An arts and media provider with a large proportion of high needs learners is challenging an ‘inadequate’ report after Ofsted criticised it for not moving enough students onto further study or employment.

Sheffield Independent Film and Television (Shift) was given the lowest possible rating in every category bar one in a report published by the education watchdog today.

Inspectors reported that the quality of provision had “declined” at the provider, after it was rated ‘good’ at its last two inspections in 2013 and 2016.

Shift is the second arts and media provider to be rated ‘inadequate’ in the last month, after Ofsted criticised the employment outcomes for learners at Dv8 Training (Brighton) in January.

In November, chief inspector Amanda Spielman spoke out about the “mismatch” between the numbers of students taking arts and media courses and their “future employment in the industry”.

Speaking at the Association of Colleges’ conference, she said Ofsted’s research on level two qualifications found these courses were giving learners “false hope” and questioned if some providers were chasing income over the best interests of their learners.

Her controversial comments made headlines in The Guardian, The Times and the Daily Mail.

Shift has 51 learners enrolled, around a third of which have high needs, who are on 16 to 19 study programmes in a variety of creative media subjects including digital media, film, television and the cultural industries. 

Its Ofsted report found the proportion of its learners who go on to further study, apprenticeships or employment is “low” and warned that learners make “slow progress” in achieving qualifications and developing skills.

Tutors were criticised for failing to develop individual study programmes for high needs learners based on their education, health and care plans, and for not setting “high enough expectations of what their learners should achieve”.

Attendance was said to be low, with too many learners turning up late and submitting work after the deadlines, but they are met with a “lack of challenge from tutors”.

Inspectors also criticised senior leaders for “weak” performance management of staff and failing to hold them to account well enough for their performance.

However, the small provider has plans to formally challenge Ofsted’s decision.

Bridget Kelly, chief executive of Shift, said: “We don’t agree with the judgement and we are going to challenge it through the complaints procedure.

“Our key focus at the moment is the wellbeing of our students. We are taking external advice on the appeal.”

A grade four report could prove catastrophic for the provider, as the Education and Skills Funding Agency typically terminates government skills funded contracts for private providers who receive the rating.

Shift’s report highlighted several strengths at the provider.

Inspectors found that most learners “enjoy their programme and value the kind and caring approach of staff”, while parents were said to be “appreciative of the support that staff provide to young people, many of whom have had previous negative and unsuccessful experiences of education”.

Careers guidance is “effective and impartial”, and tutors have strong relationships with local employers to provide a “broad variety” of work experience activities.

“Leaders work effectively with local partners and employers in the media sector across the city of Sheffield,” the report added.

“Employers provide meaningful work experience activities that help learners to develop their knowledge and understanding of the creative industries.”

However, it also warned that too few learners – particularly those with high needs – completed the programme and achieved their qualifications, and warned that they do not develop the English or mathematics skills “needed to be successful in future learning or work”.

 

A studio school in Bath that has struggled to meet costs as a result of severely low student numbers is to close at the end of the 2020 summer term, it has been confirmed.

The Wellsway Multi Academy Trust said this morning that the Department for Education has made the final decision to close The Bath Studio School (TBSS) next year.

The government agreed “in principle” to close TBSS in October; an announcement that was followed by a five-week consultation exercise.

The creative and digital specialist school opened in 2014, but struggled to recruit enough students to make it viable and has been operating at a capacity of 47 per cent or less since opening – with student numbers forecast to fall even further.

Due to the poor intake, TBSS has required a “considerable” amount of subsidy and financial support from the trust.

Closing TBSS at the end of Summer term 2020 means students will be able to finish their qualifications.

No new pupils will be admitted from September this year, and the trust is looking at redeploying staff to its other schools.

The trust’s chief executive Andrea Arlidge said: “The decision by ministers to consent to the closure of TBSS reflects the challenges the school faces – medium and long-term.

“Ultimately, there is simply not enough demand in the Bath area for the type of education that TBSS provides.

“We remain excited by the potential of Aspire Academy, our special school that shares the site and building with the school.

