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Judith Doyle, Principal and CEO, Gateshead College

FE Week travelled to Newcastle to meet the college principal who was recognised in the New Year’s honours for her services to skills education in the north-east, and who’s spent her entire career in the same institution

Two images of Judith Doyle stick with me – long after I’ve walked the Tyne Bridge back north of the river from Gateshead College’s main campus, paused to take in the stunning view of the setting sun, and caught the fast train back to London.

The first is of Doyle’s home growing up – bursting with people – friends, cousins piling in on top of the four kids, their “very hospitable, very larger than life” shipyard-engineer dad, and their mam in the corner, bashing out tunes on the piano. “She’s quite shy, my mam,” says the Gateshead College principal, affectionately. “She used to say, ‘I’m not playing the piano’. But she always ended up playing, so we used to have sing-songs. Just stuff that families do, you know. They don’t do that now.”

The second picture that sticks is of early-career Doyle, zooming from school to community centre, overseeing the community provision for Gateshead College. “I loved it – it was a challenge, I was always on the go – the car was the office,” she recalls with a grin. “There were boxes everywhere.”

Her pace quickens as the story progresses: “We taught everything from foreign languages to politics to sport to loads and loads of IT – it was 20 years ago and everyone was getting a PC, so I trained hundreds of people in Gateshead how to use Word and databases.” They offered classes in schools and community centres all over Gateshead from 6-9 pm – which Doyle had to balance with the fact she had a husband and daughter at home. “One of the big comprehensives had a thousand learners coming to us, in term time. I used to be dark-haired,” she quips, “That’s why I’m this colour!”

We’re sitting around a large table in a spacious office in the heart of the city. It’s a gorgeous autumn afternoon and through the windows, glass and steel towers soar into blue skies. Just a stone’s throw away are two major arts venues – the Sage Gateshead and the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art. There’s a definite buzz to the place.

Doyle is unusual in that she’s spent her entire career working her way up the ranks at the college she now leads. And despite managing a multi-million pound busines, she manages to strike that balance between high-flying corporate CEO and someone you’d enjoy a night with in the pub.

We can’t say something isn’t working and then sit back and not do anything

It was the role heading up community education that marked her transition from teacher to manager.

“There were people in the college who thought, ‘That community stuff is rubbish’,” recalls Doyle – and she took that as a personal challenge. “I’m very determined, and if I have a clarity to what I want to do, I can push on with it. And I had a point to prove about, ‘This can be done’.”

The job taught her the business elements of working in a college, such as “Why it’s important to get the register done, so you can get your funding.”

Her most important lesson, however, was how to build a solid, trustworthy team. “I identified very quickly who the stars were, so they became my team and I would come in and give them a nice lunch and all that… They were very loyal to me and I’d ask them to do crazy things at the last minute – they would have done anything.” She says this without boasting, and I believe her.

Her outcomes spoke for themselves, and after managing community learning for three years, she moved into her first senior management role – overseeing teaching and learning, at a time when there was a growing awareness of the need to prioritise it. “It seems ridiculous now, that people weren’t realising how important that was. I think it had been the case in schools, but colleges maybe had a different focus and different priorities.

“I was a teaching and learning specialist – that was my thing – I tried to promote that and gained a reputation for someone who championed it.”

Two decades and several management posts later, she hasn’t lost that focus. It’s all about the quality of the product, she insists. “If everything in John Lewis was rubbish, there’s no way they would be successful. The moment we think that other things are more important, then we’ll stop being successful.

“Everything else, all these wonderful buildings and the wonderful things people say about us, it’s just window dressing. If our students aren’t successful, we’re not spending public money for what it’s intended.”

Since taking over as principal, the college has gone from an Ofsted grade 3 to a grade 1, and now has the second highest achievement rate in the country.

“I’m absolutely a perfectionist,” admits Doyle. “It’s about standards and I think things should be done well. I get a little bit irritated sometimes, I don’t like sloppiness, I don’t like things being half-hearted.”

