This week we expose four oversight gaps that have emerged since the implementation of apprenticeships.

They each put the credibility of the programme at risk, and need sorting, and fast.

Blind spot 1: Office for Students has still not committed to monitoring the quality of the rapidly expanding level six and seven ‘non-degree’ apprenticeships.

Incredibly, because Ofsted are not permitted to step in, this means some providers simply fly under the inspection radar.

Blind spot 2: When new providers fail an Ofsted monitoring visit the ESFA policy is that they pause new starts until a full inspection.

Yet providers like BBP University can continue starts at level six and seven as it is not inspected by Ofsted.

They can also continue the paused level two to five apprenticeships by switching it to a different legal entity.

Surely Ofsted and the Department for Education need to close this major loop-hole that makes a mockery of their intervention regime?

Blind spot 3: Apprenticeship standards are approved for delivery by the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE) before end-point assessment bodies have been approved by the ESFA.

And in one case, for the nursing associate apprenticeship, thousands have been on the course for a year or more despite there still being no assessment body in place.

Blind spot 4: The IfATE has responsibility for overseeing the apprenticeship external quality assurance (EQA) bodies.

Yet the IfATE is itself an EQA body, therefore overseeing itself. This is something the National Audit Office is likely to question in their forthcoming report.

At present the IfATE contract out their EQA responsibility, but as we report this week it remains unclear who will do the work in April.

In what appears to be a hastily arranged tender, the IfATE cannot get a new contractor in place fast enough.

These are all technical areas but combined they highlight significant policy failure that needs fixing.

But who to fix them?

The alphabet soup of acronyms neatly highlights a more general blind spot over who is actually responsible for overseeing quality: DfE, ESFA, Ofsted, OfS, IfATE, EQAs or EPAOs?

Nobody should pretend policy implementation is easy, but it’s been more than four years since the first apprentices started on a standard.

To put it in Ofsted terms, apprenticeship quality oversight it is still ‘inadequate’ and there has quite clearly been ‘insufficient progress’.

After a poor Ofsted inspection, Preston’s College worked out how technology could boost student and staff performance, says Steve Smith

Everyone knows what 360-degree footage is – it’s everywhere, from intrepid Go Pro users wrestling great whites to “twerking” on the world’s highest peaks. Our role, as educators, however, is to go beyond entertainment and use technology to create a distinctive learning experience. At Preston’s College we think we have worked out how to do it – on a small budget.

After our last but one Ofsted visit our college dropped to a grade 3. We were criticised for not providing enough formative assessments for our learners and needed to provide more “stretch and challenge” for our more able ones. The college made a variety of improvements and following our last inspection in October last year we became a strong grade 2 college. Our augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) work was definitely part of the picture.

This is the difference I think they have made to our formative assessment.

Reflection and review is more compelling
Learners in performing arts are continually on the move – how can fleeting movements be captured to evaluate how they use their space and interact with each other? By placing a 360-degree camera in the middle of a set of dancers or actors, they can look at the footage and set any angle of view to show how they move through space and relate to one another. They can “freeze-frame” to look at their backs or three-quarter views – any angle that is inaccessible in practice. The clarity and richness of information astonishes and stimulates learners to reach beyond what they thought was possible.

Learners can now create and publish their own AR and VR resources that were almost impossible just two years ago
Our sport tech learners used scanning software to design their own football boots and shirt tops for a group assessment. They could project and rotate their design and show a person wearing their top in 3D. It was just a whole step beyond what they thought was possible, and it stimulated them to explain their products in greater depth, which, in turn, improved their assessment grades.

Students have value-added workplace skills
We have encouraged learners to use 3D scanners and 360-degree cameras to create resources and widen their skill-set to annotate and publish what they make. Imagine the impact on employers when a learner produces e-portfolio evidence using 3D objects and virtual images. With more investment in industrial hand-held scanners, any learner could link their work to CAD CAM and 3D printing. For instance, hairdressing students could design and prototype their own range of styling equipment, or civil engineering learners could convert their architectural structural designs into three-dimensional models.

It’s also re-energised our teaching staff.

Imagine the impact on employers when a learner produces e-portfolio evidence using 3D objects

Expensive resources are better used and shared in new ways
We bought our first mobile 3D scanner for £399 and practised on an expensive plastic model of hair follicles and skin dermis layers, placing the 3D object on a free platform. We used free software to “layer” information on the object to give a fuller explanation of the subject.
We’d seen its potential for teaching in biology but on a professional development day, teachers from hair and beauty said: “that’s fantastic, we can use that!” Another teacher from auto vehicle said: “that’s really useful to show how oil affects the skin and hair and why it’s important to wash your hands correctly”. Thus a model that had spent too much time sitting on a shelf in a classroom ended up reaching across three curriculum areas.

It stimulates teachers to change what they do
We hold our AR and VR resources centrally, although teachers can book them out and use them inside and outside the college. The skill-set is modest so CPD effort is minimal (but we always give help when needed!).

The key to it all
Technology needs to be an answer to a specific problem: in our case how we improved formative assessments and stimulated learners to exceed their personal expectations. Having a clear objective will make it easier to see what difference, if any, AR and VR can make.

Building welfare support into post-16 provision is crucial to improving retention and achievements, says Tara Bliss-Appleton, who has some tips on how to make the funding work

The Saint Edmunds Society has offered vocational training since 2012 to young people who have struggled in mainstream education, to help them to develop meaningful trade-specific skills that will open doors to further training and employment.