“We are aiming to further develop Aspire to provide much needed special school places for children and young people on the autistic spectrum with challenging needs. 

“Through our studio school in Keynsham, IKB (which is focused on STEM subjects), we also remain committed to the studio school concept for particular subjects and students.”

Yesterday, Studio@Deyes studio school revealed it was considering closure. Although it has a capacity for 300, it has just 196 pupils and its accounts show it ended last year with a deficit of almost £600,000.

Twenty-one studio schools have closed to-date, and a number of others have set out plans to shut, despite millions of pounds in government investment. No new studio schools opened in 2018.

In September, the Department for Education denied that there had been a formal review of the programme ordered by minister Lord Nash.

That was despite emails, released under Freedom of Information, showing the Studio Schools Trust chair, David Nicoll, had asked Lord Nash to postpone a meeting they were due to have as “it seems that the review will not have been completed in time”.

The awarding organisations that will develop, deliver and award the first three T-levels have been revealed by the government.

Following a competitive tender, NCFE has been awarded a contract to deliver the education and childcare pathway, and Pearson has been awarded contracts to deliver T-levels in design, surveying and planning as well digital production, design and development.

The contracts are worth £17.5 million in total and give the awarding organisations exclusive rights to deliver each T-level subject.

Stewart Foster, managing director of NCFE Awarding, said his organisation is “excited to be at the forefront of the implementation of T-levels”.

Rod Bristow, President of Pearson in the UK, said: “The award of these licenses recognises our longstanding collaboration and partnership with employers of all sizes to design, develop and deliver world class qualifications in these industries.”

The government’s decision to have a single awarding body per T-level has proved to be highly contentious.

It was one of the reasons why the Federation of Awarding Bodies threatened the Department for Education with legal action in the summer, but the department has held firm with the policy.

Fifty providers will deliver the first three T-levels from 2020.

Education secretary Damian Hinds said today: “This is a major step forward in our work to upgrade technical education in this country.

“T-levels are a once in a generation opportunity to create high-quality technical education courses on a par with the best in the world, so that young people gain the skills and experience they need to secure a good job, an apprenticeship or progress into further training.

“We have made significant progress to implement these vital reforms which are on track for delivery from 2020.”

Sir Gerry Berragan, chief executive of the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education, which took over the running of T-levels this month, said: “I am really pleased at the pace the work has developed and the institute will continue to build on the work of DfE.

“Technical education offers a real and exciting alternative to A-levels for young people, with T-levels now sitting alongside apprenticeships.”

A provider that received over £16 million in three years from college subcontracting deals has been exposed by Ofsted for delivering ‘insufficient’ apprenticeships which exclude employers and lack scrutiny.

FE Week revealed in November the mysterious way in which SCL Security Ltd has operated as a subcontractor for many years, delivering hundreds of apprenticeships for mostly 16- to 18-year-olds for Brooklands College despite employing fewer than 10 people.

The Education and Skills Funding Agency acted following our exposé, and starts were suspended at the provider last month while it carries out an investigation.

Apprentices do not know what progress they are making

FE Week’s findings also triggered an Ofsted monitoring visit to SCL Security, and its report was published today which resulted in two ‘insufficient progress’ ratings.

“Leaders and managers do not ensure that the programme they offer meets the requirements of an apprenticeship,” the education watchdog found.

“Apprentices do not receive sufficient off-the-job time to complete their studies and do not know what progress they are making.

“SCL staff do not plan apprentices’ training programmes of study well enough to meet individual apprentices’ needs. All apprentices are currently expected to complete their apprenticeships in the same timeframe irrespective of their previous experience, skills or level of training.”

SCL Security is run by Andrew Merritt and began to receive public funding in its own right in May 2017.

At the time of Ofsted’s monitoring visit in January, it had 27 apprentices on programmes including in health and social care and IT, with a further six on breaks in learning. Most are aged over 24.

Today’s report said that SCL Security employs three part-time external quality improvement consultants to manage the provision.

