Due to the uncertainty around the coronavirus outbreak, this year’s Festival of Education will be cancelled. A full statement from the event’s organisers – which includes FE Week’s publisher LSECT – and important details on refunds can be read below.

The Festival, at Wellington College, was first held in June 2010. This will be first time organisers have had to cancel the event, which was expected to host over 250 speakers and 5,000 education professionals from across the UK. International delegations were also expected from countries including China, Australia, India, Canada, Zimbabwe and USA.

The Festival’s sister events in China, due to be held in April across three cities, were cancelled earlier this year due to the impact of coronavirus.

Statement | Wellington College & Lsect

It is with a heavy heart that we have made the following decision regarding the 11th Festival of Education, due to be held on 18-19 June 2020 at Wellington College.

Due to the current uncertainty around Covid-19, we have decided to cancel this year’s Festival of Education. The next Festival of Education will now take place on 24-25 June 2021 at Wellington College.

Wellington College and Lsect are devastated by this decision, but it is the only viable option given the significant disruption and uncertainty caused by the current pandemic, Covid-19.

The Festival of Education is a year-long project and the next three months are crucial in terms of logistics, speaker management, sponsorship bookings and ticket sales. Given the current situation, we do not feel that we could stage the Festival of Education in the form our attendees and partners expect.

We’ve been overwhelmed by the interest in this year’s event, with record ticket sales and what was set to be an epic line-up! We would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who have worked with us in recent months. Your efforts have not been wasted, and we look forward to working with you over the coming year on next year’s Festival.

All tickets and exhibition stands purchased for this year’s Festival will be automatically transferred to the 2021 event. Refund requests will, of course, be accepted. Further information regarding tickets and sponsorship bookings is available on our website.

In the coming weeks, we will be announcing plans to broadcast some Festival content during the 18-19 June 2020 via the internet. Look out for further details.

On behalf of the Wellington College and Festival of Education Community, we apologise for any inconvenience and disappointment caused.

Best wishes during this difficult period,

James Dahl, Master, Wellington College & Iain Henderson, Deputy Head & Festival Director, Wellington College | Shane Mann, Managing Director & Festival Director, Lsect Ltd

Important information | Festival cancellation

Individual tickets

If you booked your tickets via our Eventbrite purchasing system and not part of a group booking, your ticket has automatically been transferred to the Festival of Education 2021. This event will take place on 24-25 June 2021 at Wellington College.

If you wish to attend next year’s Festival you do not need to do anything at this stage.

If you do not wish to attend this event and would like a refund for your tickets, this can be processed directly on Eventbrite (refer to your booking confirmation email) or alternatively please complete our refund request form. All refunds will be accepted and processed. This is a busy period and we will aim to respond within the next 4 weeks to confirm your cancellation.

Refund request form

Group Bookings

If you booked your tickets via our Group bookings system, your tickets have automatically been transferred to the Festival of Education 2021. This event will take place on 24-25 June 2021 at Wellington College.

If you wish to attend next year’s Festival you do not need to do anything at this stage.

If you do not wish to attend this event and would like a refund for your tickets, this can be processed – please complete our refund request form. All refunds will be accepted and processed. This is a busy period and we will aim to respond within the next 4 weeks to confirm your cancellation.

Refund request form

Exhibition and sponsorship sales

If you have made a booking for 2020, we will automatically transfer this booking over to the 2021 event. This event will take place on 24-25 June 2021 at Wellington College.

If you wish to cancel this booking please contact the Festival Partnership’s Manager, Adele Kilby (adele.kilby@lsect.com), who will be able to assist in processing any required refunds. This is a busy period and we will aim to respond within the next 4 weeks to confirm your refund.

Speakers

The speaker application process for 2021 will open in September 2020. The first round will be open for all those speakers who were successful in 2020. The second round will open in October and will be open to everyone.

Festival of Education Online

The Festival organisers will release further information in the next few weeks about Festival of Education content to be broadcast online during 18-19 June 2020.

We know this won’t have the same exciting buzz of the Festival, but we’re committed to provide you with some of the amazing content we had lined-up for 2020.

Another university technical college is scrapping its 14 to 19 age criteria and will start recruiting 13-year-olds from this September.

Greater Peterborough UTC (GPUTC) announced the change following “positive” feedback in a consultation. It opened in 2016.

Principal David Bisley explained it is “essential local young people passionate about science, technology, engineering, and maths are now able to come to our school at an even earlier age,” as Peterborough has “a significant emerging skills shortage within its engineering sector”.

