Latest news from FE Week

Skills England scales back employer role in funding decisions

Skills England has announced it will no longer rely on employers when deciding funding levels for apprenticeships.

The agency today said it was implementing an “interim funding model” that it claimed would be “more responsive” and “enable faster, more consistent decisions”.

Skills England currently invites “occupational groups”, made up of employers, to submit their own costings, which are then balanced with the agency’s funding rates created using an independent evidence base and Office for National Statistics data.

But rather than asking occupational groups to supply quotes from assessment organisations, the agency will now make use of “actual assessment cost data to help set our estimate”.

“We may continue to ask occupational groups for advice and to offer on-programme costings where needed,” the agency added.

The interim model will be in place for the rest of 2026 at least, with a permanent new funding model to be tested this summer.

It comes days after skills minister Jacqui Smith instructed Skills England to urgently review apprenticeship funding bands with a view to uplift some rates to grow the number of people aged under 25 starting apprenticeships. Skills England must identify priority standards by July and recommend potential new funding rates by October.

‘Sensible step’

Simon Ashworth, deputy CEO and director of policy at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said the membership body agreed that the funding band review model needed a refresh.

“The current process has been too slow, with some of the most popular apprenticeship standards for young people not having their funding bands reviewed since they were introduced in 2017,” he told FE Week.

“Making greater use of actual delivery data is a sensible step, and Skills England has previously indicated it wanted to move away from a quote-based approach as apprenticeship assessment reforms take effect, so this change is not unexpected.”

Skills England’s funding model change applies to all “skills products” within its remit, including apprenticeships, apprenticeship units and foundation apprenticeships.

The agency, which is the successor to the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education, has not disclosed which datasets or calculations underpin its interim model, other than “actual assessment costs”, or whether employers will be able to challenge its decisions.

It did reveal that the agency “may” seek advice from its expert network, made up of occupational and sector stakeholders, before making a final recommendation through its “internal governance processes” and then approaching the work and pensions secretary for approval.

The guidance outlined scenarios where funding for a skills product would be reviewed. These included instances where there is a significant change in duration, the addition or removal of a mandatory qualification or significant changes in content.

Ashworth added: “Getting funding band decisions right is essential and we will continue engaging closely with Skills England as the new model develops.

“There are still wider concerns that need addressing though, including the longstanding £27,000 funding band cap, which continues to affect the deliverability of provision in some of the government’s priority sectors. It is also too early to judge how assessment reform will affect future funding bands, but this is something we will be watching carefully.”

SEND help to general FE, specialist teachers told

Expert staff at specialist post-16 institutions could guide general FE colleges on how best to spend new inclusion cash, officials have said.

Under guidance published today, the Department for Education said 16-to-19 providers receiving a share of its £73 million inclusive mainstream fund could commission specialist colleges to deliver bespoke training to staff, or organise shadowing or placements in specialist settings.

The suggestions were among an outline of how the grant money could be spent, including delivering adaptive teaching, an inclusive environment and “ambitious” leadership.

A new “inclusive education estates” strategy was also published and reminds local authorities that high-needs capital allocations should be spent in post-16 settings as well as schools.

The two initiatives are among a package of reforms to embed inclusive practice across mainstream education in England.

Earlier this month, the DfE published a breakdown of colleges and training providers receiving a share of £73 million of inclusive mainstream fund allocations for 2026-27. The fund will run until 2029.

Putting heads together

Explaining a desire to build partnerships, the inclusive mainstream fund guidance says: “FE institutions already draw on a range of expertise to support learners with SEND, you may wish to further strengthen this by building on existing partnerships with specialist colleges.”

It adds that specialist providers could help develop alternative approaches to inclusion in areas where colleges have failed in the past.

Other tips include recruiting additional staff to learning support teams, strengthening data collection systems, and setting up informal information evenings for parents and carers of SEND learners.

Providers receiving inclusive mainstream fund cash will be required to set out how they use the money in their annual accountability statements. They also must explain how they respond to SEND and local skills needs. Furthermore, Ofsted will check how the funding is improving outcomes for learners during inspections.

The DfE also recommended using the inclusive mainstream fund for accessible campus maps, sensory tools in classrooms and assistive technology.

It highlighted Stoke-on-Trent College, which set up bespoke timetables, sensory-aware environments and real-world embedded curriculums for learners.

“This initiative is scalable, sustainable and sector-leading, offering a replicable model of inclusive excellence that transforms lives and communities,” the DfE said.

David Holloway, senior policy manager for SEND at the Association of Colleges, said the fund was a “welcome” way to level the playing field for the majority of students with SEND who do not receive any high-needs funding.

“Colleges are highly inclusive in both their enrolment and the way they support students,” he added. “But inclusiveness is fragile in the face of the many financial pressures colleges face.”

