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Lord Agnew: I will not hesitate to step in on college spending

Education minister Lord Agnew has in recent weeks had his brief widened beyond schools to include financial oversight of colleges. In this, his first article on FE, he sets out why good governance is key to a thriving sector making good use of tax-payers money and the support that is available to colleges struggling

One thing that comes pretty close to a cast-iron guarantee in life is that if you don’t have good governance -whether you are making widgets, running a multinational company, or the corner shop – you will trip up sooner or later.

The need for good governance is one of those self-evident truths that I have become more than a little evangelical about. Get the basics right and you can become as successful as your ambition or vision takes you. If you don’t, you won’t; it’s as simple as that.

Further education is a big priority for this government. The prime minister, the education secretary and the chancellor of the exchequer have all made this clear. We’ve recently announced an extra £400 million for colleges and sixth forms next year – the single biggest annual boost since 2010.

I will not be turning a blind eye to unjustified and disproportionate pay

Good governance is absolutely crucial in ensuring that this investment is not wasted and that the FE sector grows and flourishes in the way that we all wish it to.

Despite some recent changes in the education department, I want to reassure you that it is still business as usual, with FE financial accountability falling under my remit.

I will be working alongside you to empower and strengthen the sector. One of the best ways to do that is to encourage you to look at everything through the prism of good governance so that all colleges become financially resilient.

There are plenty of fantastic governors and leaders who have a wealth of skills and experience. But this will not always be the case. We need to make sure that all colleges have the financial management capabilities needed to keep their institutions running smoothly and efficiently. I will be working with the sector to ensure that this happens and that college leaders treat taxpayers’ money with care and in a way that benefits their students.

Balancing the books is a challenge for any organisation. Many colleges are already working hard to do this and to curb excessive costs, especially senior staff salaries. However, in the rare circumstances when this does not happen, I will not hesitate to step in. I will not, for instance, be turning a blind eye to unjustified and disproportionate pay.

We already have a support network to help the sector lay sound foundations of good governance. The National Leaders of Further Education and National Leaders of Governance programmes draw on the expertise and experience of some of the best FE leaders, governors and clerks to help other colleges to improve.

These programmes have made a real difference but they could help many more colleges. We will shortly be launching an exercise to recruit more members, and I would encourage more principals and chairs to consider the benefits that the programmes offer.

We want to help any college that is struggling with financial or quality issues to get themselves back on track. We want every student to be confident that the education they receive is of the highest standard and that the college they attend is well run.

Our recently updated College Oversight guidance is a one-stop document for FE and sixth form colleges, which sets out how we will work with colleges to identify issues early on, before they become serious. Its aim is to inform colleges about the range of support available, including from the Education and Skills Funding Agency and the FE Commissioner. Where problems persist, the guidance outlines how and when we will intervene. For extreme cases, it details how the insolvency regime will work.

Colleges quite rightly have many freedoms. But freedoms bring responsibility; not only to the students and staff, but to the taxpayers who fund them. I am here to help provide colleges with the support they need to deliver high quality education and training, and I am committed 100 per cent to doing that.

Sector bodies align with call for DfE to switch funding for 16-18s

Three leading associations from across the university, private provider and college sectors have united to call on the government to fund 16 to 18-year-old apprentices through general taxation.

The membership organisations, who often hold divergent views, agree that the apprenticeship levy should not be used to subsidise this age group.

They say that this cohort should instead be guaranteed government funding just like A-levels and the incoming T-levels.

The University Vocational Awards Council (UVAC) has pleaded the case in a recent letter to education secretary Gavin Williamson, while the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) made the call in a policy paper they published last week.

Leaders at the Association of Colleges (AoC) say they’ve also recently been campaigning for this change.

“It is to say the least a little odd that the state pays through general taxation for A-level, T-level and applied general provision for 16 to 18-year-olds, but employers are expected to pay through the levy for apprenticeship provision for this cohort. Why?” UVAC chief executive Adrian Anderson told FE Week.

