Overall learner satisfaction with FE providers slightly increased this year, according to new government figures.
The Department for Education released the results of its 2018/19 online student survey this morning, which showed 82 per cent of all learners would recommend their training provider and college to friends or family.
Private training providers scored 88.2 out of 100 for their overall satisfaction rating, compared with 81 for general FE colleges.
Overall satisfaction with all FE providers increased compared to last year, from 86.2 per cent in 2017/18 to 86.5 per cent.
Apprenticeships and skills minister Anne Milton said: “It’s great to see that 82% of all learners would recommend their training provider to friends or family.
“Further education providers play a vital role making sure people of all ages and backgrounds can gain the skills they need to go on to have successful careers.
“We will continue to work with providers to make sure more people receive the best education and training possible and standards remain high.”
The survey had 345,174, representing 19 per cent of the eligible population of 1,735,478.
The government has finally revealed details of the first phase of the national retraining scheme, with the launch of a new digital service that will act as a course and job directory.
Initially heavily restricted to only include people from the Liverpool City Region, adults will be invited to test the system if they are aged 24 or over, do not hold a degree and earn “low and medium wages”.
A private beta website, called Get Help to Retrain – similar to Hotcourses – has gone live today and will aim to help eligible adults identify their existing skills before signposting them with local English and maths functional skills courses and job opportunities.
This is big and complex challenge, which is why we are starting small
Once the trial and service has been fully evaluated, it will be scaled up and rolled out nationally by early 2020.
It is the first real detail of the long-awaited scheme, which was first promised in June 2017 as a manifesto commitment and has been backed with an initial £100 million by the Treasury.
But the government is still unable to say what it will look like at steady state – with education secretary Damian Hinds today admitting the Department for Education will be “learning as we go”.
A DfE spokesperson said Get Help to Retrain is the first of a “series of products” that are being developed and tested in parallel, before being released at different times to make up the full national retraining scheme.
Skills minister Anne Milton spoke to FE Week ahead of Get Help to Retrain’s launch, and said the department is “starting in a very small way because the most important thing is to build up user feedback as we go”.
“What we need to do is get something up, find out how useful people find it and find out what more they want,” she added.
The DfE said it has worked closely with Liverpool City Region to devise a list of eligible colleges and other training providers who will participate in the Get help to Retrain trial.
Initially, users will be “signposted to functional skills courses”, funded by the adult education budget, and “delivered by these providers through National Career Service advisors”.
The aim is to integrate the National Careers Service course directory into the service in the future.
To identify existing abilities of adults, Get Help to Retrain will “contain high quality job profiles that help people understand their skills from the jobs they currently do and identify related potential new jobs they could move into”.
When the complete national retraining scheme is in place, the DfE expects it to offer a mix of functional skills provision, online learning, tailored advice and guidance, and on-the-job technical retraining “similar to the delivery approach of the apprenticeship programme”.
The service will “support people from the moment they decide to consider retraining, until the moment they have secured a better job”.
Milton told FE Week that users will stay in their existing job while they retrain, and the new digital service trial will find out what flexibilities are needed to ensure this is practical.
“It is exactly that sort of issue that we need to find out more about,” she said.
Damian Hinds
“Anybody who is retraining is probably going to have to do it alongside their existing job. So, how do we make sure that is training that people can fit around busy lives? They might be a single parent, have child care responsibilities or looking after an elderly adult.”
She continued: “You can’t just offer online training. There needs to be more than that but at times that people can do it. Maybe online with some mentoring support, maybe online with some ed-tech support, but that is exactly why we’re launching this in a very small way.
“What we need to find out in these early stages are the flexibilities that providers and adults need.”
Hinds said the scheme will be “pivotal in helping adults across the country whose jobs are at risk of changing to gain new skills and get on the path to a new, more rewarding career”.
The scheme is led and overseen by the National Retraining Partnership – which includes government, the Confederation of British Industry and the Trades Union Congress.
Iain Murray, senior policy offer at the TUC, told the education select committee in January that the scheme could cost “billions” to run when it is at steady state.
More than half the providers of two care worker apprenticeship standards are decreasing their starts, or pulling the programmes altogether, due to the government’s refusal to increase their funding.
That’s according to a new Association of Employment and Learning Providers survey, which says providers of the level 2 adult care worker and level 3 lead adult care worker standards believe the £3,000 funding bands render both of them “totally unviable”.