He added: “Having a year 9 allows us the opportunity to embed the knowledge, skills and behaviours required to be a successful learner and gives the students the chance to experience a project-based learning approach before their GCSEs start in year 10.”

GPUTC was rated as ‘requires improvement’ by Ofsted in February 2019 partly because “too much emphasis was placed on maximising pupil numbers and too little attention was given to matching pupils’ interests and aspirations to the UTC’s curriculum”.

Having a year 9 allows us the opportunity to embed the knowledge, skills and behaviours required to be a successful learner

The college currently trains 261 pupils, according to the government’s Get Information About Schools site, against a capacity of 500.

Switching recruitment age from the original 14 to 19 is a growing trend among UTCs as they bid to tackle low student numbers, which in 11 cases has led to them shutting after becoming unviable.

The JCB Academy in Staffordshire and UTC Sheffield have both accepted students from year 9 since September 2018. The London Design and Engineering UTC has also begun accepting students from the age of 13.

UTCs in Plymouth and Wolverhampton, as well as The Leigh UTC in Dartford in Kent, have gone even earlier by enrolling pupils from year 7.

And in November 2019 FE Week revealed that applications for three new UTCs were in the works but, like a traditional school, students will join aged 11, rather than at 14.

While some sector leaders have encouraged UTCs to drop their recruitment age from 14, others, including former schools minister David Laws and former Department for Education minister Lord Agnew, have told them to lift it to 16, to allow them to differentiate themselves and avoid competing with academies.

The Baker Dearing Trust, which represents UTCs, has strongly opposed them expanding beyond the colleges’ original 14 to 19 model in the past.

But the trust’s chief executive Simon Connell (pictured) told FE Week last September that changing the entry age could be a “pragmatic solution” for colleges with low rolls, which need to up their capacity “significantly”.

A trust spokesperson has previously said it expects “many more UTCs to apply to extend their age range”, and they are supportive of UTCs wanting to do this “where it is appropriate”.

One of the main challenges for UTCs has been recruitment, with 39 previously being forced to hand back money to the government because they missed recruitment targets, leaving them with a combined debt of around £11 million.

A National Audit Office report published in October 2019 into UTCs calculated that the DfE has spent £792 million on the programme since it was launched by education secretary Lord Baker in 2010.

The controversial level 7 senior leader apprenticeship has again hit the headlines in recent days, after the education secretary questioned whether the £18,000 levy-funded MBA was “value for money”. The programme is traditionally associated with high profile universities running courses for executives in the corporate sector. But FE Week found it is an entrepreneur servicing schools that has now hit the MBA apprenticeship top spot so far this year…

David Cobb (pictured), who runs education-services organisation Oceanova, moved into the apprenticeships market in 2018.

One of his subsidiaries is a small London-based company called Captiva Learning, which trades as the National College of Education. It recorded the most senior leader 7 starts (180) out of all training providers on the standard in the first quarter of 2019/20.

This is the goose that lays the golden egg in terms of retention

Last year they recruited 250 individuals onto the programme. Overall they are the provider with the second biggest number of starts on the apprenticeship since its launch in February 2018 – pipping many top universities such as Middlesex and Exeter.

Government data shows Cranfield University has the largest number of starts, totalling 989 so far.

Captiva could earn up to £3 million from the 180 apprentices they recruited in September if they charged the standard’s upper funding rate of £18,000.

And when the 250 previous starts are combined, that income rises to over £7 million in less than two years.

Cobb is a well-known businessman in the schools sector, specialising in teacher recruitment and training. He is listed on Companies House as an “active” director for 15 firms.

All the higher level apprenticeships his company delivers are to school staff, mostly academy trust chief executives, headteachers and deputies.

He says while he has no numerical growth target, he does want to extend the offer further across England.

Defending the apprenticeship, he told FE Week it is often a “mischaracterisation” that the standard is simply an MBA being done on the cheap by senior executives at big FTSE 200 companies such as Deloitte.

“I just don’t think that’s right,” Cobb said. “Around 90 per cent of our level 7 learners are doing it as a master’s. It is an important qualification for senior leaders and actually when you look at the numbers, over 60 per cent have been done in the public sector.

“I’m not sure Gavin Williamson would stand by policies that cut off funding to public sector leaders, which is what this is doing.”

Cobb’s customers are exclusively schools. His firm also delivers to over 200 apprentices across the level 3 team leader/supervisor and level 5 operations/departmental manager.