“Secondly, employers, through a productivity tax, the apprenticeship levy, shouldn’t be forced to pay for programmes for this ‘guarantee group’, tackle the NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training) problem or indeed pay the price of the failure of schools system to ensure individuals after 11 years of compulsory education gain a full level 2 qualification.”

He added that removing 16 to 18-year-old apprentices from the levy would allow employers to focus on using it to fund programmes “that are needed to raise productivity, as was the point of the levy when originally introduced”.

AELP chief executive Mark Dawe said that the levy “should never have been used as an excuse to exempt 16 to 18 apprentices from the government’s guarantee to fund all learners in this age group”.

However, he warned that even if the right to full funding is restored, “it still won’t relieve, by a long chalk, the pressures on the levy that the demand for higher and degree apprenticeships is exerting”.

Previously, the AELP and UVAC clashed over what the levy should fund after the Institute for Apprenticeships warned in December 2018 that the apprenticeship budget could soon be overspent.

The National Audit Office later said there is a “clear risk” that the apprenticeship programme is not financially sustainable after finding levy-payers are “developing and choosing more expensive standards at higher levels than was expected”.

After this, in March, the AELP called for all level 6 and 7 apprenticeships, including those with integrated degrees, to be removed from the scope of levy funding to relieve pressure on the budget.

A month later, Anderson said it is “entirely unacceptable” to expect public sector employers to subsidise low-level apprenticeships for chefs and hairdressers, and called on government to better support levels 6 and 7 instead.

Dawe believes the higher education loans system should be used to fund these levels, which would free up an estimated “£600 million a year for level 2 to 5 apprenticeships based on the starts this year alone”.

He added: “A decision not to tackle the pressures would ultimately lead to few or no new starts for degree apprenticeships and the universities I’m talking to increasingly recognise this.”

Deputy chief executive of the Association of Colleges, Julian Gravatt, said it was “great to see UVAC calling for a consistent form of 16 to 18 funding that is accessible to all young people regardless of the route they choose”.

“It’s something AoC have been campaigning on for a while,” he added.

“The wider point to make clear however is that 16 to 18 apprentices should feel confident of guaranteed money through DfE ring-fencing of funds. AoC would support a shift from the government that placed consistent priority on the funding of training for young people, new to work.”

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “The apprenticeship levy was introduced to tackle employer underinvestment in skills.

“We want to make sure that the levy continues to help develop the skilled workforce businesses need to grow and have sought views from a range of employers on the operation of the levy after 2020.”

High expectations are key to student retention

Ofsted was right to chastise us for poor student retention, says Len Tildsley, but our learning journey since shows unlocking success requires more than resilience. So what do you need, and what happens when you apply that to young people?

Four years ago we had a particular problem with retention of young students. We simply lost too many, including a significant drop-out during the first 42 days. Messages about ‘early losses not counting in the stats’ had been mis-interpreted as ‘get the more challenging students out quickly’.

We were also losing too many during the year and this quite rightly helped to trigger an Ofsted inspection in September 2016. We deserved the ‘requires improvement’ grades, but we had already taken steps to change the culture, practice and processes that had led us into this position.

We hadn’t been paying enough attention to the support of those at risk of early drop-out. We hadn’t fully considered the reasoning that leads a young person to leave after only a short period, despite the fact that they had chosen to come to us in the first instance and had progressed through all of the challenges of application, interview and induction.

When we did look back at some of the withdrawal reasons recorded on our system, we had far too many stating simply ‘course not suitable’. The only conclusion was that either their personal circumstances had changed or that we had failed to provide the quality of experience that we had promised. We had to do something to reverse this perpetual failure.

We had to do something to reverse this perpetual failure

Our first change was to appoint a team of progress coaches, who form a core part of our learner journey team. They are advocates for the student, and keep an eye on attendance and progress. They look for warning signs and can mobilise a range of other staff and resources should an individual student need extra help and support. They are a proxy for their parent and the front line for intervention and safeguarding. They really are like a sports coach – keeping them motivated and on track, picking them up and helping them if they are struggling and cheering them to the finish line of achievement and progression.