Many other providers said they are being forced to introduce “cost efficiencies” such as fewer in-person monitoring visits, increasing ratios of tutor to learner or charging employers more.
“The government has got to sort this out now,” said AELP chief executive Mark Dawe.
He warned the problems with the apprenticeships were part of a “full-blown crisis” in the care sector, which is going to get “even worse”.
This is after the All-Party Parliamentary Group on social care reported this week as many as 500,000 unqualified people could be passing themselves off as trained care workers, putting millions of senior citizens at risk.
The AELP wants Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE) to immediately review the funding bands for the two standards, with a view to increasing the level 2 band to £4,500 and the level 3 one to £5,400, based on the average responses to the survey.
In May, a review by the institute kept the bands for the two standards at £3,000, despite calls for it to be doubled.
This caused a significant provider of the two, Professional Training Solutions, to stop recruiting apprentices to the programme, as previously revealed by FE Week.
The provider’s managing director Jackie Denyer said she was working at a 9 per cent loss upon achievement, and a 30 per cent loss if an apprentice did not achieve, at the current funding band.
Officials were accused of undervaluing the care sector, with Jill Whittaker, the managing director of HIT Training, branding the decision a “disgrace”.
IfATE said it is “fully committed to supporting apprenticeships at all levels and across all industry routes”.
“The aim with all standards that go through the funding review process is to ensure the funding band we recommend provides for quality apprenticeship training and assessment,” a spokesperson added.
“Each standard is considered on its own merits following the same rigorous processes. This was the case with the care standards.”
FE Week has asked the institute if it is now looking to increase the care standard funding rates following sector criticism.
A total of 99 per cent of the 137 providers who answered the AELP’s question on whether the £3,000 funding band was sufficient believe it is not sufficient for the level 3 standard, while 96 per cent believe the same for the level 2 standard.
A total of 59 per cent of respondents reported they are either reducing the number of apprentices they train, or are withdrawing the programme from their provision.
One respondent said it “cannot deliver a quality product at this cost” and the standard of training will slip if providers cut corners, which will impact upon the welfare of the care industry.
Another problem is the lack of suitable alternative programmes: while there are some relevant diploma courses which are well-regarded, the funding for them is very limited and the courses do not always provide the work-readiness employers are looking for.
Respondents to the AELP survey are currently training over 20,000 level 2 and around 17,000 level 3 care workers.
The AELP said in stark contrast to the current funding rate for care standards, the IfATE has approved a funding band of £5,000 for a level 2 animal care and welfare assistant apprenticeship programme.
“Without wishing to sound facetious, properly caring for Tiddles for some reason attracts 66 per cent more funding for an apprenticeship than training a person to care for the elderly members of our community,” Dawe said.
“I can’t imagine that the policymakers would want their own family members to be at risk, so let’s get our priorities right.”
It’ll be an overflowing in-tray for Jennifer Coupland, but Tom Bewick believes he knows the most urgent task
The chief executive-designate of the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education, Jennifer Coupland, faces a large in-tray. At the Federation of Awarding Bodies we have tried to resist throwing brick-bats at the organisation – preferring instead to work more collaboratively with officials, via cross-agency bodies, such as the Quality Alliance.
Like any start-up business, the institute has had to deliver on the twin challenges of setting up a panoply of employer working groups, various internal processes and systems, while remaining outward looking and delivering for their customer base. It is fair to say that they have not always pulled it off. Sir Gerry Berragan has provided exemplary personal leadership by placing a steady hand on the tiller since 2017, particularly as the storm clouds gathered around the full roll-out of the Richard Review reforms. As the apprenticeship levy came into effect, the number of apprentices on programmes plummeted. A financial innovation in terms of how large employers pay for apprenticeships – a 0.5% payroll tax – coincided with a major curriculum reform. Both the provider base and employers have had to adapt to new competency-based standards as the old frameworks have been steadily switched-off.
Professional bodies that have been given the EQA role should have this remit removed
The big-bang approach to skills reform was always destined to result in some challenging implementation issues. Perhaps this has not been helped by the institute itself communicating poorly with its stakeholders, preferring instead to execute a more rigid chain of command model. Their ways of working have lacked agility, responsiveness and the necessary transparency on occasion. As Jack Welsh, former chairman of General Electric, once said: “Hierarchy is an organisation with its face towards the CEO and its ass towards the customer.” The appointment of a career civil servant from the Department for Education to the new CEO role at the institute means she will have her work cut out to tackle some widespread scepticism of the organisation’s ability to be more collegiate. For those who have worked with Jennifer Coupland, they will know that she has a certain steely determination and is fully across the policy and operational detail.
