Robert Halfon questions key principle behind new T-levels

The former skills minister has appeared to question the whole design principle behind the government’s plan for prestigious new T-levels.

Speaking in Westminster Hall this afternoon, Robert Halfon said that while there should be a “rocket booster” attached to the new technical qualifications, he is unsure about forcing 16-year-olds to choose between wholly academic and technical routes.

“I have no doubt that T-levels can provide fantastic opportunities for young people to prepare for a successful career and I am impatient to see these on the ground making a tangible impact on their lives,” he told his successor Anne Milton.

“I would encourage the skills minister to learn from some of our most prestigious apprenticeship employers and attach a rocket booster to the programme.

Anne Milton

“But I do wonder if there is there really a need at age 16 for young people to choose between a wholly academic and a wholly technical route. Might many young people benefit from a more blended opportunity?”

In response, Ms Milton said: “As he [Mr Halfon] rightly says, we must be careful not to draw a sharp distinction between technical and academic education so that you have to make a choice and go one way or the other.

“They have got to be interwoven.”

Mr Halfon, who is now the chair of the education select committee, also used his speech to warn Ms Milton that she will have her work cut out to ensure the skills strategy is implemented properly, considering that the economy is changing rapidly.

“Driverless vehicles will automate road haulage and taxi operations, artificial intelligence will power medical diagnosis and 3D printing will be used to construct bridges and houses,” he said.

“Our skills strategy not only needs to address the skills shortages in our economy, but to create our most resilient and adaptable generation of young people. They will need to be able to turn their hand to new careers and demonstrate those human skills, like creativity, that robots cannot master.”

Mr Halfon wants to see apprenticeships go from “strength to strength”, but worries that “we may be stretching the definition too far”.

“While most people think of apprenticeships as helping young people to achieve full competency in their future career, the figures show that in the 2016/17 academic year, 260,000 of the 491,000 apprenticeship starts were at level two, while 229,000 of those starts were for individuals ages 25 and above,” he said.

“It is essential that apprenticeships continue to focus first and foremost on preparing young people for skilled jobs – otherwise we weaken one of the key rungs on the ladder of opportunity.”

He believes the continuing expansion of degree apprenticeships will play a “pivotal role in this”.

You can re-watch the debate here: https://www.parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/fbfe6f93-459c-4370-8b93-0fc8432e5ccd.

Studio schools to cut ties with FE colleges

The controversial studio schools programme has announced a dramatic shift in focus after the tally of those closed or due to do so rose to 24.

Studio schools, small 14-to-19 technical institutions which are seen by many as unwelcome competition to more established general FE and sixth-form colleges, will now be incorporated into multi-academy trusts, rather than running as standalone schools usually with backing from the FE sector.

The model has been fraught with recruitment problems from the outset. Twenty of the schools have already closed, and last week, two more on the Isle of Wight and in Plymouth said they’d follow suit over the summer.

The government is looking at existing studio schools and what we can learn from them

The state-of-the-art Plymouth Studio School cost £4.2 million to build and only opened in 2015. The £2.4 million Isle of Wight Studio School has been open since September 2014.

Manchester Creative Studio will also close in August, and Rye Studio School will become a sixth-form, taking the total number of closures to 24 and leaving just 30 open. Furthermore, four studio schools slated to open never went ahead, and Department for Education records show that none are currently in the pipeline.

The Studio Schools Trust – a company set up to support and promote the institutions – has also closed following funding problems caused by “uncertainty and delays”. The Studio Schools

Network, a new company, was set up to replace the trust last August, but has yet even to establish a working website.

The change in direction is not unexpected. Meeting records released by the DfE in June last year revealed academies minister Lord Nash met with the Studio Schools Trust in March 2017 to “review the concept of studio schools”.

The Studio Schools Network told FE Week it would be “leading the movement into maturity” by moving away from working with FE colleges to focus on partnerships with multi-academy trusts.

Studio schools were introduced in 2010, designed to provide practical workplace skills for 14- to 19-year-olds alongside academic and vocational study, but many struggled due to low pupil numbers and poor Ofsted ratings.