People and their relationships are vital, but processes are also important to bring focus on and remove the stigma from any doubts a student might be feeling, especially in the early weeks of a new programme.

We introduced the Swap Don’t Drop initiative in September 2017, a cross-college approach to encourage students to consider alternative programmes if the one that they had chosen wasn’t meeting their expectations, or they had simply decided that their future career needed to take a different direction. We had a poster campaign supported by teaching staff, progress coaches and the Student Union.

Although we promoted this from the outset, we also understood that students who were wobbling needed intensive guidance and support, and opportunities to act. We paired the campaign with what we called Right Choice Week. Scheduled for the fourth week of term, we set aside timetabled periods when students could try out other pathways. We threw in careers guidance sessions and drop-in opportunities for students to discuss their options with independent specialists and their progress coach.

All of these initiatives and structures combined have paid off. There is still work to do, but our 42-day withdrawal rate over has fallen steadily from 5.2 per cent in 2017, to 3.4 per cent in 2018. It currently sits at 1.5, and looks set to remain below two per cent.

It’s all too easy to find reasons or factors to blame for young people not accessing or rejecting education, but if you keep your expectations high, and take responsibility for your part in their journey, you can transform opportunity. After all, they came this far, and they came to us. Offering them support and opportunities to change their minds seems the least we can do.

Could two sixth forms be coming to the rescue for a struggling college?

A three-way merger is on the cards to help secure the long-term future of a college that has been surviving on government bailouts.

City College Southampton, Itchen Sixth Form College and Richard Taunton Sixth Form have all agreed the move would be a “positive” step following a local area review by the FE Commissioner.

It comes six months after City College Southampton saw its second proposed merger, on that occasion with Eastleigh College, collapse at the eleventh hour.

The situation threatened the solvency of City College, which received an unknown amount of exceptional financial support from the Department for Education in 2018/19 to enable it to “continue in operation in the short term”.

In a joint statement, Sarah Stannard, principal at City College, Alex Scott, principal at Itchen, and Dr Liz Lee, principal at Richard Taunton said they are at the “very early stages” of the merger even being an option and there is no timescale in place for this to happen.

Further details about the move, whether that is closer collaboration or a merger, are expected to be released by the FE Commissioner in the coming weeks.

“All three colleges are already working together to share best practice in areas such as student support and safeguarding, and we will obviously continue with this close working relationship going forward,” the statement said.

“It is widely agreed that a formal merger between the three colleges would be positive for students and the communities they serve.

“Nationally colleges have been encouraged to merge to be as financially efficient as possible and if this were to happen in Southampton it would be in line with the wider national agenda.”

A spokesperson for the Department for Education said details of the potential merger and publication of the FE Commissioner’s local area review will be published “in due course”.

The merger with Eastleigh College was so close to completion that City College Southampton principal, Sarah Stannard, had already announced plans to stand down.

But the plug was pulled in March after the government refused a request for an unknown amount of funds from the Restructuring Facility – a £726 million pot of cash that is used to support college mergers that closed in September.

City College Southampton’s accounts for 2017/18 warned that if this merger failed, it would “require a standalone application to be approved to ensure it is able to continue operations into 2019/20” and it would have to “seek additional long-term funding from the ESFA in order to remain in existence in the long-term”.

The DfE has made clear there will be no more long-term bailouts available to colleges following the introduction of the insolvency regime on January 31, which will allow colleges to go bust for the first time.

City College Southampton owes Santander over £6 million. A spokesperson for the bank told FE Week in March it would “remain supportive” despite the situation.

The college’s first merger attempt, with Southampton Solent University, fell through in 2017, after the move had been recommended in the Solent Area Review.

City College, which is rated ‘requires improvement’ by Ofsted, has seen its financial health deteriorate to ‘inadequate’ in recent years.