I’m very determined, and if I have a clarity to what I want to do, I can push on with it.

She was awarded a CBE in the 2018 New Year’s honours, in recognition of her contribution to skills education in the north-east – and took her mam, her daughter and her younger brother to Buckingham Palace to receive the award.

The college has almost 30,000 students across six campuses. So how does she keep tabs on what’s going on?

“It’s about consistent messages. It’s about being visible,” she replies.

“Consistency when I took over the college was something that we struggled with a little bit. I introduced a concept called One College, because we did have people who did feel out of it. Really, there was a separate organisation almost, at this campus.

“I’ve got a very high performing and loyal team, who buy in very much to what we do. We have fun. We tend not to take ourselves too seriously. We’re serious about what we do, but we have a laugh.”

One thing she’s struggled to achieve, however, is working effectively with all the local schools. So when the skills minister put out a call to colleges to report schools that weren’t complying with the Baker clause, Gateshead College did just that. “We can’t say something isn’t working and then if there’s a request for ‘what do you mean, help us,’ you sit back and don’t do anything,” she says, matter-of-fact.

“I think it’s an equality issue,” she adds, emphatically – glancing first at her marketing manager as if to apologise in advance for the impending diatribe. “Those young people and their parents who most need that information – maybe they’re second and third generation unemployed – they don’t know the way out and they’re relying on the schools to give them the information, because they trust them. And when they’re not told about it and they go on a route that isn’t right for them, and they miss the great opportunities we and other FE provision could have given them, then I think they’re being denied what they need and I think that’s an equality issue.”

We’ve been chatting for so long that it’s an hour later than Doyle thought it was when she last glanced at her watch. She’s mortified. Having just insisted to me how important teaching and learning is to her, she’s late for the teaching and learning governors meeting.

It’s a personal thing

What do you do to switch off from work? Shop! I do like a good shop, actually. I also see my mam. We watch Strictly together on Saturdays. I also like to cook. I’m a foodie. I’m obsessed with food. I like to read, and I’m a big EastEnders fan, I love that.

What’s your favourite thing to read? I like detective fiction. I like puzzles and mysteries. I’ve always been one to solve the problem. Ruth Rendell and Agatha Christie, I read them when I was about 10. All those kinds of things. But I’m reading LJ Ross at the moment, who’s a bestselling local writer. They’re all set in different parts of the north east, and it’s easy to read. But they’re good as well.

Have you got a favourite book of all time? Everybody asks me that. I like Wuthering Heights, because it has very sentimental … connotations. It’s one of those things that as an English student kind of hooked me in. The idea was all very romantic and passionate, that kind of thing. I was of that age. I like Jane Eyre as well.

What flaw would you like to change about yourself? Probably too many to mention. What flaw do I have? I think I overthink things. And I think I put myself under too much pressure, which often manifests itself as carrying that pressure to other people sometimes.

How do you cope under stress? I like to be with my family. I like to spend time with my daughter. She is the absolute joy of my life. She lives in the south but I’ll drive down there. She’s an accountant. She graduated from Durham and went to PWC on the graduate programme – that’s how she ended up in London. But now she works for the NHS, on NHS improvement.

CV

Gateshead College

Aug 2013 – Present
Principal and CEO

Jul 2009 – Jul 2013
Deputy principal

Jul 2006 – Jul 2009
Assistant principal: quality and performance

Jan 2004 – Jul 2006
Director of school of teaching and learning

Jan 2000 – Dec 2003
Community learning provision manager

1990 – 2000
Teacher of English, communications and teacher education

1987 – 2000
Teacher of English and employability skills

How the sums don’t add up in recruitment of maths staff

It can be a struggle to recruit suitable maths staff – and it won’t get any easier as numbers drop in the future, says Diane Dalby

Managing the unprecedented expansion of maths provision in FE that has resulted from the condition of funding is one of the biggest challenges facing colleges today. It is an example of a well-intentioned policy that is threatened by weak strategic design and inadequate national workforce planning.

