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Topping the Bill

Before becoming chief executive of the third-largest education group in the country, Bill Jones faced the most challenging moment of his 11 years as its deputy principal, and the ultimate test of his own core values.

A teenage population spike in Leeds arose at the same time as Luminate had stretched itself thin to increase its market share, causing the perfect storm of surging demand and depleted cash reserves.

Luminate’s leaders would have to decide whether to risk burning through their remaining cash to lease new buildings, or play it safe and turn young people away.

In the end, they chose “to stretch our available cash reserves to their limits rather than have more NEETs in Leeds”, says Jones.

In January 2025, Luminate’s cash balance was £2.4 million, equating to six cash days, against a target of at least 25. The situation required “very careful management”, but it was “ultimately worth the sleepless nights”.

Since Jones took over from Colin Booth as CEO in January, Luminate’s cash forecasts have remained tight, fuelled by £2.4 million of in-year growth funding this year as it continues expansion to meet demand. But they are “much improved” on last year.

Bill Jones

Pudsey pride

New sixth form colleges don’t come around very often, but despite the risks, Jones is proud of Luminate’s new Pudsey Sixth Form College, which opened in September and recruited 150 students towards its target of 200.

Opening academic provision in Leeds allows the group to free up space for more technical and vocational provision.

However, Luminate opposed the previous government’s decision to approve a new sixth form college in Keighley, where the group already runs a college providing A Levels.

Jones believes that the “ideology of markets deciding” where to open educational provision, rather than being led by demand, has “led to sub-optimal outcomes and inefficiencies across the country”. At the time, Booth lobbied fiercely against the plans, which were later quietly shelved.

Spaces for places

Booth was never afraid to stick his head above the parapet to defend the rights of the underdogs of the FE world, and Jones appears to be cut from the same cloth.

Bill Jones of Luminate with Jeffrey the grouchy cockapoo

But being new in post, he occasionally throws anxious glances at his head of communications, fearing he has put his foot in it with his candid nature.

“You’re looking uncomfortable,” he says, looking across at her again. She casts a strained smile back at him.

Lying at our feet is Jeffrey, Leeds City College’s cockapoo therapy dog.

Unlike Jones, who comes across as warm and approachable, Jeffrey is “a bit grouchy” as “he’s fed up with people stroking him and prodding him”. An unfortunate frame of mind for a therapy dog.

We are sitting in Jones’s office at his Park Lane campus in Leeds, which is bustling with science and healthcare students.

To house this cohort in the future, Luminate wants to create a new health science academy in a nearby office building called Livingstone House.

Luminate received £8 million in extra post-16 capacity funding from a £20 million package for Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire (as the two areas with the highest teenage population spikes). Much of that went on a 127-year lease for Livingstone House.

The funding was meant to create up to 1,500 extra places, but it was not enough.

The building’s air distribution system was designed to circulate enough air for around 100 people on each floor. Jones needs it to be able to accommodate at least double that number. This means just “one or two” of the building’s six storeys will be ready by September.

Build, Bill, build

Lately, there is barely a corner of Luminate’s estate that has not been subject to building work, funded through a £32.1 million Department for Education loan, plus various capital transformation and post-16 capacity funding pots.

The last two years have not been plain sailing. The owner of a neighbouring business park threatened to launch a judicial review challenging Luminate’s plans to rebuild Harrogate College.

Although this never happened, Luminate had to seek DfE approval to divert money the department had lent them for that rebuild to spend instead on a construction project at its Park Lane campus in Leeds, after hitting cashflow challenges. The FE Commissioner was consulted.

An issue also emerged around a Park Lane block not fully meeting DfE specifications for an educational building, which was deemed by Luminate’s board to present a “reputational risk” with the DfE.

Luminate’s board at the time expressed “some reservations in light of the financial challenges and risks”, and the “conflicting priorities” of a much-needed IT replacement programme and the group’s inability to progress its staff pay award.

Actual income was £3 million lower than budget, and the group’s loan covenants were “significantly closer to the threshold than they had been in the past”.

Luminate’s Park Lane campus

HE domination

While cashflow and construction issues have caused Jones frustrations, he lights up as the conversation moves to an area he is much more upbeat about; the potential for much closer collaboration between colleges and universities. For him, this is “part of what’s so exciting about working in FE at the moment”.

With universities’ finances hitting the buffers and the sector unlikely to be bailed out by any future government, Jones believes we will soon see the first FE college group taking over its local university.

Would he consider Luminate ever doing so?

“Absolutely, if it was in the interests of students and meeting regional skills needs,” he says.

He believes “the more forward-looking” universities and college groups are already “beginning to have those conversations”.