Its 2017/18 accounts show that its cash deficit deepened from £257,000 to £585,000. The college teaches around 5,000 students.

The joint statement from the principals at City College, Itchen and Richard Taunton said: “Whatever structure the colleges may take in the future, our number one focus remains to ensure that young people and adult learners in Southampton have the best possible further education provision and opportunities to learn the skills they need to be successful in their chosen careers.”

Prioritise investment in level 2 qualifications, new report urges

Government ought to invest in upskilling people on to level 2 qualifications or apprenticeships as a priority, a new report has recommended.

Close the Gap, a wide-ranging report joint authored by awarding bodies NOCN and City & Guilds, says the investment is necessary to provide a stepping stone to the next level for learners at every stage and age.

It warns that over the next five to ten years, there will be a “major skills gap” in the growing number of associate professional, scientific and technical jobs, particularly at levels 4 and 5 – which the authors call the ‘Missing Middle’.

The report says the current overall reduction in “operative skill” grade apprenticeships (level 2) is “making the problem worse, as the ability to progress up to and beyond level 3, 4 and 5 has become severely restricted”.

It calls on the government to launch a campaign to “recognise and encourage level 2 apprenticeships or qualifications in the economy”.

NOCN managing director Graham Hasting-Evans said government currently “does not seem to understand” that people must be taken from level 1 to level 2.

“You are not going to be able to take them to levels 4 and 5 where there will be jobs. You have to move them up from level 1 to level 2 first.”

The recommendation builds on work from organisations such as the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) to encourage more starts at level 2 – it has previously called on the government to fully fund apprenticeships at levels 2 and 3.

FE Week analysis of government statistics in July revealed level 2 starts have dropped by more than 50 per cent since the apprenticeship reforms were introduced. The Department for Education commissioned an investigation in December to understand what is behind the drop.

AELP chief executive Mark Dawe said: “AELP very much welcomes the call for a coherent strategy around getting more people skilled to at least level 2 and in our view, apprenticeships are the cornerstone on which the strategy should be built.”

Seeking to set the agenda for a “single, simple, integrated and economy-led technical and skills development scheme” – known as a ‘TVET system’ (technical and vocational education and training) internationally – Close the Gap features a number of other recommendations for tackling skills shortages in England.

Once an adult achieves their level 2 qualification, for example, the government ought to fully fund their first level 3, the report says.

Another proposal is for recent reforms to TVET, such as apprenticeships, T-levels, and functional skills, to be brought into one system championed by a single organisation – the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE).

By doing so, IfATE should be accountable for management of public investments and quality, while still being “owned” by stakeholders.

All TVET qualifications, apart from apprenticeships, would also be rebranded as T-levels: qualifications at level 3 and below would be named T-levels; and if it is level 4 or above, it would be named a Higher T-Level.

The government should also close the funding gap between FE and HE as a priority, the report says, after the disparity was highlighted in the Augar Review.

And after the AELP complained funding for apprenticeships at small-to-medium enterprises was being gobbled up by levy-payers, the NOCN and City & Guilds has said the government should reduce the floor of the apprenticeship levy from companies with a £300 million payroll to make more companies pay the charge. This is needed, the report says, to match smaller businesses’ demand for apprenticeships.

The report also proposes an “upskilling levy” to help continuously develop employees’ skills, saying: “It is unlikely there will be sufficient public expenditure available to match the significant scale of upskilling needed for the economy to manage a transition from the skills profile of today’s workforce to that needed in five to ten years’ time.”

“Accordingly, we suggest the government considers introducing an Upskilling Levy, similar in concept to the current apprenticeship levy, but for companies upskilling their existing employees.”

This levy would be set at the same level as the current apprenticeship levy, 0.5 per cent of payroll.

The upskilling levy would fund people moving from level 3 up through 4 and 5 and include specific management development programmes.

The Close the Gap report will be launched at today’s Skills and Employability Summit in London.

