All routine Ofsted inspections will now be put on hold, sister paper FE Week has revealed.
The watchdog has halted inspections following prime minister Boris Johnson’s announcement earlier today to scale up coronavirus prevention measures.
An Ofsted spokesperson told FE Week they are “putting a hold on all this week’s routine inspections of schools, social care, early years and further education providers.
“We are in discussions with the DfE about the longer-term picture.”
Chief inspector Amanda Spielman said: “I’m grateful for the Secretary of State’s permission to suspend routine inspections.
“It’s clearly the right thing to do when teachers and social workers are under pressure as a result of the coronavirus outbreak. We all need to support them in their work.”
Education secretary Gavin Williamson said he recognises that teachers are “on the frontline of our national effort” and given the pressures on education leaders and their staff, “it is only right that Ofsted temporarily suspends its routine inspection timetable”.
He added that current medical and scientific guidance “indicates that at this stage, schools and other educational settings should remain open”.
However, he said that “if there comes a point when the chief medical officer and chief scientific adviser tell us that closing schools [and colleges] would be in the best interests of children and teachers, we will take this step”.
We are committed to supporting schools to stay open at this difficult time. As part of our measures to help them, we are temporarily suspending routine Ofsted inspections. https://t.co/690QHNKDCi
The only exception to Ofsted’s inspection pause is if its team “has identified concerns about safeguarding arrangements at the provider”.
If this occurs, inspectors have been “asked to seek advice from Ofsted senior managers to inform the decision to progress, or not, with the inspection”.
A statement from Ofsted added: “For absolute clarity, all monitoring visits and inspections that have started (i.e. those that commenced yesterday), have been stopped and inspectors will not return to provider premises today.
“Providers that have been notified that inspection will commence today or later this week will not now happen. Providers are being contacted to inform them of these decisions.
“Ofsted will be discussing with the DfE as a priority what this new guidance means to our planned inspection activity over the coming weeks and months, and it will update providers as soon as it has clarity.”
Oldham Sixth Form College is the first education provider to successfully defer an inspection due to the Coronavirus outbreak, Ofsted has confirmed.
Inspectors were due into the college this week but the visit has now been postponed to an unknown date.
Principal Jayne Clarke said: “We are pleased that Ofsted has agreed to defer our inspection.
“In common with colleges and schools across the country, we are focused on dealing with the threat posed by coronavirus and it would not be appropriate to conduct an inspection in such unprecedented circumstances.”
Bill Watkin, chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges Association, told FE Week that Ofsted “has made the right call”.
“Although colleges remain open, this is not business as usual,” he said.
“Our members are more than usually pre-occupied with ensuring young people are safe and are dealing with a number of unknowns due to coronavirus.
“The deferment policy is welcome, but we believe that all inspections should be suspended during this extraordinary period.”
A spokesperson for the University and College Union also said this was the “right decision” and added that all inspections “should be delayed”.
The news comes as leadership unions prepare to meet ministers for coronavirus crunch talks today, which will decide next steps for education providers.
On Friday, Ofsted released new guidance stating that it will talk to principals and chief executives before inspections to work out if the impact of coronavirus warrants a deferral.
The advice said the impact of the disease could be considered an “exceptional circumstance” warranting a postponement.
On Saturday, the watchdog’s national director of education, Sean Harford, told the Association of School and Colleges Leaders’ conference that the chief inspector, Amanda Spielman, will personally sign off any decision not to defer inspections of providers affected by coronavirus.
The leader of the ASCL, Geoff Barton, has since joined calls for the government to immediately suspend Ofsted inspections.
Ofsted’s guidance explained that the spread of the virus “presents serious challenges for providers that are affected”.
“In line with the potential for this to be an ‘exceptional circumstance’, we will carry out a risk-assessment with the providers when we announce the inspection. This will give the leaders/managers of providers the opportunity to inform Ofsted about any current coronavirus impact on their provision.