Jones points to a “really interesting paper”, Radical collaboration: A playbook, which charts possible types of collaboration between education partners. He believes that “it doesn’t have to be forced or one party taking over the other party”, and “federations or strategic alliances” will become “more and more common”.

“What could be so powerful about it is the ability to co-create pathways from people’s starting points through to where the jobs are. It’s definitely one to watch.”

Luminate is already well-versed in HE provision. It operates a higher education institution (Leeds Conservatoire) as a wholly owned subsidiary, as well as its own university centre in Leeds.

But Luminate’s particularly large HE portfolio has left it exposed to the difficulties that market is facing; the latest finance record shows HE numbers at FE colleges are down 30 per cent in the last three years.

“Universities have been trying to replace the international students that they’ve lost with domestic students, so there’s more competition,” says Jones.

Luminate’s HE provision has declined recently, but Jones says “we’re growing our way back out again by making our courses niche, and employer focused – so not the sort of thing that’s duplicated in universities”.

Bill JOnes with his former boss, Colin Booth

Staying in Yorkshire

Luminate generated £143 million in income in 2024-25, which is not far off that of FE’s national college groups. But Luminate is firmly rooted in West and North Yorkshire, and Jones has no intention of expanding its geographic footprint.

Jones claims Luminate is “not predatory” and is “about place”. He believes that “distant” national groups “can’t have that responsiveness to local needs when the people making the decisions don’t understand the communities or even the region, never mind the nuances of the local communities”.

Luminate also sponsors a Leeds-based multi-academy trust, White Rose Academies Trust, made up of three secondaries and a primary school. Luminate experienced challenges in its chains of command over the MAT – “there was a vision to have a collaboration that perhaps was a little bit ahead of its time,” Jones admits.

Attempts were made two years ago to merge the MAT with another trust, which never came to fruition.

Jones says these days the college group has a “really good” relationship with its schools, one of which, Leeds West Academy, Luminate collaborated with to build the new Pudsey Sixth Form College. But there are “grey areas” in terms of the management structures of college-sponsored MATs.

Bill Jones as a baby

Teaching to travel

Jones may have seemed destined for a career in education; growing up, he was head boy at his school in Tamworth, Staffordshire, with a primary school teacher mum and PE teacher stepdad.

But their experiences put him off the idea of teaching, and it was only after graduating with a philosophy degree from the University of Liverpool at a time when “graduate jobs were hard to come by” that he succumbed to the idea of teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) as a way to explore the wider world.

He started off his travels in Madrid, but grew so fond of its late-night party scene that he “got stuck” there for two years rather than continuing his globetrotting. But his fear that he might end up like his middle-aged TEFL teaching colleagues who were still on “exactly the same salaries” as him prompted him to return to England and do a PGCE.

Bill Jones as a youngster

Champion for ESOL

His TEFL experience makes him a passionate advocate for the value of English teaching provision in communities. He sees Greater Lincolnshire’s recent decision to stop funding ESOL as “incredibly short-sighted, entirely politically driven through a very peculiar lens and very, very damaging”.

“Were it to happen in Leeds, it would create a very large problem where people are not able to access the provision that engages them and gets them into employment where there are huge shortages,” he says.

Greater Lincolnshire’s mayor Andrea Jenkyns was MP for Morley, near Leeds, for nine years and “visited our college many times”.

Jones points out that illegal immigrants cannot access ESOL, which is what makes the policy “so pernicious”.

“We’ve got to be careful about that becoming more widespread in the UK post an election,” he adds.

His visionary boss

As he climbed the career ladder at successive colleges, Jones says he always tried to see the principals he worked under as potential role models.

“You learn from them what to do and what not to do, as much as anything.”

His first teaching job in England was in a small inner-city college, East Birmingham College, where he taught maths and A Level sociology (a new course at the time) instead of English, the subject he had intended to teach.

His college’s “controversial and outspoken” principal at the time, Tony Henry, did not believe in having staff-only areas of the college or his own office, and was known to make tea for his cleaners.

Henry was “visionary” when it came to qualification reform, and was “constantly travelling to the US” to research their model of foundation degrees, which at the time were unheard of in England.

Jones credits Henry with inspiring him to become a “civic leader” by showing him that “the power of FE is not just about how many students pass qualifications, you can do a lot more than that as a leader”.

Jones says Leeds is now a place that exemplifies Henry’s concept of colleges “at the centre of their communities”. The city has “visionary leaders who have come together” from the local authority, universities and NHS trusts as well as its colleges.

The Leeds Anchors network of large employers pools their resources and shares joint targets; its initiative to keep procurement spend in the local area has, Jones says, brought “millions of extra pounds into the city”. Its members have agreed to make a “concerted effort” to recruit people from “priority neighbourhoods” with higher levels of social deprivation, to help close the inequality gap.

