/02/2020 16/03/2020 4 2

 

Adult and Community Learning Inspected Published Grade Previous grade
Hertfordshire County Council 12/02/2020 17/03/2020 2 2

 

Other (including UTCs) Inspected Published Grade Previous grade
Health Futures UTC 26/02/2020 19/03/2020 3 4
UTC Sheffield City Centre 13/02/2020 16/03/2020 2 2

 

Specialist colleges Inspected Published Grade Previous grade
The Michael Tippett College 12/02/2020 17/03/2020 M N/A

MOVERS AND SHAKERS: EDITION 311

Your weekly guide to who’s new and who’s leaving.

Di Gowland, Interim principal, Waltham Forest College

Start date: March 2020

Previous job: Educational Consultant

Interesting fact: She enjoys long distance walking and has recently completed the South Downs Way.

David Phillips, Managing Director, City & Guilds and ILM

Start date: March 2020

Previous job: Executive director, market strategy, products and services, City & Guilds

Interesting fact: He has trekked up Kilimanjaro in aid of the Scott Bell Fund and Cancer Research UK.

Peter Lauener, Chair, Student Loans Company

Start date: April 2020

Previous job: Chair, Construction Industry Training Board; Chair, NCG

Interesting fact: His first wage in the 1960s was half a crown an hour when he was 12 and working for his father, an actuary.

As Covid-19 lock-down looms, we must be there for one another

In the face of the global pandemic, there is a great deal for the UK’s awarding industry to be proud of, writes Tom Bewick

Awarding organisations and endpoint assessment organisations have been hit badly by coronavirus.

Our bread and butter, as thriving knowledge-based organisations, are about serving the qualifications and assessment needs of thousands of learners and apprentices in both the UK and overseas.

Without general qualifications, such as GCSEs and A-Levels, young people and adults would struggle to progress in their lives. And without applied generals, apprenticeships, vocational awards and other types of work-based end-point assessments, whole sectors of the economy would grind to halt. In short, our work is all about providing the supply of occupationally competent people for a complex workforce.

We have been working in lockstep with the key statutory agencies

A shut-down of the active labour market is what is now unfolding.

Which is why this is such an unprecedented crisis. It has huge ramifications for the entire education and skills sector. Even during the Blitz the government managed to keep the schools open. People went to work. In the long history of national summer examinations, the government has never felt the compulsion to cancel them.

Since the crisis of Covid-19 first broke, the Federation of Awarding Bodies has been forced into non-stop contingency planning mode. Every single aspect of the AO and EPAO ecosystem is being ripped up as we think about mitigating ways in which we can keep the show on the road.

This is proving very difficult. Our industry is renowned for being both high-tech and high-touch. People –learners and employers – are at the heart of everything we do.

I’m proud of the way our industry has stepped up to the challenge.

The CEOs of awarding bodies and EPAOs have dropped everything to help guide government officials with understanding the front-line impact of coronavirus. FAB and many of my colleagues have been working in lockstep with the key statutory agencies to produce comprehensive guidance on everything from special dispensations for learners who are forced to take a break in their apprenticeships, to how to conduct a valid end-point assessment remotely.

We have set up a Covid-19 web page with a dedicated webinar

People working in the sector are looking to their peak-level representative bodies like never before
to represent and support them. At FAB we have set up a dedicated COVID-19 web page for AOs and EPAOs to access all the up-to-date information they will need. This will include dedicated webinar and linking all responsible officers with FAB, via WhatsApp.

We are bringing forward our pre-existing plans of becoming a best-in-class digital trade association by moving all of our training programmes and events online over the coming weeks. As a virtual organisation our staff already work mainly from home. We’ve invested in smart teleworking technology like HiHi2, which gives us a streamlined and integrated way of communicating across our business.

It also means we can do some morale boosting things like coffee catch-ups on video and sharing stories about a menagerie of pets (mainly cats).

As the total lock-down of our society looms, now, more than ever, is the time to promote a real sense of community and to be there for one another.

