A troubled land-based college has officially been rated ‘inadequate’ for the second time in a row, with Ofsted criticising leaders and governors for failing to improve its performance.

FE Week revealed last month that Moulton College, which is attempting to avoid a merger, was heading for another grade four after the education watchdog found it delivering “unsafe” training in 2018.

Its latest Ofsted report, published today, said the health and safety concerns previously identified have now been rectified, but other areas have seen a drop in performance.

The quality of teaching, learning and assessment has declined

“The quality of teaching, learning and assessment has declined since the previous inspection,” inspectors said.

Self-assessment is “often too generous in terms of grading and does not reflect accurately weaknesses that need to be rectified”.

Teachers’ expectations of students “are too low and, as a result, too many students make insufficient progress”, and attendance levels for learners “is poor across most programmes and is particularly low in sport, English and math lessons”.

Ofsted continued: “Managers do not use data well enough to judge accurately the impact of actions that they have taken, or to inform future actions for improvement.

“Students on vocational programmes, for whom the college receives high needs funding, do not benefit from teaching that meets their specific learning and support needs.”

Moulton College had just over 2,000 learners at the time of inspection, 1,350 were on study programmes, mainly on land-based, sport and construction courses.

Ofsted found that managers and teachers “do not know how many students on 16 to 19 study programmes have completed external work placements”.

However, the inspectorate did point out that a “recently enhanced” board of governors and new leadership team have “changed the culture of the college so that it focuses on the student and staff experience; as a result, staff turnover has decreased, and staff morale has improved”.

Leaders and managers have also rectified “poor behaviour” identified at the previous inspection.

Following the college’s first grade four, its principal Stephen Davies resigned and was replaced by interim Ann Turner.

A permanent principal has since been appointed. Corrie Harris, the current vice-principal at the Bedford College Group, will take the reins from next month.

Reacting to today’s Ofsted report, a spokesperson said: “Moulton College was disappointed with the outcome of the recent Ofsted inspection, which does not reflect the significant progress made in the last 12 months.

“The college is pleased to see that the enhanced board of governors, new leadership team, the change in culture, the high priority placed on ensuring students are safe with very effective, strengthened safeguarding practices, good student behaviour and improved staff morale are all acknowledged.

Governors are confident that we have a stable, passionate committed workforce

“The work on improving teaching and learning has still to have the impact desired, but improvements are ongoing to ensure that every Moulton student receives the best possible student experience.”

Moulton College has been in FE Commissioner intervention since February 2017 due to its poor finances, particularly high levels of commercial loans and falling cash balances, and was recommended to merge.

But with a new chair of governors and an interim principal making improvements to the finances, the college was permitted to follow a standalone strategy and recruit a full-time principal.

Despite the clear financial and quality-of-provision concerns, FE Week understands that Moulton, under the leadership of its new chair David McVean, who started in February 2019, is continuing to pursue a standalone strategy.

The college’s spokesperson said the college has “radically overhauled” its workforce in the past year and governors are “confident that we have a stable, passionate committed workforce”.

The skills minister has hailed the success of traineeships after research revealed 75 per cent of learners move on to work or further study within a year of completing their programme.

It will be a boon for the pre-employment programme, which has been plagued by falling learner numbers and a lack of investment that has frustrated sector bodies.

The policy, which was only launched in 2013, appears to have fallen off the political radar, evidenced by FE Week failing to find any reference to traineeships in any of Anne Milton’s public speeches since she became skills minister two years ago.

Following today’s research report, Milton said she was “thrilled” to see how traineeships are “supporting young people to start their apprenticeship journey, get their first job or go to further study”.

The government also announced today it will introduce a new traineeships achievement rate measure for the academic year 2019/20, which will help the government monitor the programme’s effectiveness.

This is in addition to providing £20 million through the adult education budget for training providers, to encourage more young people aged 19-24 to start a traineeship.

Milton said the achievement rate measure will provide “greater transparency and help young people make informed decisions about their next steps”.

Traineeships are six-month programmes, which were introduced to provide 16 to 24-year-olds with English and maths tuition, work experience and work preparation training.

Today’s report focuses on the cohort of trainees from 2013/14 and draws on surveys with learners, providers and employers; case studies; and analysis of national administrative data.

It did find a marked divide between 16 to 18 and 19 to 23-year-old trainees, with the younger group less likely to begin employment within 12 months of a traineeship – 19 per cent compared with 53 per cent.

And while traineeships increased the probability of both age groups going on to further learning, evidence suggested traineeships reduced the likelihood of a learner progressing to vocational courses above level 2, compared to if they had not participated in a traineeship.

But employers, including global professional services firm Aon, reported how traineeships have helped them to “recruit people from a range of backgrounds leading to more diverse workforces”.

Adrian Johnson, UK Apprenticeship Lead for Aon, told FE Week that since the inception of its “Step Up traineeship scheme” in 2018, the firm has offered 15 traineeships, with nine trainees going on to permanent positions.