College leaders have done their best to meet the challenge of recruiting suitable staff, but well-qualified maths teachers are in short supply. Non-maths specialists have been retrained and staff already in post have covered unfilled vacancies. Resourceful colleges have developed multi-faceted recruitment strategies that include enhanced pay schemes, grow-your-own schemes, graduate schemes and internal retraining. These are having some effect, but maths teacher recruitment remains an on-going problem, placing an additional burden on a sector already struggling financially.

The Nuffield Foundation-funded Mathematics in FE Colleges (MiFEC) project is exploring the complex challenges in this critically important area. This summer the MiFEC team surveyed nearly 500 maths teachers in general FE colleges across England. The data points to reasonably good short-term stability in the maths teacher workforce, but the long-term position is less certain. Two thirds of respondents were satisfied or very satisfied with their current roles, but the numbers retiring or moving to other employment over the next few years are likely to exceed new entrants.

Despite the tremendous efforts of FE colleges, there is no room for complacency about the supply of maths teachers. There are, however, some grounds for cautious optimism. The survey shows that teaching maths in FE is an attractive career choice or progression opportunity. The reasons are arguably different from pursuing a career teaching maths in school, such as enjoyment of the subject. Less than half of the respondents cited personal enjoyment of maths as one of their reasons to teach the subject. The reasons varied widely, but “wanting to work with 16 to 18-year-olds” or to “move away from school teaching” featured strongly. In a culture where FE is systematically overlooked and the working conditions often portrayed negatively, these positive reasons for choosing FE teaching need wider communication and celebration.

To sustain current staffing levels, the sector will need to go beyond what it has already done

Routes into teaching mathematics in FE differ from a traditional pathway into school teaching. For the survey respondents, the most common pathway was from business, industry or self-employment, but transition from teaching another subject in FE, or from teaching maths in school, were also common. These trajectories involve either a significant career change, a transition between subjects or an adaptation to a new educational environment. These different routes demand targeted training programmes rather than a one-size-fits-all model. Decision-makers, managers, trainers and CPD providers need to pay greater attention to these differences in the composition of the workforce.

FE maths teachers face different challenges to many teachers in secondary schools. In FE there is a strong emphasis on being able to motivate disaffected students and reverse under-achievement in a short time with limited resources. This makes it a peculiarly challenging role. Recruiting and retaining sufficient numbers of teachers fit for this task is time-consuming, resource-heavy and has financial implications. The Department for Education’s Centres for Excellence programme should provide welcome support for teachers, but its long-term impact will be reduced unless there is greater stability in the workforce.

To sustain current staffing levels, the sector will need to go beyond what it has already done. If we want better learning experiences for these young people, maths teachers in FE really need to count more – in the sense of increased numbers and public recognition of their value. This means wider positive promotion of the profession and appropriate high-quality initial training to meet their needs.

Co- written by Andrew Noyes, professor of mathematics education, University of Nottingham

College restructuring is complex, costly and shrouded in secrecy

Julian Gravatt analyses the finances of colleges and explains why the restructuring fund will be nowhere near adequate in meeting the needs of the sector

Between now and March 2019, the Department for Education expects to spend £150 million from its restructuring fund on loans and grants to colleges. These will be the last payments from a three-year fund that will consume £300 million when it closes on March 31 2019. This is a large sum of money. At a time when there’s a funding campaign, when a large training provider has gone out of business and when universities have been warned there will be no bailouts, it’s worth having a closer look.

The first point about the restructuring facility is the secrecy. This is deliberate. HM Treasury controls the budget and signs off every application. A team in the funding agency negotiates every deal and insists on confidentiality. Officials promise information in future but do not want one college to use another’s deal at a going rate.

A second starting point is that this is about clearing up messes. Big ones. People in top jobs in every sort of organisation make mistakes. In the college-restructuring cases, it’s the successors who have had to sort things out. And the process is no picnic. The application hurdle is high. It takes nine months to complete and costs a small fortune in professional fees.