Be clear, be informative, be approachable

We owe our staff, students and other stakeholders good leadership – but remember to show a human face as well

If there’s one word that sums up the challenge facing educational institutions in the current environment it’s uncertainty. There’s a lot of it around and a lack of clarity makes it hard to know what is the best action to take.

At this time, the most important thing that will reduce uncertainty is good communication. Students, parents, staff and other stakeholders are looking for leadership from your institution on how the emerging situation affects them.

More importantly, they want a human response. Think about those with concerns or who will be anxious, or disappointed. How does the 15-year-old teenager feel when they realise they have unwittingly left school for the last time?

In my work across different education sectors (primary, secondary, FE and HE), I’ve been offering support and developing plans for this situation over a few weeks now. The following are my five key steps to help your communications reduce uncertainty.

1. Be clear and truthful

Choose your words carefully People need to hear a clear message, using a few carefully chosen words. For example, state that your site, campus or office is closed to everyone for the foreseeable future. Detail any exceptions, provide contact details and explain alternative ways that support or services can be accessed.

The purpose is to avoid students or staff turning up in person. Consider how humiliating it would be for already anxious students to arrive at a locked building because they didn’t understand the clever phrase you’d come up with.

Captain ‘Sully’ Sullenberger was genius at this. You’ll remember he was the pilot who landed his Airbus A320 in New York’s Hudson River. His message to 155 passengers was clear and simple: “This is the Captain. Brace for impact.”

Explaining this choice of words in a Tweet, he said: “I wanted to sound confident because I knew courage can be contagious. In our aviation vocabulary there are certain single words that are rich with meaning. ‘Brace’ is such a word. And I chose the word ‘impact’ to give passengers and crew alike a vivid image of what to expect.”

2. Be accessible, be visible

The worst thing that an institution can do is to appear to be hiding from those who need support. You may not be able to resolve all of their concerns, but by being accessible and visible, you provide a human contact, which in itself is reassuring. That may be through email or other digital channels, answering the phone or in person. Take the time to listen to concerns, show empathy and ensure those you talk with feel informed and involved.

3. Keep communicating

Planned, regular communication is really important. Let your stakeholders know what information they can expect and when. Include a date and time when publishing or circulating information. Things are changing rapidly so share up-to-date information, and ensure anyone reading it knows when it was updated.

Your choice of communication channels (email, text, Messenger, social media, website, telephone or post) should depend on your audience. Don’t make assumptions. According to the UK Office of National Statistics one in eight 11-18 year olds can only access the internet at home using a mobile phone – and a large number of others have no way of getting online at home.

4. Keep yourself and others updated

Curate relevant information for your audiences. Bournemouth & Poole College does this with a dedicated COVID-19 page on its website. It provides links to official government and health websites plus FAQs for complex information. Chunking information into easily digestible segments makes relevant information quick and easy to find.

5. Keep the media close

Understandably, COVID-19 is currently the only story in town and journalists are looking for every angle to cover it.

  • Check that emails or texts couldn’t be misconstrued if leaked to the media.
  • Watch out for potential disgruntled parents or students, as the press like such stories.
  • Remind staff of who to contact should there be any media enquiries and of relevant policies on media relations.
  • Engage positively (when possible) if contacted by the media – they can be valuable when you’re trying to engage your community

Introducing… John Clarke

FE Week meets a principal whose career has been defined by quiet consistency, and who has a few parting words for the sector’s leaders

It was a college principal who suggested I go and interview John Clarke, the retiring boss at Southport College in Merseyside and FE career veteran of 35 years. I’d asked for suggestions for interviewees, prompting the tongue-in-cheek response that Clarke was “worth celebrating” since he’d managed to “leave FE without a scandal – how many can say that?”, winky emoji face, etc. I was intrigued.

Speaking to Clarke, who confesses to keeping his “head below the parapet” during his career, it becomes clear why his record is both well-respected and super-clean – the man strikes you as especially modest. Despite years on leadership teams, there’s not a whiff of authoritarianism about him and, as it turns out, a dislike of overly hierarchical and rule-bound environments is a defining part of his personal character and professional motivation. In fact, an aversion to the same almost kept him out of FE altogether.