“Using this information, we will make an assessment and a deferral decision, as appropriate. When inspections go ahead, inspectors will be sensitive to increases in user absence or absence of key staff, and will reflect this in the inspection report.”
Ofsted has also issued new guidance to its inspectors, stating that the “first point” of discussion for lead inspectors when they phone education providers about future visits will be the “current and potential impact of coronavirus on the operations of the provider”.
The Department for Education’s top civil servant has been quizzed before an influential Commons committee on £680 million university technical college building costs, equivalent to £50,000 per pupil.
As around 86 per cent of that was for capital funding, Holden put to Slater that meant “capital for each of these new schools is over £50,000 per pupil for these new schools”.
Slater countered: “Well it would be if we hadn’t made alternative use of the capital of UTCs that have since closed,” adding that one of the DfE’s tasks whenever a UTC closes is to make sure the capital is spent.
“We want to make sure that all of that capital – land, buildings, equipment – is reused.”
And as eight of the UTCs were being reused, Slater argued that while the capital is not being spent on the UTC pupils, it is being spent on other children.
But although that had been the case with eight of the UTCs to have closed, they were still in negotiations over two which closed last summer – UTC@Harbourside and South Wiltshire UTC.
Slater also revealed the DfE had relied on a controversial group of cost-cutters to manage UTC spending as there had been questions about whether they could be using their resources “more efficiently”.
“School resource management advisers” had been into most of the UTCs, 33 in total, and identified £10 million-worth of savings – £4.3 million of which has been achieved.
The advisers were the brainchildren of former DfE minister Lord Agnew and are contentious due to recommendations seen by FE Week’s sister newspaper FE Week, which showed the advisers telling schools to save money by limiting lunch portions and by using spare staff to cover lessons, instead of supply teachers.
The committee also quizzed Slater on the £28 million in transitional funding which had been pumped into UTCs since 2016. Committee chair Meg Hillier MP asked him if he was happy with the funding to keep the schools afloat.
He answered yes, as although it is impossible to imagine a world where government would decide against “innovating with a new set of schools designed to take children halfway through their secondary career for non-academic curriculum.
“You could decide not to do that, then my task is easier, but I did not take this job because it was easy.”
Transitional funding, the NAO report said, was used to keep UTCs running following a DfE review in 2015. It is normally paid in annual instalments of £200,000, and is often given to the colleges who join multi-academy trusts.
The NAO’s report also found that the 48 open colleges were operating at 45 per cent of capacity by the end of January 2019.
Slater said if you do find a significant number of schools which are not full then “my job is to make sure I am not throwing good money after bad”.
Instead, he said he is putting funding into a system which he thinks “can be sustained”.
“Ten have closed. We have only agreed to open one UTC since 2015 and it hasn’t opened yet. Three have applied for funding but that doesn’t mean they are going to get it.”
Ofsted this morning published their contested grade four report into Shrewsbury Colleges Group, expressing concerns that “not all students feel safe”.
The college will be “appealing against the safeguarding grade” and appear to be accusing the Ofsted national team of “overruling” their regional colleagues. See their full statement below.
Shortly before 9am the report was removed from the inspectorate’s website but it has since been published, here.
While ‘behaviours and attitudes’ and ‘leadership and management’ have led to an overall ‘inadequate’ judgement, the rest of Shrewsbury’s provision has been rated as ‘good’.
Ofsted revisited Shrewsbury last week, but found that the same safety concerns persist.
Today’s report said a “small number of vulnerable students described not feeling safe and feeling intimidated around the college”.
And “some staff” reported that they “did not feel equipped to deal with challenges they may face when interacting with students and learners”.
The college’s response in full:
“Shrewsbury Colleges Group has today 16 March 2020 responded to the publication of a report of its recent Ofsted inspection.