A spokesperson for the DfE insisted that studio schools “remain popular and are providing their pupils with a good mix of academic and vocational education, alongside the skills valued most by employers”.

The government is “looking at existing studio schools and what we can learn from them”, and will “not hesitate to take swift and decisive action” against underperforming schools.

Government records show more than £50 million in capital funding has so far been spent on opening studio schools, though the data only covers 27 of those currently open, so the actual figure is likely to be much more.

Langley College students meet Pixar co-founder in VR

Gaming and IT students came face-to-face with the co-founder of Pixar during a lesson with a difference, reports Samantha King.

The group of students from Langley College, part of the Windsor Forest Colleges Group, wore virtual reality headsets and were transported into a virtual classroom, where they met the Oscar-winning animator Loren Carpenter, beaming in live from the United States.

Loren Carpenter in the virtual lecture hall

He talked to learners about his experiences working at Lucasfilm and Pixar, as well as upcoming projects he has in the pipeline.

“Through virtual reality, we can create a fabulous distributed classroom where anyone in the world with the internet can access a classroom and teaching,” he explained. “Students can experience what it is like at the top of Everest, or get inside a locomotive to see how it works up close.”

The exchange was facilitated using ENGAGE, a free platform that allows schools, colleges, universities and businesses to create a virtual classroom and bring together teachers and learners anywhere in the world.

Observing the session were educators from local schools and colleges, who were invited to see the technology in action by the event’s organiser, Christian Long, a gaming tutor at the Windsor Forest College Group.

“Like a drill in a carpentry workshop VR should be there being used every single day, rather than just showing it off as a nice little toy you might get out for Ofsted because it’ll look good,” Mr Long said.

“It is said we only retain 30 per cent of what we hear, but 90 per cent of what we experience. It’s why we can often remember our childhood holidays vividly, but not many of our school lessons. VR is an incredibly powerful tool for engaging students and helping them experience what they learn, so the lesson is never lost.”

Ofsted watch: Ambulance trust fares well in early monitoring visit

The first employer provider to have received an apprenticeship early monitoring visit resulted in a positive report, in this week’s Ofsted watch.

North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust was found to be making reasonable progress in all three theme areas, in a report published May 1 and based on an inspection on April 12.

The monitoring visit was undertaken as part of a series of monitoring visits that are taking place with a sample of new apprenticeship training providers directly funded through the apprenticeship levy.

Senior leaders at the trust were found to have “clear workforce strategy and operational plan” to ensure that apprentices “receive good-quality education and training to enable them to perform their job roles to a high standard”.

Apprentice recruitment was found to be “rigorous”, with all of those recruited from May 2017 still on the apprenticeship.

Most apprentices “make good progress” and “achieve the targets set for them”, the report said.

But inspectors noted: “Managers do not take apprentices’ prior learning and achievements into account when planning for individual learning needs”.

It was ‘good’ news for independent learning provider ALM Training Services Limited this week, as it received grade two across the board – up from its previous grade three.

But the report, published May 1, was based on an inspection carried out in March of just 12 learners.

Most of those, who were all on 16 to 19 study programmes, made “good progress in developing their knowledge and skills” and “achieve qualifications that prepare them well for purposeful employment”.

“Staff provide highly effective support for the many learners with challenging backgrounds; as a result these learners often excel,” the report said.

Leaders and managers were praised for having made good progress in “rectifying almost all the weaknesses” found at the previous inspection.

But they were also found to have failed to ensure that the “most able learners” were provided with work experience “early enough in their programme so as to enhance their industry-specific skills”.

Central Training Academy Limited saw its previous ‘good’ rating fall to ‘requires improvement’ in a report published May 1 and based on an inspection in late February.

“Too many” subcontractors for the independent learning provider had “underperformed over time” due to “quality assurance arrangements” that “lack rigour”.

And leaders’ actions “to improve the quality of the provision are not robust,” the report said.

“Too much provision” was “not good enough”, which meant that “too many apprentices make slow progress”, it noted.

However, “the majority of learners enrolled on study programmes and adult courses develop good knowledge, understanding and skills and make effective progress”.