1st year at Watford Grammar School, 1966

It was 1981 and Clarke was doing well. He’d just completed a PGCE specialising in adult literacy at the University of Leicester after three years as a community arts worker in Liverpool. But Clarke’s trainee experience in colleges, following the creative, grassroots engagement he was used to, left him cold. “I decided I’d never work in an FE college in my life. They were too stuffy, too bureaucratic. The staff room was dominated by filing cabinets and people didn’t seem to speak to each other. The culture put me off. I swore I wouldn’t.” He quickly follows this up by saying that perception was probably his own fault, being young and unused to paperwork. But on one point he remains firm. “It was massively overregulated.”

Clarke himself had had a fairly free existence, born in Ripon in Yorkshire to a father in the RAF, before settling with his parents and younger sister in north London. His father re-trained as a civil servant and his mother was a housewife. “I grew up in a settled, middle-class existence.” A clear memory sticks out from primary school. “One day we were escorted to the gym but I don’t think we were told what we were doing. We took a test and I think we might have been the last year that did the 11-plus.”

At first the young Clarke didn’t find friends at Watford Grammar School For Boys, which he describes as “setting itself up like a public school” with the teachers all in gowns. But by sixth form he was enjoying himself and won a place to read history at Churchill College, Cambridge – a college set up to take in state-educated children. “I was overawed that I was mixing with a lot of people from public school. What struck me was their confidence in themselves.”

It was there that he heard about a scheme in Liverpool working with disadvantaged young people and adults. On his final day at Cambridge, Clarke didn’t look back.

“Community development was recognised as a profession. That has gone by the board now”

“It was almost literally the day after I graduated. I didn’t go home. I got on the coach up to Liverpool.” He had a job in arts engagement on the local authority’s “community council”, a long-gone late-70s Labour Party initiative. “It was when community development was still recognised as a profession. All that has gone by the board now.”

Clarke’s speech picks up speed as he describes with quiet passion the three years he says had a “massive influence on me, in terms of my thinking in further education”. Nearby Toxteth had one of the highest unemployment rates in the country and riots broke out shortly after Clarke left. “I’d studied history and sociology, and I arrived on this estate where virtually no one had gone to university. But I very quickly realised I was mixing with people as intelligent and able as the students I’d mixed with at university and from public schools. That sounds like a strange thing to realise, as obviously I understood the concept of disadvantage, but it was such a stark thing.”

Trying to provide better opportunities has driven Clarke ever since, using the style he learnt on the community council – “engage and involve people, allow them to shape some of what they’re doing”.

Pictured with Swedish partner(s) in an educational transnational European project led by Bolton Community Educational Service, 1996

Still he stayed away from colleges, doing his PGCE but becoming an area youth worker in Oxford for four years, instead of becoming a lecturer. Eventually, he inched a bit closer to them. He took a job running a community education centre at Bolton College in Greater Manchester – almost, but not fully, inside the machinery of the FE sector. “It was a halfway house,” he laughs. “One of the big motivating factors for people, if you leave aside monetary rewards, is having control over what you do and freedom to take responsibility. Because I was working at the community end of things at Bolton, I did have some freedom, so that was good.”

Then incorporation of further education colleges arrived in 1993. Bolton College was removed from the local authority but councillors weren’t keen to lose the community education centre. “The council was very proud of it, and they decided they didn’t want it to go with the college. We thrived in the 90s.” Clarke led on European projects looking at adult education abroad and also helped set up a higher education access course at his centre. Bolton College, meanwhile, “hit the financial buffers”. By the end of the decade David Collins, who later became the FE commissioner and was then head of South Cheshire College, was brought in to save the situation. The first of two significant mergers in Clarke’s life was about to begin.

“He had a plan to bring the local sixth-form college and community education into the FE college.” The sixth-form college never joined, but Clarke soon found himself on the top team at the college as quality manager and then director of adult and community services. “I suppose it was the two or three hardest years of my life, because you were trying to turn around a college with big problems. But it worked.” It also brought to an end a division Clarke had always had concerns about – the separation of adult education from 16-19 further education. They belong together, he says.