“The recruitment of a more diverse group of professionals is key to the future success of Aon and our market as a whole, and we are proud to support these young people in their career development,” he added.

Mark Dawe, the chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said today’s report will help “reinvigorate” traineeships by encouraging young people to take advantage of the programme.

Traineeships are in need to reinvigoration, having seen their starts numbers fall from 24,100 to 17,700 (26 per cent) between 2015/16, before reforms to the apprenticeship system came into force, and 2017/18.

Dawe said last year the government is “so consumed” by apprenticeships and T-levels, there was a danger that traineeships “don’t get a look-in”.

His colleague, AELP policy officer Ceara Roopchand said in May the ESFA’s Qualification Achievement Rates and the negative publicity around companies offering unpaid work experience to trainees had meant “public support for the programme have dwindled dramatically”, to the hindrance of NEET learners, and those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

An FE Week investigation in 2018 found colleges had delivered fewer than a quarter of traineeships in 2016/17, which was blamed by the Association of Colleges on rigid duration rules.

David Hughes, chief executive of the AoC, today stressed the importance of “stepping stone programmes” like traineeships which allow people to progress to the levels of competence that employers are seeking.

He added that there were many positive outcomes from traineeships, that colleges were helping to deliver.

The names of the 64 colleges chosen to deliver T-levels in the second wave of their roll out have been announced.

They’ll deliver the new post-16 technical education qualifications from 2021, in four routes: digital, construction, education and childcare, and health and science.

An initial 50 providers will deliver the first T-levels from 2020.

Unveiling those selected for wave two today, education secretary Damian Hinds said: “Everyone agrees that a radical shake-up of technical and vocational education in this country is long overdue. T-levels are our chance to do that – offering young people high-quality alternatives to our world-class A-levels from September 2020.

“The second wave of post-16 providers we have announced today demonstrates our commitment to making this happen. They will play an important role in ensuring more young people across the country can access these courses and help develop the skilled workforce the country needs for the future.”

An additional £3.75 million boost for the first T-level providers, which includes one-off payments to help them recruit learners from 2020, has also been announced today (click here for full story).

Of the providers in wave two, 14 have never been inspected by Ofsted. The rest are rated ‘good’, with the exception of grade one Burnley College.

The DfE said if a T-level provider’s status changes against any of its published criteria, including holding a grade one or two Ofsted rating, between when it considered their expression of interest and delivery, then the department reserves the right to review their continued participation.

The second wave of T-level providers

The first wave of T-level providers are expected to recruit half the amount of students the government predicts, research shared exclusively with FE Week has revealed.

It comes as plans for one-off payments of up to £90,000 for the early providers are unveiled by the Department for Education, as well as confirmation that a “tolerance” will be applied for under-delivery.

The National Foundation for Educational Research conducted interviews with half of the first 50 providers to deliver T-levels in 2020.

We intend to introduce additional one-off payments to providers

All but one said they were planning to recruit between 12 and 20 students in the first year, in “recognition of the challenges in setting up a new programme”.

The Department for Education previously projected the 2020/21 cohort would total 2,500 students, but then revised this down to 2,000.

If all of the 50 providers in wave one recruit 20 students each, then just 1,000 would be studying the new qualifications in that year.

To help the first wave of providers, in part to recruit more students, the DfE said today it would offer them one-off additional payments – as part of a £3.75 million package of financial support.

The plan was revealed in the DfE’s response to its T-levels funding consultation, which confirmed funding rates will range from £4,170 to £5,835 per year, depending on the size of the qualification, despite 62 per cent of respondents opposing the proposal.

In “recognition of the additional costs that are unique to the early T-level providers”, the department said the additional one-off payments will amount to £30,000 per provider for each new T-level introduced in 2020, and of £20,000 per provider introducing the Transition Framework in 2020.

“This is to recognise the costs associated with engaging in co-design of the qualifications and providers’ work with the department on T-level and Transition Framework policy development,” the consultation document added.

Sixteen of the first 50 will offer all three of the first T-levels, which will be taught in education, construction and digital, and will therefore benefit from one-off payments of £90,000.

The funding will be paid in 2019/20 and at the moment is only for the providers delivering in 2020/21.

Considerations are being made to also offer the payments to those set to deliver in 2021/22, but there is “no plan to extend beyond this”.

The consultation continued to say that officials “understand providers are concerned they will not be able to predict recruitment to T-levels far enough in advance to feed accurate student numbers into the allocations process”, and if recruitment “does not reflect the student numbers used for the allocation then this could lead to over or under funding”.

To ensure providers “invest in T-levels with confidence” the department is proposing to operate a “tolerance before making any funding adjustments”.

“We envisage a tolerance for under-delivery during the implementation phase which will be tightened as T-levels become more established,” the document stated.

“We will review actual enrolment against the first data return of the academic year. Any downward adjustment to funding would apply to the number of students outside of the tolerance.”

The full NFER report on T-levels will be published on Thursday.

Click here to see the full list of providers in the second wave of T-levels.