So, with double the number of starts on the level 7 standard, why are schools lapping up this management apprenticeship with Captiva? Cobb puts it down to the “substandard” National Professional Qualifications for teachers that have been on offer over the last 10 to 15 years.

“If we’re facing a recruitment crisis in education we’re facing a bigger leadership crisis and actually master’s is the currency amongst these people. They’re postgrad qualified professionals in their own right in schools.”

He added: “We’re quite surprised by Williamson’s statement in that respect because all different sorts of money is being poured into different types of organisations to address recruitment and retention in education, but this is the goose that lays the golden egg in terms of retention, and now we’re talking about reducing the funding where it’s clearly working very successfully.”

Cobb said he joined the apprenticeships market shortly after the levy reforms because “we thought this would be an important development”.

He admits that his firm receives criticism from the schools sector for being “profiteers”, but the “truth is we have really invested heavily into this because it’s something we passionately believe in”.

While the upper funding rate for the level 7 standard is £18,000, Cobb says his provider does follow the funding rules and takes into account an apprentice’s prior learning and experience when setting rates for individuals. His firm has charged the maximum of £18,000 in 84 per cent of starts so far, Cobb claims.

He puts his rapid growth in the market down to an “extraordinary value proposition for schools”.

Apprentices made up an average of only 0.9 per cent of the workforce in schools across England in 2018-19, despite the government’s 2.3 per cent public sector target.

“It’s really difficult for schools to engage with the levy because it’s not part of their culture,” Cobb said. “There’s still an unintended snobbery around apprenticeships, because the word apprentice means failure.

“So part of us raising awareness is about changing that narrative in schools. It’s something we’re really working hard every single day to do.”

Captiva had its first monitoring report from Ofsted published in December, which resulted in ‘reasonable progress’ ratings across the board. However, Ofsted only inspects provision up to level 5, as the higher levels are the responsibility of higher education regulator the Office for Students.

While Captiva isn’t on the OfS’ register of HE providers itself, Cobb says they are registered with the regulator through its partnership with a private higher education institution, the University of Buckingham.

He confirmed that the OfS has never visited the provider to inspect the quality of the level 7 provision.

But Cobb offers assurance that delivery of the level 7 standard is “quality”, largely because four of his lecturers “are HMI inspectors” that apply an “Ofsted lens”.

They are among 30 lecturers, tutors and assessors on his apprenticeship delivery team, who are mostly senior figures in education, ex-headteachers and school improvement advisers.

He has also recruited the former national schools commissioner, Sir David Carter, to lead on his MBA programme.

With its head office in London, apprenticeship training with Captiva is mostly delivered in the workplace as well as at various rented offices across England.

“We spend a lot of money and we have put a lot of energy into going and visiting apprentices in the workplace, delivering progress reviews, ensuring that the apprenticeship is supported by line management, that it’s actually having an impact at employer level as well as learner level.”

Cobb’s first cohort of level 7 apprentices, which totalled 156, are due to complete their programmes this summer.

Summarising his view on the management apprenticeship, he said: “People don’t leave their jobs, they leave their managers. That’s why management education is so important. It’s absolutely fundamental to successful organisations, whether that’d be a business or whether it’s a public sector institution.”

A college accused of serious safeguarding failures has failed to overturn an ‘inadequate’ judgment following a second visit from Ofsted inspectors.

FE Week understands that Shrewsbury Colleges Group will have a grade four report published imminently after its complaint to the education watchdog was not upheld.

Leaders at the college, which teaches more than 9,000 students mostly aged 16 to 18, previously alleged the education watchdog ran out of time to check evidence in its first inspection in November.

Inspectors revisited last week but found that the same safeguarding concerns persist.

Following the first visit, principal James Staniforth said he had “never experienced anything like this” after 27 years in education.

The college told FE Week the first judgment was “wrong”, denied safeguarding was “ineffective” and claimed that Ofsted’s decision was “changed on the final day of the inspection without adequate explanation”.

Shrewsbury Colleges Group declined to comment following the latest visit from Ofsted.

FE Week understands representatives from the National Education Union have also raised concerns over safeguarding procedures across the group, both before and after the visit from the inspectorate.

The college group did previously admit that West Mercia Police were called to an incident during the inspection, after a suspended student tried to regain entry to college, and that some fire call-points were disabled during the inspection “in order to stop further false alarms” after a fault and a student caused two separate false alarms.

Ofsted was originally set to report that students and staff do not feel safe and the college had not taken sufficient steps to help ensure their safety

Inspectors also allegedly found that staff required to carry out site security roles have not received adequate training and necessary risk assessments to ensure effective safeguarding covering the college estate were not in place.

