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Young farmers get a lesson in farm safety

A farming charity has paid a visit to Abingdon and Witney College agriculture students to warn them about the hazards faced by farmers.

Over 70 students attended the talk, which included practical demonstrations on hazards such as being crushed by livestock, falling from ladders (demonstrated above), unsafe practice with a chainsaw and limb entrapment in a tractor.

The talk was given by the Farm Safety Foundation after figures from the Health and Safety Executive revealed that 15-20 per cent of worker fatalities happen in agriculture.

“The agriculture industry has high accident rates,” said Petra Martin from NFU Mutual. “In fact it is six times higher than construction. By teaching students’ good practice we hope to produce a trickle-up effect where new entrants to the industry teach the older workers best practice.”

“I found each of the four safety sessions very informative and interesting,” said Antony Davis, who is studying the level two agriculture course.

“Especially the tractor power take-off, as it highlighted how a split-second mistake can be life-changing. It’s highlighted to me the importance of listening during these training sessions.”

Student florists to represent British Florist Association at RHS Chelsea Flower Show

A team of floristry students has been chosen to represent the British Florist Association at the world-famous RHS Chelsea Flower Show.

The seven Moreton Morrell College students won a national competition to mark the BFA’s 100th anniversary with their design for a floral feature, which they will display in the show’s floristry zone.

The design will be made up of 6,000 fresh-cut flowers, used to create a 2.5-metre-tall ‘100’, with portraits of British florists incorporated into the piece.

The students, studying a level four higher diploma in floristry, are now preparing to begin the build at Chelsea ready for the official press day on May 22.

Emily Deacon, who submitted the final design on behalf of the team, said: “Although it was my drawing that was chosen, it was definitely collaborative as we were all putting in our ideas.

“When we heard we that it was our design that was selected we were ecstatic as Chelsea is so prestigious.”

Brian Wills-Pope, chair of the BFA said: “We are thrilled that Moreton Morrell College are helping us celebrate the 100th anniversary. Their installation for Chelsea looks set to be an absolute showstopper!”

The RHS Chelsea Flower Show runs between May 23 and 27.

Team of welding students make steel memorial tree for local primary school

Fabrication and welding students have created a memorial tree to help a local special needs primary school commemorate pupils who have passed away.

The team of students from North Lindsey College created an eight-foot tree structure out of steel after being approached by St Luke’s Special Primary School in north Lincolnshire, who wanted a way to remember former pupils.

It took four months for the students to build the structure, which has individual leaves on which the school can engrave names.

The students completed the tree in their own time, with material donated from local steel and welding firms.

Alistair Sutherland, the headteacher at St Luke’s, said: “I think the tree looks absolutely brilliant and the students have done a fantastic job; it’s far better than I could expect and I can’t wait to see it on the school grounds.”

Fabrication and welding students Callum Barstow-Lewis (pictured above right) and Rhys Day both (left) helped work on the tree.

“It has been challenging but nice working as a team and for a real cause,” they said. “We just hope everyone else likes it as much as we do.”

Students with Alistair Sutherland, right, and a friend of St Lukes Primary, far right

Conservatives are lying about 3m apprenticeships for young people

The Conservative manifesto has repeated the pledge from 2015 to “deliver our commitment to create 3 million apprenticeships for young people by 2020.”

This target description remains at best grossly misleading, and now they’re repeating it two years later, I think it’s fair to call this a lie.

Why? Because in reality they are aren’t only counting “young people”.

Last year just one in four apprentice starts (26 per cent) were under 19, compared to nearly half (44 per cent) aged 25 or over.

In fact, last year nearly a quarter (23.8 per cent) of apprenticeship starts were aged 35 and over, of which 3,560 of them were aged 60 and over.

All these adults (the majority of apprentices and likely not new in jobs) are being counted towards the 3 million target, despite maintaining a manifesto commitment to 3 million apprentice starts for “young people”.

