Early Ofsted monitoring report highly critical of airports apprenticeship provider

Ofsted has levelled stinging criticism at a provider that trains apprentices for Heathrow Airport, in a hard-hitting early monitoring inspection report.

The report on Birkenhead-based Mooreskills Limited was published today. It follows a report in March on Key6 Group, from the same town, that found its apprenticeships were “not fit for purpose”.

These have been part of a what is supposed to be a new wave of “monitoring visits to a sample of new apprenticeship training providers that are funded through the apprenticeship levy” announced before Christmas.

Attention will now turn to what action the DfE takes, after it was criticised for suspending Key6 from recruiting apprentices for just two months.

The latest report gives the impression that Mooreskills has not delivered apprenticeships before, even though FE Week’s investigations indicate otherwise.

For example they are listed as a subcontractor for 16-to-18 and 19-plus apprenticeships “pre-May 1 2017” for a company called Total People Limited in 2016/17, as well as for Joint Learning as far back as 2013/14.

Inspectors found “insufficient progress” had been made by management at Mooreskills in establishing and maintaining high-quality apprenticeship provision.

“Leaders and managers have not implemented effective quality monitoring processes to check that apprentices receive a high standard of training and make sufficient progress,” the report warned. “The progress of the vast majority of current apprentices is slow.”

The progress of the vast majority of current apprentices is slow

Apprentices who enrolled in February 2018 had not yet started their training programme, while leaders had failed to ensure “they have sufficient training staff” with the “required competencies and skills to deliver the programmes”.

“Far too many of the apprentices” at Heathrow were adversely affected by this shortage of qualified training staff.

Mooreskills started training apprentices funded through the apprenticeship levy in May 2017, “swiftly recruiting apprentices in a relatively short space of time”.

The company currently provides training for 223 apprentices. The vast majority are enrolled on new standards, mainly on retailing and wholesaling, administration, team leading, business management or leadership apprenticeships.

More than half are based at Heathrow, with the remainder at other airports and businesses around the country.

Key6 Group was the subject of Ofsted’s first early monitoring report on newcomers to the apprenticeship market, published in March.

It is thought to be the only newcomer to the provision reported on so far.

Its apprenticeships were found to be “not fit for purpose”, and most received “a poor standard of training”.

FE Week asked the DfE what action it will take against Mooreskills, but no detail was given.

“We will always take action to protect apprentices if a training provider is not fit for purpose,” a spokesperson replied. “We are currently assessing Ofsted’s findings and will be contacting Mooreskills to set out the action we will be taking in due course.”

Today’s report recognised that managers “ensure that the assessors they do recruit are suitably qualified and experienced”.

The firm’s assessors do not set and record personalised “detailed and useful training and development targets for their apprentices to help them to make timely progress”.

The quality of the assessment, and the recording and monitoring of apprentices’ progress were found to be “poor in most cases”.

Too few apprentices had a good understanding of their planned completion date, and many were found to be “unaware of what they need to do to complete their apprenticeship”.

Apprentices at Manchester Airport attended “well planned training days – for example, apprentices on the level three retail team leader programme develop their product knowledge of beauty and cosmetic products”.

But recording attendance at the workshops and other training sessions organised by the employer is “sporadic”.

At the end of last year, the directors of Mooreskills became concerned regarding the slow progress of some of its Levy learners

“At the end of last year, the directors of Mooreskills became concerned regarding the slow progress of some of its Levy learners,” said a spokesperson for the company.

“As a result, the directors immediately contracted with a quality Improvement specialist consultancy, as acknowledged by the Inspectors, for it to provide Mooreskills with an assessment of the quality of their apprenticeships.

“This identified a number of key areas that required improvement and for which action plans have been devised.”

Most popular apprenticeships face rate cuts in IfA ‘funding band review’

The funding rate for the controversial management degree apprenticeship is set to fall, following a review of the most popular standards.

The Institute for Apprenticeships announced today that it will look at 31 standards (see table below), at request from the Department for Education.

The IfA will now have 30 funding bands to choose from – the maximum rate paid for from the levy – up from the current 15.

We will work collaboratively with trailblazers to carry out the review in an open and fair way

FE Week analysis shows that 21 of the 30 standards with the most starts this academic year are among those being reviewed by the IfA.

The 31 involved represents 64 per cent of all starts on standards in the first half of 2017/18 (45,900 out of 71,720).

The chartered management degree apprenticeship is one. Its funding band is already £27,000 – the maximum upper limit, meaning its rate can only fall, which is likely to infuriate the many universities offering the standard.

The team leader/supervisor apprenticeship has been the most popular standard this year with 6,680 starts from August 2017 to February 2018, yet its funding band is also under review.

