London South East Colleges student Billy Birchmore has won eight gold medals at the Downs Syndrome International Swimming Organisation European Championships in Paris.
Following his success, Birchmore (pictured), who is a student on the college’s Introduction to Work programme, will represent Great Britain at the DSISO World Championships in Canada – which could give him the chance to compete at the 2020 Paralympics in Tokyo.
The 21-year-old began swimming aged 13, and is currently the world record-holder for the fastest 100m backstroke by a man with Downs syndrome, with a time of 1.15.70.
Birchmore has received support from the college to pursue his interest in sport, and the SEN team wrote him a personalised timetable allowing him one day per week working in sport, so he can get closer towards his dream of becoming a swimming coach.
“For now, it’s back to concentrating on my college work. I would like to become a swimming coach at a leisure centre one day and that’s what I need to focus on long-term” he said. “I’m very proud of what I’ve achieved so far and just want to keep winning. It gives me such a good feeling.”
Two colleges have seen their grades go up to ‘good’ this week – but three previously uninspected providers haven’t fared so well, including one rated ‘inadequate’.
KT Associates, an independent training provider, received the lowest possible grade across the board in a report published on December 1 and based on an inspection in October.
Safeguarding at the small loans-only provider, which had 220 learners at the time of inspection, is “not effective”.
Of particular concern was “weak” risk assessment, “including when assessors carry out late-evening, lone-working appointments and when family members and friends, including babies and young children, are in learners’ homes and community venues”.
Other issues included “ineffective” governance arrangements and the “very low” proportion of learners achieving their qualifications.
A spokesperson for the provider told FE Week it was “devastated” by the verdict.
“The wording of the report is hugely disheartening and does not accurately detail how we work, our motivations and company ethos,” she said.
Elmhouse Training received a grade three after its first inspection, in a report published on November 29 and based on an inspection in late October.
The proportion of learners at the small independent training provider that achieved their qualifications on time is “too low”, the report said.
Teachers do not “provide learners with sufficient information about what they have done well”, and they also put “insufficient focus on the development of learners’ literacy and numeracy skills”.
However, inspectors noted that “staff support learners well to develop their self-confidence and enthusiasm, and to manage any personal issues that might prevent them completing the course”.
Hob Salons, an employer-provider, also received a grade three in its first inspection, published on November 30 and based on an inspection at the end of October.
Staff “do not manage the link between apprentices’ workplace and classroom training well enough”, the report said, while apprentices are not given enough help to “improve their writing skills”, with the result that “the majority of apprentices do not develop good skills in written English”.
Leaders and managers “have been very successful in improving teaching and learning”, and “work well with employers and external organisations to strengthen and broaden the curriculum to meet local skills and requirements”.
The “large majority” of students and apprentices made “good progress” and “progress to further study at a higher level, into higher education or employment”.
Wyggeston and Queen Elizabeth I College, a sixth-form college, saw its overall rating improve from ‘requires improvement’ to ‘good’ in a report published on November 27 and based on an inspection at the end of October.
Senior leader and governors were praised for their “decisive actions” that had led to “considerable improvements in students’ progress and achievements since the previous inspection”.
Students benefit from “good and improved teaching” that “interests and motivates” them – with the result that “most” achieved their qualifications.
However, the report did note that “despite improvements since the previous inspection, not enough students on vocational courses, and very few students on academic courses, benefit from real work experience”.
Five providers held onto their ‘good’ ratings following short inspections this week: Brooklands College, the ITP 5 E Ltd, and adult and community learning providers North West Training Council, Southend-on-Sea borough council, and PETA .
England’s colleges are showing signs of turning a significant corner in their Ofsted performance.
Seven have managed to dig themselves out of failing grades in the early part 2017/18 – where none managed the same feat during that period last year.
Frustratingly however, this success will not be recognised in the education watchdog’s imminent annual report, which will only discuss inspections published up to the end of 2016/17, and which is expected to describe a huge decline in standards.
Just 69 per cent of colleges were rated ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ by August 31, FE Week analysis revealed.
Read Editor Nick Linford’s view here
This represented a fall for the third year running for schools and colleges in the measure Ofsted effectively considers its minimum acceptable standard.
Now, though, FE Week’s analysis of the 12 full college inspections that have been published between September and November shows that eight have improved their grades: seven increased from ‘requires improvement’ to ‘good’, and one has moved from ‘good’ to ‘outstanding’.
Three more declined – two moving from ‘good’ to ‘requires improvement’ – while one stayed the same.