The restructuring deals have mainly been used to pay down debt and to replace bank loans with ones from government. For various reasons, several colleges ended up in 2016 with unsustainable debts. In many cases the debt originated from a partly funded capital project. Government has consistently limited its capital grants to colleges on the assumption that colleges will make up the rest. Compounding this, colleges in trouble generally lost funding and did not make redundancies fast enough to compensate.

This is about clearing up messes

So why did the government step in? Surely if the bank says less, you ask another one? This is where colleges have been at the wrong end of a broken banking market. There is very little competition in the UK for business banking and the college sector is serviced by names who are busy removing themselves from your local high street. Faced with “market-concentration risk” and a bleak short-term outlook for further education, the banks have reduced their overall lending. Total bank lending to colleges fell by £300 million (20 per cent) in the two years after 2015 and is still falling.

There are obvious reasons why government steps in to help colleges.

They have a local presence, lots of students and capacity that government relies upon. But there are also technical reasons that make their financial position different from training providers. When the government created statutory college and university corporations more than 25 years ago, it didn’t anticipate insolvencies so there are no rules to prevent disorderly ones. There is now legislation to resolve the position for colleges but this doesn’t come into effect until 2019. It also, incidentally, doesn’t apply to university corporations. Once these laws take effect, there will be an option for government to walk away, but it might not want to. More loans might be called in as the banks run for the door. And there’s a wall of £3 billion in local-government pension-scheme obligations that colleges have been locked into for decades. A statutory college insolvency would be the demolition of a terraced house. Get it wrong and you might destabilise the whole street.

People work in colleges because they love education and want to help others. People become governors because they think they can make a difference. Unfortunately, we’re working in a difficult system. Core funding is squeezed so a few colleges end up with bailouts. Time, money and attention is consumed by intervention processes. There will be rising further-education demand in the 2020s but we are cutting capacity now. The restructuring fund has been a useful prop to the college sector’s balance sheet but it falls well short of the investment in buildings and technology that is needed for the future.

Ofsted’s focus on new providers should be an extra, not an instead

The Ofsted annual state-of-the-nation report is due for publication next month and I’ve spent much of this week crunching the figures.

The first thing that stood out was the stark decline in full inspections, overall falling by nearly a third, despite the rising number of FE and skills providers.

Naturally a lot of focus has been on the new apprenticeship provider monitoring visits, but it is particularly concerning that full inspections at independent training providers fell from 126 to just 70, a 44 per cent cut.

It is unclear why the inspectorate has suddenly shown less interest in the existing provider base, claiming it has nothing to do with well documented budget cuts or reallocation of funds to other activities, such as research.

Nobody is suggesting Ofsted is failing to meet their statutory duties, but dramatic reductions in quality oversight during turbulent times should concern us all.

The second highlight from the inspection figures is some welcome good news, in the form of the general further education college grade profile.

As we report this week, the number colleges with ‘outstanding’ and ‘good’ grades as at 31 August has shot up to 76 per cent, from a low of 69 per cent just 12 months before.

FE Week has been following the trend, since September 2017, of grade three colleges rising to grade two, which is to be celebrated.

And there are now no general further education colleges with a grade four.

But a closer look at the Ofsted spreadsheets reveal part of the reason rests with college mergers. When colleges merge, Ofsted remove all existence of them from the statistics.

In fact, by 31 August there were only 140 general further education colleges with inspection grades, down from 188 the previous year.

Merged colleges will return to the figures when inspected, so time will tell whether the college grade profile will continue to improve. How much time will depend on Ofsted’s appetite for quality assuring the existing provider base, which if last year is anything to go by, is low.

ESFA terminates levy contract for apprenticeship provider after Ofsted report critical of government departments

A cabinet office approved apprenticeship provider to government departments has had its levy funding terminated after a damning Ofsted report found it was ‘insufficient’ across the board, FE Week can reveal.