Clare Howard, chief executive of Natspec, agreed that the partnership idea would achieve “greater inclusiveness” but warned DfE that its push for mainstream inclusion should not overlook specialist provision.

“Young people in specialist colleges frequently say that specialist provision has given them a sense of belonging, of being valued and understood, and of being supported and challenged to achieve their goal – in other words, of being included,” she said.

Howard added: “This guidance will support FE colleges to build on the highly inclusive practice that already exists, but focussing solely on mainstream risks letting down children and young people with a higher level of need and the specialist providers who serve them.”

The DfE’s guidance said grants should be used at a cohort and whole-institution level, rather than as a personal budget for individual students.

“It is for 16-to-19 settings to decide how to allocate their total funding allocation, after assessing the needs of their overall cohort and the evidence-based activities and approaches that will be effective in their context,” it added.

Officials also clarified that 16-to-19 providers can carry some of their 2026-27 allocation beyond March 31, 2027, provided it is used alongside core funding to strengthen their inclusive offer.

Estates cash ‘for FE too’

The government also rolled out its non-statutory inclusion estates strategy setting out expectations on making school and college estates more inclusive.

It makes clear that high-needs provision capital allocation, an £860 million pot for local authorities to distribute, can be used to adapt college classrooms to make them more inclusive, such as fitting height-adjustable benches or creating wellbeing gardens.

Local authorities have been able to direct capital funding to FE colleges since the fund launched in 2021. They are now required to specify in local SEND reform plans how their capital strategy will cover the full newborn-to-25 age range.

Holloway said: “It is welcome to see the inclusive estates guidance make the point that high-needs provision capital allocations can be spent in colleges as well as schools.”

‘Bradford’s proper sexy’: The honey badger who transformed a college

“Bradford’s proper sexy”, says Bradford College CEO Chris Webb. “Everyone wants to come to Bradford. But when I first arrived here in 2019, no one did.”

In a city with one of the highest rates of universal credit claims in the country, the college has drawn visits from both Charlie Mayfield and Alan Milburn while researching their respective reports on getting more people into work.

But the city is also basking in the afterglow of its year as UK City of Culture 2025, and the college is cultivating a reputation of its own for innovation and creative thinking.

Webb and vice principal of recruitment and communications Sarah Towan show me around the David Hockney building, the biggest of its ten campuses. Opened in 2014, its £50 million price tag ultimately contributed to one of the largest financial rescue packages in FE history, the effects of which the college is still working through today.

The building was named after the famous Bradfordian artist and former college student who, like Webb, was never afraid to court controversy.

“Shall I go down the slide?” he grins at Towan while posing for a photograph in the mock forest school used by early years T Level students.

Bradford College CEO Chris Webb in the college’s mock forest school playground

He may be a CEO, but Webb is still at heart a mischievous boy from Romford, and his cheeky wisecracks occasionally draw exasperated looks from colleagues.

But Webb’s tomfoolery masks his sharp intellect and fierce determination to widen his learners’ horizons.

While some colleges have therapy dogs, Bradford has an emotional support honey badger – a cuddly toy chosen because the animal is “fairly cantankerous”, Webb explains, and “isn’t frightened of anything. It’ll have a go at lions.”

The honey badger in Webb comes out when our conversation turns to funding.

Webb took charge in March 2019, inheriting a college that had already spent more than two years in government intervention and was rated ‘requires improvement’ by Ofsted. On his second day in the job, he signed off on a £45 million rescue package with the Department for Education.

Although around £20 million was later written off, he still bristles at the suggestion that Bradford was ‘bailed out’.

The college, he points out, had originally been refused capital grant funding by the Learning and Skills Council, so had to borrow to build the Hockney building.

“There’s a little bit of the honey badger in me that asks, did DfE really bail us out? Or did we simply get the money we should have had in the first place to keep educating some of the country’s most deprived young people?”

Bradford’s Chris Webb with its honey badger mascot

Bursting at the seams

Bradford emerged from government intervention in 2022 and from bank intervention three years later. But with £12 million to £14 million still owed to the bank, even today the college has to provide regular financial updates to both its lender and the DfE.

Bradford’s latest accounts, due in January, have yet to emerge, pending a decision from the DfE on “anomalies” found during an internal audit, says Webb.

But he stresses this issue “doesn’t place the college in any financial risk” and its financial health forecast is ‘good’.

The irony is that Bradford’s earlier troubles arose partly from recruiting too few learners to service its debt. Its biggest problem now is over-demand.

The college’s 16-18 cohort is expected to total 5,000 next year, roughly double the number when Webb arrived. Hundreds more entry-level, level 1 and level 2 learners have enrolled since Aspire-igen and Qube Learning, two large providers with city bases, collapsed in 2023.