This represents a massive upswing in college performance; of the nine of the colleges that had full inspections published in the same period in 2016/17, six saw their grades go down and three stayed the same.
In other words, not a single one improved.
If Ofsted were to consider the full inspections published so far during this academic year in its annual report, the proportion of colleges rated ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ would sit at 72 per cent, higher than it was in last year’s report (71 per cent).
A spokesperson for the inspectorate said nothing had changed in terms of its inspection arrangements, and said it couldn’t draw any meaningful conclusions for why the improvement had been so substantial.
Two of the colleges that went from a grade three to a two – City of Liverpool and Richmond-Upon-Thames – have been subject to interventions from the FE commissioner since their previous inspections, which is likely to be one reason for better performance.
The five other colleges – North Hertfordshire, Wirral Metropolitan, Grantham, Burton and South Derbyshire, and Suffolk New College – however, have had no obvious support or intervention from the government.
David Russell, the chief executive of the Education and Training Foundation, said the noticeable surge in colleges’ Ofsted grades in recent months was “great news”.
He told FE Week there was a “large number of complex factors” which interact to create national patterns in Ofsted grading, but it seems “implausible” that the recent improvements are entirely unconnected to the “high-quality programmes” his organisation has been running over the last four years, such as CPD training.
This shock upturn in performance is welcome news after last month’s analysis showed that colleges are lagging considerably behind sixth-form colleges and independent learning providers.
Of these, 81 per cent were rated ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ by August 31, a massive 12 percentage points ahead of colleges’ 69 per cent.
The slump had continued an annual trend which has seen the number of high-achieving colleges fall by 10 per cent in just three years, after a high of 79 per cent in 2014.
Colleges are dealing with “an enormous amount of work” and “a big challenge” as they face “reforms in practically all areas”, she told MPs.
Ofsted confirmed FE Week’s findings this week in an official statistical release for FE and skills inspections and outcomes.
It pointed out that during 2016/17, there were twice as many colleges that declined to ‘requires improvement’ or ‘inadequate’ (18) than improved to ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ (nine).
The proportion of colleges with a grade two or one declined by two percentage points, from 71 per cent in August 2016, to 69 per cent in August 2017.
This decline would have been greater if the colleges that officially closed as a result of a merger had been included.
Thirteen separate apprenticeship standards with approved assessment plans have been left in limbo for two or more months because their costs still haven’t been agreed, FE Week can reveal.
It is understood that the holdup is the result of various new lengthy and complicated processes which came into force when the Institute for Apprenticeships introduced a funding board in April, which tries to secure value for money.
These processes have caused “stalling in decision making”, according to trailblazer groups who have developed the 13 standards, who admit they are “astonished” at the lack of urgency officials are displaying in approving costs.
“We are frustrated,” said Colin Huffen, the head of education at the Chartered Institute for the Management of Sport and Physical Activity, who has been leading on the development of the ‘leisure duty manager’ standard.
The problem, he said, comes from “complicated, unstandardized, lengthy processes for rate approval that seem to change regularly without notice to trailblazer groups”, and the “ability of the IfA to deal with anything quickly, outside of the standard approvals cycle”.
He added that his group are “astonished at the proposed time for approval” of a new standard, which now has a best-case scenario of 12 months.
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“This does not meet their needs in a fast paced commercial world,” he said.
Delays over costs are a new obstacle in approving standards; before the IfA was put in place, the funding band was allocated at the time of signing off the assessment plan.
But now there are various processes which can put cost approval on hold (see chart), and the IfA ultimately leaves final responsibility to the apprenticeships and skills minister.
The effects of this longwinded process are already being felt.
There are 124 employers with 902 apprentices ready to start their MBA apprenticeships, expecting teaching to get underway in January, according to the Chartered Management Institute.
Even though the standard was approved in August, and had an official launch last month, the fee scale will not be finalised until the end of January, meaning it cannot get underway beforehand.
The trailblazer group involved wants the funding band set at £27,000, but that is contested by the IfA.
“Processes have been changing, which has not been helpful and has created huge frustration among the employers ever since the standard was approved,” said Petra Wilton, director of strategy at the CMI, which is supporting the trailblazer group responsible for developing the senior leader master’s degree apprenticeship.
“Organising apprenticeships is quite a big personal commitment for individuals to potentially rearrange lifestyles to do them. They’ve taken the decision and got themselves excited for this and now there is personal frustration.”
Mr Huffen said his trailblazer group was also in dispute with the IfA over the funding band for the ‘leisure duty manager’ standard. It was initially proposed to cost £3,500 but his group wants the price set at £5,000.