Principal James Staniforth said: “We are bitterly disappointed and extremely surprised that Ofsted have concluded that safeguarding processes at the college are not effective despite the wealth of evidence to the contrary.
“We particularly cannot understand how Ofsted can disregard the judgement of the police when it comes to the safety of the college and the effectiveness of our practices.
“Furthermore, the safeguarding grade makes little sense in the context of:
The broader report, in which Ofsted rate all other provision as Good
Recent expert opinion. Since Ofsted’s visit:
An independent review of safeguarding at the college, undertaken at the request of the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA), concluded that ‘campuses are safe places to learn, work and to visit’, ‘there is a strong culture of safeguarding’, ‘every effort has been made to ensure safe sites and safe students and staff’ and the college is ‘one of the safest in country’.
West Mercia Police have confirmed that they have ‘no concerns’ regarding any of the college’s three campuses and that the college works ‘in close partnership’ with West Mercia Police ‘to safeguard young people who may be vulnerable to being exploited’
The Shropshire Safeguarding Partnership have said that they ‘felt assured of the effectiveness of their safeguarding arrangements’ at the college.
An Education and Skills Funding Agency audit of college safeguarding training for all staff concluded that they were ‘completely assured’ by the work of the college.
“We seek to continually improve our processes and our excellent staff work very hard to ensure students are kept safe. The college has taken this area of its responsibilities very seriously indeed and we do not understand why evidence has not impacted on the judgement.
regional office had to be overruled by the national office
“We have strategic, clear and consistent expectations and procedures to mitigate and reduce risks in relation to campus sites and the potential for students to be exploited. The vast majority of our students and staff feel safe. Health and safety practices are consistent, and we provide a significant programme of training to help students keep themselves safe online and in their local communities.
“We will be appealing against the safeguarding grade of the report on the grounds that Ofsted’s processes in relation to this particular inspection were gravely flawed and unlike any that we have faced as an experienced senior team.
“During the inspection process, important decisions relating to the evidence to be considered, findings and publication made by the regional office had to be overruled by the national office. The inspection was reopened on the grounds that the findings of the original inspection lacked credibility and reliability. When the inspection team returned, it became very clear that a pre-conceived result was required and evidence to the contrary was to be ignored.
“Moreover, the report appears to have significant and worrying implications for the broader further education sector.
“The safeguarding grade is informed by ‘a small number of students not feeling safe’ and ‘some staff’ reporting that they do not feel equipped to deal with challenges. This raises serious questions as to whether Ofsted requires 100% of students and staff to feel safe and confident respectively – a completely unrealistic expectation.
“The report raises the issue of ‘access to campus sites’ and ‘potential’ threats to students, not actual threats, the inference being that colleges like ours need to put up fences around all our sites. This in turn has major implications for FE estate management.”
The upcoming AoC Sport National Championships has been called off due to the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic.
The annual event was due to take place from 24 to 26 April and would have included more than 2,000 college student athletes, staff and volunteers from across the country.
In addition, all college sporting competitions organised by AoC Sport, an arm of the Association of Colleges, have been suspended at least until after the Easter break.
Dean Hardman, AoC director of sport and student experience, said: “We are extremely disappointed to cancel the National Championships but the Public Health guidelines and the personal safety of all participants and staff is paramount.
“This decision has not been taken lightly and we would like to reassure colleges that we have done everything we can to lessen the impact – including incurring the costs for the cancellation so that colleges have one less thing to worry about.”
A statement from AoC Sport added that colleges will not be invoiced by hosts the University of Nottingham for the championships.
Last Thursday prime minister Boris Johnson announced that all schools and colleges would not be closed at this stage in the spread of the Coronavirus outbreak, as doing so could do “more harm than good”.
France and the Republic of Ireland announced last week that all of its schools and colleges would close. Italy, Japan and parts of China made similar decisions earlier this month.
Education unions are meeting with Department for Education ministers today to decide next steps for education providers.