That “completely changed the demographic of our college”, says Webb. Only one in four applicants can now secure a place on its construction courses.

Meanwhile, Towan says there is an “over-sufficiency” of level 3 provision in a city where schools are grappling with poor attendance and high exclusion rates.

Plans for New College Keighley were scrapped, while the Brit School North, once scheduled to open this year, has yet to break ground.

“The system feeding into post-16 is broken,” she says. “The Brit School will be lovely for people from Manchester to Leeds who want to do a level 3 course, but it’s not going to help Bradford.”

Inside Bradford’s David Hockney building

Webb says he has warned the DfE for five years about rising demand for lower-level courses, but the college has no further capital projects planned as the local 16-to-19 population continues growing towards 2030.

“Why do I feel I’m just left on my own trying to fix a problem that seems to be quite systemic? It’s not like they don’t have all the information.”

Sixth forms and universities can respond to overcrowding by raising entry requirements, he says. Colleges instead always try to “squeeze them in somewhere”.

“We’re the place where everyone comes because no one else wants them.”

Demand for T Levels is also rising. Applications have doubled this year, with about 30 per cent coming from internal progression at level 2. Engineering is the most popular, while adult nursing attracted 80 applications for 20 places.

Webb sees that as evidence more young people are choosing vocational routes over academic pathways to university. He worries, however, that those who stop short of higher education may later encounter a “glass ceiling” when a degree becomes necessary for promotion.

Bradford College’s David Hockney building

Beyond Bradford

Night-school A Levels and a degree in sport science and IT “made all the difference” to Webb’s own career.

Before entering FE as a sports teacher, he stacked supermarket shelves, installed loft insulation and worked in a betting shop. He later held senior roles at Newcastle, South Thames and Barnsley colleges before coming to Bradford.

But his life chances as a young man were nonetheless impeded, he believes, by his own lack of cultural capital.

Webb once turned down a trainee underwriter role in the marine division of Lloyd’s of London because he did not understand the job and could not afford the train fare from Romford into central London.

“I could have been a millionaire, sitting on a yacht in Monaco,” he jokes. “I didn’t have the social or the cultural capital to understand. They’re the barriers you face that aren’t about the qualifications.”

But then, he also dismisses money as the “root of all evil”; his staff, he says, were “very happy” to see he was on the second page of FE Week’s list of the highest paid CEOs, rather than the first.

Webb is determined to provide opportunities for his students to build up their own cultural capital. The college prioritises trips overseas, because “you can’t aspire or dream to do stuff if you’ve never seen it”.

Bradford College students’ view of the Artemis II rocket launch

Students have this year travelled to Nepal, Cambodia and Albania. In America, a group saw the Artemis II rocket launch and sat in Apollo’s control room.

Only 10 to 15 per cent travel abroad, but shorter journeys can be just as revealing. Curriculum manager Gary Bradwell recalls public services students “staring at sheep and livestock” during a visit to the Yorkshire Dales because it was “all very new to them”.

Nearby, head of science Andrew Ridley-Ellis stands among backpacks, preparing to take 30 students on one of the college’s six annual camping trips.

“I want every one of our youngsters here to experience what you would get if you’re in a leafy middle-class suburb – that’s what drives us,” he says.

Turing scheme funding has been cut this year and frozen next year, but Towan says Bradford will keep the trips going “any which way we can”.

Bradford students on their trip to the US

Communities united

Enrichment activities within the college are another key focus for Bradford. In the students’ union are engagement team Mohammed Nawaz (Naz) and Mohammed Azeem, who run workshops about online misinformation and helping people understand tensions in the city the college serves.

Azeem has worked for the college for 18 years and is a community youth worker, which means he often already knows the college’s young people before they arrive. One of his family members was involved in the 2001 Bradford riots, which were sparked by anger following a city centre march by far-right activists.

Reform UK is now the largest party on Bradford Council and dominant on almost all of West Yorkshire’s other councils, and recent protests against immigrants elsewhere in the country have prompted concern among the area’s migrant communities.

With most of the executive team commuting from outside Bradford, Azeem recently briefed them on the riots and the risks of renewed division. He nevertheless believes the city has learned from its past.

If far-right groups return, he says, “the people of Bradford, including the college community, would come together and say, ‘this is what Bradford really means to us’”.

Bradford student engagement team Mohammed Nawaz and Mohammed Azeem

No one left behind

Bradford College is also trying to ensure its learners are not left behind by technology. It hosts the annual Innovate North conference and is developing AI tools to support lesson planning and provide digital learning companions.

Webb cannot resist another swipe at Whitehall, saying: “The greatest opportunity for AI will be the ability to take the stupid people who make policy out of the loop.”

