Start date: February 2018 Previous job: Farm manager, Streetly Hall Farm Limited Interesting fact: Malcolm plays the fiddle, and has toured Norway, the US and Canada as a member both of a folk band and the Ayrshire Fiddle Orchestra.
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Shirley Brookes-Mills, Principal, Thomas Rotherham College
Start date: June 2018 Previous job: Assistant group director, Newcastle and Stafford Colleges Group Interesting fact: Shirley will be the college’s first-ever female principal in its 500-year history.
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Catherine Cole, Principal, the Sixth-Form College Farnborough
Start date: September 2018 Previous job: Deputy principal, the Sixth-Form College Farnborough Interesting fact: During her career, Catherine has worked in a number of schools and colleges in the UK and Australia.
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Jason Holt CBE, Chair, Apprenticeship Ambassador Network
Start date: March 2018 Previous job: Chief executive, Holts Group (ongoing) Interesting fact: Jason was awarded a CBE in the 2015 New Year’s honours list for his services to apprenticeships and his efforts to plug the skills gap in the jewellery sector.
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Lee Kilgour, Principal, Scarborough UTC
Start date: April 2018 Previous job: Principal, the Greater Manchester UTC Interesting fact: Lee worked for the RAF for 10 years as an aircraft engineer and instructor before moving into teaching.
Ifyou want to let us know of any new faces at the top of your college, training provider or awarding organisation please let us know by emailing news@feweek.co.uk
A college is instilling a love of the arts in pupils at a nearby secondary school by running free drama and dance workshops.
Sunderland College is working in partnership with Thornhill Academy to run the weekly dance and drama sessions, which give pupils regular access to arts education and inspire them to pursue creative subjects post-16.
The initiative is part of the college’s recruitment strategy, and will run until the end of the academic year, culminating in a joint performance of Blood Brothers by pupils and college students at
Sunderland College’s arts academy theatre, as well as an end-of-year dance show.
“The interest from schools wanting to work in partnership with us to ensure the arts is represented in the curriculum offer has been overwhelming,” said Sheree Rymer, curriculum manager for creative arts at Sunderland College. “This new partnership shows the resilience of the arts in Sunderland and how there are young people who want to study the creative arts alongside more academic subjects.”
A college is joining a university using an “innovative” new merger model that’s acting as a pilot for future partnerships between FE and HE.
The alliance, between Bolton College and the University of Bolton, means the college, which has a grade two from Ofsted, will retain its own principal and governing board, giving it greater “protection” than it would through a traditional merger.
The model was proposed by the Department for Education, which described it as “exciting” and “the first of its kind”.
“This is an innovative new business model for further and higher education and we will be evaluating its success, particular how it benefits students and gives them the high quality education they deserve,” a spokesperson said.
“The university is not looking to come in and try to run the college,” said Bill Webster, Bolton College’s interim principal.
“It’s about making sure that the university has sufficient control to protect its ability to do what it’s been asked to do, at the same time as giving a fair degree of autonomy to the college.
“Should there be future HE/FE type mergers this is potentially the model it’s going to be.”
It’s great to see a merger model that allows greater protection for FE provision at colleges
“It’s great to see a merger model that allows greater protection for FE provision at colleges,” said Julian Gravatt, the deputy chief executive of the Association of Colleges, who is pleased the DfE is “working to make amendments where mergers may not have succeeded before”.
Most college mergers see one of the institutions dissolved and its assets transferred to the other partner.
But in this case, the college is changing its legal status from August 1 to become a company limited by guarantee with the university as its sole member, which will give the HE institute ultimate control.
The new company is being designated as an FE institution under the FE and HE Act 1992, so it will continue to operate in the same way as an FE college. Its principal will still be accountable to the college’s governing board.
Mergers typically result in a single governing board and consolidated leadership team.
The approach is the result of the DfE’s “very strong wish” to develop a new merger model that would “ensure that the integrity and assets of FE are absolutely protected”.
“The university is signing an asset deed that completely protects the assets of the FE establishment,” said Mr Webster.
It will also underwrite the college’s finances, “giving a stronger balance sheet”.
George Holmes, the university’s vice-chancellor, described the arrangement as “the best of both worlds” for the college.
“This new model retains the integrity, identity and relative autonomy of the college while retaining the benefits of being part of a much larger organisation than the college was itself,” he said.
The Bolton merger was first proposed in the Greater Manchester area review, which ended in June 2016.
Bury College was planning to join in, but dropped out in April last year due to a change in plans from the original proposal.
It’s not the first FE and HE merger to go ahead; according to the AoC there have been 12 since 1993, most recently in 2012 involving Leek College and the University of Derby.