The Education and Skills Funding Agency has taken the unusual step of ending the levy agreement with Premier People Solutions Limited, after inspectors warned its recruitment procedures were “not safe enough” and too many apprentices were prevented from receiving off-the-job training by employers.

The provider, which trades as Premier Partnership, delivers apprenticeship training to government departments including the Department for Work and Pensions, HM Revenue and Customs and the UK Visas and Immigration service.

Leaders and managers cannot be sure that their members of staff are safe to work in the sensitive environments

According to the find apprenticeship training service, the company has been delivering apprenticeships to public sector departments for over six months. It had 686 apprentices at the time of the Ofsted visit, and all but five were on the level three public service delivery officer standard.

It successfully tended to get onto the Crown Commercial Service call-off list from September 2017. The Crown Commercial Service List is an executive agency sponsored by the cabinet office.

However, its early monitoring visit report from Ofsted has rated Premier People Solutions as making ‘insufficient progress’ in every possible category.

This would normally lead to the provider facing a temporary ban from recruiting new starts, until a full inspection can be carried out within a year of the monitoring visit.

However, skills minister Anne Milton has exclusively confirmed to FE Week that Premier People Solutions had its levy agreement terminated just three weeks after the damning inspection, and two days before the report was published today.

“With effect from November 13, the ESFA terminated the levy agreement of Premier People Solutions Limited. The provider has been given 30 days’ notice and the agreement will end on December 12,” she said.

“Our overriding priority is to protect the apprentices to ensure minimum disruption to their learning.”

Premier People Solutions will now be removed from the register of apprenticeship training providers.

The Ofsted report found the government departments were failing to release apprentices for the off-the-job training they are entitled to, and often refusing them permission to attend training.

It said: “Too many apprentices fail to attend training sessions. Apprentices are aware of their entitlement and they attempt to gain their line manager’s support to attend.

“However, too often employers do not permit apprentices to attend training due to high workloads in their operational areas, or they change shift patterns at short notice, which results in apprentices being unable to attend sessions.”

The relationship between leaders and employers was described as “weak”, and inspectors found that apprentices’ line managers do not participate in planning apprentices’ programmes or reviewing their progress.

“Trainers do not take effective action to overcome employers’ lack of participation when visiting apprentices, and insufficient support from employers to their apprentices persists,” it said.

Despite the fact the company’s apprentice tutors were going into sensitive government departments to deliver the service, the Ofsted report warned that leaders and managers “do not have safe enough recruitment procedures”.

“They do not hold references for too many of the trainers who they employ to work with apprentices. Leaders apply for references, but if they are not returned, they do not pursue them. In addition, they accept references that are not from the trainer’s most recent previous employer.

“As a result, leaders and managers cannot be sure that their members of staff are safe to work in the sensitive environments of the employers for whom their apprentices work.”

Leaders were also criticised for having an “overly optimistic view of the quality of their provision” and inspectors warned they are “not aware that they are not consistently meeting the principles and requirements of an apprenticeship”.

Apprentices voiced concern about trainers changing frequently, leading to a “lack of continuity” which impedes their progress, and many were unsure about when they are due to complete their apprenticeship and unable to recall previous learning. Too few apprentices were found to have developed their English and maths skills “beyond the minimum requirements”.

The report found that trainers had appropriate qualifications and commended leaders for significant investment in good quality e-learning materials to support apprentices, although it warned that “too few apprentices have access to these resources or use them”.

The cabinet office confirmed that the government departments included HMRC, the DWP and the Home Office, including the UK Visas and Immigration service. When asked about the Ofsted criticisms concerning security, the spokesperson said it was for individual departments to comment.

The spokesperson said: “Apprentices are core to our ambition to become a brilliant civil service. It is therefore vital that they are offered the best possible educational opportunities that will allow them to flourish in their career.