We soon realised, however, that skills training was not enough. Disengagement from mainstream education is often driven by personal circumstances such as permanent exclusion, bullying, family breakdown and sometimes substance misuse. Our students presented with a range of barriers to learning, including anxiety, low income, and limited literacy and numeracy skills.

Our response was to build a strong welfare team, under the theory that a holistic package of support can improve learning and life outcomes. I’m a level 2 social worker with 14 years’ experience working across frontline crisis and therapeutic intervention teams, and I now manage a welfare team of seven with multiple specialisms in special educational needs, advocacy, mentoring and behaviour support.

The central focus of our welfare support team has been to work in partnership with students, parents and all professionals within an individual’s support network – from the NHS wellbeing service to children’s services or supported housing in the voluntary sector – to design a student support plan around short and long-term career goals.

We all know this kind of support for vulnerable learners is desirable, but the key question is, how do you make it work in practice? And how do you fund it?

Many students are restricted by their postcode or trade

The simple answer from an FE perspective is to pay careful attention to how support is allocated on an individual learning record and not just go through the motion of adding “x hours” in tutorial and enrichment support without the intent to deliver. It is best practice to allocate each student a link welfare worker, but have them get to know the entire team. Face to face contact – rather than an electronic survey to monitor support needs – is essential, and contributes to confidence, retention and achievement.

Some of our funding comes from schools commissioning us for alternative provision. For the post-16 study programme, additional learning support funding is allocated from our prime Education and Skills Funding Agency provider and local authority high needs top-up funding (where support funding is more than £6,000), which is agreed at the local authority SEN panel.

Further funding is allocated to projects from charitable trusts, European Social Fund short courses and employers such as Pentaco Construction and Taylor Wimpey, who see investment in young people and support services as part of their corporate social responsibility.

When the welfare team concept was first introduced to St-Eds, I was fortunate that a grant was awarded from a local charitable trust to fund my post for 18 months in 2014.

For students accessing our 16-19 study programme, specific time is allocated to each enrichment and support aim displayed on their individual learning plan (ILP), in addition to our flexible “drop in” support service.

Our growth in post-16 numbers from 20 in 2014-15 to 96 in 2017-18 reflects the impact the welfare team has had on our retention strategy. In the past academic year, 96 per cent of service users reported that the welfare support they received had a positive impact on their experience, motivation and overall achievement.

Spending for each full-time equivalent 16-19 student (eg, sixth-form colleges and general FE colleges) has fallen significantly from £6,208 in 2010-11 to £5,698 in 2017-18. It appears the gap in tutorial and enrichment support stemmed from the cuts in entitlement funding used to fund tutorial and positive enrichment activities for all students between 2010-11 and 2012-13. With less funding, many students who receive disadvantage and sector skills uplifts are often restricted by the postcode they live in or vocational trade they choose. For example, construction students receive a 20 per cent sector skills uplift whereas students on a horticulture and forestry course could receive up to 75 per cent.

What needs to change at policy level is the amount of funding uplift available for all young people with additional support needs, not just those with the right postcode or sector skill, or those eligible for top-up funding through their education health care plan.

In the wake of the recent CBI report that criticised some of the work of the Institute for Apprenticeships, Sir Gerry Berragan says he recognises that there are improvements to be made

The Institute for Apprentices has welcomed the Confederation of British Industry’s recent report Getting Apprenticeships Right. It reiterated our central role in driving quality in apprenticeships and T-levels. We welcomed many of its recommendations, particularly those that highlighted the role of employers leading the development of standards to plug the skills gaps in our workforce.

The institute is an employer-led organisation and how we engage our core stakeholders – particularly employers – is a key element of how we function. One of the main themes of the report was a need for the institute to engage more closely with employers over funding decisions. This is not new feedback. As we are in regular contact with employers, we understand their desire for greater transparency on funding decisions. As a result, we have launched a review into how we engage employers and how we might be more transparent about our funding band process.

Our funding band recommendations are about balancing the cost of delivering high-quality apprenticeships with ensuring value for money for the taxpayer. The purpose of the review is to ensure employers better understand how those decisions are made and where in the process they can have most influence. We will welcome feedback from employers, training providers and awarding organisations in support of this review through the consultation phase.

The report also suggested that the institute could be faster at approving standards. We launched our Faster and Better programme in February last year with the aim of working more closely with employers to refine our processes so that standards could be identified, developed and approved more quickly and effectively.

We are learning, growing and taking on new responsibilities

This programme has already demonstrated success as we approach the publication of our 400th standard. We are now looking to a second wave of improvements and to having 500 approved standards before the end of this year – and I am confident that we will achieve this. We will seek to achieve similar pace and momentum in developing T-levels.
I was gratified that the CBI report noted that employers largely had positive relationships with our staff, particularly our relationship managers (RM) who work with employers throughout this process. But the report highlighted that some of our staff lacked commercial awareness, which can put a strain on this relationship.

We have already taken action on this and have committed to developing the commercial expertise of our RMs. It is possible for them to build considerable knowledge and insight over time across a caseload of often up to 40 or 50 different occupations.

We are still a relatively new organisation, learning, growing and taking on new responsibilities. Reports such as the one published by the CBI are essential to hear, understand and respond to employers’ perspectives. We recognise that we can improve how we work with employers, as well as streamlining our processes and improving transparency. This is a journey of continuous improvement that has no end; we will always strive to review and improve.

The clear message from employers is they value the institute and the work we do. The CBI report recognises the integral and long-term role the institute has at the heart of technical education and wants to see more. I am confident that we can deliver the reforms needed in technical education to support learners today and in the future. We are very grateful for the continued support of employers and conscious of the significance of the work we are doing collectively to address the nation’s productivity challenge.