The danger for the sector is that the institute becomes even more the creature of the Department, with the top-down chain of command culture solidified and put more firmly in place. That would be a pity when there are already some positive signs that the institute is opening up. A furore was made at the institute’s chief operating officer, Rob Nitsch and his PowerPoint presentation on the levy funds running out. But in reality, what he did was laudable, helping to open up an important national conversation (which is still going on) about who and what the apprenticeship levy is for. The push-back and re-think on bringing in external quality assurance (EQA) charges from September is another good example that shows officials are now listening.
As the country awaits its next Conservative prime minister, the DfE no doubt anticipates a whole new crop of political masters, from the secretary of state downwards. At the top of the in-tray will be sorting out the administration of the levy, including its longer term financial sustainability; followed closely by the current Horlicks that is the system of EQA.
Having a competitive marketplace in EQA providers has been an unmitigated disaster. Speaking to end-point assessment organisations, I’ve come across far too many tales of different charging, inspection and data collection regimes, bringing into disrepute the whole concept of securing public confidence in apprentices and their competencies. After all, the government does not insist on a competitive marketplace in quality assurance when it inspects our schools, prisons and hospitals. So it is sheer madness to implement such a model for publicly funded apprenticeships.
Professional bodies that have been given the EQA role should have this remit removed from them by the end of the year. There are other ways to tap into professional bodies and the potential sector-based expertise that they can bring. We should not have to turn them into quasi-regulators when that job is already done by statutory bodies and regulators like the institute and Ofqual. Securing quality in apprenticeships is a public good. We should pay for external quality assurance as a national infrastructure cost. It should always be delivered in the public interest and not for private gain.
Ten trade unions are involved in a dispute with a cash-strapped college that trains “thousands” of their members each year, after several unionists were suspended or were threatened with redundancy.
Their leaders have written to Ruskin College after the University and College Union said branch officer and lecturer Lee Humber was sacked on 12 July for circulating information about a motion of no confidence in principal Paul Di Felice, which passed days before Humber was suspended.
The vote of no confidence was brought due to alleged threats of redundancy hanging over the heads of tutors whose courses “do not recruit sufficient students”, and because of what the union called Di Felice’s continued “mismanagement and general incompetence”.
Three other union representatives, who are staff members at the college, have been placed under disciplinary investigation and two union members have been placed at risk of redundancy, according to the UCU.
In the letter, leaders of ten unions speak of their “profound concerns about the way Ruskin College management appears to be victimising UCU trade union reps”.
Ruskin College states on its website that it “continues to have close ties with the Trade Unions, a relationship that has seen thousands of Trade Unionists educated at the college each year and many of Ruskin’s alumni go on to take key positions on trade unions bodies”.
It has refuted allegations that it has victimised union representatives, and said its ongoing disciplinary investigations into staff are not related to any of their trade union activity.
Ruskin’s managers “continue to pursue positive dialogue with the UCU to bring a swift resolution” to the dispute, the spokesperson continued.
But they said it would be “inappropriate and unfair” to make any further comment on this matter while investigations are ongoing.
It has been claimed the college wants to get rid of four posts, which the UCU believes will lead to the withdrawal of all the higher education courses that have traditionally been run by the college for trade unionists.
“We are concerned this course of action is not only wrong in itself, but also risks undermining the founding principles of the institution,” the letter reads.
The college spokesperson said the redundancies that have been announced will only affect those teaching on courses with poor recruitment and retention and have nothing to do with trade union activity by the involved staff members.
Ruskin has only recently climbed out of financial difficulty, having had to approve a recovery plan in November 2017 to address “severe solvency issues faced and the significant historic operating deficits incurred by the College over many years,” its 2017/18 accounts say.
It achieved a surplus of £221,000 that year, after generating a deficit of over half a million pounds in 2016/17.
It has faced further problems during 2018, when it was subject to an FE Commissioner report which criticised Ruskin College’s past failure to address the deficits.
Commissioner Richard Atkins also commented on the low student numbers and the under-utilised areas of the college.
However, while claiming they are trying to address areas with low student numbers, the UCU’s acting general secretary Paul Cottrell said staff have made it clear they have “no faith in the direction the college’s management is heading”.