It is perhaps ironic that the college in which Clarke found the greatest inspiration was run by a hierarchical and brilliant leader, John Smith at Burnley College in Lancashire. Here, as assistant principal under Smith, rules took on their proper meaning for Clarke. “I had huge respect for John. Personality-wise he was very resolute, he took no prisoners, and he was hugely driven. It was very hierarchical in lots of ways, it was very structured. But ultimately his view was, you have to give people the freedom to move on from the structures so they have the space to implement their own ideas. He had a saying: ‘You can manage people to be good, but they have to want to become excellent’.”

Graduation from Cambridge University with BA Honours in History, 1977

It was Smith who encouraged Clarke to apply for principal at Southport College. He has led it for almost nine years, and is currently handing the reins over to new college principal, Michelle Brabner. The college’s most recent Ofsted came out this Wednesday, with glowing references in particular to the merger Clarke spearheaded with the local sixth-form provision, the King George V College. The report reveals Clarke’s steady hand: “managers have introduced a more rigorous approach”, “senior leaders have made significant progress”, and more. But Clarke clearly sees the overall ‘good’ grade, which both establishments had already, as a modest achievement. Twice he mentions that he regrets not taking the college to ‘outstanding’ for the community, like his most admired mentor. He notes without a sense of martyrdom the huge effort required by a merger: “It might be the right thing to do morally, educationally and business-wise, but it probably distracted us for a year.”

“More than schools and universities, we are subject to a plethora of regulation”

For someone who has achieved so much, and worked so hard for others, Clarke is seriously unboastful about those facts. He says he has changed his view from that held in his youth, when he was “naïve to think I could make a difference to whole communities – I’ve scaled that down to making a difference to individuals.”

But he holds one conviction which has only deepened throughout his years in FE. “We’re still a massively overregulated sector.” The other day Clarke’s finance manager worked out that there are about 24 funding streams for colleges to struggle with. He presses his point home to me. “More than schools and universities, we are subject to a plethora of regulation. Someone, somewhere, has to simplify the regulation in FE.”

The sector has been lucky to have this even-tempered (and scandal-free) person. Let’s hope ministers listen to his parting words.

Gowland comes out of retirement to be temp boss at London college

The principal of a London college has been replaced by a retired further education leader ahead of an FE Commissioner visit.

Waltham Forest College has told FE Week Joy Kettyle stepped down with immediate effect in February after two years at the helm “due to personal circumstances”, and former Newham College principal Di Gowland (pictured) had replaced her on an interim basis.

This comes ahead of a diagnostic assessment by FE Commissioner Richard Atkins and after the college was placed in early intervention by the Education & Skills Funding Agency (ESFA).

In minutes from a board meeting held in November, Kettyle told governors intervention was triggered by its financial health being rated as ‘requires improvement’, but also by Waltham Forest’s cash position.

College accounts, which showed Waltham Forest generated a £482,000 deficit before tax in 2018-19, say it “remains at risk from adverse short-term cash movements” and its cash flow dropped by £274,000 from 2017-18, to £663,000.

Governors had been told at a meeting in October the health grade was under “significant pressure” and pay costs had been 5.2 per cent higher than budgeted due to increased partnership delivery and agency staff costs.

On top of that, the college had additional pay costs of around £228,000 to deliver growth in its ESFA 16-to-19 income. It also had to achieve unfunded income growth of £322,000, and so incurred additional pay costs there.

The college said it has not applied to the ESFA for emergency financial assistance and is not in administered college status. The accounts say Waltham Forest expects to return a financial health score of ‘good’ in 2019-20.

But Barclays Bank has agreed to provide the college with a temporary overdraft of £500,000 in March and April of this year, which is when the operating cash flow is expected to become “challenging” for many colleges, minutes show.

Last July, the grade two college was refused access to the Office for Students’ register of higher education on grounds of “quality”. The OfS said the number of higher education students progressing from their first to their second year of study showed the college had “failed to demonstrate that it delivers successful outcomes for all of its higher education students”.