And as reported months ago in FE Week, the evidence is building that it’s employer demand for young apprentices that will suffer, under a new ‘employer-led’ levy funding regime in which the employer must financially contribute.

Take a look at the standards pilot before May.

Latest figures for the already popular level two customer service standard show 560 starts between August and January.

How many of them are going to those under the age of 19?

Ten. Ten out of 560 is less than 2 percent!

The government won’t be able to claim they weren’t warned about the worsening position for young apprentices.

But the least they could do is stop peddling this manifesto lie.

Chaplain hosts monthly animal café in college coffee shop

A college chaplain has initiated a monthly animal café as a way of making connections with students and staff, as well as helping them to relieve stress, reports Samantha King

Halesowen College’s multi-faith chaplain, Hazel Charlton, wanted to find a way to make herself more accessible, so she came up with the idea of hosting a monthly animal café.

Snakes, rabbits, guinea pigs, lizards and dogs are just some of the guests who now frequent the campus coffee shop at the West Midlands college, and students can enjoy the animals’ company while also having a platform to talk about what’s going on in their lives both in and out of college.

Hazel, left, with some of the furry guests

“The idea is that animals are a good stress release, and it also makes me more accessible,” said Rev Charlton.

“It’s a chance for people to come in, say hello to the animals and de-stress a bit. I can approach them and say ‘Are you ok?’, ‘How’s the course going?’ or ‘Anything you’re worried about?’. The idea isn’t to offload at that particular time, but it’s just to make contact and inform students and staff there is a chaplain around for them.”

Beginning in January this year, the sessions take place on the second Tuesday of every month and have already received glowing feedback.

“Somebody said they had been waiting for it all day, and another said they’d been waiting for it all their life,” Rev Charlton said. “I thought that was quite interesting really, that they’re coming, seeing the animals and just completely relaxing and being themselves.

“They’re just in the moment, and sharing that moment with an animal, which is lovely. The animals are not interested in exam results. It’s a delight to see people’s reactions.”

While the majority of animals involved reside in the college’s animal care unit, a number of lecturers have been bringing along their pet dogs, who have proven to be among the most popular attendees.

Mark Dugmore, the manager of the animal care unit and a lecturer at the college, said “Everyone loves a dog.

“With the snakes we weren’t sure how the wider student population would take them, but there was a mixture of fear and fascination, and a lot of curious people coming in not sure if they wanted to meet them and handle them, but they warmed up to them and people got over long-standing fears as well.”

In order to keep the animals safe, animal care technicians are on hand at the café, looking out for any animal that may be beginning to show signs of distress.

“If we feel like they’ve had enough we take them out straight away,” added Mr Dugmore. “It’s no good for the users of the café if the animals are freaking out. They’ve got their own private spaces to go into as well, whether it’s a carrier or a tray from an enclosure so they could hop around in there and approach people only if they wanted to. We take their welfare very seriously.”

“We don’t want to put the students’ stress onto the animals. That would defeat the object really,” joked Rev Charlton.

Old archives reveal life at a specialist college 50 years ago

A specialist college in Gloucestershire has uncovered old archives revealing what life was like for its disabled students five decades ago.

During preparations for its 50th anniversary celebrations, staff at National Star College uncovered old record books from when the college first opened in May 1967.

There were just 10 students at the college when it opened, with disabilities including cerebral palsy, polio, spina bifida, severe asthma and learning difficulties, who were then referred to as ‘slow developers’.

Students who had the ability to drive were taught to operate three-wheeled Invacars, and physiotherapy came in the form of sports such as hiking, weight-lifting and swimming.

Former student Ruth Dyga enrolled at the college in 1969 aged 16. She had cerebral palsy, but remained undiagnosed as her doctor had not heard of the condition.

“My main aim was to be independent,” she said. “If I hadn’t gone to National Star I wouldn’t be where I am now, in my own home.”