Bill Jones

Accidental leader

After leaving east Birmingham, Jones moved gradually northwards toBurton upon Trent College, then Rotherham College of Arts and Technology and The Sheffield College, where he spent six years as executive director of planning and performance. He started at Luminate in 2015 as deputy principal for teaching and learning.

Luminate is unusual in that it gives its academic managers “a lot of responsibility”, as they are held to account for their own budgets.

Jones says this takes some getting used to for new staff from other colleges, whose response is sometimes “if I’d have wanted to do budgets, I would’ve been an accountant”.

Jones points out to them that “every decision you make in the classroom, about class size, guided learning, hours, resources, and types of teachers, has a direct impact on the finances. So if you’re interested in pedagogy, you should be interested in financial management.”

These days, Jones spends his weekdays in Leeds, where he likes to run along the canals and make the most of the city’s thriving independent music scene; “I’m an indie kid at heart, I just like loud guitar music.” At weekends, he returns to his family home in Derby.

He claims to have ended up as Luminate’s CEO “by accident”, as the idea of getting promoted to the top job is “not what drove” him.

Booth gave him “complete autonomy” as his deputy, and he would have been “quite happy” to stay in that role.

But he felt the leadership team at Luminate had built a “genuinely tertiary, inclusive, successful institution with improving outcomes and staff morale”. He did not want their success to be “jeopardised” by a new leader “coming in with a completely different way of operating”.

Since becoming CEO, not much has changed; except that occasionally, Jones finds himself “looking round and realising there’s nobody else to look to”.

“The buck stops with me now,” he says.

ChatGPT will never know enough for marking educational assessments

For awarding organisations that rely on large pools of examiners (often professionals marking scripts outside their day jobs), marking is costly, inconsistent and increasingly unsustainable. Every year, millions are spent just keeping the marking wheels turning.

For training providers, where marking isn’t outsourced, every hour spent marking is an hour lost to teaching, mentoring and growing enrolments. We now see providers capping student intake simply because they can’t keep up with assessment workflows.

Across them all (colleges included), the pain is the same: marking is slow, expensive and drains human capacity. Yet it remains central to learning outcomes and institutional sustainability.

Technology providers do offer AI-powered marking and assessment solutions. But questions arise about the need to invest in these when ChatGPT and other free LLMs are readily available.

From a training provider’s perspective, it’s tempting to believe a free, general-purpose tool like ChatGPT can do everything. It can’t. Dependence on generic, opaque AI systems is institutional short-termism, not innovation, because assessment – especially high-stakes certification for job-ready skills – is not a generic task. Organisations responsible for the integrity of high-stakes exams would agree that relying on such tools for marking is premature and potentially harmful. Even so, according to our clients, it is becoming a widespread practice.

But while LLMs predict text and generate plausible sentences at speed; they don’t understand knowledge and are therefore unable to evaluate mastery and reasoning. While adept at tasks like summarisation, they are neither trained nor validated for assessment marking, unlike purpose-built AI models or experienced human assessors.

ChatGPT, for one, lacks structured exposure to assessment criteria and subject-matter standards. It cannot and does not know enough to underpin credible assessment, undermining its ability to provide reliable and contextually accurate evaluations. In discipline-specific or skills-based contexts (such as accounting or apprenticeships), it may produce generic rubric-aligned feedback but often fails to identify gaps in professional knowledge, skills and behaviours that expert assessors would readily spot. Shaped by biased and largely US-centric training data, it can also perpetuate inconsistency. It is no substitute for domain-specific, evidence-based AI or human expertise built over decades.

Within organisations, assessors using ChatGPT in silos – often with good intentions – create new risks. There is little shared benchmarking, moderation or consistency, and different assessors will receive different outputs. Erroneous feedback can easily be accepted and passed on to learners.

Using free LLMs for assessment may also breach internal AI policies and GDPR requirements, particularly where identifiable student data is shared. ChatGPT is not built for GDPR compliance, and many users don’t know how to disable training or opt-out settings. I’ve seen PII (Personal Identifiable Information) and confidential learner data fed into LLMs with little awareness of the risks – something that is unacceptable for regulated, high-stakes assessments.

This isn’t just about tools, but purpose. Even qualified human examiners undergo extensive training to mark against specific standards. Specialist technology providers now develop domain-specific assessment models in close collaboration with clients, capturing expert knowledge that goes beyond rubrics and improves reliability for high-stakes marking.

Deriving deep insights from student submissions is equally important. Purpose-built AI assessment tools automate granular gap analysis across skills, techniques and knowledge – not just topic-level progress.