Yet the city’s labour market exposes the limits of policy ambition. Digital T Levels have struggled to secure placements because Bradford has few software companies. Remote placements are now permitted, but Towan questions whether learners with social, emotional and mental health needs have the “resilience and focus” to work alone from a bedroom for 45 days.

Bradford has therefore funded an on-campus hub that recreates an office environment for them to work in.

Towan fears the shortage of good local jobs will leave colleges in places such as Bradford disadvantaged if Alan Milburn’s proposal to judge them more heavily on learner outcomes is adopted. The college is increasingly preparing students to seek opportunities in Leeds and Manchester, with a proposed tram link potentially making that easier.

Webb is equally sceptical about incoming V Levels, which he believes will resemble the old AVCE (Advanced Vocational Certificate of Education) vocational A Levels introduced in 2000 and phased out seven years later. He suspects V Levels are partly designed for “middle-tier sixth forms” affected by the removal of BTECs, but says those institutions will struggle to replicate colleges’ practical environments, adding: “Infrastructure is expensive.”

Bradford College’s Sarah Towan Gary Bradwell Chris Webb and Jake Painter

Bradford has received substantial government capital investment for T Levels. Its £1.5 million early years facility includes the mock forest school and a nursery classroom where students can take turns role-playing children in workplace scenarios.

Webb suggests other college chief executives could be invited to play the children.

“The trouble is, they’ll be really poorly behaved,” he says.

But beneath Webb’s jokes is a college transformed. When FE Week last visited, Webb had been in post for barely a year and wanted Bradford to become “one of the best colleges in the country”. Seven years on, that ambition looks much closer to being realised – although success has brought a capacity crisis of its own.

Webb is now eyeing retirement. He jokes, or appears to, that he wants to “go out on a scandal” before retraining as a stand-up comedian.

“Can I throw a McDonald’s milkshake over anyone?” he asks his ever-patient colleagues.

London calling: Capital to host WorldSkills UK national finals in 2027

The boss of Worldskills UK is seeking more competitors from independent training providers for the national finals in London next year.

Chief executive Ben Blackledge used this week’s Association of Employment and Learning Providers conference to confirm the annual national skills competition would return to the capital after four years in south Wales and Greater Manchester.

And he revealed his view that college students are over-represented in skills competitions, and called for ITPs to “get involved”.

The last London FE provider to host a UK national final was Barking & Dagenham College in 2022.

The host venues for 2027 will be announced in autumn and work in partnership with the Greater London Authority.

Last year, more than two dozen national finalists hailed from London’s FE colleges and secured two medals.

WorldSkills UK presents gold, silver and bronze medals to competitors who excel in professional skills at their national finals. Top-performing competitors are then in with a shot of being selected for specialist training and coaching to represent the UK internationally at EuroSkills and WorldSkills.

Blackledge, who leaves Worldskills UK in October to become chief executive of the City & Guilds Foundation, was joined on stage at the AELP conference by four Team UK competitors who will compete at the global WorldSkills competition in Shanghai in September.

Asked what the training provider sector could do to support the UK’s competitive performance on the world stage, he said: “Registrations for the next cycle [of competitions] open in March and they will be hosted in London in 2027-28.

“If you’d like to get a sense of them, come to Wales in November this year. Loads of educators will be there, loads of team leaders will be there. It’s a great chance to learn.”

Colleges ‘over-represented’

For the next cycle of national and international competitions, Blackledge said he wanted to see more entries from a wider range of providers.

“You’ll have heard from two competitors here who trained at a college. We are making real progress in having a full range of sectors represented, but we still have an over-representation of colleges,” he explained.

“I know there is such quality in absolute numbers within the independent training provider networks, so I guess my plea is – get involved in this.”

WorldSkills UK is expected to announce the competitors for the 2026 national finals next month.

And as well as preparing for Shanghai, WorldSkills UK is already laying the groundwork for the EuroSkills 2027 in Düsseldorf, and WorldSkills 2028 in Aichi, Japan.

Left to right: bricklayer Joseph Shingler, restaurant services Yuliia Batrak and renewable energy Madeleine Warburton

Knuckling down for Shanghai

The four champions from Team UK selected for Shanghai discussed their experience of preparing to compete on the world stage.

Team UK’s 26 competitors have three months of intense training left before they join 1,500 other young people from across the globe.

Yuliia Batrak, restaurant service competitor and Medallions for Excellence winner at last year’s EuroSkills Herning, told delegates she was practising breathing techniques to cope with the unpredictability of her skill.

“You don’t know what customers you’re going to get, you don’t know what tasks you’re doing to get on the day and you just need to think very quickly to deliver a five-star service,” she said.

“I’m really looking for the gold medal. I’ve been working for it for the last three and a half years.”

Joseph Shingler, a bricklaying competitor from Shrewsbury College, said he used ear defenders to zone out background noise when competing in front of a crowd.