Ofsted inspections are still going ahead under current plans but they can be deferred. The first postponement was at Oldham Sixth Form College, as FE Week revealed earlier today.
Former Education and Skills Funding Agency chief executive Peter Lauener has been appointed as chair of the Student Loans Company (SLC).
The civil service veteran will take on the role alongside his other commitment as chair of both NCG – one of England’s largest college groups – and the Construction Industry Training Board.
Lauener was previously the interim chief executive of the SLC, a position he held from November 2017 to September 2018 following the sacking of Steve Lamey who was investigated for his leadership conduct.
Lauener will earn £50,000 per year as chair of the SLC’s board, for a time commitment of eight days per month. His three-year term will get underway from 1 April 2020.
Lauener said: “I am delighted to once again support the Student Loans Company. SLC plays a vital role in enabling almost two million students each year to invest in their futures through higher and further education by providing trusted, transparent, and accessible student finance services.
“I am particularly looking forward to reacquainting myself with colleagues from across the organisation, whose dedication to their roles enables SLC to deliver finance services for students, graduates and higher and further education institutions.”
Universities minister Michelle Donelan said: “I am pleased to welcome Peter as the new chair of the Student Loans Company. His knowledge and experience of the sector means he is well placed to lead the organisation as it continues to provide its important services for students and graduates.”
Lauener will take over the role from Andrew Wathey, who has held the position on an interim basis since 1 February 2020.
As well as his other commitments, Lauener is a non-executive director at Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust since September 2016. He was chief executive of the Institute for Apprenticeships for a brief period when it launched in 2017.
Before leading the ESFA, his career included the implementation of the Youth Training Scheme and of adult training when working for the Manpower Services Commission in the 1980s, the setting up of Training and Enterprise Councils in the 1990s.
The SLC is an executive non-departmental public body of the Department for Education and provides higher and further education finances.
The SLC’s appointment of chair is made by the education secretary, Gavin Williamson.
Due to the uncertainty around the coronavirus outbreak, this year’s Festival of Education will be cancelled. A full statement from the event’s organisers – which includes FE Week’s publisher LSECT – and important details on refunds can be read below.
The Festival, at Wellington College, was first held in June 2010. This will be first time organisers have had to cancel the event, which was expected to host over 250 speakers and 5,000 education professionals from across the UK. International delegations were also expected from countries including China, Australia, India, Canada, Zimbabwe and USA.
The Festival’s sister events in China, due to be held in April across three cities, were cancelled earlier this year due to the impact of coronavirus.
Statement | Wellington College & Lsect
It is with a heavy heart that we have made the following decision regarding the 11th Festival of Education, due to be held on 18-19 June 2020 at Wellington College.
Due to the current uncertainty around Covid-19, we have decided to cancel this year’s Festival of Education. The next Festival of Education will now take place on 24-25 June 2021 at Wellington College.
Wellington College and Lsect are devastated by this decision, but it is the only viable option given the significant disruption and uncertainty caused by the current pandemic, Covid-19.
The Festival of Education is a year-long project and the next three months are crucial in terms of logistics, speaker management, sponsorship bookings and ticket sales. Given the current situation, we do not feel that we could stage the Festival of Education in the form our attendees and partners expect.
We’ve been overwhelmed by the interest in this year’s event, with record ticket sales and what was set to be an epic line-up! We would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who have worked with us in recent months. Your efforts have not been wasted, and we look forward to working with you over the coming year on next year’s Festival.
All tickets and exhibition stands purchased for this year’s Festival will be automatically transferred to the 2021 event. Refund requests will, of course, be accepted. Further information regarding tickets and sponsorship bookings is available on our website.
In the coming weeks, we will be announcing plans to broadcast some Festival content during the 18-19 June 2020 via the internet. Look out for further details.
On behalf of the Wellington College and Festival of Education Community, we apologise for any inconvenience and disappointment caused.