Our AI solutions are developed in close collaboration with subject-matter experts, keeping humans firmly in the loop, both during training and post-deployment. Expert examiners always retain final oversight of scores and feedback, ensuring accuracy, continuous improvement and Ofqual compliance. This is not off-the-shelf ChatGPT; it is AI specifically trained to mark all assessment types, including high-stakes.

Some may ask: “Well, can’t we just train ChatGPT ourselves?” In reality, this doesn’t scale, relies on limited internal expertise, and leaves the same unresolved issues of GDPR, inconsistency, oversight and cost.

ChatGPT has its place. But if you are serious about AI in marking, feedback and assessment, you need purpose-built technologies that embed human expertise throughout their development and deployment lifecycle, so that they truly understand your domain, your standards and your learners – delivering higher standards at lower cost than the current examiner-dependent model.

Only through collaboration between domain-informed AI and expert human examiners can we harness AI’s potential to enhance assessment workflows without compromising standards.  

Why FE colleges should say yes to research

For those working in FE, time is one of your most valuable assets. With competing priorities and limited hours in the day, it is always in short supply.

So when you hear that your college could take part in a research project, it is reasonable to ask: is this worth it?

At the EEF, we’re working with more and more colleges across the country through research projects that build the evidence base for the 16-19 sector. Our research projects test specific programmes and approaches to find out two things:

Do they improve outcomes for learners, particularly those from economically disadvantaged backgrounds?
How can they be implemented effectively in real college settings?

The goal is simple: to generate robust evidence that helps colleges make informed decisions about teaching, learning, and how to use their resources. But beyond contributing to the wider evidence base, why should your college get involved?

Access professional development for your staff

Many EEF research projects test programmes or approaches that are underpinned by professional development. This might involve structured training in specific teaching approaches or support to implement new resources effectively.

Taking part can also create space for professional reflection. Engaging with new practices, working collaboratively, and contributing to sector-wide learning can strengthen professional cultures within departments and across colleges.

We know that access to sustained, high-quality professional development is central to improving teaching and retaining skilled staff. Most EEF projects offer professional development that is closely connected to practice and rigorously evaluated for its impact on learner outcomes.

Address key college priorities

Research projects can be a great way to explore structured solutions to pressing challenges.

Two of our current projects, for example, focus on issues that are areas of concern for many colleges: preventing drop-out and improving outcomes in GCSE English resits. One will evaluate whether monitoring student wellbeing alongside proactive pastoral support can improve attendance, retention, and mental health. Another will test whether a targeted vocabulary programme can improve GCSE English outcomes for resit learners.

Not every project will align perfectly with your immediate priorities, and not every approach will prove effective. But taking part helps the whole sector better understand how to tackle significant challenges.

Access high-quality programmes at a subsidised rate

Like time, funding in further education is under constant pressure. Colleges are often approached by providers offering new products or services.

Taking part in an EEF research project can provide access to new programmes, resources, or training at a subsidised rate, all while contributing to an independent, high-quality evaluation. There are no hidden sales incentives. The purpose is to test impact, not to market a product.

Improve outcomes beyond your own college

We run research projects for one reason: to build our collective knowledge of how we improve outcomes for 16-19 learners, particularly those facing economic disadvantage.

The more colleges that take part, the stronger and more reliable the evidence becomes. Stronger evidence allows us to make clearer recommendations about what works – and what doesn’t – across the country.

Supporting learners to succeed is why we all work in education. Participating in research is one practical way to extend that impact beyond your own classrooms.

Next steps

If you’re interested in taking part, you can search your college on our website and see what projects you’re eligible for. It’s also worth subscribing to our colleges newsletter to be notified of future opportunities.

Helping to shape the future of further education can strengthen your own practice, and contribute to better outcomes for learners nationwide.

You can’t climb a jobs ladder without the rungs

At a time when finding a job can feel out of reach for many, the government’s recent growth and skills levy announcements are a clear attempt to tackle one of the most pressing challenges facing the economy.

Measures such as the youth jobs grant, an expanded youth guarantee and a renewed focus on apprenticeships are important steps that will help more young people take that first step into work.

But there is a risk that in focusing on access, we lose sight of what comes next.

Getting young people onto the jobs ladder is only the first step. Ensuring they stay, develop and progress is what ultimately determines whether these policies succeed. Without that, we risk creating a system that opens doors to employment, only to leave people without a clear path forward once they’re inside.

Creating the conditions for rewarding long-term employment matters more than ever with unemployment at 5.2 per cent, and the share of 18 to 24-year-olds not in work or full-time education rising to 19.2 per cent.