The college now caters for students with physical disabilities, acquired brain injuries and learning difficulties, with facilities including a hydrotherapy pool and acquired brain injury and rehabilitation unit.

“From the beginning, National Star’s belief has been that, with high quality and specialist support, people with disabilities can realise their aspirations,” said David Ellis, the chief executive of the college.

“We believe it is about what people can do, not what they can’t.”

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Movers and Shakers: Edition 209

Your weekly guide to who’s new and who’s leaving

The educationalist Dame Asha Khemka DBE has been made deputy lieutenant of Staffordshire.

Ms Khemka, who is principal and chief executive of West Nottinghamshire College, was appointed by Her Majesty’s lord-lieutenant of Staffordshire, Ian Dudson CBE KStJ at a ceremony last week.

The title is awarded to people who have served their local community or have a history of public service in other fields.

In the role, she will support the lord-lieutenant with his ceremonial duties throughout the year, including representing him at civic and voluntary events.

In 2009, Ms Khemka was recognised for her services to further education with an OBE in the new year’s honours list, and received a damehood in the 2014 honours list, making her the first woman of Indian origin in 83 years to receive the title.

She also received the accolade of ‘Woman of the Year’ in 2014, from then prime minister, David Cameron.

Of her newest title, she said: “As a long-standing resident, I am proud and humbled to be asked to represent the Staffordshire lieutenancy and serve the place where I have lived for almost 20 years.

It is a huge honour to be appointed as a deputy lieutenant of the county that I love so much.”

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Denise Brown is to be the next principal and chief executive of Stoke-on-Trent College.

She takes up the role from her current position as vice-principal of South Essex College, where she was responsible for updating the college’s courses to suit the needs of students.

Ms Brown began her further education career in 1988 as a lecturer and policy advisor at London’s Newham College, becoming principal in 2010. She stepped down in 2014, moving to her current position as vice-principal at South Essex College.

She said “I am really looking forward to working with the very able and dedicated staff at the college and getting to know Stoke-on-Trent better.

“The city reminds me very much of my home town of Oldham – a place of rich industrial heritage surrounded by beautiful countryside populated by warm, friendly people.”

Neil Bromley, the college’s chair of governors, said “Denise was chosen, following a rigorous selection process, because of her wealth of experience, her expertise, authority and passion for education. She was exactly the kind of person we were looking for.”

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Alex Scott is the new principal of Itchen College in Hampshire.

He joins the college from Brockenhurst College, where he was vice-principal for ten years, before which he had been deputy principal at Barton Peveril College, having joined first as a teacher and worked his way up through the ranks.

“I am excited to be joining the college, returning to the area of Southampton where I spent my childhood,” said Mr Scott. “I have waited for the position of principal at Itchen Sixth Form College to become available for a number of years.”

He will replace interim principal Vanessa Cass, who returns to her previous post as deputy principal.

If you 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

‘Alarming’: ESFA still giving one-man bands access to millions

Labour has demanded an investigation into the way providers are selected for the register of apprenticeship training providers – after a new company with one employee run from home made it onto the list.

The updated register was published this week by the Education and Skills Funding Agency – and Learn for Free Ltd, which was established less than three months ago according to Companies House, is among 507 organisations joining the 1,708 that were announced in March.

This firm has no apparent experience of running government-funded apprenticeships, and has one director and no office address other than that of a semi-detached house in Birmingham.

It also has no website or landline, with only a mobile number listed on the UK Register of Learning Providers website.

Meanwhile, another provider deemed high-quality by the ESFA with its appearance on the RoATP is G4S Care & Justice Services (UK) Ltd – which is rated ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted.

The shadow skills minister Gordon Marsden has called for the selection process to be investigated. “The examples you have uncovered are alarming and all too typical of some of the ones not picked up quickly enough in the past by the agency,” he told FE Week.

“Even though we are in an election period the minister and his officials need to look very rapidly at this and take action.”