The DfE was approached for comment.

Community and culture come first in Norwich

Many leaders wrestle with the challenge of building an effective and coherent team. At City College Norwich, JL Dutaut finds that Corrienne Peasgood has not so much built one as grown one.

Decisions can feel like a high-wire act when you’re in a position of responsibility. Mistakes are visible, and inevitable. “There have to be Jacky moments,” says Jacky Sturman, the executive manager at City College Norwich – with a self-deprecation that I’ve already come to expect from the CCN executive team. “What matters is how you deal with them.”

Outstanding’ would be great for about a week.

A core strength pervades Corienne Peasgood’s team. It’s evident in their humility, how they treat each other, how they go about leading a college with almost 9000 students, and how they approach the many and diverse challenges they face.

Some are challenges they share with other colleges, such as government reforms of curriculum and assessment. Curriculum narrowing in schools has contributed here to a 20 per cent drop in the number of students taking food and hospitality courses. Then, there are those that are accentuated, depending on your locality, your catchment, your place in our fragmented education system.

In the bottom 10 per cent of areas in the country for social mobility, Norwich has a complex demographic. In its highest ward by economic indicators, 86 per cent of children achieve five good GCSEs, including English and maths. In its lowest, only 26 per cent achieve the same results. The city’s average is 44 per cent.

“It’s not an easy place to work,” Julia Buckland, the vice-principal for curriculum and quality, says, “but it is a great place to work”. Sitting next to her, Jerry White, the deputy principal, explains that they need to hire the Norfolk County showground and close most of their main site to administer resits for 1,200 students, close to a third of whom have additional needs. “We have 450 students with educational health and care plans (EHCPs) in our 16-to-18 cohort,” he says, “an equivalent of 12 EHCP reviews a week.”

Helen Richardson-Hulme, the assistant principal for student services, talks of the number of students who are, or are children of, asylum seekers, and the legal ramifications of providing for them. White also cites students excluded from sixth forms because they haven’t achieved high enough grades.

Each example is devoid of any sense of excuse or blame. In fact, Ed Rose, the higher education and apprenticeships director, presents them as a benefit. “It keeps the challenge fresh and the collaboration strong.” When I tell him that this attitude isn’t a given, he shrugs and smiles.

A key refrain throughout the day, and I sense throughout every day at CCN, is that “there is only us!” All the staff are keenly aware that they are the last line of defence against an awaiting cycle of deprivation and hardship that is harmful to individuals and detrimental to their community.

The second refrain I hear throughout my visit is that the staff are “custodians of a very long legacy”. Just three years ago, Norfolk celebrated 125 years of having a college on CCN’s site. It is an event this team took to its heart. Their passion for the college’s community in the widest sense – its past and its future – is evident. A high proportion of the executive team is home-grown and there is real pride in White’s voice when he tells me about the construction students taking part in a unique heritage project on the Norfolk broads.

This rootedness in Norfolk is central to the college’s ongoing success. It empowers the team to make strong pragmatic decisions, such as valuing mergers on whether they will benefit the community, rather than as financial transactions or opportunities to grow for the sake of growth.

Rated “good” across all areas of inspection but one – “provision for learners with high needs”, which inspectors deemed “outstanding” – it is plain that validation by external regulators is not what drives this college’s executive. It is, if anything, an added bonus for work that is its own reward.

“If ‘outstanding’ is the aim, what’s your commitment to the long term? To the community?” asks Rose. “’Outstanding’ would be great for about a week. Then we’d be asking ‘What next?’”

Regarding the new inspection framework, Laura McLean, the director of strategic development, simply says: “It’s business as usual.” Her role is to be the executive’s eyes on the horizon, to see and prepare for what’s rolling in. I get a clear sense that Ofsted’s big sea change this September is more of a ripple than a wave in this part of Norfolk. There are bigger fish to fry.