And a further two partnerships are in the offing, involving City College Southampton and Southampton Solent University, and Lambeth College and London South Bank University.
However the latter may be under threat as the college was forced by the FE commissioner to seek out other potential partners.
More than two thirds of the university technical colleges visited by Ofsted in the last year received ratings that were less than ‘good’, according to FE Week analysis.
But the organisation which oversees UTCs has hit back, saying it believes the watchdog’s inspection regime is not designed to measure their performance in the most accurate way possible.
Ofsted inspected 14 UTCs between February 2017 and February 2018, but just four of these, or 29 per cent, received a grade two, while none at all were rated ‘outstanding’.
Meanwhile, 10 (71 per cent) were rated at grades three or four, both of which are considered unacceptable by Ofsted.
The Baker Dearing Trust told FE Week that UTCs are “new and innovative” colleges which are inspected “before many of them have a settled position in the local education landscape”.
Its spokesperson claimed that the trust hopes that “over time”, the “outstanding destinations” found at UTCs will “carry more weight” in Ofsted reports.
According to FE Week’s analysis, a total of 29 of the 14-to-19 technical institutions – including several which have since closed – have now been inspected, of which 17 (59 per cent) had the lowest two grades.
Click to enlarge
BDT’s spokesperson said that the “objective” is to have every UTC rated ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’, and claimed the trust works “closely and constructively” with those that have yet to reach the benchmark.
The UTC movement launched in 2011 with the backing of former Conservative education secretary Lord Baker.
These specialist technical education providers are seen by many as unwelcome competition to more established general FE and sixth-form colleges, which consistently return a much higher proportion of higher Ofsted grades.
UTCs’ Ofsted results remain well below those of independent training providers, sixth-form colleges, and general FE colleges – the last of which have themselves seen rapid recent improvement over the past year.
FE Week’s last report on UTC inspections in March 2017, showed that the education watchdog had visited 20 of the providers. Only nine (45 per cent) were considered good enough for the upper two grades.
UTCs are new and innovative colleges which are inspected before many of them have a settled position
Our new analysis reveals a fall of four percentage points in the past year.
BDT pointed out that if only the 23 UTCs that are still open and have had inspections are taken into account, 52 per cent are at grades one or two.
This still however places UTC performance well below that of other FE providers.
FE Week revealed last month that as of February 7, just under three quarters of colleges are now rated ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’.
The proportion of sixth-form colleges achieving the top two grades was at 81 per cent in September, and independent training providers were at 80 per cent.
The most recent inspection reports into UTCs, at the institutions in South Devon and Buckinghamshire, both produced grade threes.
It was the second ‘requires improvement’ rating in a row for Buckinghamshire, which had just 147 students on roll, despite a capacity of 600, in the last academic year.
Inspectors said that overall progress in English, maths and science has been “well below” the national average for the last three years, and the quality of teaching is “inconsistent”.
It was the first time South Devon UTC has been subject to an inspection since it opened in September 2015. The college currently has just over 200 students, but senior leaders were criticised because they’ve “not secured consistently effective” teaching as it has grown in size.
Most UTCs have struggled since they were established in 2010, mainly because they’ve not been able to attract enough pupils to stay financially viable. Eight have so far closed.
An investigation in January by FE Week revealed that almost every UTC missed their recruitment targets last year, leaving them with combined debts of over £11 million.
The ESFA is trying to retrieve cash from 39 of 44 UTCs still open in 2016/17.
Widespread failure has been exposed across Whitehall with hitting the government’s own target for apprentices employed by public bodies.
Shadow skills minister Gordon Marsden (pictured above) and other MPs lodged a parliamentary question asking how many and what proportion of staff employed by various departments were apprentices. The intention was to find out how they are progressing towards the 2.3 per target set for public bodies last year.
In a response on behalf of the Department for Education, skills minister Anne Milton said it had 107 apprenticeship starts and a workforce of 5,960 at the end of January – which equated to 1.8 per cent.
Anne Milton
The Ministry of Justice said it had 224 apprentices, but that made up just 0.3 per cent of its 67,000 workforce.
“Plans are in place to deliver the target of 2.3 per cent of workforce undertaking an apprenticeship programme by the end of 19/20,” said Dr Philip Lee, departmental under-secretary.
For the Home Office, it was 135 apprentices meaning 0.46 per cent.
The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport had just six apprentices – which it said equated to 0.7 per cent of employees.
“The department is reviewing its apprenticeship strategy in line with civil service ambition of 2.3 per cent apprenticeship starts and aims to meet this commitment by the 2018/19 financial year,” Margot James, digital minister, said on behalf of the department.
