The rapid transformation of our colleges is a testament to their strengths and any ‘new normal’ must reflect FE’s true value, writes one principal

Nothing that follows is unique to our college so, with the editor’s permission, I anonymise it and hope it goes some way to describing what our remarkable FE sector as a whole is doing in these extraordinary times.

Like all colleges we put together, at great speed, a strategic, coordinated and unprecedented response to COVID-19. Daily (at times it has seemed hourly) we review it, measuring its operational effectiveness, and making necessary adjustments. Like every FE provider, we then adapt what we do further on the basis of emerging advice from government departments and funding agencies.

There will be huge challenges beyond the present ones

More important still, however, has been the practical advice from fellow colleges based on their real frontline experience and with that collaborative networking ethos of the sector at its best. The Association of Colleges has proved its value both as the means of collecting and distributing core information and advice from the national agencies and as an exchange forum for ensuring that no one across 250 FE providers wastes time reinventing wheels or making a case as a lone voice.

College teaching and support staff across the UK will all have been part of setting up IT infrastructure and communications, within a week, to enable online delivery of teaching, learning and support. In our case this was to 6,500 full-time students alone and meant ensuring there was effective remote working for 1,500 members of staff. Teaching teams produced outstanding online learning materials to deliver digital lessons over the same timescale.

In our first full week of operation in this new normal, more than 7,000 online lessons and meetings were successfully delivered. Student levels of ‘attendance’ and participation have been remarkable. Students and staff are being supported through an online information hub with support for remote learning, resources to help manage mental and physical health during social distancing, and advice about what the latest government information on exams and qualifications means in practical terms for students anxious to know how their futures are going to be affected . The scale and complexity of bespoke support provided for SEN and EHCP students is something every college could write volumes on – and perhaps will when time allows, so that this crucial and under-recognised area of our work is celebrated.

Like all colleges who offer prospective students a half hour interview, we have switched entirely to phone or video interviews. Like so many in FE we are supporting the local frontline NHS workers with meals, accommodation, parking and PPE provision, including digital printing of essential kit. We know we are just one of many colleges not waiting for central support to provide what the most disadvantaged students need – including food – but getting on with providing it. The unreasonably technophobic have become acquiescent as Teams, Skype and Zoom come into their undeniable own. The bullishly technophile have, by and large, resisted the temptation to say ‘I told you so’ as we all just crack on with things. The sight of one technophobe colleague managing to appear on screen as if hanging upside down, bat-like, through a three-hour video meeting is an enduring image. No one said anything.

There is a risk that this highlighting of FE’s collective endeavours in the crisis appears to make light of the great anxieties and tensions that so many of its stakeholders are experiencing – whether about future and present finances, their own safety and that of their families, the wellbeing of learners including some of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged, the national and local economic and employment prospects after the immediate restrictions have been lifted. That is not the intention at all. There will be huge challenges beyond the present ones, challenges in which the need for collaboration and a collective approach across FE colleges will be just as important as it is now, arguably more so. The biggest challenge will perhaps be to forge another, post-crisis, long-term new normal for colleges. We cannot go back to that ‘normal’ of the last decade; we have to ensure that chronic disinvestment in FE – and therefore in skills, in productivity, in our collective and in individual life chances – is never again thought socially or economically or morally acceptable.

But that’s all stuff for another day and another article. For now, as everyone reading this knows, for FE there is more immediate and vital work to be done.

Education secretary Gavin Williamson had the choice to empower Ofqual to come up with the right solutions for grading vocational qualifications this summer that would not disadvantage learners. Instead, he has taken the path of political imposition and Whitehall knows best, writes Tom Bewick

The Secretary of State for education, Gavin Williamson, has done something no other minister elsewhere in the United Kingdom has felt the need to do during the coronavirus crisis: in England he has brought the whole regulation of qualifications under direct political control. At least for the foreseeable future.

The evidence for this is contained within two ministerial direction letters he has recently sent to the regulator, Ofqual. Directions are quite rare in Whitehall circles, because they are essentially written orders to top mandarins, by their political masters, to pursue a particular course of action. One reason they are hardly ever used is because they indicate an underlying disagreement between ministers and their senior officials about what is in the public interest. We saw this in May 2018, when the then perm sec, Jonathan Slater, requested a direction from the then secretary of state, Damian Hinds, about the implementation of T-levels.

He has taken the path of political imposition, Whitehall knows best

Slater highlighted serious concerns about the September 2020 delivery for the new technical qualifications and questioned value for money issues on grounds of ‘regularity, propriety and feasibility.’ His recommendation was to commence T-level delivery in September 2021, which was subsequently overruled by Hinds in a written direction. Crucially, despite the major impact of the pandemic on colleges this September, current ministers have displayed the same uncompromising zeal when it comes to T-levels.

Last week, Williamson despatched the second of his two letters to the chief regulator for qualifications in England, Sally Collier. Following the cancellation of summer examinations, ministers moved swiftly to order the first direction. A handful of academic boards and the regulator will have to come up with a model of teacher-led predicted grades. This should enable the cohort of learners that were due to take GSCEs and A-Levels this summer with the means to progress onto further studies or apprenticeships.

The thing about general qualifications is that they are mainly taken by young people. They are homogenous, in the jargon. Centres are well established schools and colleges. Between them, teachers in these centres, are sitting on a gold mine of information about the prior attainment of candidates, often based on 10,000 hours of formal schooling. Take your typical A-Level candidate for example: a teacher will have access to their GCSE results; written coursework assignments, extra-curricular activities; formative assessments and because of the teacher contact time, a high degree of knowledge about a student’s commitment to the subject and overall work-ethic. Many educationalists, including training providers, argue that tutors are best placed to accurately predict the grades or results of their students. And during these exceptional circumstances of the pandemic, ministers are inclined to agree.