As the UK’s largest private sector employer, retail has long served as a vital route into employment for hundreds of thousands of young people. For many, it is their first experience of work – a chance to build confidence, develop skills and take that first step on the career ladder.

But that ladder needs rungs. To keep people in work and motivated, there must be clear opportunities to progress – something government must support, not undermine.

Government’s decision to defund leadership and management apprenticeships risks removing some of the most critical rungs. Pathways such as the Level 3 Team Leader standard have long provided a clear and structured route from entry-level roles into positions of responsibility.

Removing them altogether leaves a significant gap between starting a job and building a career.

This is particularly concerning given the wider context of the growth and skills levy. Many retailers already struggle to spend their funds in full due to restrictive rules. Recognising this, government has rightly committed to improving flexibility so that more of these employer-paid contributions can be used effectively.

Yet the removal of funding for leadership and management apprenticeships eliminates a well-used and valuable way to spend levy funds. The result is a system that becomes less usable, limiting progression at a crucial point.

At the heart of this is a simple truth: strong management is essential to good work. This matters most for young people entering the workforce for the first time, or returning after a period out of work, who depend on capable managers to provide the guidance, structure and support needed to succeed.

Research from the Chartered Management Institute shows 82 per cent of managers have had no formal training, often stepping into roles by circumstance rather than preparation. In a system increasingly reliant on employers to support inexperienced workers, that gap becomes even more significant.

Progression pathways are fundamental to attracting and retaining talent. For many young people, particularly those entering through foundation apprenticeships or entry-level roles, the promise of progression is what makes a job worthwhile. Remove those pathways, and you remove a key part of the offer. This is particularly acute for foundation apprenticeships, where employer incentives are tied to progression. Without clear next steps, the model itself begins to break down.

The suggestion that leadership and management training should be funded solely by employers overlooks a key point: Levy funding is employer-paid. Restricting how it can be used does not increase investment in skills – it simply reduces the value and efficacy of the system.

There is a more constructive way forward. Government should reconsider the decision to defund leadership and management apprenticeships, recognising the role they play in supporting both new entrants and the wider workforce. At the very least, more flexible, modular approaches should be explored, allowing employers to access leadership training in a way that better reflects operational realities while reducing the burden of off-the-job training. This must also be seen alongside wider reforms such as the Employment Rights Act, where overly rigid rules risk reducing the very entry-level opportunities these youth employment schemes are designed to create.

Success should not be measured by how many people start a job, but by how many go on to build sustainable, rewarding careers.

Because you cannot build a workforce for the future without investing in the managers who support it.

Ofsted’s five-day rule is only the beginning

During Ofsted’s Big Listen, FIN campaigned strongly for a consistent five-day notice period for all provider types prior to inspection, not just for larger or more complex organisations. This reform has reshaped inspection preparation. The extended notice window, now widely referred to as the planning week, is proving to be a positive development. But it has not yet been consistently applied by inspectors.

Because FIN supports members before, during and after inspection, we are observing how different lead inspectors are interpreting and utilising the five days. Providers are typically offered three planning calls.

The first call, held shortly after notification, focuses on confirming provision details, reviewing QAR (qualification achievement rates) and discussing the data held by Ofsted. Increasingly, inspectors reference Further Education and Skills Inspection Tool (FESIT) data at this early stage. The data helps inspectors understand provider performance, shape conversations during pre-inspection calls and identify focus areas for inspection. It also includes the ‘schools disadvantage’ indicator which primarily identifies students or apprentices who may face socio-economic barriers to learning.

FIN members routinely pass on inspectors’ names to us after the initial meeting. Drawing on our inspection intelligence database, developed through years of direct inspection support, we can provide nominees with contextual insight into inspectors’ previous inspection activity under both the former and revised frameworks.

While recognising every provider is different and Ofsted takes each provider’s context into account, this information can be invaluable in identifying trends and patterns. This enables leaders to anticipate lines of inquiry and understand professional tendencies, thereby strengthening preparation without compromising authenticity.

Our experience across multiple live inspections shows variation in how the second and third planning calls are conducted. Some lead inspectors separate them; others combine them later in the week. This flexibility can work to a provider’s advantage, but only if used strategically. And be clear that the planning week is not administrative breathing space; it is part of the inspection evidence base.

Cross-provider analysis is allowing us to identify patterns early, translate them into practical guidance and support nominees in navigating the nuances of planning week decisions. Several themes are emerging:

Data accuracy matters

FESIT information should be accessed, scrutinised and reviewed regularly before the planning week. Errors do occur and correcting them requires time. Providers, who leave this unchecked until inspection risk discussions shaped around inaccurate assumptions.