There are currently 18 apprentices working at HM Treasury, which represents 1.3 per cent of the total paid staff.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office had 73 apprentices amounting to 1.35 per cent of workforce.
And the Department For Environment, Food and Rural Affairs answered for “Core Defra only, saying: “The number of apprentices employed in the department was 32 or 1 per cent of the total payroll workforce”.
The Department for Transport employs 230 apprentices at 1.58 percent of the workforce, while the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy provided the percentage figure of 1.6 per cent.
There were 27 apprentices in the Department of Health and Social Care at 1.78 per cent of the workforce. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government had 37 equating to 2.2 per cent.
The Ministry of Defence, said there were 836 civilian personnel in that department on an apprenticeship, making up just 1.8 per cent of the workforce.
But he added: “There are around 20,000 armed forces personnel undertaking apprenticeships at any one time, around 14 per cent of the armed forces.”
The Department for International Trade was also said to employ 39 apprentices, “which equates to 2.2 per cent of current UK employees”.
More impressive was Kit Malthouse, parliamentary under-secretary for the Department for Work and Pensions, who said that 2,563 of the department’s 83,147 staff were “currently undertaking an apprenticeship”.
“This equates to 3.1 per cent of DWP employees as of 31 January 2018”, he explained.
The Crown Prosecution Service was meanwhile said to currently employ “183 apprentices, which equates to 3.3 per cent of the workforce”.
But the connected Government Legal Department “had 19 apprentices representing 0.84 per cent of the workforce. Whilst the SFO currently does not have any apprentices,” it was added.
Mr Marsden was critical of the DfE, because they oversaw the introduction of the target.
“If you effectively set a target for other people to fulfil, you’d better make pretty sure you fulfil it yourself. That is a huge embarrassment to the department and also to the minister,” Mr Marsden said.
“If they can’t meet these sorts of targets, how are we supposed to believe they’re going to meet the 3 million target?” he added.
The public sector apprenticeship target, which came into force in April 2017, requires public bodies with 250 or more employees to have a minimum of 2.3 per cent apprenticeship starts relative to its overall workforce numbers.
It covers the period April 1 to March 31 each year, with reporting due each September.
It’s an average target across the years 2017/18 to 2020/21 to “give flexibility to organisations to manage peaks and troughs in recruitment”, according to the government’s response to the consultation on the target, published January 2017.
Hartpury College is dragging the agriculture industry into the future by launching a new hub to educate farmers in the latest technological advances, reports Samantha King
The £2 million Agri Tech Centre will be based at the college’s 1,000-acre commercial farm, and will provide a place to demonstrate to industry professionals how tech can revolutionise the farming process as well as increase the productivity of livestock.
“We’ve got an industry where the average age of people managing farms is probably about 58, and quite often they’re a bit put off technology. They’re not sure how it’ll work, and so they leave it alone,” explained Russell Marchant, principal and CEO of Hartpury College.
“We’re not utilising the technology that we need to improve productivity, and that’s what this centre is about.”
Students who are trained in the tech will help give demonstrations to visitors to the centre on everything from the benefits of electronic ear-tagging and handling systems, to putting sensors on cows’ tails which send a notification to a farmer’s phone if the animal is about to give birth.
“The latest thing is using thermal imaging techniques on animals to see, if they’re lame for example, what’s causing the lameness. Is it muscular? Is it an infection? We can limit the use of antibiotics and use drugs more effectively,” Mr Marchant added.
Half of the funding for the centre has been provided by GFirst local enterprise partnership after a successful bid from the college’s agriculture team, and the rest of the money has been put forward by the college and tech manufacturers, who want their farming innovations presented to farmers.
The new centre will also provide new job opportunities in the area, and the college wants to hire specialist staff to help the hub run smoothly after construction is completed in Autumn next year.
“This is hopefully just the start of Gloucestershire playing a leading role in Agri Tech innovation and knowledge transfer into industry,” continued Mr Marchant. “We’ll start to try and set up tech demonstrations from this summer, so we won’t be waiting until we’ve got the hub building finished.”
Main picture: Using thermal imaging to monitor cows’ udders and joints
National Apprenticeship Week has proved to be a time of contrasting grades for this type of provision – with one college receiving the highest possible rating, and two providers receiving the lowest.
Calderdale College was rated ‘outstanding’ for apprenticeships, but held onto its grade two overall, in a report published March 9 and based on an inspection in late January.
Managers were found to “relentlessly pursue excellence” in the college’s apprenticeship provision, with the result that “current apprentices are making substantial and sustained progress from their starting points”.