“All civil service apprentices will be able to continue their education and training as normal after this change in training provider.”

David Pearson, managing director at Premier People Solutions, confirmed the provider was being removed from RoATP but insisted it takes safeguarding “extremely seriously”.

He said: “We have worked hard to engage our clients with the new apprenticeships but have had considerable challenges around releasing learners for the learning time. This has prevented apprentices from accessing our training and I believe this is the key reason for our monitoring result and removal from RoATP.

“We are working closely with the EFSA and our clients to ensure that all learners can continue their apprenticeship programmes and this is our key priority. We are also taking on board the content of our recent Ofsted report and in particular our approach to safeguarding.

“With reference to the comments around safeguarding, Premier Partnership takes safeguarding extremely seriously and Ofsted noted that all of our team are appropriately trained, and our policies and procedures are sound and implemented.

“In response to the comments around recruitment, we emphasise that all our recruits are subject to security checks prior to commencing work and we follow CIPD guidance about taking up references. Premier has enhanced its already comprehensive risk assessment and action plan.”

Five colleges handed DfE warnings over finances

Five struggling colleges have been hit with a notice to improve by the government this morning, after they were all assessed to have “inadequate” financial health.

Three of the warning notices have been dished out to North Hertfordshire College, Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College, and Coulsdon Sixth Form College after they requested an unspecified amount of exceptional financial support.

Northumberland College and Worthing College had theirs handed to them following an assessment of their financial plans.

EHWLC received a damning FE Commissioner intervention report two weeks ago in which it was revealed the college was now dependent on government bailouts for its survival.

It found a total failure of leadership and governance. Garry Phillips was principal at the time but jumped ship before the findings could be revealed.

But the fallout from the report has led to Mr Phillips leaving his new post at City College Plymouth, following pressure from unions for him to resign.

North Hertfordshire College came under fire earlier this year after its chief executive, Matt Hamnett, was paid almost £300,000 in 2016/17 – a £68,000 increase and nearly double the sector average.

This was despite the college only having an annual turnover of £30 million. Mr Hamnett left the college in November 2017 but it has now been brought into scope for FE Commissioner intervention.

Coulsdon Sixth Form College was referred to the FE Commissioner on October 2017 and an independent assessment of the college’s “capability and capacity” led to a Structure and Prospects Appraisal in January this year.

Its financial notice says the outcome of the SPA was a “recommendation for a Type B merger with Croydon College”, which is planned to take place on January 1, 2019.

Northumberland College was visited by Richard Atkins’ team earlier this year.

His report, published in October, stated that the college has undergone a “cash flow crisis” and could see its finances plummet further.

It revealed declining learner recruitment, inadequate apprenticeship delivery, low achievement and “last minute negotiations” to defer loan repayments at the college, and warned that it may yet need to request exceptional financial support.

Worthing College is also now in scope for FE Commissioner intervention.

Today’s financial notice stated it was now committed to a merger with the Chichester College Group, which is a “change to the original recommendation for Worthing College following the Sussex Area Review”.

“As part of this process, the FE Commissioner was made aware that the Worthing College’s financial health would be assessed as inadequate based on the latest financial plans,” it added.

“The Commissioner supported the change of area review recommendation on the grounds that a merger would help protect the long-term viability of the college and bring benefits in terms of quality and the curriculum offer.

“The FE Commissioner’s team will assess whether any further review of the college’s position is required in response to this notice.”

All five colleges with notices today will now have to keep a close eye on their cash flow positions while keeping the ESFA informed.

WorldSkills UK Live 2018: Skills minister kicks off ‘bigger and better’ show

The skills minister declared herself to be having an “absolutely fantastic time” as she got stuck into the heart of the action on the first day of the “bigger and better” WorldSkills UK Live this morning.

Anne Milton met with apprentices and had-a-go at a number of trades – including virtual engineering and floristry – as she toured the show, which runs for three days at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham.

“If you want to get into a skilled occupation this is the place that you will find skilled occupations,” Ms Milton said.