FE Week phoned Learn for Free’s director, Yasir Idris, to congratulate him, and double-check whether his company had any track record with apprenticeships. He hung up without answering any questions, and ignored our attempts at further contact.

Nottinghamshire-based G4S, which was given a grade four Ofsted rating in September 2013, has now been listed as an employer-provider, which means it can deliver training to its own apprentices.

Its most recent monitoring visit from Ofsted, in October 2014, found it was only making “reasonable progress”.

Its head of learning and development, Jane Shannon, said a recent partnership with Derby-based training provider Babington College, which is also on RoATP as a main provider and has a grade two from Ofsted, has “stepped up our skills provision”.

“The registration of our UK and Ireland business as an apprenticeship training provider recognises our new partnership with Babington, and will enable colleagues across the country to access nationally recognised qualifications, develop expertise and build a career within our industry,” Ms Shannon told FE Week.

There is no suggestion that either G4S and Learn for Free have done anything wrong.

In March FE Week found that one person operating from a rented office in Cheshire had succeeded in getting three new companies, Cranage Ltd, Obscurant Limited, and Tatton Solutions Ltd onto the RoATP – with no track record on government apprenticeships.

Yet skills minister Robert Halfon claimed in the same month that his department was “giving employers the confidence to do business with high-quality training providers”.

The ESFA told FE Week that new providers, including G4S and Learn for Free, would be subject to “mandatory training” before being allowed to deliver apprenticeships.

This process was announced by the ESFA’s director of funding and programmes, Keith Smith, at FE Week’s recent Annual Apprenticeships Conference.

But fears remain that there will be a repeat of the fraud which plagued Individual Learning Accounts, as warned by the National Audit Office last September.

The failure of that scheme – which was scrapped in 2001 after abuse by unscrupulous providers led to a reported £67 million fraud – was blamed on poor government planning and risk management.

The NAO report highlighted how ILA funded “learning providers were free to market their services to prospective customers, and the scheme encouraged many new providers to enter the market.”

Problems arose from this “market-led initiative” as “providers were not fully accredited or quality assured.”

Assessment organisations put to the customer service test in our mystery shop

End-point assessment has been a huge source of anxiety for providers across the sector this year, amid a growing scandal over the glaring lack of apprentice assessment organisations approved to deliver the new tests.

Every apprenticeship standard approved for delivery must now include an EPA carried out by an independent organisation listed on the government’s register of AAOs.

But there aren’t enough AAOs – a state of affairs that’s increasingly worrying to FE Week readers – so we decided to carry out a mystery shopper exercise to see what the customer experience was like.

We first reported on delays to government approval of AAOs in April last year, when only 13 had been cleared to deliver EPA for 23 of the 88 apprenticeship standards ready for delivery at the time.

Then Dr Susan Pember, a former senior civil servant at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, stepped up in June 2016 to say it was “morally wrong” to start an apprentice on a course without having the end-point assessment in place.

Her comments made waves, and in October – when it was revealed that almost 60 per cent of apprenticeship standards were still without – others from the sector expressed their worries about the EPA process.

Mark Dawe, the chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, described EPA as “a nightmare” at the time.

Apprenticeships and skills minister Robert Halfon provided cold comfort to a now-panicking FE sector when in November 2016 he said he was “pretty sure” no apprentices would reach the end of their course without an AAO in place.

And in December, FE Week analysis showed that 78 standards were still without an AAO – just over half of the total approved for delivery. Currently 105 out of 163 have an AAO in place.

For our investigation, FE Week chose one of the apprenticeship standards with most starts – the level two ‘customer service practitioner’ – and contacted each of the AAOs approved to deliver EPA for this course.

We called up pretending to be a college with apprentices on roll who were ready to do their EPA, and asked each organisation to explain what service they could offer.

All of the companies contacted were regulated awarding organisations as well as approved AAOs, though they had been approved for delivery of EPA for different lengths of time.

Based on our customer service experience and the details provided by each AAO, we have rated them out of five stars – check out the results below.