Medway UTC was slammed by inspectors in a report, published May 4 and based on an inspection in March, that branded the 14 to 19 technical school ‘inadequate’ across the board.

Governors were found to have “abrogated” their responsibilities, and they, along with school leaders, had not “demonstrated that they have the capacity needed to secure the improvements needed”.

There was a “culture of low expectation across the UTC”, inspectors found.

The only college to have had an Ofsted report published this week was Writtle University College, which held onto its ‘good’ rating following a short inspection.

No adult and community learning providers had inspection reports published this week.

 

Independent Learning Providers Inspected Published Grade Previous grade
ALM Training Services Ltd 21/03/2018 01/05/2018 2 3
Central Training Academy Ltd 20/02/2018 01/05/2018 3 2

 

Employer providers Inspected Published Grade Previous grade
North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust 12/04/2018 01/05/2018 Monitoring Monitoring

 

Other (including UTCs) Inspected Published Grade Previous grade
Medway UTC 06/03/2018 04/05/2018 4 –

 

Short inspections (remains grade 2) Inspected Published
Writtle University College  13/03/2018 01/05/2018

Leicester city council in row over ‘brokerage-style’ levy deal

Leicester city council is the latest public body accused of diverting apprenticeship levy funding away from frontline learning via a brokerage-style deal with a third party.

It awarded a contract to a firm known as Salad Skills last October, to operate as a “quality-assurance partner”.

This role involves identifying suitable providers to train the council’s levy-funded apprentices, and monitoring how they get on.

However, one provider involved with the council has claimed that the resulting progress reports are duplication of work that training organisations should already cover.

FE Week’s source is dismayed that the council is not paying Salad Skills for brokerage-style work, given that the firm is taking a cut of levy cash in exchange for vetting providers.

The cost is instead passed onto providers at the other end of the chain, which are being asked to hand Salad Skills up to 10 per cent of their payment for delivering the training after “negotiating” a fee.

“Salad Skills is contracted to provide ‘quality assurance’, which isn’t in the ESFA’s list of ineligible costs, so is technically allowable,” said a spokesperson for the disgruntled provider, which wants to remain anonymous.

We feel that the fee they are asking to carry out these services would be diverting ESFA funding away from delivery

“However, we feel that the fee they are asking to carry out these services would be diverting ESFA funding away from delivery,” she said.

Salad Skills has a contract, secured through an open procurement process, to run until September 2019.

An advert on the government’s Contracts Finder website indicated that the total amount of levy funding involved is £16 million, so Salad Skills could in theory earn £1.6 million.

A council spokesperson insisted the advert is misleading.

“As it stands, our annual levy contributions from October 2017 to October 2018 are predicted to be approximately £1.2 million,” he explained.

If replicated over the second year of the contract, “the maximum amount that Salad Skills could earn would be £240,000”.

The situation has been likened to controversial subcontracting arrangements that are increasingly frowned upon elsewhere in the sector.

This usually sees lead providers skim off a hefty cut of up to 40 per cent of their total funding allocation in exchange for providing “management” services to subcontractors which deliver the actual training.

The case in Leicester is a little more unusual, given that Salad Skills is operating on the employer’s behalf.

Other brokerage schemes have seen providers obliged to pay fees to the civil service, various NHS trusts and Nottingham city council in order to win and maintain levy-funded contracts.

Funding rules were supposed to have changed last year to prevent brokerage. They state that “funds in an employer’s digital account or government-employer co-investment must not be used for specific services not related to the delivery and administration of the apprenticeship”.

Both Salad Skills and the council denied that this covered their particular arrangement.

“We’re neither a broker nor charge commission fees, and our quality-assurance, learner progress reviews and administration processes are in accordance with the council’s contract and ESFA guidelines which stipulate can be bought in from a third party,” said the company’s managing director Sarah Cripps.

“We don’t select the training providers, but identify those that offer the required apprenticeship frameworks and standards and meet the council’s due diligence criteria.”

Its monthly progress reviews include feedback from learners on their tutors and covering how they are progressing.

“Our successes to date include the highest ever learner retention rates for the council, tracking at just over 98 per cent,” she added.

