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Team UK has made a good start on the road to medal success, after completing the first day of the four-day WorldSkills 2019 competition in Kazan.

Speaking to FE Week, hairdresser Phoebe McLavy said the day went “really, really well”.

“I am really pleased with the tests I have done, so I am feeling very confident, very excited and ready for tomorrow”.

FE Week first interviewed Phoebe at her training salon, Reds Hair Company in Gloucestershire, amidst an 85-day preparation course for the tournament, where she is competing against over 30 others.

The course also involved taking part in competitions in Thailand and Canada, and practising various cuts, including a wet shave and bridal hair.

Today, she had to do a men’s cut and dye the hair on a mannequin, as well as cut and colour female hair in a ‘fashionable style’.

“I had not practised the styles much, but a little bit of each style, so I just incorporated them into the plan,” Phoebe said.

Watching Phoebe today was her tutor from Coleg Sir Gar, Adrienne Chick, who had spoken to Phoebe the night before and described her as being in “good spirits”. 

“She has worked hard for this and I think Phoebe is someone who takes things in her stride, one day at a time.”

Adrienne added that: “As long as she enjoys it and does her best, that’s all that matters.”

Team UK’s cabinet maker Owen Aldous has been competing against around 30 others under the watchful eyes of his bosses George Callow and Luke Griffiths, former WorldSkills competitors.

Ex-cabinet making hopefuls Luke, who competed at WorldSkills 2009 in Calgary, and George, who won gold at WorldSkills 2013 in Leipzig, said their employee had “matured very quickly” after joining WorldSkills UK, and it was a “great experience for him”.

Owen, who like the two is from Chichester College, said: “It was really nice for them to be here, as we had a good chat about techniques.”

Besides that, Owen believes the day went “quite well,” and was only let down by a couple of mistakes.

He has been tasked with making a side table with two drawers, and today he cut a groove in the wrong place so it will be showing; and he cut something too short, so he will have to make it longer.

But, he said he was still confident going into the second day: “It should be OK by the end and it’s too late to get annoyed by it.”

FE Week is proud to be the official media partner for WorldSkills UK and Team UK. FE Week will bring you all the latest developments in the lead up to WorldSkills 2019 and will be onsite in Kazan to bring rolling coverage of Team UK’s progress.

To find out more about the what, when and why of WorldSkills, read our handy guide.

Pictured: Owen Aldous

Team UK has been flying the flag at the dazzling opening ceremony for WorldSkills Kazan 2019.

Team UK joined a parade of national teams at the opening of tonight’s ceremony, and were cheered on by family, friends and team experts.

TEAM UK IS HERE!!! pic.twitter.com/P0dqyvmKIk

— FE Week (@FEWeek) August 22, 2019

More than 50,000 people attended the ceremony, which was held at the Kazan Arena the day before the tournament, which runs from Friday until Monday.

The audience were treated to live musical and dance performances, as well as an appearance by Saudi Arabia’s Robot Sophia, the world’s only android with citizenship and a passport. 

Through a specially made app, the attendees could witness the spectacle with augmented reality.

This, at one point, included a giant whale swimming towards the audience.

Throughout the show, bakers on a portable kitchen travelled around the arena, baking a traditional Russian loaf which was completed before the end of the show.

The ceremony was officially opened by Russian prime minister Dimitri Medvedev.

WorldSkills president Simon Bartley also addressed the audience and said: “What our competitors show is that skills change lives”. 

FE Week is proud to be the official media partner for WorldSkills UK and Team UK. FE Week will bring you all the latest developments in the lead up to WorldSkills 2019 and will be onsite in Kazan to bring rolling coverage of Team UK’s progress.

To find out more about the what, when and why of WorldSkills, read our handy guide.

Figures published this morning for those aged 17 and over in England that sat GCSE English show the pass rate fell 2.7 percentage points to 30.3 and for GCSE mathematics the pass rate fell 1.4 percentage points to 21.2 (see table above).

Click here to download all JCQ provisional GCSE results.

More to follow…

The Federation of Small Businesses has chosen GCSE results day to call on the new Secretary of State, Gavin Williamson, to take urgent action to increase apprenticeship funding.

Their chief executive, Mike Cherry, points out that some students picking up their results today will now want to start an apprenticeship. But, he claims, their choices will be restricted as apprenticeship funding becomes increasingly scarce for small employers.

FE Week was first to report overall levy budget concerns, being shared privately by the Institute for Apprenticeships last December.