The Education and Skills Funding Agency previously asked the college to appoint an independent review of safeguarding by an approved consultant following a referral from Ofsted.

A two-day audit took place at the end of January, and it concluded that there was “a strong culture of safeguarding evident which is underpinned by established policies and procedures”.

“There is substantial evidence to support this statement as detailed in the report,” the summary continued.

Last month, Staniforth maintained the college was “a safe place to study” and it was “confident” the evidence available would demonstrate the effectiveness of our safeguarding practices”.

The principal added the college was looking forward to Ofsted returning and would await their judgment.

Shrewsbury Sixth Form College and Shrewsbury College of Arts and Technology merged to become Shrewsbury Colleges Group in August 2016.

Both FE providers were rated ‘good’ in their final inspections before the merger.

The group is now based across three campuses and has a turnover of £23 million.

It advertises itself as Shropshire’s largest provider of post-16 education – which teaches 70 per cent of all 16-to-18 students in the county.

A college has been moved into FE Commissioner intervention after it breached a bank covenant and had to reclassify a near £10 million loan.

Coventry College, which teaches around 6,000 learners, had a financial notice to improve published today after the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) assessed its finances as ‘inadequate’.

The college’s accounts for 2018/19 show a surplus of £185,000, having previously recorded a deficit of £711,000.

And its cash flow also improved from £1,256,000 in 2017/18 to £1,914,000 in 2018/19.

However, the accounts state that the college has “identified that the refinancing of an existing loan, due at 1 August 2020, presents a threat to the financial viability of the college”.

“In particular, if the refinancing of the loan is not completed by 1 August 2020 the College would not have sufficient funds to redeem the outstanding loan,” they continue.

The loan, which totals £9.414 million, has now been classified as a current liability “which contributes significantly to the current liability position of £7.975 million”.

However, the financial statements say, Barclays bank “has remained supportive and has on 23rd December 2019, issued a letter of comfort indicating that the outstanding loan will not be required to be immediately repaid due to the covenant breach”.

Discussions with the bank regarding the refinancing are “ongoing” and the “underlying financial health of the college is robust with projected resources and cash balances adequate to fund continuation of operations for the foreseeable future”.

The accounts add that the corporation and senior leadership team are “mindful of their responsibility for ensuring the solvency of the college,” and are confident the refinancing will be completed in advance of the due date.

As a result of today’s notice to improve, the grade three college is now required to meet additional conditions of funding with the ESFA.

These include allowing FE Commissioner Richard Atkins’ team undertake an independent assessment of the college’s capabilities, and prepare and share a draft financial recovery plan.

A spokesperson for Coventry College told FE Week: “We were issued with a notice to improve from the ESFA as a result of the leadership team working proactively with our external agencies to alert them to our financial position for the 2019/20 academic year.

“We continue to work closely with those external agencies including the FE Commissioner’s team to demonstrate transparency around our plans for recovery and financial improvement.”

The spokesperson also said the college has continued to make improvements as identified by Ofsted in its grade three report from September 2019.

They added: “While we continue to focus our efforts on this year’s financial position, of which there are a number of exceptional one-off costs, we are simultaneously modelling the academic year 20/21 and 21/22.

“The outcomes of this work are forecasting improvements for the college’s finances which will ensure that we are a sustainable entity which serves the needs of the community and region.”

The college declined to provide an update on its discussions with Barclays.

The public accounts committee (PAC) will quiz officials from the Department for Education on the financial stability of university technical colleges on Monday.

The hearing follows a recent National Audit Office report on the 14 to 19 technical institutions, which have faced many recruitment and funding issues since former education secretary Lord Baker launched them in 2010.

Confirming the catalogue of issues which FE Week has exposed over the years , the NAO found that the DfE spent £792 million on the UTC programme from 2010-11 to 2018-19, ten of the 58 UTCs that opened have subsequently closed, and the 48 open UTCs were operating at, on average, 45 per cent of capacity at January 2019.

At August 2019, Ofsted had rated 52 per cent of UTCs as good or outstanding, compared with 76 per cent of all secondary schools.

To combat their recruitment issues, UTCs have increasingly been lowering their age range to take on students from age 11 and 13.

They’ve also been actively encouraged by government to join multi-academy trusts to strengthen their position.

Witnesses to appear at the PAC’s hearing include Jonathan Slater, the DfE’s permanent secretary, the department’s director general for early years and schools group Andrew McCully, and academies director Mike Pettifer.