The move to a 30-band structure gives the IfA more choice regarding the rate it applies to each standard.

Under the 15 structure, if the institute wanted to reduce a £9,000 band it had to drop it to £6,000, for example. But for starts from August it will have the option of setting this to to either £8,000 or £7,000.

Similarly, standards on £27,000 can now drop to £26,000 or £25,000 instead of falling all the way to the previous £24,000.

The IfA admitted in its release about the review that some of the standards involved are among the most popular, and said that others have a low number of starts and “employer feedback suggests” that take up may be restricted by their current funding band.

These are likely to include the infrastructure technician and bespoke tailor and cutter standards which have had no starts so far this year.

The IfA said it will work “collaboratively with trailblazers to carry out the review in an open and fair way”.

The review will “help make sure that employers can access high quality apprenticeships, and that funding bands represent good value for money for employers and government”.

Reviewed funding band recommendations will be made to the DfE, who “take the final decision on all funding bands”.

The DfE announced in February that it would review the funding-band structure, because employers did not “feel able” to negotiate with providers on price.

Trouble brewing at NCG as Ofsted inspectors stay an extra day

Ofsted has taken a highly unusual decision to extend its inspection of NCG, suggesting that not all is well at the nation’s largest college group.

Two teams of inspectors were sent in last Monday owing to achievement rate concerns, and they had been due to wrap up their investigations by the end of last week.

However, inspectors are controversially going back in for one last day today.

It is understood that the visit has not gone well, and that NCG’s current grade two is in danger of being downgraded. Its apprenticeship provision is understood to be of most concern.

This is the largest and most complex FE inspection Ofsted has had to undertake

The group, which is currently consulting on significant redundancies, will be desperate to avoid a disastrous ‘inadequate’ rating in this area, which would see it booted off of the government’s register of apprenticeship training providers and banned from offering the courses.

Intraining, NCG’s troubled private training provider arm, also had a visit from Ofsted last week. This inspection ended on schedule and it is understood to have resulted in a likely grade three for apprenticeships.

If the worst happens and NCG is taken off of RoATP, it will be down to the Department for Education to decide whether to stop the group from using Intraining as the sole provider of the group’s apprenticeship provision, as happened similarly at Learndirect Ltd.

Just before this body, the largest overall FE provider in the country, received a grade four of its own last year, it set up a separate company – Learndirect Apprenticeships Ltd – to deliver apprenticeships regardless of whether Learndirect Ltd could or not.

Last week’s visits to NCG and Intraining were both full inspections, which suggests Ofsted’s alarm bells are ringing.

In more usual times, it would only be expected to carry out a short inspection, especially if there were no concerns.

The group was rated ‘good’ in September 2016, following a five-month standoff during which it successfully overturned a lower grade. Intraining was also given a grade two that June.

However, overall achievement rates at NCG are well below the national average.In 2016/17, the combined overall apprenticeship achievement rate for NCG’s colleges was just 55.6 per cent, while Intraining’s was 58 per cent.

Both are around 10 points lower than the national average of 67.7 per cent, and lower than the minimum threshold of 62 per cent, according to the latest government data.

And for the all-important 16-to-18 study programmes, NCG was 4.4 points below the national average of 81.5 per cent.

It is understood that Ofsted wanted to reinspect NCG last year, but was unable to analyse the group’s achievement rates because “data glitches” absented it from the 2015/16 tables.

“This is the largest and most complex FE inspection Ofsted has had to undertake, involving six colleges and a training organisation,” said an NCG spokesperson.

“Given the volume of information, it’s not surprising it has taken longer than a standard inspection and a request from Ofsted to extend by one day was agreed amicably.”

She said the group would not “pre-empt” the results of an inspection report “by commenting on what it might say”.

At the same time as dealing with these inspections, NCG is cutting staff numbers by up to a fifth at Intraining and its other private provider Rathbone Training in an effort to save £3 million, as revealed by FE Week two weeks ago.

The group was further shaken last month when staff at Lewisham Southwark College, a long-distance merger partner, voted to strike over pay.

Staff are due to walk out tomorrow and Wednesday.

Team UK picks 22 of the best for EuroSkills Budapest

Apprentices from BAE Systems, Toyota and a Michelin star restaurant are among 22 of the country’s most skilled young people – selected to represent the UK at EuroSkills Budapest 2018.

The team will fly to Hungary to battle it out against Europe’s best between September 26 and 28, in a broad spectrum of disciplines including heavy truck maintenance, floristry, mechatronics and welding.

It will be a “life-enhancing opportunity for these remarkable young people”, according to Dr Neil Bentley, the chief executive of WorldSkills UK, the organisation that selects and trains Team UK.