The problem with this kind of ‘blind faith’ is that it does not stand up to any kind of empirical scrutiny. Tutor-led grade predication is more of an art than science. Major studies by Tim Gill of Cambridge Assessment, for example, found that while some reasonable methods are available to tutors, the prediction rates are poor i.e. less than half of the predictions will usually be accurate. In 2017, UCAS published data which showed only 42 per cent of applicants to university were predicted the right grades. Behavioural psychologists have found that teachers employ positive bias when assessing their students. A study by Dr Gill Wyness of UCL (2016), looking into the accuracy of predicted grades for direct entry to university, found that 75 per cent of applicants had their grades over-predicted; and only 16 per cent were accurately predicted. In other words, without the objectivity and integrity of external independent assessment, including robust regulation of these qualifications, grade inflation would be rife.

The thing that worries many experts in the sector is that if tutor-led predictions are this dodgy for qualifications like A-levels, which have a pedigree dating back to 1951, how on earth are predicted grading models for the complex arena of mainly competency based vocational qualifications going to be anymore valid, reliable or safe?

It is the single most powerful argument for why, if ministers get their way on introducing a new extraordinary regulatory framework for academic and vocational technical qualifications in England, it could sound the death knell for public confidence in the actions of so-called independent regulators like Ofqual in future. After all, take the unfolding crisis of Covid-19. Here, politicians are at pains to stress how much they are following the lead of scientific advisers in tackling the disease. The health secretary, Matt Hancock, regularly appears in public alongside the chief medical officer (CMO), Professor Chris Witty. Together, they are shaping the government’s response to the crisis. Despite the unprecedented times we now live in, Hancock has not felt the need to order in writing the specific methods the CMO must pursue in tackling coronavirus. He has done the opposite, trusting his most senior public health officials to guide the government in its actions.

There is potentially one more sting in the tail of Williamson’s overt political take-over of Ofqual. The powers he has taken are granted under a 2009 Act of Parliament which gives the secretary of state the ability to ensure Ofqual is always aligned with government policy, ‘as he may direct.’ There is nothing to stop an extraordinary qualifications regulatory framework becoming the permanent one.

It means that, unlike the other emergency powers the government has taken, there is no time limits or indeed any other kind of limits being placed on the secretary of state in regard to regulated qualifications. Whatever the department’s real intensions of all this, there is perhaps one silver lining. If the tutor-led predicted results model for all types of regulated qualifications taken between now and the end of July does end up a complete Horlicks, at least Parliament will have no one else to blame but the secretary of state himself. Williamson had the choice to empower the regulator to come up with the right solutions that would not disadvantage learners. Instead, he has taken the path of political imposition, Whitehall knows best, rather than pursuing the higher cause of shoring up public confidence in the extrinsic value of independent qualifications regulation.

Colleges exist to enrich and serve their community, leaving no-one behind especially in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, writes Nikos Savvas

Over the weekend, many of us will have started week three of ‘self-isolation and social distancing’. A pandemic is something none of us has experienced before and we are all trying to fumble our way through this extraordinary situation. We have all seen and experienced both acts of utter selflessness as well as acts of behaviour that driven by fear and ignorance resulted in empty shelves in our supermarkets. 

As a kid I heard the quote ‘the measure of a civilisation is how it treats its weakest members’, and it stuck with me. Self-isolation and social distancing is not only a story of self-preservation but also a story of empathy and care for some of the most vulnerable in our society. The stories of kindness and humanity are overtaking the stories of selfishness and ignorance and fear.

We are also finding new and innovative ways of overcoming our problems. Thanks to our collective human spirit and our thirst for community, human connection and care and love we are using different methods to socially connect and support one-another. To consciously act in ways that lessen the pain of loneliness and isolation to the betterment of both our inner circle of friends and family as well as to our wider community of neighbours. Last Sunday I had dinner with my self-isolating elderly parents via phone, and on Tuesday morning we had a coffee break with all our colleagues at the college online.

Almost universally we are uttering the phrase ‘Hi, I just called to check in on you. How are you?” or “How can I help – can I do anything for you?”. We are finding ways to bridge the gap of social distancing and are forming new, dynamic micro-communities with an energy and generosity that is quite extraordinary.

As a college, we exist purely to enrich and serve our community, leaving no-one behind. I have been exceptionally proud of the work our staff and students have volunteered to do in order to support our community. Hundreds have volunteered to join the NHS community workforce. Several have started support groups in their communities. 

Students have volunteered at care homes and, whilst there, helped relatives set up digital communication systems to allow them to stay connected to their nearest and dearest. They have made fresh bread and other food essentials to deliver to vulnerable people in the community.

As a college, we have developed extensive resources and activities which parents can access online to support children who are being home schooled and we have donated masks, cleaning supplies and protective gear to NHS front line staff. We have also offered up the college as facility for the NHS to use should they need to; and we hosted teams from the West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust to give them a safe space to deliver essential training to staff.

In a matter of days, we rebuilt our entire college operations online. Creating virtual classrooms, course study groups, webinars, vlogs, audio lectures and a system of support meetings to ensure students have continuity of education and wrap-around support. The college’s animal studies department live-streamed to over 1,200 people from across the globe; giving ‘self-isolating’ people the opportunity to connect, tour the centre, meet the animals and learn about their care and post questions.

I have been astounded by how quickly teachers have turned to online and social platforms to create really exceptional distance delivery; and education leaders across the country are united believing this period of ‘self-isolation and social distancing’ will have a transformative effect on the way we approach and offer education in the future.

We are in uncertain times, but I am also so proud to see our community, and the college as a pillar of the community, uniting together in the face of this pandemic and creating an ever-stronger, supportive community which leaves no-one behind.