Colleges given access to DfE free meal vouchers

The government has extended its national food voucher scheme to colleges that are having “practical difficulties” delivering free meals to students during the Covid-19 pandemic.

But they will have had to exhaust their 2018/19 and 2019/20 free meals in FE and 16-19 discretionary bursary allocations to be eligible for support.

Colleges can submit a business case to the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) for access to the voucher scheme “if they are having practical difficulties in providing meals, providing payments or providing vouchers to students entitled to free meals,” the guidance reads.

Local processes should continue where these are working, and the value of any vouchers claimed will be charged to the provider’s FE meals or their 16 to 19 discretionary bursary allocations.

The free meal vouchers will have a value equivalent of £3 per student, per meal; but free meal funding for FE issued as cash will have a value of £2.41 per student, per meal, in line with current allocations methodology.

Apprenticeships minister Gillian Keegan said she was “pleased” to make the announcement: “We recognise the huge impact the coronavirus is having on the FE sector and are working to make sure all students have the support they need during this unprecedented time.

“I’m grateful to colleges and other providers for their efforts to make sure students who are eligible for free meals are supported whilst learning remotely.”

But before providers submit a business case, the ESFA have said they “should use underspends they have rolled forward from their 2018 to 2019 academic year free meals in FE and/or 16 to 19 discretionary bursary allocations” as well as their allocations for 2019 to 2020 academic year free meals in FE and their 16 to 19 discretionary bursary to support students.

“These applications should only be made with the knowledge that their existing funding has been exhausted,” the guidance reads.

The voucher scheme was originally unveiled in March and has the backing of seven major supermarkets, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Asda, Morrisons, Waitrose, M&S and Aldi, but up until now has been limited to schools.

FE Week reported at that time that, in the absence of a government scheme for their sector, FE and skills providers had already taken the matter of feeding students into their own hands.

For instance, Boston College and MidKent College both opted for direct payments to students or their parents or carers.

The ‘forgotten third’ simply cannot shift to online learning

Financially vulnerable people without household internet access are unable to access remote learning during the Covid-19 crisis, writes Anna Ambrose.

The move to remote learning in response to the Covid-19 crisis has been a moment of profound evolution for the adult skills sector. The extent to which online platforms were being used to deliver learning varied between providers before the start of March, rendering the level of readiness for such unexpected events hugely variable.

The sector has responded with a move en masse to digital delivery in an impressive effort to sustain training provision. As is the case in many a crisis, we may well look back and reflect that this moment accelerated a trend that was already in train.

In apprenticeships, an increase in remote learning could be particularly attractive to employers looking for more flexible ways to incorporate the required 20 per cent off-the-job training. This is a positive
development, because retaining apprentices and offering new apprenticeships will be of key importance for businesses and individuals once the recovery from this crisis is under way. The London Progression Collaboration (LPC), the initiative I lead, supports London employers to offer and sustain apprenticeships in the badly hit retail, hospitality and construction sectors. Their need for the right people with the right skills will be paramount.

However, the think-tank IPPR, which hosts the LPC, last week highlighted the extent to which the delivery of remote teaching to the nation’s school-age children risks widening the persistent gaps in achievement between disadvantaged young people and their better-off peers. So too, this move in adult learning risks
leaving behind those already experiencing in-work poverty and other disadvantages.

Whilst the ONS found that 99 per cent of UK adults were recent internet users in 2019, this disguises the fact that a proportion of this internet use takes place outside the home. Around one in ten adults does not have internet access of any form at home on any device, rising to almost one-third of those categorised in the lowest two social grades.

Three in ten of the group classed by Ofcom as “most financially vulnerable” live in households without any internet access, while eight per cent have access only via a mobile phone.

While it’s easy to assume these stats are weighted towards older people, in fact more than onethird of 16-24-year-olds live in mobile-only households. Due to the ongoing lockdown restrictions, places such as libraries, colleges and cafes – where those without internet access can get online – are closed. That means that those who we most want to reach with apprenticeship levy funds and other skills investment will have real difficulties accessing online learning.

So, while it’s great news that many apprentices are able to continue their off-the-job learning while furloughed, without further support those with the most need and most to gain will simply be
unable to do so. Without action, a move to greater online vocational learning risks expanding the barriers to training and in-work progression.

The impact on other groups also needs serious consideration, in both the short and longer term. For those with some physical disabilities, remote learning could improve accessibility and indeed has been requested for some time; but for those with some learning difficulties there could be additional challenges in accessing content remotely. While colleges and other training providers offer support to learners to increase accessibility and inclusivity of courses in myriad ways, their resources are already stretched.