It will be a life-enhancing opportunity for these remarkable young people

To win a place in the team, learners battled through an exhaustive selection process after excelling in the prestigious WorldSkills UK national competitions, the finals of which are held at WorldSkills UK LIVE – formerly known as The Skills Show.

Twenty-seven other countries will compete in EuroSkills Budapest in over 30 different disciplines. Around 80,000 spectators, including European policy-makers, educators and industry experts are expected to attend.

Dr Bentley believes the competition, which is the last before the UK is scheduled to leave the EU next year, is vital for the economic future success of the country.

“After Brexit, our economic success as a nation will be dependent on our ability to close major trade deals and attract inward investment – and this will always hinge on demonstrating we have people with the right skills,” he said.

“Team UK is the embodiment not only of the kinds of traits and characteristics that we should aspire for in a young workforce, but for the UK government’s ambitions for global Britain too. They are leaders of their generation – and will inspire many more to walk in their footsteps.”

Those on Team UK come from all over England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.

Among them is Shane Carpenter, a 22-year-old IT network administration competitor who works at BAE Systems.

A duo from car-manufacturing giant Toyota – Jack Dakin, aged 22, and Danny Slater, 24 – will also represent the UK, as well as 22-year-old chef Nicolle Finnie, who works at the prestigious Andrew Fairlie at Gleneagles restaurant in Scotland.

Dr Neil Bentley

They will hope to build upon Team UK’s success at the previous EuroSkills finals, held in 2016 in Gothenburg, where they finished in seventh place by taking home two golds, one silver, two bronze and eight medallions of excellence.

Team UK will now go on to complete an intensive training programme, supported by their trainers, employers and training providers, before competing in Budapest.

The competitors who take part in EuroSkills this year will also go onto compete for a place in the team that will represent the UK at WorldSkills Kazan 2019.

Last year, the UK team retained its top-10 position in the competition, after our competitors bagged one gold, three silvers, three bronzes, and 13 medallions of excellence in Abu Dhabi.

Team UK for EuroSkills Budapest will be formally announced at a special parliamentary reception hosted later today by Robert Halfon, the chair of the education select committee.

Members of Team UK

Chancellor of the exchequer faces a grilling from sixth-formers

The chancellor of the exchequer faced a grilling from sixth-formers during a visit to Strode’s College.

Philip Hammond, who is the MP for Runnymede and Weybridge, had over 80 students pressing him for answers about cuts to college funding, lowering the voting age to 16, Brexit and the government’s foreign policy.

The chancellor also shared his hopes for how he will be remembered in the political world, telling students “it will be defined by Brexit, but I hope we will be able to look back at the longer term and see how we prepared Britain for the challenge ahead”.

The visit was organised by the Surrey sixth-form college’s student union, and its SU president Ben Roberts, a second year economics, politics and history student, chaired the session.

“It was a privilege to be able to question such an influential figure of British politics,” he said. “Mr Hammond’s answers were engaging, giving an insight into the myriad of issues the chancellor must address.”

Nine puppies rescued by lecturer and raised by her students

Nine puppies taken in by a Reaseheath College tutor are being trained up by learners.

The 11-week-old pups are all crosses between a Staffordshire bull terrier and an American bulldog, and were born shortly after their heavily pregnant mother was rescued by the Animal Lifeline charity.

The college’s canine programme leader, Emma Caskie, fostered the new born dogs and brought them to work, where they have been nursed to full health.

Now, the puppies have been learning key life lessons with the help of canine behaviour students, including socialising with humans and basic training.

“The next step for these puppies is to learn how to interact well with humans and other animals and to be introduced to collars and leads,” explained Ms Caskie. “Our students need to learn about puppy training and socialisation, and they have also been able to see the consequences of irresponsible dog breeding.”

“It’s been nice to give these puppies a positive experience at such an early stage in their lives. It’s also been great fun for us, and we’ve learned a lot from it ourselves,” added student Lucy King.

Portsmouth College principal is the new AoC president-elect

Portsmouth College principal Steve Frampton has been announced as the president-elect of the Association of Colleges.

He will take over from current president Dr Alison Birkinshaw at the end of her one-year term on August 1.

Mr Frampton, who the AoC says has a “lifelong passion” for post-16 education, has over 39 years’ experience in the FE sector and has been the boss at Portsmouth’s grade two sixth-form college since 2005.

His extensive career has been recognised at the highest level, after being awarded an MBE for services to education in the New Year honours list in 2017.

“I am truly honoured and grateful to be given the opportunity to be the next president of AoC – it is an organisation that delivers so much value to the FE sector,” he said.