But leaders at the provider “do not check the quality of provision effectively”, and their evaluation of it is “overly positive”.

Quality assurance of the apprenticeship programme is also “not effective”.

“Managers do not have a good enough oversight to hold staff to account or to know what progress apprentices make,” Ofsted’s report said.

“Leaders have not implemented any governance arrangements and, as a result, do not receive sufficient challenge or scrutiny regarding the programmes of training.”

It also revealed that the provider does not take into account prior learning for individual apprentices.

“Managers and staff, including assessors, do not take into account the skills, knowledge and behaviours that apprentices already have prior to starting their programme.”

Apprentices are also not made aware of the “requirements of the end-point assessment or the different grades they could achieve in their qualifications”.

As a result, they “do not aim for higher levels of achievement”.

SCL Security’s leaders do not involve employers and line managers “sufficiently in apprentices’ training”, Ofsted found.

With this sound basis and Ofsted’s support, we are confident for the future

“Employers are not included in the planning or delivery of training. In most cases, employers are not aware of the progress apprentices make and are not able to support them to develop new skills and knowledge at work.”

Inspectors also reported that the planning and delivery of training to improve apprentices’ English and maths skills “is weak”.

Ofsted did however find that leaders at SCL Security have made sure that the apprentices they enrol are “suitable for an apprenticeship and select them with integrity”.

Safeguarding is also effective.

Mr Merritt said: “Highlighting areas where improvement is needed, is always sound advice.

“The inspectors noted that SCL ensures that the apprentices are suitable and selected with integrity, the apprentices are safe, they feel safe and the employers benefit from the contributions their apprentices make to their businesses.

“The apprentices receive good personal support from their tutors and as a result, gain confidence in their job roles.”

He added that with this “sound basis and Ofsted’s support, we are confident for the future”.

The Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education is to start charging for its apprenticeship external quality assurance service.

News of the move comes just days after FE Week revealed the “ridiculous variability” in approved external quality assurance charges, which were criticised by sector leaders for ranging from a free service to £179 per apprentice.

The institute launched a tender at the end of January for an organisation to provide quality assurance for apprenticeships assessment on its behalf from April 1 until the end of March 2021.

Open Awards has held the contract to deliver this service since August 2017, which was worth an initial £160,000, but this will end in March.

Tender documents for the new contract, seen by FE Week, state that “legislation allows the institute to charge end point assessment organisations (EPAOs) a fee per apprentice that undertakes an end-point assessment and it is these fees that will pay for the EQA service”.

They add: “The institute’s budget is limited and we are seeking to work with a supplier who will deliver a high-quality service at a price that offers strong value for money.”

The bidding organisation is asked to “confirm what price they would charge per end-point assessment”, and would receive a minimum payment of £20,000 per month for the duration of the contract.

The winning bidder can therefore expect to earn at least half a million pounds over the two-year contract period.

A spokesperson for the institute said EQA is to be delivered on a “cost-recovery basis and not for profit” and this has “been made clear to potential bidders”.

Currently, the institute is the nominated EQA provider for 191, or 55 per cent, of 345 approved standards, and like Ofqual, doesn’t charge EPAOs for the service.

The tender documents suggest the IfATE will now move to a system of invoicing the end-point assessment organisations for EQA and then paying the contractor.

The institute’s tender documents said it anticipates that up to “67,000 (approx. 19,000 in year 1; 47,000 in year 2) apprentices will undertake end-point assessment across standards which have nominated the institute to provide EQA”.

A spokesperson for the institute said: “We have begun the process for procuring a supplier to deliver a high-quality EQA service on behalf of the Institute from April 2019. This will ensure continuity of quality assurance provision for apprentices and employers.”

The ESFA sets a funding band for each apprenticeship standard, which is usually the value given to providers to deliver the training.

Of the total funding, up to 20 per cent is available to fund the end-point assessment. The EQA cost is paid by the end-point assessment organisation and is factored into the EPA price.

There are currently 18 approved external quality assurance bodies that monitor end-point assessment organisations, to ensure the process is “fair, consistent and robust”.