Governors and senior leaders were praised for creating a “culture of high expectations” and for having a “good understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the college”.
A “high” proportion of learners on 16 to 19 study programmes were now completing their courses – although “too few” learners in this group were gaining high grades in GCSE maths, the report said.
Meanwhile, independent learning provider MI ComputSolutions Incorporated and Barnfield College could lose their right to deliver apprenticeships, after their provision was rated ‘inadequate’ this week – in reports that graded both ‘requires improvement’ overall.
Leader and managers at MIComputSolutions were criticised for failing to take “sufficient action to remedy the weaknesses in apprenticeship provision identified at previous inspections”, in a report published March 9 and based on an inspection in late January.
In addition to its ‘inadequate’ apprenticeship grade, the London-based provider received a grade three overall and in two headline fields but was rated ‘good’ in a further three areas.
“The quality of teaching on adult programmes, which make up the large majority of courses, is good,” the report noted – while adult learners were “highly motivated and grow in confidence and self-esteem”.
As previously reported by FE Week, Barnfield College was given the lowest possible rating for its apprenticeship provision but grade three overall, in a report published March 7 and based on an inspection from mid-January.
“The provision for apprenticeships is ‘inadequate’ and has declined in quality for the last three years,” the report said.
Elsewhere, it was good news for Heart of Worcestershire College, St Francis Xavier Sixth Form College and adult and community learning provider CXK Limited who all boosted their ratings from three to two.
Senior leaders and governors at Heart of Worcestershire College were found to have “successfully tackled the most significant areas for improvement”, in a report published March 7 and based on an inspection in late January.
The proportion of learners achieving their qualifications “has improved”, and the “majority” of apprentices now completed their courses on time, the report said.
The “vast majority” of teachers at St Francis Xavier Sixth Form College “teach lively and challenging lessons”, according to a report published March 6 and based on an inspection in late January.
“Teachers give students very clear and detailed feedback on their work to enable them to understand what they need to do to improve,” the report said.
But it also noted that “too few” students achieved their expected grades “given their prior attainment”.
Learners at adult and community learning provider CXK Limited “gain enthusiasm for learning” despite many of them having had “negative previous experiences of education”, according to a report published March 9 and based on an inspection in early February.
“Staff support learners well to improve their confidence and motivation”, with the result that most achieve their qualifications.
Bracknell and Wokingham College held onto its grade two overall rating in a report published March 5 and based on an inspection in late January.
“Leaders and managers have created a secure and welcoming learning environment in which students and apprentices feel safe and enjoy their learning,” the report said.
The proportion of apprentices achieving their qualifications had “increased”, inspectors noted.
But they also warned that the “college’s financial position is weak”.
Employer provider The Headmasters Partnership Limited dropped from ‘good’ to ‘requires improvement’, in a report published March 7 and based on an inspection in late January.
The proportion of hairdressing apprentices achieving their qualifications on time “dropped in 2016/17 and is too low”, the report said.
And apprentices’ “attendance and punctuality” was deemed “not good enough” and not reflective of the “behaviours expected for employment”.
Five providers kept their grade two ratings this week following short inspections – Sparsholt College, independent learning providers GB Training (UK) Ltd and Remit Group Limited, adult and community learning provider Leicestershire County Council, and Loughborough University’s School of Arts, English and Drama.
Nine training providers nearly missed out on almost £8 million of non-levy funding because officials mismarked their bids in the recent tender.
FE Week understands that the money was almost held back because the ESFA had drafted in inexperienced assessors to mark the complex submissions.
A Freedom of Information request showed that of all the providers who applied in the tender, 153 missed out on funding because their bids failed to reach the minimum required score.
The appeals process found that nine of them actually reached the threshold and had their complaints upheld, establishing contracts to the value of £7,949,634.
FE Week has seen one letter which suggests that the people who originally marked the scores for the hundreds of technical bids were not full-time ESFA staff, and were actually new assessors, contracted solely for the task.
The letter stated that the complaint reviews had been conducted by full staff members with “the appropriate technical expertise in the provision of apprenticeship training” but who had not previously evaluated the bid.
The Department for Education said that all non-levy applications were “independently assessed” against a “clear and published set of criteria”.
A spokesperson claimed that all assessors received “extensive training” and pointed out that “only nine out of 1,046 tenders” were revised.
FE Week understands that two colleges, Basingstoke College of Technology and West Kent and Ashford College, had successful appeals.
Paul Hannan, the chief executive of the Hadlow Group, of which West Kent and Ashford College is part, said it was a “massive achievement” to win its appeal.