The biggest challenge attached to engaging with apprenticeships is the recruitment of an apprentice

The forecast of an overspend in 2020 was subsequently acknowledged by the National Audit Office and then during a Select Committee hearing by the top civil servant at the Department for Education.

Cherry said: “There are serious concerns about the likely exhaustion of the levy budget and the consequences for non-levy paying employers. Which is why the forthcoming spending review is crucial to ensuring that funds are replenished.”

“The new secretary of state must also do more to reduce the upfront costs attached to the recruitment of apprentices. Our research shows the biggest challenge attached to engaging with apprenticeships is the recruitment of an apprentice, with 42 per cent of smaller businesses with apprentices struggling with this.”

Employers with an annual pay bill below £3 million don’t pay the apprenticeship levy and they rely on funding being available from a limited pot set aside by the Department for Education.

The shortage will quickly become much worse unless the government delivers quickly on Boris Johnson’s funding promise

This latest intervention from the FSB will add further pressure on the Treasury and Department for Education to find more funding, following a recent survey of apprenticeship providers conducted by AELP and reported by FE Week, which found three quarters were running out of cash for small employers.

AELP chief executive Mark Dawe said at the time that “The clear message from apprenticeship providers is the shortage will quickly become much worse unless the government delivers quickly on Boris Johnson’s funding promise.”

Responding to the FSB demands a Department for Education spokesperson told FE Week: “Large businesses can now transfer up to 25% of their levy funds to smaller employers so they can invest in high-quality apprenticeship training for their staff. To help smaller employers manage their own apprenticeships more effectively, we are also bringing them onto the digital apprenticeship service from November.

“However, we are aware of the concerns raised by the FSB, which is why we asked the National Apprenticeship Service to work with the FSB to support smaller employers to recruit apprentices. We are also continuing to look carefully at the future priorities for the apprenticeship programme.”

France has won the right to host WorldSkills 2023 by a landslide after receiving more than double the votes for rival Japan.

The biennial competition will be heading to Lyon following Shanghai in 2021, after France won by 44 votes to 20.

All 82 countries are entitled to vote in the secret ballot.

Speaking at WorldSkills Kazan, where preparations are well underway for the competition this weekend, a WorldSkills France representative said they wanted their event to be “beautiful” and to contribute to the WorldSkills movement.

Lyon are old hands at WorldSkills, having already hosted the international skills competition in 1995.

Their bid document says the competition will be held at Lyon’s 14,000sq m EUREXPO centre and it proposes the competition be held between 13 and 16 September 2023.

Competitors will be housed at scientific research and engineering school INSA Lyon, which will be providing 2,000 beds.

WorldSkills UK chief executive Neil Bentley-Gockmann gave his congratulations to France, and said that while Kazan had set the bar high, he believed France could deliver “an amazing showcase for global skills excellence”. 

He continued: “Our participation in WorldSkills is more important than ever, because we need to learn from the best of the rest of the world to help upgrade our skills systems to world-class standards, not only to boost productivity, but also support more and more young people get the best start in work and life. The road from Kazan to Shanghai in 2021 and France in 2023 is vital to help the UK achieve its skills ambitions.”

FE Week is proud to be the official media partner for WorldSkills UK and Team UK. FE Week will bring you all the latest developments in the lead up to WorldSkills 2019 and will be onsite in Kazan to bring rolling coverage of Team UK’s progress.

To find out more about the what, when and why of WorldSkills, read our handy guide.

 

Team UK got the chance to see the WorldSkills flag relay, leave a permanent sign of their skills, and visit Kazan’s very own Kremlin today, a few days before WorldSkills 2019 begins.

Proving it’s not all floristry, painting and metalwork with WorldSkills UK, the 41-strong party of 37 competitors and four team leaders took in the sights of the venue city.

The two landscape gardener competitors got a chance to leave a permanent reminder of their visit by planting a tree at the site of the competition village.

Visual merchandising competitor Konnar Doyle said: “It’s great seeing different cultures, even different buildings like Kazan’s Kremlin.”

He said he was looking for the medallion of excellence “at an absolute minimum” in his competition, but he faces challenge from competitors who have been practising for years, while he has been at it for five months.

We were honoured to be asked to plant a tree in the village in which we’re staying @WorldSkillsKZN to commemorate the competition. Fortunately we had just the person for the job – Shea who is competing in #LandscapeGardening 🌲#bitwobbly #moresoilneeded pic.twitter.com/ljovDavSBA

— WorldSkills UK (@worldskillsuk) August 21, 2019

The medallion is given to competitors who score above 500 points, but do not achieve a bronze, silver or gold medal. 