He accused Ruskin of “lurching” from educating and nurturing trade unionists to sacking them.
A meeting between the UCU and the college has been scheduled for Friday, and the union has warned that unless managers step back, it will consider calling for unions to boycott the college.
The trade union leaders which signed the letter are:
Ian Lawrence (Chair of TUCG, and General Secretary, NAPO)
The new chief executive of the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education is top skills civil servant Jennifer Coupland.
She is currently the director of professional and technical education in the Education and Skills Funding Agency, and was previously acting chief executive of the Standards Testing Agency.
Prior to that Coupland spent three years as the deputy director of the Apprenticeships Unit where she was responsible for apprenticeship reform including creating new apprenticeship trailblazers, degree apprenticeships and the public sector apprenticeship duty.
She will replace current chief executive Sir Gerry Berragan, who was appointed to the post in 2017 and completes his two year contract in November 2019.
“I am really excited about taking on this new role later in the year,” Coupland said.
“For the past two years I have been working closely with Sir Gerry and seeing at first-hand the great work the Institute is doing, and the great people that work there.
“I am looking forward to leading the Institute into the future of technical education – delivering the first wave of T-levels; working closely with employers to develop apprenticeships that deliver for our learners and our economy; and making England the standard for high-quality technical education.”
Skills minister Anne Milton said Coupland has shown “outstanding leadership on the vital work to deliver the new T-levels” and “was also closely involved previously in our reform programme for apprenticeships”.
“I have no doubt that she has exactly the right skills and knowledge we need to lead the Institute through its next phases of its development,” she added.
“I wish her every success in her new role.”
Antony Jenkins, chair of the institute, said Coupland has a “huge wealth of knowledge and experience in further education and, in particular, apprenticeships that will be integral to further developing the work of the Institute”.
“She will already be a familiar face to many of the people in the Institute and I am sure they, like me, are looking forward to working with her more closely,” he added.
“I should also like to thank Sir Gerry for his excellent work as chief executive. He has made a huge contribution to the work of the Institute.”
Mark Dawe, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said his organisation was “delighted” with the appointment of Coupland, and is “really excited to be working with her”.
“We hope that this will be the dawn of a new era at the Institute which will combine practical common sense and good policy implementation,” he added.
The Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education has pushed back its £40 per learner charge for apprenticeship quality assurance to November and committed to reviewing the arrangement in the longer-term.
It follows sector criticism of the “unfair” charge, which outraged assessment organisations after they were originally told it would be implemented from September.
They had received no formal communication and only heard about it when the institute’s chief operating officer Robert Nitsch mentioned it during his speech at the Association of Employment and Learning Provider’s conference in June.
Time is needed over the summer to look at the whole future of external quality assurance
After raising concerns in a letter to the institute’s chief executive Sir Gerry Berragan earlier this month, the boss of the Federation of Awarding Bodies, Tom Bewick, has today received a response.
“We appreciate that end-point assessment organisations (EPAO) will need time to adapt to the introduction of this charge and in some cases to discuss it with employers,” Berragan’s letter, seen by FE Week, said.
“As such, we have reviewed our roll-out plan and determined that we will now implement charging from 1 November 2019; we will also provide three-months’ notice of any changes in the future.
“We will be taking the opportunity of the time this now gives us to strengthen our communications with external quality assurance (EQA) organisations and also employers; we will be writing to all EPAOs in the next few days.”
A spokesperson for the institute confirmed to FE Week that despite opposition from FAB and AELP, the charge will apply retrospectively to apprentices already on programme, not just new starters.
Berragan’s letter said in the “longer-term”, funding arrangements will be “considered within our on-going discussions with Ofqual and Office for Students regarding opportunities for simplifying and optimising EQA”.
And working with the ESFA, the institute will “also continue to assess the suitability of all aspects of the charging arrangements within the apprenticeship system”.
Bewick wants EQA of apprenticeships to be treated as a “national infrastructure cost”.
He told FE Week that end-point assessment organisations will be “delighted that the institute has been pushed back into a re-think”.
“As Sir Gerry’s letter acknowledges, time is needed over the summer to look at the whole future of external quality assurance, and the federation will keep pushing for a more streamlined version of EQA linked to a mandatory and single compliance framework,” he said.
“We believe discussions need to continue between the institute and Ofqual as they look to combine remits and resources into something that does not result in a fragmented market for something as fundamental as securing public confidence in England’s reformed apprenticeship system.”