It is scheduled to being at 4pm on March 16.

PICTURED: PAC chair Meg Hillier

A high-profile radio company that runs UK stations such as Kiss FM and Magic was among seven FE providers to receive ‘good’ ratings from Ofsted this week.

But poor reports came in for four new independent learning providers, which all received ‘insufficient progress’ grades in early monitoring visits.

Most of Bauer Radio Limited’s 220 apprentices are studying level 3 standards in roles such as in junior content producer, junior journalist and broadcast production assistant.

Inspectors said many of its tutors and development coaches had worked on high-profile magazines, television programmes and radio programmes, and use their experience and in-depth knowledge to “inspire” apprentices.

Leaders and managers were also praised for establishing a “creative and innovative” curriculum.

Two general FE colleges were awarded grade twos in their first full inspections following mergers.

Most students at South Thames Colleges Group achieve their qualifications and go on to further study or employment while most of its apprentices remain in employment on completion of their programme, according to the inspectorate.

It also found that governors and leaders were “effective in securing a clear strategic direction” for the group, which resulted in each college maintaining good local connections and continuing to serve its communities “well”.

The education watchdog reported that students at East Coast College enjoy “a specialist and up-to-date” curriculum developed in partnership with local employers, and that leaders used public funding “effectively” to support disadvantaged adults in the community.

Since their merger, leaders and governors at East Coast have developed “robust systems to drive improvement”, they “watch improvements in the quality of learning carefully” and “take swift action should any dips in performance occur”.

East Norfolk Sixth Form College and Ealing London Borough Council both retained their ‘good’ ratings in short inspections.

Elsewhere, two independent learning providers were awarded grade twos in their first inspections.

The education watchdog found apprentices at Deere Apprenticeships Ltd developed new knowledge and skills that employers value while those at Moor Training Limited progress into well-paid careers in the plumbing, heating and gas industry.

But four private providers also received two out of three ‘insufficient progress’ grades in their early monitoring visits this week.

Ofsted said JD Academy Limited, which works with its own employees at its head office and in retail stores across the UK, had not ensured that all apprentices benefit from well-planned and sufficient training away from their job.

CS Training UK Limited was criticised as “too few” apprentices will achieve their apprenticeship on time.

In addition, leaders and managers at Dianthas Ltd were reported to “not fulfil all the apprenticeship principles and requirements” and many apprentices from Willing and Able Limited did “not know how much progress they have made, and too many make slow progress,” according to inspectors.

There were also six ‘requires improvements’ ratings handed out to FE providers this week, four of which went to independent learning providers.

Nottinghamshire Training Group dropped from a grade two as leaders’ and managers’ actions to improve standards “have not had enough impact,” and as a result, the quality of education is “very mixed”.

St Helens Chamber Limited was also downgraded from ‘good,’ with Ofsted noting that training advisers found it difficult to make the transition from apprenticeship frameworks to standards-based apprenticeships.

Furthermore, assessors at Cogent Skills Training Limited were criticised for not challenging apprentices enough to achieve their potential while leaders’ management of subcontractors was “not good enough”.

Ofsted said that although leaders and managers at Partnership Training Limited had taken “effective steps to improve the curriculum for apprentices, there is still much work to do”.

General FE college Cambridge Regional College was also hit with a grade three.

Its quality of provision for adult students was found to be “too inconsistent,” “too few” apprentices gained their qualifications and many also took “too long” to complete them.

Adult and community learning provider Building Crafts College ‘requires improvement’ as well, after previously being considered ‘good’, with managers being criticised for not ensuring that training is of “consistently good quality”.

However, independent specialist college, Exeter Royal Academy for Deaf Education, was awarded ‘reasonable progress’ across the board in a monitoring visit following a ‘requires improvement’ rating.

Hull College received two out of two ‘reasonable progress’ grades in its second monitoring visit after a grade three.

Similarly, Development Processes Group PLC was deemed to have made ‘reasonable progress’ in a second successive monitoring visit, after receiving ‘insufficient progress’ in all themes in the last.

Learning for Excellence Ltd was awarded ‘significant progress’ in each area as most apprentices made “rapid progress” in developing new knowledge, skills and behaviours.

The remaining independent learning providers to be assessed this week received ‘reasonable progress’ across the board in their early monitoring visits.

These were: Nationwide Energy Training Services Ltd, First Intuition Maidstone Limited, Keith Stevenson and Associates Limited and University Academy Holbeach.