Four key leadership principles frame how this team operates: their “ways of working”, setting out parameters for professional communication, their high expectations that span everything from comportment to professional ethics, their commitment to the team (“not the one you lead, but the one you’re in”), and their encouragement of entrepreneurialism and professional agency.

It is adherence to these that have led them to abandon all formal lesson observations, and to normalise instead an open-door and supportive culture of learning walks – and they walk the soles off their shoes! It’s all part of an attitude to accountability that is reciprocal. The executive team regularly put out “You said… We did…” literature for staff and students alike. The results for staff are strong retention and low turnover.

But two fundamentals precede all else. First, shared values, chief among them their belief in their community. Second, shared language, the refrains and phrases they all speak.

These are shared by Martin Colbourne, the managing director of CCN’s independent off-shoot, Norfolk Educational Services (NES), which provides the group with non-teaching support services. He talks about the challenge of mergers being to rebuild morale with a clear vision. He is proud that his team is made up of specialists who have the space and trust to do their work so that he can do his. He is equally proud that all 250 NES staff are on the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) and haven’t been forced on to a lower provision.

They are shared too by Emily Staley, the president of the student union and full member of the executive team. She arrived from Adelaide in 2015, got her GCSES, then her health and social care qualifications, and became the college’s women’s officer, leading a successful campaign to support young women in period poverty. Her passion for civic leadership awakened, she now sits as an equal in all executive meetings. Daunting? Yes. “But I can say what I want there and then.” She ensures, in her own words, that “students govern”.

Elaine Dale, the director of SEND support and college nursery, explains that these values and this language emanate from a “creative excellence” leadership development programme the college ran in 2010. “We realised quickly that inclusion wasn’t limited to SEND, but had to be about a culture of inclusion for everyone.”

It isn’t simply a way of working that a visitor encounters here. You walk into a culture. It has roots. It has had time and space to grow, to take wrong turns, to overcome challenges and to keep going. It reaches for the sky while nurturing its soil. I ask Peasgood, the chief executive, what she thinks the secret ingredient to her team’s coherence and drive are. Her answer: “Success comes from culture. My job is to make that culture part of everyone’s DNA.”

It’s not an easy place to work, but it is a great place to work.

And despite her humility – because, in fact, of her humility – it is clear how she has achieved it. The belief in Norfolk’s community and the language of “zero blame” are hers. Talking the talk is the easy bit, and walking the walk is harder, but for Peasgood, it’s important to go further still. “It’s not just what you say, but how you say it,” she says. To lead like that truly is a very visible high-wire act, and that’s why you need a strong safety net. In her executive team, she has exactly that.

Cash-strapped college appoints accountant as interim principal

A financially troubled college being looked into by the FE Commissioner has appointed an experienced FE leader and chartered accountant as its interim principal.

Diane Dimond, who retired from the Ofsted grade two Petroc College last month after being at the helm since 2015, will take the reins at Richmond-upon-Thames College on 1 October.

Her appointment comes after former principal Robin Ghurbhurun left in July for “personal reasons”, around the same time of a visit from the FE Commissioner amid financial concerns.

FE Week understands the commissioner’s routine diagnostic assessment of the college was elevated into a more comprehensive inquiry, and a report on his findings is due to be published in the coming months.

A college spokesperson has today confirmed: “Richmond-upon-Thames College is working closely with the FE Commissioner’s office with a view to ensuring the future success of the college.”

Dimond led Petroc when it was named college of the year in FE Week’s NICDEX league table in 2018. Prior to joining Petroc in 2011, she was the director for finance at New College Swindon, a job she held for four years.

The Richmond-upon-Thames College spokesperson said Dimond is a qualified teacher as well as a chartered accountant, and has a “strong track record of driving and maintaining good and outstanding financial health in the colleges she has worked for”.

Dimond is undertaking the role through her new job as a management consultant for FE Associates.

The FE Commissioner’s inquiry into RuTC comes after it generated a £2.4 million deficit in 2017/18.

Between November 2016 and April 2017, the college had to make use of an overdraft facility of £750,000, which was fully paid back in May 2017.