Summary of the standard

The customer service practitioner apprenticeship standard is a level two apprenticeship, which takes a minimum of 12 months to complete.

In the role, apprentices must “deliver high-quality products and services to the customers of their organisation”.

According to the standard, this can be “delivered from the workplace, digitally, or through going out into the customer’s own locality”.

Apprentices are also expected to “demonstrate excellent customer service skills and behaviours as well as product and/or service knowledge when delivering to your customers”.

The customer service practitioner apprenticeship standard is the third most popular standard this year, while the equivalent framework is the seventh.

The standard was developed by businesses including Boots, British Gas Services, BT and Superdrug.

It falls under funding band six, which means a maximum of £4,000.Knowledge requirements include “knowing your customers” and “understanding the organisation”, while examples of skills needed are “communication” and “personal organisation”.

Apprentices on this standard will be required to have or achieve level one in English and maths, and to have taken level two in English and maths tests before completing their apprenticeship.

The apprenticeship should be reviewed after a maximum of three years.The government is phasing the withdrawal of old apprenticeship frameworks to be replaced by the new standards, and is currently consulting on the removal of a fourth batch.

Customer Standard Practitioner in numbers

End-point assessment details

The EPA for this standard comes in three parts: an apprentice showcase, a practical observation, and a professional discussion.

These elements have weightings of 65 per cent, 20 per cent, and 15 per cent respectively, and the observation and discussion should take one hour for each.

The apprentice showcase allows candidates to present examples of their development over the training period, and can be assessed face to face or remotely.

The practical observation must include customer interaction, and should enable the apprentice to demonstrate their skills, knowledge and behaviour in situations such as “dealing with a customer complaint” or “handling a general enquiry”. As a minimum, the observation should cover “presentation,equality, interpersonal skills, communication and personal organisation”.

The professional discussion should take place between the apprentice and the independent assessor after the observation.

It should be an opportunity for the assessor to ask any questions they may have and explore aspects of the work in more detail – especially with regard to scenarios that didn’t come up during the observation.

The apprenticeship includes pass and distinction grades, which are determined by the EPA.

To gain a distinction, the apprentice must meet the pass criteria and also consistently perform above the required level for the role.

There should be an opportunity for apprentices to resubmit work or to be reassessed, if any part of the EPA is not adequate when first completed.

Further development should be provided before any retakes and practice runs for the EPA are recommended.

External Quality Assurance for the EPA for this apprenticeship standard is delivered by Ofqual.

Innovative EPA plans

The assessment plan available for this standard, which was published last August 1, recommends the use of technology in the EPA process.

The aim is to make the process more efficient and more convenient for employers.

The plan says: “Employers within the sector have strongly expressed that EPA methods should be flexible, and where possible delivered virtually due to the impact of demand fluctuation on the quality of customer service within the sector.”

The apprentice showcase, for example, can be “assessed face to face or remotely”.

The apprentice may choose to deliver a presentation in person, or could submit a digital report, storyboard or journal to the assessment organisation instead.

FE Week’s research revealed that some assessment organisations are looking at innovative ways to deliver the minimum one-hour practical observation by using technology to carry out this part of the assessment remotely as well.

iCQ in particular showed a range of different uses of technology to streamline the process. It provides a flexible, browser-based system called ‘iLearner’, which includes e-portfolio and funding management tools to track the progress of the learner.This system will also include option to book into an online diary when the apprentice is ready for EPA.

iCQ recently developed a web video tool, to allow reviews or gateway meetings between the employer, provider and apprentice to take place remotely.These web videos can be recorded and time and date stamped.

The intention is to use the iLearner web video tool to conduct remote professional discussions, and iCQ also told FE Week it “anticipates using this tool for practical observations”. This is “subject to external quality assurance organisation agreement”.

Active IQ also said “assessment can be carried out remotely via video or in person”, but was unable to give further detail on how this would work in practice before the time of going to press.