To avoid perpetuating the progression gap, funded support to access online provision is needed both during this crisis and beyond. The government must work with service providers to ensure sufficient free home internet access for learners on low incomes.

A digital access fund should be established to ensure all adult learners can benefit from remote learning with suitable connections and digital devices.

Once the Covid-19 crisis eases and the economy begins to reboot, businesses will look to these key individuals and their skills to bolster the recovery. Action now will determine if they are equipped to do so.

The Covid-19 recession: what can FE and skills providers do?

Unemployment is liable to jump sharply in the coming months. How should FE respond to the needs of young people and adults?

Young people tend to suffer worst when there is a recession and the labour market slackens. They find themselves competing with displaced adult workers, who can demonstrate relevant work experience to prospective employers. Research shows that employers are using experience as an increasingly important filter in the recruitment process, and are also ever keener to use various forms of work trials (agency work, internships, gig work) to assess the suitability of applicants for their workplace.

Transitions from learning to earning have lengthened, and become more precarious and uncertain. In other words, a major recession runs the danger of worsening pre-existing problems with the youth labour market.

For young people not going into HE, there is the added danger that under-employed graduates will cascade further down the occupational hierarchy, taking openings that might otherwise have gone to non-graduates.

What can FE and vocational skills providers do? First, be modest in what they promise. The past, not least the recession of the early 1980s, tells us that policy debates about youth unemployment often come to blame a “lack of skills”, despite the fact that the underlying cause is a lack of job openings for new entrants to the labour market, and adult workers losing their jobs as demand for the goods and services that their organisations deliver collapses.

Most Covid-19 unemployment will not primarily be due to lack of skills

The education system runs the danger of setting itself up to fail if it promises too much by way of its ability to ameliorate the employment impacts of Covid-19. If underlying demand for labour falls and policy fails to counteract this, most of what education can do is move individuals up and down a job queue for what limited openings are available. The majority of the unemployment created by Covid-19 will not primarily be due to individuals’ lack of skills.

What can be done presents itself as a fairly predictable list. Revitalise our mechanisms for tracking young people’s labour market outcomes and those at risk of becoming NEET.

Re-think the support we can give them in terms not just of careers advice and guidance, but also wider scaffolding for transitions, and ask some hard questions about DWP and Jobcentre Plus’s ability to deliver this.

Expand traineeship provision for those most at risk of becoming NEET, and look to government (national and local) to work with employers to create pathways into work experience and then work. Wage subsidies for young employees may be needed.

For adults, when it becomes clearer in which sectors and occupations employment growth potential resides, re-training and re/upskilling schemes (often probably delivered in bitesized chunks, rather than full qualifications) will be needed.

Two key resource constraints loom. The first is the public funding. Public finances will be under huge strain in the wake of the pandemic. Tax revenues will be sharply down, spending to shore up the economy sharply up. Universities have already constructed their initial pitch to the UK government for support to tide them over the looming collapse in the overseas student market, which has cross-subsidised large amounts of activity in HE.

The second is employers’ willingness to cooperate. Before Covid-19 struck, we had ambitious targets to expand apprenticeships, expand work experience for undergraduates and many other groups of students in FE and schools, as well as find the new T-level work placements. Employers in many sectors are disorganised and lack the means to work together on skills issues; and the levels of employer-provided workforce training have been falling steadily since the late 1990s.

New collective mechanisms to engage with employers will be needed, and a new consensus about the rights, roles and responsibilities of employers will have to be constructed.

MOVERS AND SHAKERS: EDITION 314

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

Sanna Jordansson, Board member, Capital City College Group

Start date: March 2020

Concurrent job: Global director of people strategy, Broadway Malyan

Interesting fact: She has a keen interest in astrophysics

Sharon Saxton, Board member, Capital City College Group

Start date: March 2020

Concurrent job: Director, Sharon Saxton Consulting

Interesting fact: She was involved in a business start-up in ‘Wellbeing at Work’

Anthony Impey, Board member, Capital City College Group

Start date: March 2020

Concurrent job: Chair, Big Ideas Group, Federation of Small Businesses

Interesting fact: He was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s 2018 New Year’s Honours for services to apprenticeships and small business

DfE relaxes functional skills rule for apprentices

The government has relaxed the requirement for level 2 apprentices to achieve their functional skills qualification.

This morning, Ofqual confirmed that students due to take functional skills assessments this summer would receive a calculated grade in most cases due to Covid-19.