Best wishes during this difficult period,
James Dahl, Master, Wellington College & Iain Henderson, Deputy Head & Festival Director, Wellington College | Shane Mann, Managing Director & Festival Director, Lsect Ltd
Important information | Festival cancellation
Individual tickets
If you booked your tickets via our Eventbrite purchasing system and not part of a group booking, your ticket has automatically been transferred to the Festival of Education 2021. This event will take place on 24-25 June 2021 at Wellington College.
If you wish to attend next year’s Festival you do not need to do anything at this stage.
If you do not wish to attend this event and would like a refund for your tickets, this can be processed directly on Eventbrite (refer to your booking confirmation email) or alternatively please complete our refund request form. All refunds will be accepted and processed. This is a busy period and we will aim to respond within the next 4 weeks to confirm your cancellation.
If you booked your tickets via our Group bookings system, your tickets have automatically been transferred to the Festival of Education 2021. This event will take place on 24-25 June 2021 at Wellington College.
If you wish to attend next year’s Festival you do not need to do anything at this stage.
If you do not wish to attend this event and would like a refund for your tickets, this can be processed – please complete our refund request form. All refunds will be accepted and processed. This is a busy period and we will aim to respond within the next 4 weeks to confirm your cancellation.
If you have made a booking for 2020, we will automatically transfer this booking over to the 2021 event. This event will take place on 24-25 June 2021 at Wellington College.
If you wish to cancel this booking please contact the Festival Partnership’s Manager, Adele Kilby (adele.kilby@lsect.com), who will be able to assist in processing any required refunds. This is a busy period and we will aim to respond within the next 4 weeks to confirm your refund.
Speakers
The speaker application process for 2021 will open in September 2020. The first round will be open for all those speakers who were successful in 2020. The second round will open in October and will be open to everyone.
Festival of Education Online
The Festival organisers will release further information in the next few weeks about Festival of Education content to be broadcast online during 18-19 June 2020.
We know this won’t have the same exciting buzz of the Festival, but we’re committed to provide you with some of the amazing content we had lined-up for 2020.
Another university technical college is scrapping its 14 to 19 age criteria and will start recruiting 13-year-olds from this September.
Greater Peterborough UTC (GPUTC) announced the change following “positive” feedback in a consultation. It opened in 2016.
Principal David Bisley explained it is “essential local young people passionate about science, technology, engineering, and maths are now able to come to our school at an even earlier age,” as Peterborough has “a significant emerging skills shortage within its engineering sector”.
He added: “Having a year 9 allows us the opportunity to embed the knowledge, skills and behaviours required to be a successful learner and gives the students the chance to experience a project-based learning approach before their GCSEs start in year 10.”
GPUTC was rated as ‘requires improvement’ by Ofsted in February 2019 partly because “too much emphasis was placed on maximising pupil numbers and too little attention was given to matching pupils’ interests and aspirations to the UTC’s curriculum”.
Having a year 9 allows us the opportunity to embed the knowledge, skills and behaviours required to be a successful learner
Switching recruitment age from the original 14 to 19 is a growing trend among UTCs as they bid to tackle low student numbers, which in 11 cases has led to them shutting after becoming unviable.
The JCB Academy in Staffordshire and UTC Sheffield have both accepted students from year 9 since September 2018. The London Design and Engineering UTC has also begun accepting students from the age of 13.
UTCs in Plymouth and Wolverhampton, as well as The Leigh UTC in Dartford in Kent, have gone even earlier by enrolling pupils from year 7.
The Baker Dearing Trust, which represents UTCs, has strongly opposed them expanding beyond the colleges’ original 14 to 19 model in the past.
But the trust’s chief executive Simon Connell (pictured) told FE Week last September that changing the entry age could be a “pragmatic solution” for colleges with low rolls, which need to up their capacity “significantly”.
A trust spokesperson has previously said it expects “many more UTCs to apply to extend their age range”, and they are supportive of UTCs wanting to do this “where it is appropriate”.