“The national final taught me that no matter what, I can just go and give it go. My attitude has been to have fun, give it 100 per cent and see what comes out of it,” he added.

WorldSkills Shanghai is on from September 22 and 27.

Movement is helping my traumatised ESOL students to engage

Sometimes looking around an FE ESOL class can feel demotivating, when you’re greeted by blank faces, drooping eyelids and surreptitious tapping on phones under the table. As ESOL teachers, we carefully plan our lessons and it is disheartening to see students not focused and engaged.

Many of our students arrive in our classes desperate to learn English so they can build a better life in this country. Sometimes it can feel frustratingly difficult for teachers to find ways to fulfil that goal.

Perhaps we need to look closer at the reasons students are unable to concentrate.

Many have experienced war, poverty, trafficking, or other traumatic events over several years. Recently, I had a student from Sudan who was constantly taking bathroom breaks, falling asleep in class and failing to make any progress in his English skills. After a one-to-one tutorial, it became clear that he was carrying an avalanche of unprocessed trauma from a war-torn childhood. Along with navigating the UK visa system and temporary accommodation, he was struggling to take in any more of life, let alone my lesson on the present perfect continuous.

I started to investigate how trauma affects learning, which led me to the work of Bessel van der Kolk. In The Body Keeps the Score, van der Kolk argues that trauma is not only stored as memories or thoughts, but also in the body. When an individual remains in a constant state of threat over time, the part of the brain that affects concentration, memory, and emotional regulation can be severely affected. Therefore, traumatised students might find it hard to focus or remember information, and their emotions can be unpredictable.

Thankfully for ESOL teachers, students’ behavioural challenges are often signs of stress, not a reflection of bad teaching.

Van der Kolk discusses different practices to ease the effects of trauma, one being yoga. Kolk maintains that yoga helps to reconnect traumatised people with their body and brings them back into the present. It helps to regulate breathing and calms the nervous system. In traumatised individuals, it can encourage self-awareness and mindfulness, a pause that allows a sense of safety in the present, instead of dwelling in past danger.

So how can we work with yoga in the classroom? Should teachers be wearing Lycra and burning incense?

Well, research would suggest that even small moments of movement can help students calm their nervous systems, focus, and feel safe enough to participate in learning. Some simple activities which include movement, such as ‘find someone who’, where students move around the classroom talking to classmates to make a survey, can activate a sense of physical awareness.

Running dictations can not only reinforce reading, writing and speaking skills but also get the heart pumping and bring a sense of ‘now’ to the classroom. Stretching, reaching for the sky, and swaying to the left and right eases tension in the shoulders. Rubbing hands together until they get really hot gets students ready for writing. Balancing on one foot helps foster focus and awareness of surroundings before heavy grammar lessons. Simple box breathing exercise – breathe in for 4 hold for 4, out for 4 hold for 4 – can reset focus and reduce stress before assessments. Asking students to give themselves a hug always brings smiles to their faces. Encourage stamping of feet if there’s no one under your classroom!

All these activities are particularly useful before assessments, speaking activities or presentations. Over time, they can help students self-regulate and raise confidence in themselves.

This year, I have incorporated more movement in my classroom. At the start of the class, I open the windows and we run through our exercises. The students now anticipate movement throughout the lesson. There’s nothing quite like seeing a row of glum faces dissolve in giggles as they watch classmates try to stand on one foot. And my Sudanese student? I’m happy to say that after a year, he has progressed to the next class.

Successful language learning needs risk-taking, concentration and self-belief.

Students are far more likely to learn when they are mentally and physically in the classroom with you. Movement encourages a link to the present while also giving students a chance to communicate and learn. In ESOL classes, movement is not a distraction from learning – it can be what makes learning possible.

We need clear boundaries around parental access to learner data

Parental involvement in further education can be supportive, appropriate and genuinely in the learner’s best interests. Parents often arrive at FE after navigating school and other education providers on behalf of their child, particularly where there are additional learning needs, mental health concerns, or safeguarding issues. When something goes wrong at college, it is understandable that they want answers. Data subject access requests (DSARs) are sometimes used for that purpose.

The difficulty for colleges is that, as learners get older, the right of access to personal data under UK GDPR shifts to them from their parents. In fact, for many school learners, they are deemed competent enough to exercise this right themselves. So even where a learner is under 18, parental responsibility does not automatically confer a right to receive their child’s personal data. This can come as a surprise to parents who are used to being closely involved with their child’s education.

When parents’ rights end and learners’ rights begin

In practice, colleges are already seeing the impact of these tensions. For example, a parent submitted a request for detailed attendance records to support a child maintenance dispute. The learner had not consented to disclosure, and there were safeguarding considerations linked to an estranged parental relationship. The college couldn’t therefore confirm any student data, even whether or not they attended that establishment.