The council claimed that its contract with Salad Skills covers mostly level two and three apprenticeships, including with local authority maintained schools.

“All procurement decisions regarding learning providers are made by the council, after due diligence by Salad Skills,” a spokesperson said.

“Our partnership is the most cost-effective way of running our apprenticeship programme – saving the council an estimated £50,000 to £75,000 per year.”

Large public sector employers have been obliged to pay the levy for the past year. Their payments flow into an account from which they are expected to draw in order to train apprentices.

The ESFA refused to say whether Leicester City Council is breaking funding rules with its arrangement.

Public services student leads project to help Birmingham’s homeless population

A public services student is leading a new project to help Birmingham’s homeless population.

Nineteen-year-old Luca Buratti, a student at Stratford-upon-Avon College, has taken on the role of project leader in a scheme to turn a double-decker bus into a mobile shelter for rough sleepers.

The project is being run by the Rotary Club of Birmingham Breakfast, and Luca has been awarded membership of the group for his commitment to community projects and frequent charity work, including organising fundraisers for the Alzheimer’s Society, Blood Bikes and Warwickshire Hearts.

So far in his role as project leader, he has been responsible for securing the bus and liaising with the local council for permission to run the scheme.

“This is a fantastic project that will really reduce the problem of homelessness in Birmingham,” he said. 

“Luca certainly personifies all the best qualities we hope to encourage in our students. We are tremendously proud of him for what he has achieved and for his public-spirited attitude in general,” added Aimee Clayden, the college’s public service lecturer.

Governors ‘abrogated’ responsibilities at inadequate Medway UTC

The governors of a university technical college have been slammed for “abrogating” their responsibilities, in yet another damning Ofsted report into one of the 14-to-19 schools.

Medway UTC was branded ‘inadequate’ across the board in a report published this morning and based on an inspection in early March.

The verdict, which comes in the same week that former chancellor and UTC architect George Osborne said the 14 start age hadn’t worked, means that half of all currently open UTCs that have been inspected are now rated at either grade three or four.

“Until very recently, governors have abrogated their responsibility for maintaining a high standard of education in the school,” the report said.

Governors and leaders at the school, which opened in 2015, had not “demonstrated that they have the capacity needed to secure the improvements needed”, and had “failed to support staff at all levels to do their jobs”.

There was a “culture of low expectation across the UTC”.

The sixth-form curriculum was “too narrow” and “does not meet requirements”, with a “lack of suitable and relevant non-qualification activities” to support students with their “chosen study programmes”.

A-level outcomes in 2017 were “poor”, and students’ progress was “significantly below the national average”. Current student progress remained ‘inadequate’.

“Students had been accepted on to courses without having previously obtained suitable skills or levels of understanding,” the report said.

Communication and partnerships with local employers was found to be “variable”, with some parents and students expressing “disappointment” at work experience placements.

But inspectors also noted that, following a recent change in leadership, “senior leaders and governors rightly recognise that the current provision is inadequate and pupils underachieve significantly”.

Paul Cottam, who took over as interim principal at Medway in January, said he was pleased that inspectors had recognised the improvements the school had already made.

“We are clearly not there yet and more needs to be done to ensure that Medway UTC is a good school which offers the very best learning experience and outcomes for its students,” he said.

The school is in “advanced talks” with Howard Academy Trust about joining the multi-academy trust, he added.

Medway is the latest in a series of UTCs to have hit troubled times.

It’s the sixth of the specialist technical education providers currently open to be rated ‘inadequate’, and it now means that 13 of the 26 existing UTCs that have been inspected are rated either grade three or four.

A further eight UTCs have so far closed, largely due to recruitment issues – six of which were grade three or four at the time they shut their doors.

Speaking at a Commons education committee hearing on Wednesday, Mr Osborne, who was involved in the inception of the project, said the model “clearly hasn’t worked” and “if I was back at the Treasury I would be looking at that”.

“There was a question mark at starting it at 14,” he told MPs. “There is an argument that I was digging into before I left office that moving school at 14 is not always the easiest thing and people are reluctant.”