“The message is that university’s right for some people, but university’s not right for everybody.”

The show has a number of benefits, including the opportunity to have a go at different occupations, Ms Milton said.

“There’s nothing quite like having some hands-on experience,” she said.

“What’s also important is that you don’t realise when you’re in school the huge range of possible occupations out there.”

“There are record numbers of young people coming through here, and half of them are girls and young women, which is fantastic. We’re seeing some real gender diversity.”

Among the stops on Ms Milton’s tour were BAE Systems, Bosch, the National Careers Service and the Apprenticeships Service.

As well as trying out virtual engineering, having a selfie taken by a robot and climbing up into the cab of a lorry she spoke to a wide range of apprentices “who’ve just got such good stories to tell”.

At the heart of WorldSkills UK Live are the national finals of the WorldSkills UK competitions.

Young people are competing in over 70 different skills over two days, with the victors earning places in the Team UK squad for WorldSkills Kazan in 2019.

Ms Milton wished all the competitors “so much luck”, and said she had her “fingers crossed for all of them”.

“If you’ve not witnessed it you can have no idea what these young people have to go through,” she said.

“This is two days of really intensive competition. It’s the skills Olympics, but unlike most Olympics events which last minutes or seconds these kids are at this for two days.”

Launched in 2012, following the UK’s hosting of the international WorldSkills competition, WorldSkills UK Live – formerly known as the Skills Show until it rebranded earlier this year – has grown into the nation’s largest skills, apprenticeships and careers event.

This is set to be the biggest show ever, with 80,000 visitors expected over the three days, from November 15 to 17.

Exhibitors at the show include BMW Group UK, Airbus, Royal Navy, and Health Education England, and colleges, including Bedford College, North Warwickshire and South Leicestershire College and Grimsby Institute.

Spotlight stages will feature a wide range of speakers through the three days, giving an insight into different careers including science, the automotive industry, health care, architecture, visual effects – even professional football.

And visitors will be able to take part in many hands-on activities, including autobody repair, carpentry, and landing a virtual plane.

FE Week & FE Week are proud media partner of WorldSkills UK, WorldSkills UK Live, WorldSkills UK Competition Finals. You can follow our live coverage on Twitter @feweek using the hashtag #SKILLSLIVE

Glowing Ofsted report for first national college to be inspected

The first of the new national colleges to be inspected by Ofsted has received a glowing report.

The National College for Digital Skills was highly praised by the inspectorate for its effective teaching, “enthusiastic” learners, “excellent” careers advice and focus on increasing diversity in the digital sector.

The college, which is known as Ada after the nineteenth century pioneer of computers Ada Lovelace, was rated ‘good’ overall in its first full inspection published today, and received an ‘outstanding’ grade for the personal development, behaviour and welfare of learners.

Ada, which operates out of two campuses in northeast London, is one of the five national colleges created by the government with the aim of training more than 20,000 students between them by 2020, and the first to be inspected.

Inspectors praised senior leaders and governors for being “relentless in their ambitions to establish the National College for Digital Skills as a sector leader in its field.”

The college received particular praise for its efforts to encourage participation in digital skills from women and those from deprived backgrounds.

The report said leaders had “fulfilled their goal to recruit learners from disadvantaged backgrounds, and to recruit more females to study for a career in the computer science industry.

“They have deliberately chosen to locate the college in an area of significant deprivation in London and have overcome substantial challenges to find suitable premises.”

Despite difficulties with retaining learners in the early stages of their study programmes, inspectors found managers had taken effective action to increase participation and were now attracting learners from across London for their sixth-form provision, including a “high proportion of learners from the most deprived areas”.

The report said teachers have good industrial expertise and teaching qualifications, and are encouraged to keep up to date with their professional and vocational skills.

They use “imaginative teaching methods” which develop the independence and self-confidence of learner, and lessons are designed to “develop learners’ curiosity and deepen their conceptual understanding”.