“The delay in approval starts a chain of delays for training providers and end-point assessment organisations in developing programmes and resources to deliver and assess the standard,” he said, pointing out that the holdup also delays the recruitment of apprentices for employers.
A spokesperson for the IfA explained that the institute took the “conscious decision” to publish assessment plans for standards in development “as soon as we can – not to wait until the remaining elements of the standard are also approved”.
He said that while this does mean there can be a “gap” between the assessment plan’s publication and the standard being approved for delivery, trainers and assessment providers “benefit from having greater time to prepare accordingly”.
“We listen closely to feedback from trailblazer groups and all those involved in apprenticeships, and are working hard with them to improve the process,” he added.
The Department for Education would not provide any separate comment.
The education secretary has ruled out T-levels at level two and will not budge on mandatory three-month work placements, no matter what emerges from a new public consultation.
Justine Greening used her speech at the Skills Summit in London on Thursday to unveil the long-awaited T-levels consultation, urging businesses and training providers to share their views on how the new “gold standard” qualifications should be designed for the “skills revolution”.
The much-anticipated consultation, which has been delayed for over a year, has been launched in the midst of mounting concern and confusion regarding the government’s current design of T-levels, which are due to be taken on a limited basis from 2020.
The sector has been up in arms about how viable it will be for every T-level to include a mandatory 45-day minimum work placement. Senior figures in FE are worried that young people in rural areas will lose access to many subjects, and are dubious that thousands of businesses can be persuaded to join in.
It has also been unclear whether T-levels would strictly be level three – which is equivalent to A-level – and above qualifications.
Ms Greening, however, was absolutely clear when she discussed the qualifications with FE Week: T-levels will not be at level two and the mandatory work placement is here to stay.
“We are consulting, but we expect T-levels to be at level three, and we do expect a three-month work placement that is high-quality to be mandatory,” she insisted, before taking an even stronger stance.
“When I say we need to bite the bullet and make this work, because in the past it hasn’t, it is because of these sorts of compromises that shouldn’t be made,” she said.
“So no, I’m afraid it has to require proper on-the-job training. That is something that absolutely has to take place.”
The consultation will ascertain where “we put level four and five to make sure there is a ladder beyond T-levels for people to progress on to”.
When pressed by FE Week to confirm for certain that T-levels will start from level three and three-month work placements will stay mandatory, no matter what comes out of the consultation, Ms Greening said: “Yes. It is a consultation but not on those bits.”
The Association of Colleges has been lobbying to overturn the government’s stance on the work placement.
Its boss David Hughes used an interview with FE Week last month to plead with the Department for Education not to “punish” young people by making it mandatory, but it appears his wishes have gone unheard.
Responding to Ms Greening’s comments, he restated his disappointment.
“As I’ve said before, forcing everyone into a work placement means you limit people’s choices to what they can attend on a local basis,” he said.
“Through our response to the consultation, we will be asking for the DfE to look closer at this and how we can make it work better for all young people in every labour market.”
The AELP has previously urged the government not to forget level two qualifications during the reforms to technical education, insisting they are vital to social mobility.
Although Ms Greening ruled out T-levels beneath level three, the consultation has left the door open for a new qualification at level two as a standalone achievement, whether it’s via an apprenticeship or in the classroom.
“This welcome consultation gives us the opportunity to say that there should be a formal level two qualification with its own recognition however it is packaged,” said AELP’s boss Mark Dawe.
He insisted that the government must “stand firm” on the amount of work experience.
While apprenticeship starts have risen for ethnic minorities and those with learning difficulties, much of their progress has been through reduced opportunities for others, laments Fiona Aldridge
Last week’s figures showing a decline in the number of apprenticeship starts continue to make headlines, both in and beyond the sector. Average monthly starts are currently 17 per cent lower than needed for the government to meet its commitment to three million apprenticeship starts by 2020.
Opinion is divided as to whether this is a temporary blip caused by the levy, or something more serious. But certainly if numbers do not recover soon, the government will quickly fall behind.
At Learning and Work Institute, our work on apprenticeships has focused on two key issues: quality and access. While supportive of the government’s ambitions for growth, we have continually argued that apprenticeships must be of high quality if they are to bring genuine skills improvements and productivity benefits. Like all other forms of education and training, they should be accessible for all who can benefit.
There are significant inequalities in access to apprenticeships
This is not currently the case – there are significant inequalities in access to apprenticeships by household income, ethnicity, gender, disability and caring responsibilities. Equality of access is not just a “nice-to-have”. This under-representation reinforces inequality, restricts opportunities and limits the talent pool available to employers.