Britian’s hedgehog experts convene at Hartpury College

Experts in Hedgehog care gathered at Hartpury College for an event promoting the animals’ welfare.

The Hedgehog Rehabilitation Symposium event attracted over 90 delegates from more than 35 different organisations, including wildlife hospitals and the British Wildlife Rehabilitation Council, who shared their tips on how to care for wild hedgehogs.

Sessions included presentations on the status of Britain’s hedgehog population, a talk from Nigel Reeve, the author of Hedgehogs, as well as a session with veterinary pathologist Alex Barlow, who dissected hedgehogs that had died in care to examine their cause of death.

“Hedgehog rehabilitation is largely funded by volunteers, giving up their time and money to care for sick and injured hedgehogs across the country,” said Lucy Bearman-Brown, a senior lecturer at Hartpury, and lead organiser of the event.

“To draw 90 delegates from so many organisations together was a fantastic opportunity to debate controversial issues, and explore ways we can work together to support best practice.”

College with huge bailout debt pays principal over £265k

A college owes the government almost £14 million in emergency bailout cash alone, but it still managed to scrape together the funds to pay its principal an eye-watering £266,000 last year.

Latest accounts show that the grade three Birmingham Metropolitan College owes more in exceptional financial support than any other college, yet Andrew Cleaves’ (pictured) salary makes him the second best-paid principal in the country.

A spokesperson insisted that the massive pay package is warranted, despite the issues that have developed under his watch that have left BMet owing huge sums to the government.

“The college’s pay policy reflects the skills needed to run a complex multimillion-pound organisation,” she said.

Details of the sums owed and Mr Cleaves’ salary were included in the Education and Skills Funding Agency’s 2016/17 college accounts, published last week.

They show the college owed the ESFA a whopping £13.8 million in support loans, of which £11.7 million is due to be repaid within one year.

According to BMet’s own published accounts, the debt stems from a £16 million bailout loan provided by the ESFA to the college in August 2015 as part of a recovery plan.

The funding agency “reinforced its support” to the college by “providing an interest-free £16 million loan to the college in 2015/16”.

“£1.5 million was repaid during 2015/16 and a further £0.7 million in 2016/17, leaving an outstanding amount of £13.8 million to be paid over the next two years,” the accounts said.

In addition, the college owed a further £1.7 million “in respect of historic funding irregularities”.

The ESFA had “agreed to combine the repayments” of both debts into one loan, “the terms of which are currently being renegotiated”, on the condition that the college sells “certain properties” and “uses the proceeds to repay the ESFA loan”.

“It is anticipated £13.8 million will be raised from the disposals of buildings, the remaining £1.7 million will be repaid from working capital.”

Despite these debts Mr Cleaves, who has run BMet since 2014, was paid £266,000 on top of pension contributions of £37,000 – a figure that remained almost unchanged from the previous year.

He has the second highest remuneration of any leader of a single college in England, behind only former North Hertfordshire College boss Matt Hamnett, who received almost £300,000 in 2016/17.

The college’s pay policy reflects the skills needed to run a complex multimillion-pound organisation

The ESFA accounts list the principal’s salary at Greater Brighton Metropolitan College, formed through the merger of Northbrook College and City College Brighton and Hove in March last year, as being higher than that of Mr Cleaves.

However, the college said that this was the combined salary of the two principals that led the two colleges before they merged.

BMet, which was rated ‘requires improvement’ at its most recent inspection in March last year, is one of the largest colleges in the country, with an income of £61.3 million and 16,000 learners in 2016/17.

It has held a notice of concern for financial health since July 2015.

Its EFS debt is larger than that owed by any other college, according to the ESFA’s accounts.

They revealed that 29 colleges owed a combined total of almost £120 million – an increase of £29 million, or almost a third compared with the previous year.

Other colleges with massive bailout debts include Central Sussex College, which owed £13 million, and City of Bristol College, which owed £9.5 million.

EFS – which can come in the form of a grant or a loan – is only available to colleges that are “encountering financial, or cashflow, difficulties that put the continuation of provision at risk”, and which have “exhausted all other options”.

The government has indicated that these bailouts will be phased out with the new FE insolvency regime later this year.