Tom Bewick
Approved EQA bodies monitor end-point assessment organisations (EPAOs), to ensure the process is “fair, consistent and robust”.
The EQAs are allowed to apply a charge as long as it is on a “cost-recovery basis”. FE Week revealed the “ridiculous variability” in these charges in February, which were criticised by sector leaders for ranging from a free service to £179 per apprentice.
Many across the FE sector have long called for Ofqual to be the sole provider of EQA. The exams regulator currently does EQA for 65 apprenticeship standards and offers the service for free.
The whole EQA and EPA system will be a big area to tackle for new IfATE boss Jennifer Coupland, who will become its chief executive in November when Berragan completes his two-year tenure.
A college involved in a bitter row over pay is facing weeks of staff walkouts when the new academic year starts – with plans for a mammoth 15 days of strike action during September and October.
Members of the University and Colleges Union are angry about new contracts being offered by Nottingham College, which it claims would leave over 80 staff more than £1,000 a year worse off.
The union said its members were furious at the college’s “deplorable tactic” of threatening to dismiss staff who refuse to sign up to them.
It said staff had made their frustrations clear at a meeting last week where they unanimously backed the extensive walkouts.
The strikes will start with a one day walkout on Wednesday 11 September, escalating to strikes of two, three, four and five days in subsequent weeks.
Staff at the college walked out for a one-day strike on 1 July.
UCU said the proposed contracts would also see all staff lose up to eight days’ holiday, cuts to sick pay, and the removal of an agreement designed to protect staff against work overload.
A spokesperson added that staff at the college have not received a pay rise since 2010.
UCU head of further education, Andrew Harden, said: “UCU members at Nottingham College are furious at the way they are being treated. Threatening dismissal in order to strong-arm staff into signing a new contract is a deplorable tactic that we haven’t seen in further education for many years, and one which our members will resist with full force.
“The college is completely out of step with what is happening elsewhere in the sector, where we have been working positively with good employers to improve conditions for staff.
“In announcing 15 days of action, staff at the college are sending a clear message that they will not be cowed by their employer. If the college wants to avoid serious disruption it needs to start negotiating with us in earnest.”
A Nottingham College spokesperson said: “We are saddened that our UCU colleagues have voted to pursue further and extensive strike action. Everybody in the college cares passionately about providing our students with the best possible education and we are continuing to talk to UCU in an attempt to reach a collective agreement and avoid any further strike action.
“While we respect the rights of our staff to take industrial action our priority will be to ensure we do everything we can to ensure students’ studies, health, safety and welfare are not affected.
“The college will remain open as usual throughout any industrial action.”
With the government about to reopen the window in which sixth-form colleges can academise, Jess Staufenberg asks how the process has worked out for the first principal who did so.
Matthew Grant, the principal of Priestley College in Warrington, was awoken at 7am by two texts: “Let’s do it”, was the gist of the messages sent by a couple of secondary headteachers.
It was 2016, and the day after the government announced that sixth-form colleges could academise and form a trust.
Priestley College lost little time in becoming the first in the country to become a converter academy, though it has kept its full name.
Grant helped set up the Challenge Academy Trust which includes Priestley, two primary and five secondary schools, with Grant as chief executive.
Year 12/13 pupil completing a painting for her Extended Diploma Art and Design course
The aim was to lift the attainment of pupils and to secure the financial viability of the institutions in the trust. Has it worked?
The question comes at a pertinent time for sixth-form colleges (SFCs), because the government is set to re-open the window in which they may academise.
Converting and therefore not having to pay VAT has been possible for nearly all SFCs for four years now, but the window of opportunity closed in March, when the £726 million restructuring fund designed to help colleges implement area review changes ended.
Since then, the Sixth Form Colleges Association (SFCA) has campaigned for an end to the “arbitrary” deadline and, as FE Week reported last month, their wish looks likely to be granted.
So, will more sixth-form colleges follow Priestley College’s example?
Many already have, according to SFCA: up until February this year, 23 SFCs had academised, of which three are in single academy trusts, and five have joined existing multi-academy trusts; the other 15 have helped set up academy trusts.
A further 54 SFCs remain private corporations – at least for now.
The saving on VAT is usually swallowed up in the running costs of the college
Grant believes that being instrumental in setting up the academy trust was key to the success of not just the college, but also the trust.
“Where I’ve heard there might be issues with academising is where a sixth-form college has joined an existing academy trust and all the trustees are already in post, all the policies are there, and there’s no opportunity to influence the culture or the way it operates.