Manufacturing team challenge competitor Isaac Khan said they had been tasked with building an electrical wheelchair for their competition, which will be tested around an 2.5km obstacle course, involving a 200mm step.

The team has a “good attitude”, he believed, and they would be happy with any result.

He said the competitors’ village was “bigger than they expected” but it was “fantastic to see everyone getting along”.

The WorldSkills flag relay took place at the competitors’ village this morning, after it has been to Russia’s space station, every country which has hosted a WorldSkills competition (with a short trip to Coleg Sir Gar in Wales), as well as the Madrid college which hosted the first WorldSkills competition in the the 1950s, and every region of Russia.

The flag consists of a WorldSkills logo and patches from everywhere it has visited.

FE Week is proud to be the official media partner for WorldSkills UK and Team UK. FE Week will bring you all the latest developments in the lead up to WorldSkills 2019 and will be onsite in Kazan to bring rolling coverage of Team UK’s progress.

To find out more about the what, when and why of WorldSkills, read our handy guide.

Pictured: Shea McFerran, one of the landscape gardening competitors, with the tree he has just planted

The Chartered Institution for Further Education looks to have broken its bye-laws set by the Privy Council after failing to publish its 2017-18 accounts.

FE Week has been repeatedly asking for their financial statements, which should have been signed off in December, since March.

The institution’s own bye-laws state that the ruling council “shall ensure at least once in every year the accounts of the institution shall be audited, and audited accounts published”.

After months of silence a spokesperson for the institution today said a “minor technical error” in its 2017/18 accounts had delayed their publication. The institution refused to say what this error was.

FE Week asked the Cabinet Office what repercussions the institution could face from the Privy Council, which set the institution’s bye-laws; but a spokesperson said the council has no enforcement role in respect of chartered bodies.

It is just the latest in a long line of problems for the CIFE.

The brainchild of former skills minister John Hayes, the institution was created to get high-achieving FE providers a royal seal of approval.

It took three years for the institute to attain chartered status, before finally achieving it in June 2015, and began accepting membership applications in November of that year; it claims to currently have 16 member organisations.

The Department for Education stopped funding for the institution in January, insisting the expectation was always that it should be financially independent.

However, by then the department had already handed the institution £1.5 million in subsidies since it was formed in 2012.

CIFE’s 16 members are far fewer than the 80 the institution’s former chief executive Dan Wright previously said it would need to be “completely free” of government subsidy.

In April, the institution admitted it had no members of staff and was relying on its ex-chief executive, working as a volunteer, to help the council members run the show.

The CIFE spokesperson said the institution “has undergone significant internal structural change over the last six months to move to a sustainable footing that does not rely on government funds”.

“During this time, we have focussed solely on implementing and cementing this change,” they continued, adding once the error is resolved, the accounts will be published.

Membership of the institution costs £5,000, but for interested parties there is also a £3,000 non-refundable fee to have an application reviewed in the first place.

Within the last few months, it has held a private inauguration ceremony in the City of London in May, where membership was conferred on a number of providers, including Warwickshire College Group, London South East Colleges and Bedford College.

At the ceremony, fellowships were conferred on Trafford College principal Lesley Davies, Working Mens College principal Helen Hammond and East Riding College principal Mike Welsh.

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Today, Team UK fly out to WorldSkills 2019 in Russia.  Here’s our short, but handy explainer about the competition, competitors and what chance Team UK has of topping the medal tables at the closing ceremony in 10 days time.

What is WorldSkills?

WorldSkills is a biennial competition that will this year take place (from Friday 23 to Monday 26 August) in the Russian city of Kazan and feature over a thousand competitors from over 60 countries taking part in 56 competitions based around trade skills.

The competition will be officially opened on Thursday 22 and Russian president Vladimir Putin is expected to attend.

A closing ceremony is on the following Tuesday, when WorldSkills will be handed over to representatives for WorldSkills 2021, which will be held in Shanghai.

Who is in Team UK?

Team UK is fielding 37 competitors in 32 competitions and will be competing for gold, silver or bronze medals in such varied disciplines as visual merchandising, restaurant service, and plastering and drywall systems.

The team members were whittled down from 150 apprentices and learners from all around the country, after they competed in heats in March and April.