This led to repeated attempts to access the data from alternative channels, including direct emails to different teams, increasing the administrative burden and requiring consistent, coordinated responses to maintain confidentiality.

That tension can be difficult to manage in practice. Colleges may face repeated follow-up requests, demands for wider disclosure, pressure to release third-party or confidential material, or attempts to use the DSAR process as a substitute appeal route. Sometimes the information disclosed does not reassure parents; instead, it may confirm concerns, provide access to statements or reports that they disagree with, or document decisions they feel are unfair.

Colleges also need to navigate the limits of disclosure carefully. Any data provided must contain only the information to which the learner is entitled, with personal data relating to other students and, in certain cases, select staff members appropriately redacted. Generally, the names of staff directly working with the learner will not be redacted. For parents who are already distressed or frustrated, those legal limits can feel obstructive rather than protective.

This means colleges must often explain, sometimes repeatedly, that the DSAR right belongs to the learner, and not all information is disclosable. DSARs are not mechanisms for challenging academic or disciplinary decisions, and the process has legal limits. In practice, this can be hard when parents are distressed, persistent or convinced they are acting in their child’s best interests.

DSARs are not an appeals process

In another case, a parent sought access to documentation relating to a disciplinary investigation involving their child, with the request appearing to be driven in part by disagreement with the outcome. While the college disclosed the learner’s personal data where appropriate, significant portions of the records required careful redaction to protect the personal data of other students and staff.

This process is rarely straightforward; it often involves reviewing multiple documents line by line, applying consistent redaction decisions, and ensuring that exemptions are correctly applied. The parent viewed the response as incomplete and challenged the college further. However, they are unlikely ever to gain access to information reflecting other individuals’ views or recollections of the events, as this constitutes third-party personal data.

In some instances, parents may escalate concerns to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), but where the college has complied with its obligations under UK GDPR, no further regulatory action is typically required. Nonetheless, managing such cases can be time-consuming and resource-intensive, requiring coordinated input across teams to review material thoroughly and ensure a compliant response.

Understanding and communicating the respective rights of parents and learners will become even more important as the volume of DSARs received by colleges grows.

Clear boundaries protect everyone

The most effective response is not to discourage parental involvement. In many cases, it is positive, constructive, and rooted in genuine care. Instead, colleges need a clear, consistent framework for handling parent-led DSARs. This framework should respect parents’ concerns while making clear that the rights of access and rectification belong to the individual learner and have legal limits.

In practice, that means engaging with the learner directly where appropriate or making clear to the parent that the learner’s consent is required before their personal data is released. Learners will often agree, particularly where parents are supporting them with wider issues such as attendance, a change of course, a complaint or disciplinary procedures.

It also means responding professionally and transparently to the scope of the request. Parents may be surprised that the names of other students in an incident involving their child have been redacted, or that a college can refuse to amend an incident report where the parent or learner simply disagrees with the account recorded. Colleges that explain these limits clearly and consistently are better placed to maintain trust without compromising legal compliance.

The data use and access act 2025 reinforces that colleges are not required to undertake unreasonable or excessive searches when responding to DSARs. However, colleges must give individuals a clearer route to complain if they believe their rights have not been met. Against that backdrop, the process works best when colleges communicate limitations clearly and consistently. Colleges must ensure all parties understand that data protection law exists to empower and protect the learner.

Rights requests are not a substitute for appeals or complaints procedures.

The problem with EDI-deology in education

College leaders are alarmed by criticisms of equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI), most recently set out by Reform UK’s leader Nigel Farage, who wants to ban public bodies (including colleges) from engaging in or promoting EDI (also known as DEI) policies.

But it is time to rethink this agenda. The general public is already shifting in its stance. Recent research shows a modest majority still support EDI, but the numbers have fallen dramatically in a year.

Pollsters find that policies such as flexible working, inclusion training and blind recruitment are popular, but only 19 per cent want EDI to go further, while 36 per cent say it has gone too far.

Critics, including academics, come from across the political spectrum.

I too am an EDI sceptic. I think it delivers a formulaic, spreadsheet version of equality, diversity and inclusion, and rarely does much to help the most disadvantaged.

Most EDI-related issues originate in real struggles in civil society, where groups such as trade unions, or movements for civil rights or women’s equality, organised and represented themselves.

It is now the preserve of “expert” consultants, compliance officers, trainers and accredited bodies who can be, and often are, promoting an EDI-deology.

This EDI-deology has a recognisable methodology. Society is thought of in terms of groups, defined through fixed identities (such as class, race, or gender). Equality is about average group outcomes. In a world of big data, these are relatively easy to analyse, with the aim being to spot disparities in the average outcomes for each group. These disparities are assumed to be unfair and caused by structural advantages and disadvantages. Solutions are actions which close the gaps and equalise the average outcome.