One of the main challenges for UTCs has been recruitment, with 39 previously being forced to hand back money to the government because they missed recruitment targets, leaving them with a combined debt of around £11 million.
A National Audit Office report published in October 2019 into UTCs calculated that the DfE has spent £792 million on the programme since it was launched by education secretary Lord Baker in 2010.
FE Week meets the college principal who is determined to revitalize the fortunes of a neglected corner of England
If anywhere feels like a left-behind coastal region, Medway is it. Yet, after decades of moving around Europe, England and South Africa, this is where Ipswich-born Simon Cook, principal of MidKent College, has decided to drop anchor. “This organisation is under my skin, and this has become more than just a job. This is about changing the area we work in.”
We are standing at the window of his office on MidKent’s Gillingham campus.
Simon as a baby: he has always felt fortunate to have been brought up by a family who instilled a sense of pride and strong work ethic
From this vantage point, he describes to me everything in sight, and even some things that aren’t.
On the horizon is the Medway River.
“We’re working to get better access to it,” he tells me. “Some of the young people we teach haven’t ever raised their eyes to notice it’s there.”
He points out the largest gas storage station in England, the new developments on the water’s edge, St Mary’s Island, which used to be a base for nuclear submarines and where residents are “not allowed to plant certain things in their gardens” as a result of what was buried there.
Slowly, he steers my gaze ever closer to the building we are in. Lower Lines Park, on the other side of the college car park, is so called after the Napoleonic War defences that were built there. The upper lines – a giant trench Cook describes as the college’s very own moat – are to our left. Under the car park are tunnels built by the Royal Navy, which are regularly broken into by “urban explorers”.
Across the road are what used to be officers’ houses. I hadn’t noticed, but on closer inspection they are quite different from the rows of terraced houses behind them where the workers who used to man the vast operation of the Chatham Royal Navy dockyard lived. In 1984 the dockyard was closed down, bringing a 414-year history to an end, and devastating the local economy.
Our attention is on Gillingham, but there’s no doubt Cook is just as invested in the history, geography and community around MidKent’s other campus in Maidstone. “I’m not interested in what’s going on in other parts of the country. I’m interested in what’s going on in Medway and Maidstone, and the impact we can have on those communities, which, for me, goes back to what colleges always existed for. Whether you want to use the words ‘anchor’, or ‘civic institutions’, that’s our place.”
When we turn our eyes away from the estuary view, Cook walks me along a patchwork panoramic display of the college’s history. He could speak volumes about each frame if I let him.
And I’m tempted, but today is the college’s careers fair and it’s already clear he’s a hands-on leader who will later rue having missed the fun and networking of talking to his students and all the visiting local employers.
The event has been running for only three years, but it looks like a professionally run, well-established tradition. It’s not really designed to secure employment directly but to create community and partnership. As we talk, it becomes clear to me that this is this principal’s superpower. Every employer, every colleague in every place he’s lived: he remembers them by
name, has a story to tell about them and knows where they are today.
You will find it difficult to not bump into Simon walking around the college, speaking to staff and students. Being connected is so important
What Cook seems most proud of is how bringing local businesses in contact with young people has helped to break down stereotypes. Back in his office, looking at the patchwork mural, he points out the gendered courses on offer in the 1950s.
“That’s still reflected today. We don’t do things like secretarial but let’s replace that with hair and beauty, for example… What hasn’t changed is that if you’re a young person who’s not doing well at school somebody somewhere is going to say to you, ‘Well, that just means you’re good with your hands’.”
Famously, Kent is still a selective authority, and Cook talks with genuine concern about the young people who arrive at college having been let down twice – effectively failed at the age of 11, and then often again at the age of 16 – young people who have been biding their time at school because they “think they’re destined for a career in construction… Yet we go down to Maidstone and it’s totally different. There’s a much more white-collar community. A trade is the last thing you think is relevant. Let’s raise the profile of technical education.”