The Department for Education said that in light of this guidance, and the fact that scheduled functional skills assessments are not taking place, the rule requiring level 2 apprentices to study towards, and attempt, these assessments at level 2 is “suspended temporarily”.

“This will allow apprentices, employers, providers, and end point assessment organisations, to focus on other key requirements for completion of a level 2 apprenticeship,” they added.

It means that apprentices who are due to take their end point assessment (EPA) up until 31 July 2020 should be passed through gateway to sit their EPA “without the need to attempt the level 2 functional skills English and maths assessment”.

Providers have been told to “retain evidence” if an apprentice did not take the assessments due to COVID-19.

The DfE added that a level 2 apprentice will still require a level 1 functional skills in English and/or maths in order to complete apprenticeship.

The position will be reviewed in July to determine whether the suspension should continue.

Apprentices undertaking a level 3 or higher apprenticeship are “still required to hold or achieve an approved level 2 functional skills English and maths qualification, before they can successfully complete their apprenticeship”.

The DfE also said that it is aware that awarding organisations are currently “unable to issue certificates” confirming that apprentices have completed the necessary qualifications to go through gateway.

Therefore, as a temporary arrangement, it will support providers and employers in accepting a “confirmation email” from the awarding organisation as evidence of achievement.

MidKent College upgrades 400 laptops for frontline workers

IT teachers and support staff from MidKent College joined forces with NHS technicians to set up laptops for frontline workers to use during the Covid-19 crisis.

Four members of staff spent three ays, between 3 April 1 and 3, at Medway Maritime Hospital in Gillingham configuring around 400 laptops for hospital workers to use for tasks like virtual outpatient appointments.

They worked alongside a team of technicians from Medway NHS Foundation Trust, which included some former students of MidKent. The college said it was “great” their former tutors were able to support them.

Their efforts have earned the public thanks of the trust, which tweeted: “Big thanks to @MidKentCollege who have rallied to support our IT team by configuring around 400 laptops to distribute to our staff.”

MidKent responded to say they were “glad to help”, and principal Simon Cook told FE Week the provider was “proud” to play a small part in helping the NHS, saying the health service’s workers “are doing fantastic work in very testing circumstances”.

Before the crisis, the college and the trust already had a strong arising from the NHS’s involvement in health and social care training.

Cook said: “We value our relationship with key community partners, and are all passionate about working together to support the communities we serve, be that through healthcare, education, or any other facet of community life.”

Cooking up some good news for NHS staff

A Trafford College catering lecturer has used his talents in the kitchen to make meals for local Manchester-based NHS workers and vulnerable people during lockdown.

Paul Taylor, a lecturer in catering and hospitality at the college’s Aspire restaurant, is making 100 meals each week for staff at Wythenshawe Hospital, on top of 350 meals per week for the wider community.

He said he was “really proud” to be part of the initiative, which he is running with Altrincham Kersal Rugby Club.

“We are really trying to put our community first during this crisis.”

The meals have been “gratefully received” by the hospital staff, said Sarah Naismith, director of Manchester Foundation Trust Charity, which supports the ten hospitals in Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, including Wythenshawe.

She called it “a great example of communities really pulling together during these challenging times,” adding: “We can’t thank Paul enough for his support.”

His meals are also being delivered to vulnerable people and those who are self-isolating, and so far, over 1,200 have been delivered.

Paul has been using the rugby club kitchen to cook the meals, while club committee members have been helping by making deliveries, writing hundreds of allergen labels, posting on social media, and taking payments for the food, which is being sold at cost price.

Trafford College principal Lesley Davies said Paul’s “remarkable efforts are just one example of why I am so proud to work with our amazing staff”, and she was “proud to be able to say I know Paul”.

Pictured: Paul Taylor (far right) delivers meals to Wythenshawe Hospital with his partner in the project Mark Povey (second from right)

Provider gives one day a week for community volunteering

A hospitality training provider is giving its staff one day a week off to support their community through the pandemic.

Over 100 HIT Training workers have so far signed up to deliver food and medical supplies, cook, clean and launder, walk pets and sometimes just provide a virtual friend, for people in need.

Staff are qualified care specialists who train thousands of social care learners and apprentices each year.

Managing director Jill Whittaker (pictured) said it feels “brilliant” to be supporting communities like this.

“We believe in doing the right thing, and this feels like the right thing at the moment.”

The scheme started this month and the provider is in the process of matching the volunteers with those who need support.