This methodology does not receive a great deal of public scrutiny, although it should, because it is widely practised but deeply flawed. Among the general public, the solutions gain more attention, often being a source of discontent. They can seem like social engineering, playing off one group against another, producing results no fairer than the injustice they set out to redress. In assessing impact, EDI advocates frequently celebrate the beneficiaries of different interventions, but they almost never consider the losers.

Frank Dobbin, author of Getting to Diversity, What works and What Doesn’t shows that many widely used EDI initiatives are ineffective and often counterproductive. And he is critical of the professional culture, among the expert class, of diffusing “best practice” without any evidence to back it up.

The result is that they drive EDI “norms” through consultancy, professional bodies and regulators – defining problems, prescribing solutions and certifying compliance. But they have no one holding them to account.

The result is that we are surrounded by EDI myths.

The “McKinsey myth”, for example, claims there is a “business case” for board-level diversity, because it makes companies more profitable. Academics have scrutinised the original research and shown the evidence to be flimsy. There is evidence that diversity of thought matters, but demographic diversity is a different story. We might like the idea and want it to be true, but confirmation bias and binary thinking should not cloud reality.

Throughout my career, which has involved working on some high-profile projects in area-based regeneration, community cohesion, and initiatives to improve educational and economic outcomes for the most disadvantaged, I struggle to think of any examples where EDI made a positive contribution in shaping effective interventions. This is because of the flaws in the method.

Groups are rarely as easy to define as we think, and average outcomes mask more than they reveal. They can help spot broad patterns, but cannot be easily transposed into individual cases because few individuals are average. In any statistical group, there is a range, and within group-variation can be larger than between-group variation. It is not safe, therefore, to assume disparities in group outcomes are, in themselves, unfair. It is too easy to confuse correlation with causation.

And the most disadvantaged can get lost. If we divided the world into five socio-economic groups and planned, arbitrarily, that 10 per cent from each group could have a free income for life, 70 per cent worked for a living and enjoyed relative comfort, but 20 per cent were condemned to a life of misery, the group averages would all be equal. Would this be fair? Or would it be formulaic EDI-deology?

These are not abstract problems.

Has the attainment of poor white boys been masked, until recently, because group averages suggested white children as a whole were doing reasonably well? Has the NEETs problem received so little attention for the past decade because equalising group outcomes meant focusing on those with greater potential for “long upward” social mobility? Does the use of the “disadvantage gap” actually help anyone, or does it reinforce inequality by measuring all against a standard academic criteria which some will always fail to live up to? And what exactly does it propose we do for those who don’t do well academically, but are apparently not disadvantaged? Has EDI been much of a friend to FE, or do better group outcomes for the disadvantaged usually mean FE is the least desirable option?

Refusing to subscribe to the full-fat EDI methodology does not mean rejecting equality, diversity or inclusion. It means thinking differently about how we help all individuals to achieve their potential, being less attached to a rigid methodology for delivering this (there are other approaches), being more critical of those who set the agenda, and being much more anchored in the evidence. And it definitely means listening to different points of view.

After all, surely the form of diversity which we should most value, give equal treatment to and include, is diversity of thought.

T Levels are helping build NHS workforce pipeline

The main reason the previous government introduced T Levels was to provide young people with the necessary technical knowledge and experience to step into a career in their chosen industry, either through direct employment or via a higher apprenticeship or an undergraduate degree.

Are they delivering this objective? Recent research I have undertaken at King’s Business School (KBS), supported and funded by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, suggests that for the healthcare sector at least, they are.

The NHS is the country’s largest employer and has long experienced workforce shortages. Currently, there are 100,000 unfilled posts. The research, which looked at 20 NHS employers in England who have hosted (or plan to host) industry placements for students studying on the T Level in Health, showed how T Levels can address this workforce gap.

The NHS employers felt that the qualification not only met their knowledge and skills needs, but was also a more effective recruitment tool than other vocational qualifications or traditional careers interventions such as general work experience or careers talks.

The breadth, relevance and structure of the curriculum along with the 45-day industry placement, meant employers reported that students were ‘work ready’ and work-orientated once they had completed their studies.

Employers felt that students’ familiarity with working in a wide variety of healthcare settings meant that they were more likely to remain in NHS employment once they began working than direct recruits.

One employer, for example, had been unable to retain staff they had externally recruited into healthcare assistant roles in their accident and emergency department. In contrast, when these posts were made available to T Level students, all the vacancies were filled, and turnover dropped to zero.

Around half of the students completing the T Level in health began working for their host hospital or other local care provider after finishing the T Level. This included a number who began studying a healthcare higher apprenticeship.