“We’ve ensured our trustees didn’t come mainly from one organisation within the trust.”
Although there are 55 sponsors of academy trusts from the “FE sector” in England, according to government data (some of which are sixth-form colleges), Priestley College is not one of them.
Making the Challenge Academy Trust sponsor-led would have given Priestley College sole responsibility for improving the other schools; instead, a central team drawn from all eight institutions in the trust is collectively responsible for driving improvement.
“If we were the ones sponsoring the trust, there would be a very limited pool of people with expertise outside 16-19,” explains Grant.
“I’m not putting my teachers in secondary schools telling them how to do key stage 4! If you’re the sponsor, you’ve then got to buy in people to help those schools, like external consultants. But they can walk away.”
Priestley College students
Bill Watkin, SFCA chief executive, says that colleges that decide to become sponsors often face a “moral conundrum” about whether to second their subject experts to failing schools or “protect the mothership” by ensuring their own students still have access to the best experts.
“If a college does engage in outreach work, it needs to make sure there is sufficient personnel so you don’t take your eye off the ball at home.”
By not being the trust sponsor, it seems to me that Priestley College has the right amount of influence within the trust without too much responsibility.
The college has worked in equal partnership with all schools in the trust and has not had to buy in consultants, Grant points out.
That has left the formerly incorporated college to advise on what it knows best: financial acumen.
Under Grant’s guidance, all the schools moved to new payroll providers, a new insurance company, and appointed new internal auditors.
A number of schools have new contracts with a catering provider and new photocopier contracts.
Surely this is the stuff of academies that minister Lord Agnew’s dreams of.
“With some of the existing contracts I was thinking, ‘How did you manage to sign this?’,” says Grant.
On top of that, the college is saving about £250,000 a year by not having to pay VAT.
Grant is clear the VAT is peanuts in comparison to the real financial boost, which comes from increased student numbers. Again, Watkin echoes him.
“The saving on VAT is usually swallowed up in the running costs of the college anyway. When it gets its VAT money back, it often just means it can now afford to repair its buildings.”
The real win for Priestley College, which has almost 2,000 learners, is that it has a 7 per cent increase in student applications for next year.
Recruitment problems in certain subjects, such as modern foreign languages, can also be tackled early on: the two primary schools have a focus on languages that will secure a “supply chain” of learners in later years, says Grant.
Meanwhile, two more primary schools are looking to join the trust.
A-Level Biology pupils studying microscopy, examining cells at different stages of cell division
The drive for efficiency across the trust has also had a clear impact: one of its secondaries, Bridgewater High School, is closing its sixth-form this year, meaning that 30 students will be looking for post-16 places in Priestley College or elsewhere.
This year about one-third of post-16 learners across Warrington moved to the college, and about half of students from the trust’s five secondary schools did so.
“That’s more than we used to get,” notes Grant.
The beneficial impact appears to be mutual. SATs results across the primaries, which have not yet been released, have improved, says Grant.
With its large staff body, Priestley College has also contributed significant expertise to the trust’s English, maths and science hubs.
Watkin is clear that sixth-form colleges are “often seen as a major asset to a trust, because although they sit in the FE sector, they teach a schools curriculum, including A-levels.”
Their average size of 2,000 learners allows sixth-form colleges to boast of a broad A-level offer, another bonus for the trust’s image.
There’s so much to gain from forming a trust
Priestley College has been rewarded for its efforts with a grade 2 at its latest Ofsted inspection in May.
But Grant says that conversion hasn’t all been plain sailing.
The main issue has been administrative, with the Education and Skills Funding Agency demanding “a lot more” information returns from the college.
A new unique reference number also led to delays to adult learner loans and a mix-up with progress data.
But the greatest frustration is that not everyone understands what an academy converter sixth-form college is, says Grant.
He describes the recent Ofsted visit: “The inspector said, ‘The ESFA and the FE commissioner will be in touch’. I said, ‘You mean the regional schools commissioner?’ A lot of exam boards, the ESFA and Ofsted – they’ve struggled to understand exactly what we are.”
But for him, it’s a minor drawback.
“There’s so much to gain from forming a trust, I don’t know personally why people wouldn’t.”
As the window to academise looms closer, Watkin reflects: “Sixth-form colleges won’t be thinking about academisation as a financial escape route. It’s about working more closely with local schools and exporting their strengths.”