To start with, volunteers will be assigned to their home communities and clients, as well as HIT’s larger, national client base. HIT has over 450 staff, all of whom are DBS-checked, operating from 30 offices nationwide.

Each staff member is being given one day a week, workload permitting, to volunteer, and Whittaker said: “We’d like lots of people to engage.”

She added that staff have told her that, for many learners, they are often their apprentice’s only contact with the outside world, due to them being furloughed or being overwhelmed with work in the care sector or the NHS. The staff “are often finding they are providing a shoulder to lean on”.

Revealed: More details on how functional skills qualifications will be assessed

Functional skills students can be moderated via “adapted assessment” such as online tests this summer, but only where teacher calculation is impossible, Ofqual has said today.

It has also extended the regulation end date for legacy functional skills qualifications from 31 August 2020 to 31 December 2020, to allow learners to complete them if them have not already received their certificate.

The exams regulator made the announcements along with other further details for functional skills as part of its consultation on grading cancelled vocational and technical qualifications.

Here is what you need to know.

 

‘Adapted assessment’ can be used where evidence is ‘insufficient’

Earlier this month the education secretary Gavin Williamson published a ministerial direction that stated that learners due to take assessments for functional skills qualifications before the end of the summer should receive a calculated result rather than an adapted or postponed assessment.

Ofqual said today that the number of assessment components in different functional skills qualifications means that awarding organisations are “unlikely to have ‘banked’ evidence for some learners which could be used towards the calculation of results”.

Some learners study for their functional skills qualifications with “limited direct contact with centres or centre staff, sometimes remotely, sometimes on short roll-on/roll-off courses”, meaning that they may have “insufficient evidence” to calculate a result.

Adapted assessment can be used in these cases. This, Ofqual said, is likely to “take the form of either enabling the assessment of centre-assessed components to take place remotely or online (such as the speaking, listening and communicating component in functional skills English), or by making changes to invigilation arrangements whereby learners can sit assessments in their own homes with online invigilation”.

Ofqual said it recognises that enabling some learners to receive calculated grades whilst other learners are expected to sit assessments, may be “perceived to be unfair, and may also pose additional demands on awarding organisations by requiring them to run two sets of arrangements in parallel over the summer months”.

However, the regulator added, “if we did not permit awarding organisations to offer adapted assessments where they felt they had the capacity to do so, because a calculated result could not be awarded safely and validly, then we risk limiting the ability of some learners to receive a result who otherwise might have done so”.

Awarding organisations will be expected to demonstrate to Ofqual that they have given “due consideration to complying with the direction and our technical requirements for calculating results, and that they have a sound rationale for proceeding with adaptation, before deciding not to issue calculated results for any learners”.

 

Students can still be entered for exams

Ofqual told FE Week that providers can still register students for functional skills exams for this summer if they haven’t already.

However, the regulator is concerned about a free-for-all and has advised awarding bodies to be vigilant and ultimately make the decision on which learners can still be entered.

Their consultation document said: “We propose that where an awarding organisation believes it might have learners who were not yet entered for assessments this summer, it should contact all learners registered to take their qualification to ascertain whether or not they intended to take an assessment in coming weeks/months.”

 

The policy applies to all students of all ages

Ofqual’s policy on teacher calculated grades applies to those aged over 19 as well as 16 to 18s.

It also applies to any learner taking functional skills as part of an apprenticeship.

 

How do you moderate functional skills?

Functional skills exams are pass or fail. To calculate the result for students, Ofqual said teachers should use the results of practice assignments or tests, or previously submitted class work, as well as their “professional judgement” of how learners with a similar profile usually perform.

The regulator said the awarding organisation is also likely to have access to a range of information about the centre, such as historical achievement data and centre risk profiles, to “enable them to quality assure centre assessment grades”.

 

 

How can AOs ensure providers submit credible calculated grades?

Ofqual’s consultation says awarding bodies should ask providers for supporting information and evidence, require head of centre sign off, judge pass rates against previous years, and conduct statistical modelling of likely centre outcomes against their assessment grades to ensure credibility of functional skills submissions.

 

Retakes

Functional skills students who cannot receive a calculated result or sit an adapted assessment will be offered opportunities to sit their assessments at a later date, and “as soon as reasonably possible, ideally no later than in the autumn term”.

 

Legacy qualifications extension

Reformed functional skills qualifications were rolled out in September 2019.

The regulation end date for legacy qualifications was set for 31 August, but Ofqual has now extended this to 31 December 2020.

This is “to allow learners who are currently on these qualifications, but who are yet to certificate, an opportunity to complete their qualification”.