Scheduling is strategic

Inspection remains a snapshot. Decisions about which learners, employers and sites are visited influence the evidence inspectors gather. Shift patterns, personal protective equipment requirements and safeguarding considerations require careful coordination. A mid-week planning discussion during the five days often enables providers to confirm availability and propose appropriate alternatives where necessary. FIN has seen stronger inspection weeks where nominees have confidently shaped this dialogue.

Inclusion must be evidenced with rigour

It is now commonly understood that the revised framework places heightened emphasis on inclusion. Many providers deliver exceptional support; however, inspectors are probing beyond narrative. They seek structured identification processes, measurable impact and systematic evaluation. Through inspection support work, FIN has observed that providers who align FESIT indicators, internal tracking and intervention records present a far more coherent story.

Know your USP

In planning week, a provider must be confident about the context in which they operate and why they want to be there. They should highlight to inspectors the communities and employers they serve.

It is also evident that inspectors themselves are adapting to the secure-fit model. Variability in approach reflects this transition. In this context, nominees should feel professionally confident in asking questions, clarifying expectations and requesting adjustments that safeguard learner experience. Constructive challenge strengthens inspection integrity.

Crucially, providers should reflect well in advance: if the inspection were to take place next week, who would you want inspectors to see, and why? Which curriculum areas best exemplify intent and impact? While the final schedule rests with the lead inspector, many are open to well-reasoned suggestions. Without prior strategic thought, opportunities to showcase strengths may be lost.

The five-day notice period was a hard-won reform. Its value lies not in the extra days alone, but in how effectively they are used. A purposeful, well-informed planning week establishes the conditions for a focused and productive inspection – one that accurately reflects the quality, integrity and ambition of a provider’s work.

Colleges are losing students in the system

Every September, colleges register their enrolment numbers and someone, somewhere, is quietly disappointed. Not catastrophically – just a few dozen short of forecast. The same the year before. And the year before that.

The assumption is usually that demand was not there. But increasingly, I suspect the problem is different: the students applied, and then disappeared.

I have spent the last two years speaking to further education colleges about their student recruitment systems – listening to teams who are tracking hundreds of live applications across shared spreadsheets, chasing responses by hand, trying to piece together a picture of where things stand from inboxes and printouts. What I have found is an uncomfortable truth: FE recruitment is running on infrastructure that was never designed for the volume or complexity it now faces.

And the timing could not be more critical. The 16 to 18 population surge that caught the college system unprepared is already is expected to continue rising until 2028, when the number of 16- to 18-year-olds is expected to peak. At the same time, DfE needs T Level enrolments to more than double, with just over 27,000 starts this year already falling short of revised targets, and an ambition of 66,100 by 2029.

The skills white paper spelt out plans that young people who leave school at 16 without an education or training place will be auto-enrolled into provision. I believe this will be challenging to achieve under current registration systems.

FE recently found that councils blamed “data recording pressures” for statistics that suggest thousands of teenagers are not being offered a “guaranteed” place in post-16 education each year after leaving school without a plan.

And FE Week also recently highlighted how the lagged funding model means colleges must absorb the cost of surging student numbers upfront, with no guarantee of in-year growth funding to cover it. Every applicant lost to a broken process is one they cannot afford to lose.

Unlike secondary school recruitment – where local authorities coordinate a digital, trackable process – and unlike higher education, which has UCAS as a central nervous system, FE sits awkwardly in between. Colleges are largely on their own, and what that looks like in practice is a patchwork of disconnected systems that were never designed to talk to each other. An email platform here. An events tool that doesn’t talk to the CRM. An application form that feeds into a spreadsheet. Open days promoted through one system, follow ups and offers sent through another. At every handover between systems – and there are many – there is a gap where a student can quietly disappear. And because no single tool holds the full picture, nobody sees it happen.

This is not a criticism of the people doing the work. Recruitment teams in FE colleges are often small, under-resourced and working incredibly hard. The problem is structural. There is no common standard, no shared visibility, and almost no usable data. If you cannot see where students are dropping out of your recruitment funnel, you cannot fix it. You do not know whether your offer acceptance rate is 60 per cent or 90 per cent. You do not know whether certain programmes are consistently losing students at a higher rate than others. You are, in many cases, flying blind.

FE is the missing partner in social prescribing

On Social Prescribing Day today, the national conversations focus on the vital role of the voluntary and community sector in supporting health and wellbeing. But there’s a critical gap that risks limiting its impact, just as the NHS seeks to redefine prevention.

The government’s health mission aims to create a fairer Britain where people live well for longer, recognising that health is shaped by more than clinical care. Tackling inequalities requires collaboration across sectors, including organisations like WM College, London embedded in the communities most affected.