She brings with her a strong commitment to continuous improvement in quality

According to the college’s latest accounts, none of their higher education students continued into 2019-20.

Under-recruitment of such students led to a shortfall in income from student loans for Waltham Forest, and this had to be met by increased income from high-needs learners and tuition fees.

Gowland said she is “delighted” to be supporting the college and is looking forward to working with the college and the staff while they seek a permanent principal.

She previously served as Newham College of Further Education’s principal from July 2014 to August 2017, after serving as vice principal of Westminster Kingsway, before retiring and setting up as an educational consultant. She is also a governor of the University of Arts London.

College chair Paul Butler said they had “selected Di because of her experience” and because “she brings with her a strong commitment to continuous improvement in quality”.

The college is “extremely pleased” she has chosen to join the college, he added.

Waltham Forest said it has started the recruitment process for a permanent principal.

List of ‘key workers’ and vulnerable children revealed

Education secretary Gavin Williamson announced on Wednesday that schools and colleges will only stay open from Friday afternoon until further notice for vulnerable children and those of “key workers”.

The government has now released a list of who falls into these two categories (in full below).

Children of key workers who are aged up to and including 17 can still attend education providers, while vulnerable children goes up to the age of 25.

The guidance says that “many parents working in these sectors may be able to ensure their child is kept at home”, and that “every child who can be safely cared for at home should be”.

It has also been confirmed that children will be eligible to attend school and college even if just one parent or carer is identified as a “critical worker”.

Association of Colleges chief executive David Hughes said that for “many students of colleges, the right solution for them is to be at home, supported remotely, because that will reduce risks of contracting the virus”.

 

Vulnerable children:

Children who are “supported by social care, those with safeguarding and welfare needs, including child in need plans, on child protection plans, ‘looked after’ children, young carers, disabled children and those with education, health and care (EHC) plans”.

 

Key workers:

Health and social care

This includes but is not limited to doctors, nurses, midwives, paramedics, social workers, care workers, and other frontline health and social care staff including volunteers; the support and specialist staff required to maintain the UK’s health and social care sector; those working as part of the health and social care supply chain, including producers and distributers of medicines and medical and personal protective equipment.

Education and childcare

This includes nursery and teaching staff, social workers and those specialist education professionals who must remain active during the COVID-19 response to deliver this approach.

Key public services

This includes those essential to the running of the justice system, religious staff, charities and workers delivering key frontline services, those responsible for the management of the deceased, and journalists and broadcasters who are providing public service broadcasting.

Local and national government

This only includes those administrative occupations essential to the effective delivery of the COVID-19 response or delivering essential public services such as the payment of benefits, including in government agencies and arms length bodies.

Food and other necessary goods

This includes those involved in food production, processing, distribution, sale and delivery as well as those essential to the provision of other key goods (for example hygienic and veterinary medicines).

Public safety and national security

This includes police and support staff, Ministry of Defence civilians, contractor and armed forces personnel (those critical to the delivery of key defence and national security outputs and essential to the response to the COVID-19 pandemic), fire and rescue service employees (including support staff), National Crime Agency staff, those maintaining border security, prison and probation staff and other national security roles, including those overseas.

Transport

This includes those who will keep the air, water, road and rail passenger and freight transport modes operating during the COVID-19 response, including those working on transport systems through which supply chains pass.

Utilities, communication and financial services

This includes staff needed for essential financial services provision (including but not limited to workers in banks, building societies and financial market infrastructure), the oil, gas, electricity and water sectors (including sewerage), information technology and data infrastructure sector and primary industry supplies to continue during the COVID-19 response, as well as key staff working in the civil nuclear, chemicals, telecommunications (including but not limited to network operations, field engineering, call centre staff, IT and data infrastructure, 999 and 111 critical services), postal services and delivery, payments providers and waste disposal sectors.

 

The government said if workers think they fall within these “critical categories” they should “confirm with their employer that, based on their business continuity arrangements, their specific role is necessary for the continuation of this essential public service”.