L&W has been working closely with the government to address inequalities in access, particularly with its commitments to increase black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) participation by 20 per cent, to reach 11.9 per cent by 2020, and to increase the proportion of apprentices with learning difficulties and disabilities by 20 per cent, to reach 11.9 per cent by 2020.
So the apprenticeship starts figures published last week are particularly interesting. The data shows a small increase in BAME starts since 2015/16 – around 1,500 or three per cent. In the context of an overall decline in numbers however, this increase is set against 18,230 fewer white starts, a four-per-cent decrease from the previous year. While it is good that ethnic minorities are getting a fairer share of the opportunities, much of the progress has been through reduced opportunities for others.
In a similar vein, in 2016/17 the proportion of apprentices declaring a learning difficulty or disability (LDD) has increased from 9.9 per cent to 10.3 per cent, an apparently positive move.
The actual number of starts however has fallen by 170, with the percentage increase deriving from the 16,1780 fewer starts by those without LDD. Again, while it is positive news that those with learning difficulties and disabilities are gaining greater access to the opportunities on offer, this should not mask the fact that there have been far fewer actual opportunities.
The demographic data throws up other important patterns. Despite an overall decline in opportunities, more 25- to 59-year-olds started an apprenticeship than in the previous year, at the expense of a much more severe decline for younger adults.
It is too early to tell the extent to which these patterns are temporary, or a sign of things to come. While I am pleased to see that ethnic minorities and those with learning difficulties are better represented within the apprenticeship start data, it must be of concern that this sits alongside fewer opportunities for the young, for white applicants and for men.
This week’s ‘state of the nation’ report from the Social Mobility Commission warned that “the UK is in the grip of a self-reinforcing spiral of ever growing division” and suggested that unless we collaborate to ensure opportunity for all, then apprenticeships risk damaging rather than enhancing social mobility.
It is critical therefore that we work together to ensure that apprenticeships provide high quality opportunities for all who could benefit – younger and older, BAME and white, with or without learning disabilities, younger and older, men and women. Or else we yet again risk hitting our targets and missing the point.
Fiona Aldridge is assistant director of research and development at the Learning and Work Institute
The impact is sizable, not only reversing the decline but boosting performance of the sector by three points to 72 per cent, the highest it has been for two years.
The chief inspector is currently putting the finishing touches to her first annual report and its accompanying speech.
Even though this recent upturn is technically too late to be part of a report about last year, I do still hope it is acknowledged.
And FE Week will be watching the inspection trend over coming months closely, hopeful for students and staff that performance keeps getting better.
Anne Milton has just passed her six-month mark as apprenticeships and skills minister. FE Week paid her a visit to find out how she’s handling her vast brief, and her vision for FE.
A self-confessed troublemaker who was always up to mischief at school, Anne Milton now wants to change the way parents and teachers view careers for young people.
“I would like to see a shift in parent and teacher attitudes to the career choices their children make,” she says, when asked what she wants to achieve during her time as minister.
“They need to understand the huge range of choices that are out there for their kids, and not automatically, as a knee-jerk reaction, look at university as the only option.”
Pushing alternatives to higher education has always been a passion for Milton, which dates back to her school days, where she admits she was a reluctant learner.
“I always sat at the back of the class,” she explains. “I was quite disruptive and a complete pain to teach, looking back on it.”
“We need to get employers realising there is an opportunity available for them in the levy and I want them to start using it.”
As a middle-class girl growing up in West Sussex, she attended the “high-achieving” Haywards Heath Grammar School, where there were three options if you didn’t want to go to university: be a nurse, a teacher or an executive PA.
Admitting that she didn’t have the application or desire to consider higher education, she dug her heels in when her teachers pushed her in that direction, and instead became a nurse, which she worked as for 25 years.
Now she’s come full circle.
“Nursing in those days was typically an apprenticeship route. You applied for the school of nursing, not university, and the students were essentially the workforce. We did exactly what an apprenticeship does today; we earned some money and learnt as we went along, trained off the wards and did some on-the-job training,” she says.
“Here I am back again in apprenticeships.”
Nursing is a far cry from a career in politics, so what prompted her to become an MP?
“If my teachers had considered why I was disruptive in class and why I talked too much they might have suggested that politics was a fine option for me,” she admits with a chuckle.
Later in life, she realised that her lifelong “burning passion” was to right injustices and make sure people were represented well – not in a political sense but generally – could be channelled into a career in parliament.
“A vessel, if you like, into which I could put all of that burning passion that had simmered away inside me for years,” she says.