“All learners receive excellent industry-related guidance and experience. Apprentices work for high-profile companies in the digital industries. Study programme learners have multiple opportunities to take part in projects designed and influenced by professionals from industry. Each learner also receives dedicated one-to-one support and guidance from a professional mentor.

“This creates invaluable opportunities for each learner to gain unique insights into job opportunities and the world of work, specifically customised to their own particular interests,” the report said.

Learners and apprentices “enjoy their studies and make good progress” and were described as “highly motivated” and with “highly professional attitudes and behaviour”. Inspectors said the ethos at Ada “positively encourages diversity and is welcoming and friendly”, and vulnerable learners are well supported.

Tom Fogden, chief operating officer and dean of Ada, said the college had set out to support under-represented groups “on a journey from 16 years of age through to highly skilled digital roles and flourishing lives”.

“In just two years of operation, we are incredibly proud to be realising that ambition,” he said.

“We have more to do, but these early successes give us a great foundation from which we will start to deliver, at greater scale, on our organisational aims.

“We have developed a proof of concept which shows that it is possible to be a centre of excellence and an engine of social mobility. Seeing is believing.”

The college has 129 learners on level three study programmes, and 125 adult apprentices working towards a level four apprenticeship in digital skills. Apprentices work for companies including Google, Siemens and Deloitte.

Last month FE Week reported that Ada was under considerable financial strain after minutes from board meetings in February and March revealed concerns over “whether Ada will ever break even purely with government funding”.

However, a spokesperson insisted it was on track to break even in this academic year and go into surplus next year. She also said that enrolment was lower than forcecast because the college had been forced to “constrain our numbers” as the larger premises it was due to move into this year were not yet ready.

University takeover of struggling college delayed, again

A cash-strapped London college’s on-off planned merger with a university has been delayed yet again.

Lambeth College is now “preparing to become part of the London South Bank University family from the beginning of February 2019” instead of the turn of the year, a spokesperson for the two institutions has revealed to FE Week.

The partnership was first announced in December 2016, after an FE commissioner visit to the college three months earlier concluded that it was “no longer sustainable” unless it merged.

The merger was originally meant to go through by July 2017.

In January this year, it emerged that the plans had hit the buffers and the college was in the market for a new merger partner.

Following an FE commissioner-led structure and prospects appraisal, Lambeth College announced in March that it had reverted back to the original plan.

The subsequent consultation document said the merger would take place by July 31, or “a date as soon as practicable after this date”.

In August LSBU announced that the merger had been signed off by the skills minister, Anne Milton, and was expected to go through by January next year.

Before then, it needs parliamentary approval: the relevant statutory instrument was laid before parliament on October 11, and the process is expected to complete later this month.

According to Lambeth College’s most recent governing body minutes, from a meeting on July 12, the college is wholly dependent on cash it received from the restructuring facility.

Its 2016/17 accounts, published in December last year, revealed it was expecting a £25 million bailout from the fund earlier this year.

Minutes from a board meeting in May indicated that this sum had gone up to £29 million.

“The finance committee also noted that the college was totally reliant on the restructuring fund to remain solvent in 2018/19. The minimum drawdown would be £4.9m,” the college’s July minutes said.

The committee “also discussed the impact on the college if the proposed merger is delayed beyond 1 January 2019 and, in particular, if delayed beyond 31 March 2019”.

It “recognised that there would need to be a major piece of work with a number of stakeholders to ensure that the college remained solvent and access the full restructuring facility funding before March 31, 2019”.

Lambeth College, currently rated ‘requires improvement’ by Ofsted, has held a notice of concern for financial health from the Education and Skills Funding Agency since June 2013, which was joined by a notice to improve for financial control in June this year.

When it goes through, the Lambeth and LSBU merger will be the second college and university link-up in recent months.

Bolton College merged with the University of Bolton in August, using an innovative merger model that’s designed to give greater protection to the FE provision than a traditional merger would.