On top of that, it has seen a 47 per cent decline in 16 to 18 learner numbers between 2014/15 and 2018/19, which equates to a 38 per cent decline in funding over that period, according to ESFA allocations.

But this did not stop work starting on a new £80 million campus building in June 2018.

The spokesperson said: “The first phase of the new campus development is on track for completion this academic year.”

RuTC has boasted this first phase of the project would include a TV studio, theatre, 3D prototyping fabrication laboratory, art gallery, 60-cover silver service Chef’s Academy with views over Twickenham, spa and wellness centre, sports centre and digital golf studio.

RuTC was previously in FE Commissioner-led financial intervention from November 2015 until July 2016.

Last week it was announced that Ghurbhurun will soon take up a role as managing director of further education and skills at education technology company Jisc.

After he left RuTC, he was replaced by deputy principal Jason Jones on an interim basis; Jones will return to his previous job once Dimond starts.

Parents are key to unlocking HE potential

Parents are the most important influencers when a student decides about higher education, says Bart Shaw. It’s time to get them on board

As enrolment season ends and students get into the groove of their courses, keen eyes will already be looking to the horizon for what comes next. Efforts to support students from under-represented groups into higher education need to start early, and they need to be well-focused and evidencebased.

But competing pressures – not least dramatic budget cuts across the sector – make that job increasingly challenging. It’s time to call in the reinforcements.

When it comes to students’ decisions about HE, our research shows that parents are the most important influencers. Students are looking for advice that takes into account their own personalities and that is grounded in a deep understanding of what might suit them as individuals. Unsurprisingly, family members are best placed to do this. Advice from external sources is less likely to hit the mark.

When it comes to students’ decisions about HE, parents are the most important influencers.

Over the past few years, we have spoken to hundreds of students about their next steps. They have consistently emphasised that their parents are their most trusted sources of information and often the “makers or breakers” for students weighing options. Students in Teesside, for example, explained that their sense that colleges or universities are “selling” HE courses was a major turn-off.

Many parents can hold sceptical views about HE, sometimes based on misconceptions. Our 2018 report on parental engagement with university outreach showed that although most, regardless of socio-economic group, want their children to go to university, they also have deep fears about debt, living costs and employment prospects. While colleges can and should address gaps in students’ knowledge about HE, the messages students receive at home will either reinforce or undermine any such efforts. That is why it is crucial to work with parents to understand their concerns and develop their knowledge. This is particularly the case when working with students whose parents do not have first-hand experience of HE. Colleges should think about three main things.

First, they should help parents plan ahead for conversations about HE. There’s no better time than the present to provide basic information about pathways their college courses might lead on to, and the basics about the language of HE. For example, what is an apprenticeship? What are the differences between different levels of apprenticeship? What is the difference between HE and FE? What is the difference between a foundation degree and other degrees? What do BA and BSc mean?

Next, colleges should provide detailed support around some of the things parents worry about most. Gaps in knowledge about finance, living away from home and job prospects can drive inequitable access further down the line.

Colleges therefore need to address common worries such as whether students will struggle to complete their HE course if they take part-time work, or the perceived pressure from student debt to take a low-paid job after graduation.

Finally, and perhaps hardest of all, colleges should work with universities to make sure parents are included in widening participation activities. Visits to universities should include an option for parents to come along where appropriate, and colleges can work with universities to offer parents’ sessions within the college.

The University of Bath, for example, builds activities for parents into its outreach programme, and provides contact details to allow parents to access advice at times that suit them. Given many low-income parents’ unpredictable and complex work patterns, such opportunities need to be offered many times throughout the day.

The solution to the problem of widening participation is standing on our doorsteps. Supporting students in their decision-making around HE means supporting their parents at the same time. It might mean doing some things differently, but with parents fighting on our side, there’s no destination on the horizon that can stay out of students’ reach.

Part Time Variable Hours Tutor of Early Years