Since becoming the MP for Guildford in 2005, Milton has served as a shadow minister for both tourism and health. She has also been parliamentary under-secretary of state for health, and a government whip.
It could be argued that she has inherited the ministerial role at the most critical time in FE’s history, considering the extensive reforms to apprenticeships and technical education. So how is she finding the challenge?
The brief “fits me like a glove”, she smiles.
“All through the years of the Labour government when there was a big push on university, I constantly used to think, ‘what about the 50 per cent that don’t go to university?’ We want a versatile workforce – and for people’s happiness we need versatility – and that is what I’m here to push.”
She feels very fortunate that the sector – learners, training providers and employers – are “fundamentally enthusiastic about the direction we are travelling in”, and that has made her even more determined to get the reforms right.
“There are huge amounts of goodwill to make this work,” she says. “Six months into the job I feel I have the background to understand well where the sticking points are, where we need to put some oil on the wheels.”
Milton says the skills brief is a “very practical” role and she is clear that both her department and the Institute for Apprenticeships need to be nimble and responsive.
Milton during her time as a nurse
Besides changing parental and teacher perceptions of university as the only route into a successful career, she wants the apprenticeships service working like “like a piece of silk” by the time she leaves the role.
But she is acutely aware of the challenges.
“The challenge is that it is all new,” she confesses. “The levy is new, the IfA is new but now it needs to be fast and effective and efficient and adaptive.
“We need to get employers realising there is an opportunity available for them in the levy and I want them to start using it.”
She adds that she wants employers to be “evangelical” about apprentices, and get to the stage where the success of their business can be attributed to them.
While her enthusiasm for the ministerial role is clear, Milton cannot deny that has made some controversial decisions over the past six months.
“Procurements,” she says without hesitation, asked what the hardest part of the job has been.
“They’re really hard. It is essentially a competition, and about making sure that you have got bars set in the right place to make sure you get the best.
“But you also have to make sure you have a mitigation scheme for those that lose out as you don’t want to destabilise the system.”
The IfA is new but now it needs to be fast and effective and efficient and adaptive
She’s referring to the two procurement exercises that have infuriated the sector since she came on board: the adult education budget and non-levy tenders. Both have descended into farce as the government battled with oversubscription and last-minute rule changes.
She seems torn between admission of failure and saving face, insisting they have “not gone badly” before she contradicts herself and concedes they have “not been great”.
But the government is about “making decisions” and that is what her department has had to do.
She did, however, offer her “sincere apologies” to providers that have been caught up in the current non-levy tender debacle, after the results of the second attempted procurement were postponed.
“I really understand people’s frustration,” she claims. “It is terribly frustrating when people expect deadlines to be kept, and the message is ‘I understand your frustration and you have my sincere apologies’.
“These exercises are not easy to run. Things will only be delayed to make sure we get it right.”
No matter what the FE sector may think about some of her decisions over the last six months, nobody can doubt Milton’s passion for FE and skills.
She became the first skills minister in eight years to attend a WorldSkills competition, held this year in Abu Dhabi, and she pleaded for renewed “partnership” with providers at last month’s Association of Colleges conference.
“Absolutely,” she replies when asked if she’s up to the challenge of spending the next chapter of her career creating a culture of skills in our country.
“I was talking to a school recently about careers and I said ‘don’t think about what you want to be or the job, think about what skill you’ve got. Reframe the question.’,” she recalls.
“If you want to do well, pick a skill where there is a shortage of people. It is not about the job you do, it is about the skills you’ve got and what sort of lifestyle you want. Believe me, the range of careers out there is wide.”
It’s a personal thing
What is your ideal weekend?
Getting all my outstanding work done by Saturday, a day in the garden, on the sofa with a good film, reading my book or having the luxury of a doze!
What do you want for Christmas?
Lots of apprentices – and then being with my family.
Who was your favourite ever prime minister?
I don’t really do favourites, but as minister for women it’s great to have another female PM because it’s a message to young girls that they can do anything they want.
If you could choose any dinner guests, who would they be?
Field Marshall Alan Brook
Susie Orbach
Marie Curie
Mary Watts (wife of GF Watts)
Jo Brand
The long-awaited public consultation for T-levels has today been launched by the government.
The consultation, which has been delayed for over a year, comes in the form of an online survey and is made up of 45 questions.
It is seeking views on the implementation of the new “gold standard” technical qualifications, which are expected to roll out from 2020.
It will be open for 10 weeks (closing on February 8, 2018) and wants insights from businesses and training providers on how T-levels can best be designed to meet the aims set out in the Sainsbury Report and the post-16 skills plan.
