On Saturday, FE Week hosted its second webinar looking at the latest legislation and guidance from the government regarding the response to the coronavirus pandemic, for the FE and skills sector.

Sponsored by Learning Curve Group and presented by Shane Mann, publisher of FE Week, the session included chief executive of the Association of Colleges David Hughes and chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers Mark Dawe.

We also heard from director of Holex Susan Pember, Ofsted’s Paul Joyce, chief executive of the Federation of Awarding Bodies Tom Bewick, and Ben Sutherland, a partner at law firm Eversheds Sutherland.

You can watch it back for free by clicking here.

Further FE Week webinars will be announced throughout the pandemic to help support the sector.

The government has finally confirmed that apprentices can continue with funded training when employers use the job retention scheme, subject to being paid the apprenticeship minimum wage “for all the time they spend training”.

HMRC guidance published today (click here),  says: “Apprentices can be furloughed in the same way as other employees and they can continue to train whilst furloughed.

“However, you must pay your Apprentices at least the Apprenticeship Minimum Wage, National Living Wage or National Minimum Wage (AMW/NLW/NMW) as appropriate for all the time they spend training. This means you must cover any shortfall between the amount you can claim for their wages through this scheme and their appropriate minimum wage.

“Guidance is available for changes in apprenticeship learning arrangements because of COVID-19.” Click here

Colleges across the country have volunteered their services to help local communities during the Covid-19 pandemic.

FE Week shares some examples, including care home, hospital and food bank donations, crowdfunding and the opening of residential accommodation to NHS staff and rough sleepers.  

 

Care home, hospital and homeless charity helped by donations

A college has donated 40 litres of hand sanitiser, 350 face masks and 1,100 pairs of disposable gloves to a local care home which had a “critical” shortage of equipment in its battle against coronavirus.

Northampton College has also donated food stocks to multiple groups and helped to feed around 100 homeless people a day.

Care home Balmoral Place, which received the personal protective equipment, said the reserves would help keep staff “safe” during the Covid-19 outbreak.

The college’s ICT services manager Andy Seymour, who delivered the goods, said: “We were only too happy to step in and help. We’re all in this together at the minute and anything we can do to ease the situation for others is obviously a good thing to do.

“We are very much the college in the community and we will continue to do all we can to offer our support to those who need it the most.”

Kingsthorpe-based Balmoral Place is a development of 80 homes for elderly people.

Housing scheme manager Jo Robey thanked Northampton College for its donation.

She said: “It is much appreciated and will go towards keeping the staff safe.”

In addition, the college has handed out a number of food parcels to vulnerable families while deliveries of essential supplies were also made to Northampton General Hospital and The Hope Centre.

A spokesperson for The Hope Centre said: “The stock we have received from Northampton College is fantastic.

“With it, we are feeding 100 or so homeless people a day plus people in the wider community who are in need.”

PICTURED ABOVE: Andy Seymour (right) donated face masks, gloves and hand sanitiser to Balmoral Place care home on behalf of Northampton College

 

More colleges sign up to Food Bank Friday

Ten colleges have now signed up to an initiative that aims to tackle food shortages for the most vulnerable in their communities during the coronavirus pandemic.

London and South East Colleges Group launched Food Bank Friday two weeks ago and have now been joined by Boston College, Central Bedfordshire College, Chichester College, Dudley College, East Coast College, Kingston Maurward College, Loughborough College, Trafford College Group and York College.

Each have pledged to set up their own virtual giving page to raise funds for their local food bank.

LSEC has crowdfunded more than £4,500 and donated three trolley-loads of provisions from its own BR6 Restaurant as well as a chest freezer to a local food bank.

The college’s student union has chosen the project as its charity of the year and pledged almost £3,000, which was collected from students throughout the year.

Its president, 18-year-old level 3 health and social care student Daniella Oni-Okeke, said: “Life is not easy for anyone at the moment, but by coming together we can all do our bit to help one another and make a positive difference.”

Lesley Davies, principal of Trafford College Group, said she was “delighted to be part of the FE Food Bank Friday campaign, which is not only bringing colleges together, but represents the important part that the FE sector is playing through this crisis and beyond”.

LSEC chief executive Sam Parrett said it has been “heart-warming” to see colleges coming together to support their local communities amid the “many challenges the last few weeks have thrown at us all”.

“We are living in extraordinary and difficult times and never before has it been more important to help one another. Good can come out of every crisis and that is certainly what we are seeing across the entire FE sector as we pull together in time of need.

“We are calling on all colleges to sign up and get involved in FE Food Bank Friday.”

 

Kingston Maurward offers free beds to local NHS staff

A college in Dorset is offering free beds to NHS workers during the Covid-19 crisis.

Kingston Maurward College will be hosting around 35 staff members from the Dorset County Hospital in its residential accommodation.

It is understood recipients will primarily be senior doctors and consultants who are isolating from their own families for the coming months. They are set to move in this weekend.

Principal Luke Rake said: “In the midst of World War II, Kingston Maurward was used as a base to support the troops on D Day.

“Today, we may face a different battle but the needs of our community for safety and support are the same. We are determined to provide whatever assistance our front line troops need and are willing, able and proud to help the NHS.”

He added cleaning and catering volunteers from the college will ensure the staff are cared for.

Nick Johnson, acting chief executive at Dorset County Hospital, told local newspaper the Dorset Echo: “We have been absolutely blown away by the amount of support we have received from the community.

“We really appreciate all they are doing to support our wonderful staff who are working on the frontline to keep everyone safe. We cannot thank everyone enough.”

Residential staff at the specialist land-based college, which has a 750- acre estate, have been looking after animals at the farm, animal park and equine area while students isolate at home during the pandemic.

Kingston Maurward is also operating remote learning for students.

For example, last week foundation studies students took part in an online baking lesson on video conferencing platform Zoom.

 

Rough sleepers given sanctuary at Somerset college

A college in Somerset is converting part of its residential accommodation into shelter for rough sleepers during the Covid-19 lockdown.

Bridgwater & Taunton College will also offer three meals a day for vulnerable people within the community at its Canonsgrove Hall site.

The college said it is offering the use for as long as it is needed to those who are currently homeless and for whom it is difficult or impossible to shield from Covid-19 exposure.

The initiative is due to start next week. Another part of the site is already housing NHS staff.

Principal Andy Berry said: “We are working to support the most vulnerable in our community during this unprecedented period.

“While teaching staff have shifted rapidly to supporting their learners online, support staff have risen to the challenge of making the accommodation site safe, comfortable and ideal to protect some of the most vulnerable in our local community and we will continue to explore the ways in which we can best optimise the resources and facilities to support our community moving forward.”

Mark Nettle, director of student services, thanked YMCA Dulverton Group, which will manage the site on behalf of Somerset West and Taunton Council.

He added: “The project has relied on the commitment and collaboration of various organisations, including Raft, the Salvation Army, Open Door, Turning Point and Arc.”

In addition, Bridgwater & Taunton College is supplying the NHS with personal protective equipment from various departments, including the National College for Nuclear.

It is also providing free car parking for all NHS staff and the engineering team is using 3D printers to create spare parts for the local hospital.

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This will apply to either direct delivery or through subcontractors.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

2. Students should not be set extra work

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

3. What grades will be based on

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

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

 

4. What exam boards will do

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

 

6. Ofqual will consult on excluding year 10s

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

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

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

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

 

7. Don’t share your grades with students

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

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

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

 

8. Grounds for appeal will be ‘narrow’

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

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

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

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

 

9. Take disabilities and personal circumstances into account

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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