Cook has some skin in this game.
He was one of those children for whom the academic curriculum seemed to lack purpose. He left school at 14 and got on to an apprenticeship in an Ipswich hotel kitchen. Living with his grandparents for 18 months and inspired by his carpenter grandfather to work hard and take pride in his finished work, he gave it all he had.
The result was that the first half of Cook’s working life was spent in kitchens in what was a stellar career. By 19, he moved to Park Lane’s Intercontinental, then its sister hotel in Frankfurt at the age of 21, then on to other Michelin-starred restaurants in Germany.
Simon always speaks passionately about his time working as a chef and says that the high pressure and standards prepared him well for life as a principal & CEO
I interrupt him to ask about Gavin Williamson’s policy drive for technical education in England to rival Germany’s within the decade. His answer is succinct: “Good luck with that.”
I press him for more insight. “I think about my craft and the esteem in which being a chef was held in that country, and around technical qualifications.
“If you did a job, and then you went for your ‘meister’ qualification, you were really held in high esteem whether you were a builder or a bricklayer or chef.”
In fact, it was only last year that Germany rolled back some of its deregulation around the Meisterpflicht (master craftsman) qualification. For a long time, it was illegal to start a business or hold an elevated position in a company without it. The regulations are back on the Bundestag statute book after trades lobby groups successfully argued that the 2004 marketisation had created business instability and resulted in too few apprentices being trained.
But Cook didn’t stay long enough to involve himself in any of that.
Adventure beckoned and he headed to South Africa. In another Michelinstarred kitchen near Cape Town he met his wife-to-be. But there was a problem.
A short stint for her in the hotel business had made her certain of one thing: “There is no way I’m marrying a chef,” she told him.
Together, they moved back to England. Feedback from an apprentice in South Africa gave him a clue about what he might do next. The seed sown, it wasn’t long before he crafted himself an opportunity to try out teaching, and he has never looked back.
Cook has repeated in FE what he did in haute cuisine. He gained his CertEd at Bournemouth & Poole College, then moved to Somerset. There, a change of leadership and his wife’s difficulty integrating caused him to consider quitting, but he restored his professional confidence by becoming an Ofsted inspector, and then went on to become deputy principal at Cornwall College.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before his boss and mentor there, David Linnell, was hospitalised and announced he would be stepping down.
Not prepared to go through another leadership change so soon, Cook moved on, and that is how he found himself at MidKent.
But it wasn’t long before disaster struck here too. Principal Sue McLeod, MidKent’s first female principal, was diagnosed with a brain tumour and passed away very suddenly.
In post for only a year as deputy, Cook was encouraged, despite himself, to apply for the top job. He has now been principal for five years.
It hasn’t been an easy journey.
“What we needed was to make things worse before they got better”
However, two grade 3 inspections from Ofsted in 2015 and 2017 didn’t shake him from his path. “It just added more and more pressure, knowing that what was wanted was rapid improvement. It was a real tension, because I knew rapid improvement would mean we’d crash again. What we needed was to make things worse before they got better. We needed to get sustained improvement.”
The approach worked, and in 2018, MidKent was given a clean bill of health by the inspectorate, with a grade 2 report.
Is the Michelin star of college grades the next target, I ask? “Holding on to Michelin stars is harder than getting them,” he replies, “because everybody else wants to be better than you. That’s what we spend so much time doing.
“We are here for our students first and foremost, and if that means becoming an outstanding college as recognised by Ofsted, that’s a great byproduct.”
This seasoned college principal has bigger fish to fry than to chase after an ephemeral accolade. Medway is bidding for city of culture status and supporting the effort to turn the region’s fortunes around is firmly on his horizon.
The Baker Dearing Trust, which represents UTCs, has strongly opposed them expanding beyond the colleges’ original 14 to 19 model in the past.