When shown FE Week analysis of costs published by the IfATE, Graham Hasting-Evans, group managing director of NOCN, an end-point assessment organisation, said last week that he was “very concerned” about the high level of EQA charges, which are “up to 10 per cent of the EPA cost in some cases” as well as the “considerable inconsistency”.

Tom Bewick, chief executive of the Federation of Awarding Bodies, representing many of the 199 currently approved EPAOs, said: “These practices run the risk of bringing the entire reforms into disrepute.”

The closing dates for bids to the IfATE’s tender is February 26.

Leaders of a studio school in Liverpool are “strongly considering” closing their institution next year, after poor recruitment affected its financial viability.

Studio@Deyes has a capacity of 300 but just 196 students, and accounts show it ended the last academic year with a deficit of almost £600,000.

Twenty-one studio schools have closed to-date, and a number of others have set out plans to shut. Studio@Deyes is the second studio school to announce this year that it is considering closure, after the Bath Studio School also admitted problems with recruitment in October.

In a letter to parents, John Graham, who chairs the board of Studio@Deyes sponsor the Lydiate Learning Trust, said the organisation had “reached a point where it is only right and proper to stop and look at what the future holds” as a result of “difficulties arising from the under recruitment of pupils”.

He said trustees were strongly considering closing the school in August 2020.

“If this becomes a reality then this would mean that all current students will have completed their relevant examinations and completed their time at Studio@Deyes. No student will need to move to another school in the middle of their current qualifications.”

Staff were told of the proposal on January 30.

The school has been dogged with problems since its inception.

It was supposed to open in 2015, but its launch was delayed by a year because of a hold-up in the refurbishment of its new buildings. This was despite a headteacher and deputy having already been appointed.

The school eventually opened in 2016, and already had a deficit of £251,000 by the end of its first year of operation. Headteacher Dean Lythgoe left the studio school in December 2017. Records show he was paid between £40,000 and £50,000 in 2015-16, before the school even opened, and between £60,000 and £70,000 in 2015-17 and 2016-17.

Accounts for the year to August 31 2018, published in December, reveal that Studio@Deyes ended the year with a much larger deficit of £585,000.

However, the documents claimed at the time that the trust board “has a long term plan to correct the position”.

Lydiate’s two other schools, Deyes High School and Childwall Sports and Science Academy, both ended last year with a surplus.

Two providers will no longer deliver the first wave of T-levels after one received a low Ofsted rating and another was found to be too “specialist”.

The Department for Education confirmed today that the London Design and Engineering UTC and Big Creative Training had been removed from the list of providers who will be delivering T-levels in 2020-21.

Big Creative Training had been due to deliver the digital route, and London Design and Engineering UTC was set to provide the construction pathway.

However, the DfE said the London Design and Engineering UTC would no longer be part of the first wave of the specialist technical qualifications after it received a ‘requires improvement’ rating from Ofsted.

The report, which was published on November 26 after an inspection in October, warned of an “inconsistency in the quality of teaching”.

“Leaders have faced significant challenges and are now taking the right decisions to improve the school,” it said. “However, there has not been enough time for their decisions to have had the desired impact.”

Big Creative Training, also based in London, has been removed after the DfE said that the digital pathway available in 2020 does not “fit with the specialist nature of their current provision”.

A spokesperson for the DfE said the government “always expected the list of providers to fluctuate as we progress towards September 2020”.

“However, we continue to have an excellent group with good coverage of provider types and across our opportunity areas,” she added.

Fifty providers remain on the list for 2020.

In October, the DfE removed three schools from the first wave after one received a low Ofsted grade and two others “decided not to” take part. It also added Suffolk New College to the list of those delivering the T-levels.

Big Creative Training and the London Design and Engineering UTC were both contacted for comment.

Working “unusual” hours and claims in excess of actual expenses have been listed as indicators for training providers that staff may be committing fraud in new government guidance.

The document from the Department for Education, published today, also warns that signs that employees are potentially committing fraud include aggressive responses to questions and “too much forgetfulness”.