Social prescribing reflects this shift.

It recognises that loneliness, low confidence, poor mental health and economic inactivity cannot be solved through medical intervention alone. They require sustained, community-based responses that rebuild confidence, connection and purpose.

FE colleges already deliver this every day, at scale. At WM College, we see this first-hand: adults referred through wellbeing networks rebuilding confidence through creative learning, often taking their first steps back into structured activity after periods of isolation.

So why do colleges remain largely absent from the systems designed to deliver health and wellbeing?

At a time of unprecedented NHS pressure, this is no longer a minor oversight.

The NHS 10-year plan places prevention and neighbourhood health at its core, with Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) tasked with shifting from reactive care to earlier intervention and joined-up provision.

But intent alone will not deliver this shift.

Social prescribing pathways rely heavily on the voluntary sector which is vital, but often constrained by short-term funding. If social prescribing is to operate at scale, the system must draw on existing infrastructure.

Colleges are exactly that.

They are anchor institutions with the space, workforce and reach to deliver high-quality provision – already engaging many of the individuals social prescribing is designed to support.

For many, entering a college is not seen as a health intervention, but as a positive step forward. That distinction reduces stigma and enables re-engagement – particularly important given rising economic inactivity.

Social prescribing helps stabilise wellbeing. But too often it lacks a clear onward pathway, meaning impact can plateau.

FE provides the missing link connecting wellbeing to skills, confidence and employment.
NHS England recognises that people with little or no English are more likely to experience poorer health outcomes. Only 65 per cent of people who could not speak English reported good health in the 2011 census, compared to 88 per cent of those who spoke English well. They’re more likely to face healthcare inequalities, including significant barriers and delays in receiving care.

ESOL classes do more than teach language – they build belonging, reduce isolation and prevent mental ill-health. Yet this impact is rarely funded through social prescribing.

As Integrated Care Boards shift toward strategic commissioning for population health outcomes, excluding FE is a failure to align delivery with policy intent.

Where partnerships do exist, they’re often fragile – reliant on individuals and vulnerable to bureaucracy and staff turnover – rather than embedded in system design.

Integrating FE fully into social prescribing would mean recognising colleges as core partners within neighbourhood health models, embedding them in commissioning frameworks and aligning health, skills and employment funding to support joined-up outcomes.

Funding remains a critical barrier. When patients cannot afford medicines, the NHS subsidises them. The same principle should apply to social prescriptions. If a GP refers someone to a wellbeing activity, colleges are often expected to provide it free, absorbing the cost. A prescription is a prescription – and it should be funded as such.

The need for preventative support is growing, and national conversations – including the ongoing inquiry by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Further Education and Lifelong Learning – increasingly recognise the role of adult education in driving health, wellbeing and economic resilience.

These agendas are converging. But policy has not yet caught up with practice.

If we fail to act, we risk maintaining a fragmented system where health, education and employment operate in parallel – missing a critical opportunity for individuals, communities and the public purse.

Further education is not simply a pathway to skills. It is part of the UK’s health infrastructure.

And it is time our systems were designed to reflect that.

A night in the cells set students free to play and make connections

When my students arrived at Shrewsbury Prison for our overnight residential, they were singing and dancing on the coach.

An hour later they were in prison jumpsuits, choosing their cells for the night.

Each cell contained nothing but a metal bunk. The heavy doors clanged shut. The reality of the environment settled in.

The aim of the trip was simple: to bring criminology and psychology to life. Students took part in escape-room challenges across A Wing, explored the history of punishment through a guided tour, and debated the realities of prison life in the same corridors where inmates once walked.

But the most interesting learning moment of the trip did not happen during the formal activities. It happened later that evening when the structure faded away.

Learners from different classes, many of whom had barely spoken to one another before, began playing games. Hide and seek echoed down Victorian corridors. Small groups gathered on landings talking and laughing together in what could only be described as impromptu circle time.

At first glance, it looked like chaos. In reality, it was something much more valuable: play.

Resilience and independence

In education we often associate play with early years. Somewhere around the age of 11 we quietly remove it from the learning environment and replace it with seriousness, structure and assessment. But teenagers still need play.

Psychologist Peter Gray has long argued that play is one of the primary ways young people develop social competence, resilience and independence. Through playful interaction, young people practise negotiation, cooperation and emotional regulation in ways that structured activities rarely replicate.

In other words, play is not a distraction from development, it is part of the mechanism that drives it. What I witnessed in that prison wing was exactly that process happening.

Students who normally sit in separate classrooms were suddenly mixing naturally. Conversations were flowing. New friendships were forming. Students who can sometimes be quiet or withdrawn in lessons were confidently participating in group games. The environment had changed, and with it the dynamics between students.