Once the final team was chosen, the competitors were put through their paces at a boot camp at Loughborough University, where they are trained by a number of professional coaches.

Competitors were taught how to diet, exercise and sleep to get them in prime condition and then each morning in Kazan, the competitors will have to be up at 6.30 for Yoga and stretching.

They have also been trained up for the competitions by training managers, many of whom are former competitors themselves and have helped the competitors get acquainted with what will be expected of them in Kazan.

FE Week visited two training days in the final weeks before the competition: in Gloucester, with hairdressing hopeful Phoebe McLavy; and Toyota UK in Derby with mechatronics team mates Jack Dakin and Danny Slater.

What are the UK’s chances?

At the last WorldSkills competition, held in Abu Dhabi in 2017, the UK came tenth in the total medal points chart, with 21,261 points.

Team UK earned one gold medal, 3 silver medals, 3 bronze medals and 13 medallions for excellence.

The gold was won by Kaiya Swain, after she was voted the world’s best young beauty therapist.

This time around, the UK is hoping to come in the top 10 of countries yet again.

FE Week is the exclusive media partner of WorldSkills UK and will be reporting live from Kazan.

The new chief executive of the Baker Dearing Trust has defended the decision to nearly double the membership fee that university technical colleges have to pay.

The annual fee will increase from £5,500 to £10,000 from September.

The unexpected hike comes despite the majority of UTCs struggling to survive due to dwindling student numbers, a situation which has seen 12 of the institutions close since the programme launched in 2010.

“Like anybody when a bill goes up almost two-fold, it is on us to justify it”

A number of others have survived on government bailouts, while around half of the 48 UTCs which will still be open next month are now part of multi-academy trusts.

Simon Connell (pictured), who took over as chief executive of the charity behind the UTC programme this month, said the 14 to 19 providers have had “quite a good deal” up until now, and claimed the services that the licence fee covers have cost around £20,000 per college for the last few years.

These services include policy coordination with the Department for Education, analysis of student destinations and progress, national PR and marketing, free access to the Schools, Students and Teachers network and The Duke of York Award, and facilitating the sharing of best practice.

BDT also offers bespoke advisory support to individual UTCs in areas such as multi-academy trust rebrokerage, finances and student recruitment.

Despite the new fee still being well below the £20,000 cited by Connell, he promised that UTCs would be getting more for their money come September.

“I want to provide more support and advice to help UTCs to raise their own money, and another is a more formalised approach to the research we do,” he told FE Week.

“The other thing is raising the profile and celebrating these good student stories – so for every difficult story they read, we need to be celebrating some great student stories.

“Like anybody when a bill goes up almost two-fold, it is on us to justify it.”

The Baker Dearing Trust was set up by Lord Baker in 2010. Its income in 2017-18 was £2 million, while its expenditure totalled £1.7 million.

It relies heavily on donations from a range of charities with links to other Lords, such as the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, which was founded by David Sainsbury, also known as Baron Sainsbury of Turville.

Its accounts for 2017-18 show it received over £1.7 million from donations in that year, and just £272,000 from licence fees – just 14 per cent of its total income.

The biggest donation it received in that year was for £667,250 from the Edge Foundation.

In the same period, six UTCs received bailouts from the government totalling almost £1 million, while nearly every UTC had to hand funding back to the government after overestimating pupil numbers the year before.

Two UTCs, Heathrow Aviation Engineering and UTC Plymouth, had £994,000 in re-brokerage debts written off by the government between them in 2018-19.

As there will be 48 UTCs still open in September, Baker Dearing will see its income from licence fees rise to £480,000 next year.

“This fee increase has been discussed with us and we have agreed to it”

Connell said this gives the charity a “more even balance” in terms of where its income is brought in from.

He said all UTCs have been made aware of the price hike, and the reaction has been positive.

Asked for his thoughts on the hike in membership fee, Nick Crew, executive principal at The Sheffield UTC Academy Trust, which runs two UTCs, said: “We appreciate the support that we receive from Baker Dearing Trust. This fee increase has been discussed with us and we have agreed to it.”

While the majority of UTCs have struggled to recruit enough students to remain financially viable, many others have struggled to impress Ofsted – just 59 per cent of all inspected UTCs are currently rated ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’.

Connell, who took over as chief executive of BDT from Charles Parker this month, has made it his mission to improve this picture.

You can read his wide-ranging interview with FE Week in our first edition of 2019/20 in September.