The list is split into several areas: personal motives for fraud; organisational motives for fraud; weaknesses in internal controls; transactional indicators; possible methods used to commit and/or conceal fraud; record keeping/banking/other.

Personal motives include where staff believe they get inadequate rewards, have an expensive lifestyle, or personal problems such as gambling or an alcohol addiction.

The guidance also warns another indicator among organisations are where they are dominated by one person, have a for-profit component or face pressure to use or lose funds to sustain future funding levels.

The FE sector has been subject to potential fraud in recent times: Aspire Achieve Advance (also known as 3aaa) was referred to Action Fraud by the Department for Education in October following an investigation into alleged success rate “overclaims” at the provider.

3aaa received over £31 million in government funding in 2017 and had the largest allocation for non-levy apprenticeships – standing at nearly £22 million.

Three senior staff at Team Wearside were jailed in March for defrauding Sunderland College and training provider Springboard of a total of £460,000 through the use of false data on registered learners.

Four people were found guilty on fraud charges after it was found provider Luis Michael Training used the personal information of real people to claim apprenticeship funding, without their knowledge.

Additionally, over 3,000 learners, all aged 16 to 19 and were either vulnerable or not in education, employment or training, were enrolled on coaching courses, but were instead made to hand out match-day programmes and sweep floors at Premier League football clubs.

In its first review of apprenticeships in 2016, the National Audit Office warned the government’s apprenticeship reforms could lead to “market abuse” in the FE industry, of the sort which took place under the Individual Learning Accounts system, which was scrapped in 2001 after abuse by unscrupulous providers led to a reported £67 million fraud.

To see the list, click here.

Six more providers have received temporary bans on recruiting apprentices as Ofsted continues its scrutiny of new provision, with four others now completely removed from the approved register.

The inspectorate is monitoring all new apprenticeship providers, and any deemed to be making ‘insufficient’ progress in at least one area faces being suspended from taking on new apprentices by the government unless there are “extenuating circumstances”.

The Education and Skills Funding Agency updated the register of apprenticeship training providers on Wednesday, which shows there are a total of 23 providers currently on the barred list.

Added to the list are: Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust, Premier Nursing Agency, T.M.S Learning and Skills Support, The Development Fund, Ultima Skills and Vortex Training Solutions.

They will now be prevented from recruiting apprentices until they have received a full Ofsted inspection and been awarded at least a grade three for apprenticeship provision.

A total of four providers have now been fully removed from the government’s apprenticeship provider register since Ofsted began its early monitoring visits in February last year.

The Key6 Group was one of the first to receive an ‘insufficient’ monitoring report, which was published in March last year, but the ESFA lifted the ban after two months when it was found to be making ‘significant’ progress in safeguarding and provided a “robust improvement plan”.

But, in a further twist, the Liverpool-based provider has now been entirely removed from the register. FE Week has been unable to contact Key6 to find out why it has been removed despite multiple attempts.

Premier People Solutions, a cabinet office-approved apprenticeship provider to government departments, has also been removed from the register of apprenticeship training providers following a damning monitoring report in November.

Kashmir Youth Project, which received two of the low ratings, has been removed, as has AMS Nationwide which went bust after Ofsted gave it two ‘insufficient’ ratings and the ESFA found it was claiming payments “incorrectly”.

ESFA guidance on monitoring visits, published in August, states that the agency will not remove an organisation from the register after a monitoring visit unless Ofsted has raised concerns about safeguarding and “identified a significant risk to apprentices”.

Removal from the register ends all current and future apprenticeship delivery, and means all apprentices must be moved to other providers.

However, if the provider was only found to be making ‘insufficient’ progress in its safeguarding, it can be reinspected and will have the restrictions removed on it if safeguarding has improved.

This was the case for N-Gaged Training and Recruitment, which was stopped from recruiting after its safeguarding was criticised in a report published in August. However, this was reversed after a reinspection in November found its safeguarding to be ‘reasonable’.