Focus Training, which has delivered apprenticeships in the south-west for 20 years, also had its appeal upheld after it had originally been told it had missed the minimum score.
Jamie Rail, the private provider’s managing director, told FE Week it had been “one hell of a month” following the initial outcome of the tender in December, but he was elated with the final decision.
While there are more disgruntled providers denied contracts in the tender which continue to fight appeals, the AELP has hinted that there may yet be some good news on the horizon.
“We are working very closely with ESFA to get a package of measures agreed that we hope should help ease the position for our members through to April 19,” the association’s chief, Mark Dawe, wrote in a newsletter to members last month.
“Usual line of ‘imminent’ I’m afraid, but we are aware how important this is to many of you.”
Meanwhile, a handful of Conservative MPs have weighed in. Jeremy Lefroy, the MP for Stafford, raised the issue in parliament last month after Newcastle and Stafford Colleges Group, which is in his constituency, was denied a non-levy contract.
Karen Dobson, the principal of the college, told FE Week this week that she is in dialogue with the ESFA to “resolve the situation”.
“As an established apprenticeship provider with a long-standing track record for success, serving over 850 local, regional and national employers, we remain hopeful that a satisfactory outcome will be reached in due course,” she said.
A college spokesperson confirmed this week that it had not had a satisfactory outcome from its appeal.
“We can confirm that at this stage we have not been allocated a non-levy contract under this process,” he said, adding that the college is still working with the ESFA and other partners to resolve this “technical funding issue”.
Barnfield College has suspended its recruitment of new apprentices, after it received an ‘inadequate’ rating for this provision from Ofsted this week.
The college’s inspection report was published on March 7 and rated it ‘requires improvement’ overall, but the lowest possible mark was given for apprenticeships.
Providers who get a grade four in this provision suffer significant consequences: they are supposed to be taken off of the government’s register of apprenticeship training providers, so they won’t be able to offer the training, according to Education and Skills Funding Agency guidance updated in January.
The college has today told FE Week, that while pending a “formal decision” from the ESFA, it has taken action to suspend its recruitment of new apprentices.
It has already removed the apprenticeships section from its website, but still had live adverts on the government’s Find Apprenticeship Training web page at the time of publication.
In light of the report we are reviewing our options
“The college had already identified the issues that have been highlighted by Ofsted, and has taken clear and decisive actions, which have resulted in immediate improvement of apprentice outcomes,” a spokesperson said.
“However, in light of the report, and continuing frustrations by employers to the apprenticeship system, we are reviewing our options.
“Pending a formal decision, we have suspended the recruitment of new apprentices”, and “removed promotion of this provision from our website”.
She added that the college’s “highly successful” work-based Learning and day release provision is “continuing to expand as this is better meeting the needs of local employers and communities”.
The spokesperson would not say at this stage whether the loss of its apprenticeships provision would result in any job losses, or what effect it would have on wider college business.
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “Barnfield College has been rated ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted for its apprenticeship provision so can no longer take on any new apprentices.
“We are working with the college to make sure their current apprentices can complete their training with another provider or finish their course at Barnfield if they choose.”
Barnfield College’s inspection report stated that provision for apprenticeships has “declined in quality” for the last three years.
A total of 260 apprentices were said to follow framework programmes in eight subject areas, of which just over half study at intermediate level. Just over a third of them are aged 16 to 18.
“Assessors do not carry out assessment of apprentices prior learning to determine their starting points accurately, and ensure that they make good progress. Too many apprentices are unclear about the progress that they are making or are capable of,” inspectors warned.
Apprentices’ attendance at off-the-job learning sessions is “erratic and low”, and they do not all spend the mandated 20 per cent of their time learning away from work.
It is thought Barnfield is to become the first college ever to be removed from RoATP.
The college has already identified the issues that have been highlighted by Ofsted
The other college on the register to have an ‘inadequate’ rating for apprenticeships is St Helens College, following an inspection report published last June.
However, it has received special dispensation to remain on the register.
In the same week in January that new rules were published outlining when and how providers would be removed from the register, the DfE admitted that it was treated differently due to its merger with Knowsley Community College that completed in December.
Merged colleges are considered ungraded by Ofsted, and are eligible to apply to the register under exceptional circumstances.
Under the new government rules published on January 30, an ‘inadequate’ provider should be given five days’ notice of their removal from the register. They must not take on any new apprentices, but any existing apprentices would be able to stay on only at the employers’ discretion.
Barnfield’s inspection report rated it ‘requires improvement’ in all other headline fields, except for adult learning programmes and provision for people with high needs, where it was ‘good’.
It has two campuses in north Luton. It taught around 3,700 learners last contract year.