A prison, a space historically designed for isolation and control, had unexpectedly become a place where connection and community flourished.

Of course, the trip had taken weeks of planning, risk assessments and organisation. Experiential learning always does. But moments like that remind me why it matters.

Further education students are navigating one of the most complex periods of their lives. Many are managing anxiety, uncertainty about the future and the pressures of adulthood arriving fast. In that context, opportunities for genuine social connection are not just enjoyable, they are developmentally important.

Play allows teenagers to experiment socially without the pressure of performance or assessment. It gives them a space to negotiate friendships, develop confidence and regulate emotions in ways that traditional classroom environments often struggle to facilitate. And perhaps most importantly, it reminds them that learning environments can be human.

Bringing people together

When we reflected on the trip afterwards, several learners said they would happily do it again.

What stood out was how aware they were of the way the evening had unfolded socially. Some even complimented classmates for starting the games that brought everyone together.

What began as hide and seek soon evolved into sardines, with students squeezing into the same hiding places and encouraging others to join in.

Perhaps most importantly, some of the younger learners said they now felt they had someone in the year above they could approach if they needed support. In a single evening, students who had barely spoken before had created connections that may last far beyond the trip itself.

As educators we often talk about engagement strategies, retention and wellbeing initiatives. Sometimes the solution is simpler than we think.

Give young people a space where they feel safe enough to laugh, explore and play together and learning will follow.

That night in Shrewsbury Prison certainly proved it.

Colleges could pay teachers more but are choosing not to

The pay gap between school and college teachers has reached its widest level in 15 years.

But we rarely hear of similar pay gaps for college CEOs, senior leaders, professional staff or other college employees.

Do we pay teaching staff less simply because we can? And could we do something about it if we wished?

In addition to funding, there are four reasons for the gap:

School teachers are graduates, college teachers often aren’t

Almost every schoolteacher is a graduate, compared to about half of college teachers. The UK graduate earnings premium has fallen sharply but is still about 45 per cent. Colleges sell higher education courses as a way of increasing earnings, so surely we would expect schoolteachers to earn more?

Sixth form college teaching is a graduate profession and a comparison of staff costs with general FE colleges is instructive.

The audited finance record for 2023-24 shows median sixth form college teacher pay (including pensions) at £64,128 is 25 per cent higher than for general FE colleges. There is also less variability in sixth form college figures, suggesting they match schoolteacher salaries.

Type of college	Median teacher pay cost/teacher FTE	Upper quartile teacher pay cost/teacher FTE
Sixth form colleges	£64,128	£66,471
General FE colleges	£51,163	£55,372
Land-based colleges	£49,185	£55,943

College teachers have fewer options to increase pay

While sixth form college teachers could all work in schools, that is not true of college teachers. However, it is argued college teachers can always go back to industry.

But the latest Office for National Statistics data shows FE teaching pays better than equivalent roles in leisure, sport, business, arts, hair and beauty, and even some areas of construction. Only areas like finance, engineering and IT offer a better financial deal.

Colleges do not discriminate in favour of teachers like schools do

Colleges are scrupulously fair when it comes to pay rises. Our negotiating machinery treats all college staff (other than senior leaders) in the same way.

But the government treats schoolteachers as a special case with their own pay review body. Unsurprisingly, they get bigger pay awards and better progression.

Colleges divert resources to non-teaching activity

In recent years there’s been an uplift in employer and business development-related activity in colleges, including things like sponsorship of events. Our most expensive staff spend much of their time doing this.

But the funding model of schools and colleges is identical – funding follows the learner. Trust CEOs, school heads and sixth form college leaders don’t spend as much time on such activities.

And the latest finance record shows this increase in employer activity has been accompanied by drops in related student numbers in the last three years.

HE numbers are down 30 per cent, 16-18 apprentices fell 3 per cent, adult apprentices dropped 20 per cent and adult students declined by 1 per cent.

In contrast, the boom in 16-18 student numbers means colleges increasingly resemble schools in terms of their student population and levels of study. This presents real questions about the effectiveness of employer engagement.

To close the gap, here are some suggestions for an FE teacher pay policy:

Take teachers out of national negotiations and commit to at least matching the rises given to schoolteachers, and to senior teams, even if that leaves less available for other staff.
Use audited finance record data for average FTE teacher cost (which is surely a more important league table than CEO pay) to put pressure on colleges well adrift from the median.
Push governing bodies and senior teams to scrutinise their spending on employer engagement and sponsorship activities to ensure it’s worth the investment.

If we aren’t that serious about this issue, then let’s be honest with our teachers and say we’ll let government funding and the labour market dictate salary levels instead.