The other half progressed to healthcare degrees to become registered nurses, midwives, or other healthcare professionals. Employers anticipated that these students, once they had completed their degrees, would return to them as employees; some had joined degree apprenticeship programmes.

Employers particularly valued the opportunity, through placements, to provide experience of careers students might not have been as familiar with, such as speech and language therapy and radiography. Indeed, some students had changed their career aspirations, typically from nursing or midwifery to a different healthcare role and in some cases to social care jobs.

T Levels provided employers with an opportunity to widen workforce diversity and access to NHS employment by recruiting young people from the communities their hospital served, people who might not have traditionally considered a career in healthcare.

Employers reported additional benefits. The Independent Commission on the College of the Future reported that links between the NHS and further education could be improved. Our research showed that delivering T Levels had strengthened partnerships where they already existed (which was in the minority of cases) and created partnerships where they had not previously existed.

These partnerships developed beyond the T Level in health to support other non-clinical T Levels and other college offers, such as apprenticeships or functional skills programmes.

Historically, vocational education has been criticised for not meeting employers’ needs or not delivering meaningful progression opportunities for young people. It has also too often been seen as being less valuable than ‘academic’ qualifications.

The clear message from employers was that the T Level in health simultaneously provides students with the knowledge, skills and behaviours they need for a career in health or social care, and provides a pipeline of future talent to draw from that reflects local communities.

Given the rising demands on the NHS and the enduring workforce shortages, T Levels represent an effective means of building long-term capacity and capability.

Three things Andy Burnham must do for colleges first

Well, here we go again. The country is set for its seventh prime minister in ten years, with Andy Burnham almost certain to take office next month. Understandably, there is widespread speculation about what a Burnham government would mean for education and 101 other issues.

So much to do, so little time. With an election due before 2029, the new administration will have to prioritise the areas it wants to change while also ensuring that change is delivered quickly.

What is that likely to mean for 16 to 19 education? As FE Week summarised last week, Burnham both understands and values the sector. He was also a supporter of the #ProtectStudentChoice campaign and has worked hard to raise the status of post-16 education.

In practical terms, there are three changes a Burnham government could make that would have an immediate and positive impact on 16 to 19 year olds in England.

Introduce a real terms, real time, funding guarantee.

The 16 to 19 funding rate should increase by at least the rate of inflation each year. That should not be a controversial ask, but despite the commitment made in October to “maintain real terms per-student funding in the next academic year”, per-student funding will actually increase by just 1.66 per cent in 2026-27 (and the all-important core funding rate by only 0.5 per cent).

Ministers have deployed the unconventional defence of insisting its real terms commitment has been met, because this increase matches the inaccurate forecast of inflation made at the time.

As a country, we must be able to fund the growing number of young people participating in education (by reducing the number not in education, education or training and responding to demographic growth) without impoverishing their experience when they get there.

A real terms funding guarantee (focused on the core rate), combined with a commitment to fund increases in student numbers in real time (early in the same academic year) would end the current trade-off between participation and quality while preserving the financial stability of institutions.

Take the time to get V levels right

We welcome the introduction of V levels as a high-status qualification that will sit alongside A levels and T levels at level 3. But it is important to take the time to get them right.

The first three V levels will be rolled out next year. But at the time of writing, content, assessment, grading and UCAS points for these qualifications have still not been confirmed.

Our members are very concerned about the impact such a rushed implementation will have on the first cohort of V level students.

It would be straightforward for a Burnham government to delay the rollout of V Levels and use the time to revisit some of their fundamental features. For example, there is a near-universal view among our members that V Levels should be available in larger sizes.

Research presented at our summer conference based on student data from our members showed that after controlling for prior attainment, the two qualification pathways with the worst retention rates are T levels and three extended certificates (the same size as V Levels). The pathways with the best retention rates are those that will not be available as V Levels: extended diplomas and diplomas plus another qualification.

Removing these larger size vocational qualifications is much more likely to hinder, rather than help, Alan Milburn’s mission to reduce NEET numbers.

The priority here is to make the right changes in a realistic timeframe.

Start a devolution revolution

Andy Burnham’s position on devolution is well known. But we are making the case for a different type of devolution – one that sees more autonomy and responsibility being extended to colleges.

Governments love to talk about slashing red tape on business, but the opposite approach has been taken with colleges – new duties and requirements are imposed on a regular basis, with existing duties and requirements rarely removed.

Burnham has created a business-friendly environment in Greater Manchester. Business leaders in the city would be aghast if they saw the environment that colleges operate in. Perhaps one could be persuaded to undertake an independent review of the bureaucratic burden placed on colleges?

The revolution we would like to see involves replacing government micro-management (national or devolved) with a high-trust model of delivery where college leaders have the freedom to tailor their curriculum and resources to meet the individual needs of students.

This is one area where a new administration can achieve a lot more, by doing a lot less.