“I would like to acknowledge the excellent work Alison has done this year, building on the amazing work Ian did previously. I am aware I have an impressive legacy to uphold but will strive to carry on the brilliant work of previous presidents.”

He hopes as part of his role he will be able to visit more colleges, and meet with “you, your staff, governors and students to see how the AoC can even better support the brilliant work you are doing”.

He has been the director of several local community charities, including Business South and PiTC – the community arm of Portsmouth Football Club, and was also recently appointed to the National Board of Association of Colleges.

David Hughes, chief executive of the AoC, said he is “looking forward” to working with the president-elect.

“He will be a great advocate and help us to amplify the importance of colleges to the health and prosperity of our communities and the economy,” he added.

“Steve’s extensive range of experience, his enthusiasm and the skills he has learned over 39 years in our sector will have massive benefits for the FE community over the next year.”

The AoC’s president serves for a one-year term to promote colleges to government ministers to try and influence their decisions when making policy.

Other previous AoC presidents include the current FE commissioner Richard Atkins, former New College Durham principal John Widdowson CBE, and Ian Ashman, the old principal of Hackney Community College.

Institutes of Technology hit by mystery delays

The Institutes of Technology have already fallen behind schedule, and providers who applied to open one still don’t know if they have been successful.

According to the original competition invitation, applicants should have been notified by early May whether their bids for a share of £170 million had made it to stage two.

But no communication has been sent, the Department for Education has admitted.

A spokesperson said they had “received a number of high-quality bids” during the application window, which ran from December 15 until March 1, although he wouldn’t say how many.

“Applicants will be notified of outcomes as soon as possible after a decision has been made.”

He refused to comment on whether the delay will affect the timing of stage two of the process, during which bidders submit full business proposals, which is due to open next month.

IoTs, which were first mooted back in 2015, are intended to bring together FE and HE providers along with employers to deliver technical skills training, with a particular focus on levels four and five.

According to application guidance from the DfE, they will offer “higher-level technical skills on a par with more academic routes” and will “achieve the same level of prestige as universities”.

Between 10 and 15 of the institutes are expected to be created. The successful proposals are expected to be announced by the end of the year, with the first one due to open in September 2019.

The government’s industrial strategy green paper, published in January last year, included a promise of £170 million in capital funding to create the institutes.

But even though the DfE has repeatedly said the plan is to “establish high-quality and prestigious institutions”, in reality much of this cash is expected to go existing institutions rather than new ones.

It can be spent on “industry-standard facilities and equipment”, according to the DfE guidance.

FE commissioner Richard Atkins expressed doubts earlier this year whether the amount of cash on offer was enough to have an impact on the skills system.

Speaking at a House of Lords inquiry in early March, Mr Atkins said that IoTs are a “very good idea” but the “modest” amount of money means he’s “not sure it will transform the system”.

And Julian Gravatt, the Association of Colleges’ deputy chief executive, agreed that while IoTs are a “good experiment”, he fears “too much pressure” had been heaped on them to “revolutionise the system”.

When the concept of IoTs was first introduced, it was envisaged that colleges would be invited to become one.

But the 2017 Conservative party manifesto said they would be linked to universities and would offer courses at degree level – a change that confused many in the sector.

Speaking at last year’s AoC conference, a DfE official working on the policy said her team had been “equally surprised” by the move – which, it turned out, had been driven by a desire from Number 10 and the Treasury to “confer prestige” on IoTs by borrowing from the status of universities.

FE Week reported in March that a consortium led by Milton Keynes College had put in a bid for £18 million of funding to develop an IoT at Bletchley Park, former home of a world war two codebreaking centre.

The proposal, which also included Microsoft, City and Guilds and Cranfield University among others, would see 1,000 learners a year taught fields such as network engineering, applications development, intelligent systems, games development and cybersecurity.

Four 5ft hare statues painted by Gloucestershire College students for annual Cotswold Hare Trail

Four 5ft hare statues have been painted by Gloucestershire College students for the annual Cotswold Hare Trail.

The trail places around 100 of the statues around towns and cities in the Cotwolds, all hand-painted by local artists and members of the community, and each sponsored by local businesses. For the first time this year, the trail will be extended as far as Stratford-upon-Avon and Bath.

The learners’ creations include “Julius Caes’Hare” (pictured), representing the history of the Romans in the area, as well as “Flora”, whose design is inspired by the flowers and plants of the Cotswolds.

“It’s been a great chance for their work to be included alongside established local artists and to get their work seen by the public,” said Robbie Chapman, curriculum leader for art and design at the college.

The trail will run from May until September this year. The statues will then be auctioned off to raise money for the Cotswolds Conservation Board, who help preserve the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.