Supported learners at East Kent College has taken part in a fashion show celebrating and supporting diversity in the industry.
The students, based at the college’s Folkestone campus, created a collection of second-hand clothing which they debuted on the catwalk.
The collection, called Altered Images, was created from clothes sourced from charity shops, and promoted the idea of cost-effective fashion; hair and make-up students from the college’s Dover campus were also on hand to provide styling for the event.
The show was organised by charity ARRCC – which supports people with physical and sensory impairments.
Jackie Clancy, the college’s programme director of supported learning, said: “It takes a lot of courage to stand up on the catwalk. It has done wonders for their confidence and they have all expressed creativity and enhanced their design skills.”
ARRCC’s deputy CEO Trish Bishop said: “We are doing our best to get the message across that the fashion industry is prone to excluding people with disabilities and we would like that to change.”
Two students from Gloucestershire College have hand-painted a 5ft hare statue that will become part of the annual Cotswold Hare Trail.
‘The Strawberry Thief’
The challenge places more than 80 hare statues across 20 villages, towns and cities in the Cotswolds, with the students’ creation – named ‘The Strawberry Thief’ – positioned in the reception of the college’s Cheltenham campus.
Each hare is sponsored by a local business, individual or community group, and hand-painted by local artists; this year the design brief was the culture, history and heritage of the Cotswolds.
Art foundation studies students Lauren Dutson and Ciara Hinchey painted their hare in the style of the designer William Morris, who lived in the Cotswolds for most of his life and is still celebrated for his floral textile and wallpaper prints.
Florence Beetlestone, founder of the Hare Trail said: “I’m so delighted that the students have got involved, as the Hare Trail is very much about working with art and young people and developing public art education”.
The trail began on March 25 and will run until September. The hares will all go up for auction in October, with the proceeds going to National Star, a disability charity, and to local historical projects in Cotswold towns.
An English college will extend its involvement with the Saudi Arabian Colleges of Excellence programme, squashing rumours that the controversial project was on the cusp of being wound down.
FE Week approached all the English FE providers involved with the scheme, after rumours circulated online that the entire project – to boost technical and vocational training in the middle Eastern country – was set to close this year.
A spokesperson for Lincoln College issued a steadfast denial and said the college “remains committed to operating in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for at least the next 20 years”.
He challenged the suggestion that CoE, which was launched in 2013 involving a number of English providers, could close this year. The programme was “in no sense in jeopardy”, he added, and was now focused on “the expansion of existing programmes and the opening of new colleges”.
He told FE Week that Lincoln College International had taken over a Technical Trainers College in Riyadh in 2016, increasing student numbers, and introducing a new senior management team. LCI is also in the middle of a tender process to operate this TTC for three more years, and this month it signed a new contract with CoE to deliver English language training in the health sector.
The rumours began in January, when EL Gazette, an international news and media company for the English Language Teaching industry, featured a piece by an English teacher working in the Gulf who reported on “struggles” with the flagship programme.
“Unconfirmed reports on social media suggest this programme, worth £1 billion to the British economy alone, may be scrapped in 2017,” suggested the report.
In total, six FE colleges and an educational organisation in Oxford all confirmed to FE Week that they intend to continue working with CoE.
North Hertfordshire College and Hertfordshire Regional College, which operate together in Saudi as the Hertvec consortium, insisted they would continue supporting their three colleges in the region.
An NHC spokesperson said: “We are proud of the work we are doing to support our Saudi students, and are actively engaged with CoE as they think about the future of technical education in the kingdom for the medium and long-term.”
HRC continues to be Hertvec’s lead shareholder, despite suggestions in 2015 that it might abandon the venture altogether.
However, minutes from an NHC corporation board meeting on September 7, 2015, read: “We have agreed with HRC a 90-day option, to mid Sept, to replace them as a partner in Hertvec.” However, a spokesperson at HRC told FE Week that it is still “totally committed to the joint venture”.
The North East Surrey College of Technology established another Saudi consortium, together with Burton and South Derbyshire College, Highbury College, Birmingham City University and the University of Hull.
The consortium secured a £75 million contract in 2013 to run Saudi Arabia’s first women-only vocational college in Jeddah, and a spokesperson told FE Week that this deal currently extends until July 2018. He said the consortium was “unaware of any specific threats to the future of the [CoE] initiative”.
A spokesperson for Burton and South Derbyshire College said the Nescot Consortium had “worked hard from the outset to understand the needs of students, parents and prospective employers on the ground in the kingdom”.
BCU was unable to comment by the time of going to press, while Highbury College and the University of Hull did not respond to our attempts to make contact.
The final UK consortium, the Oxford Partnership, is chaired by Sally Dicketts, chief executive of Oxford-based educational organisation Activate Learning.
It was created with GEMS Education and Moulton College, and runs four women-only colleges in the kingdom. Ms Dicketts said the colleges are “making a huge impact on the lives of hundreds of women”.
FE Week also attempted to contact CoE, and requested a comment from the Department for International Trade, but neither replied by the time of going to press.
Troubled history of English involvement
But a number of providers dropped out of the programme early on as challenges with operating in the region became apparent.
Colleges of Excellence was founded in 2013 to boost technical and vocational education and training in Saudi Arabia through partnerships with international providers.
Lincoln College was the only college in England to enter the CoE programme on its own, and was awarded a huge contract worth £250 million in 2014 to establish three colleges in the Kingdom.
One of Lincoln College International’s colleges in Saudi Arabia
But Lincoln announced in January 2016 that its two colleges in the Al-Aflaj region would be closed by the end of the month, as was subsequently reported in FE Week.
A statement on its website said: “Unfortunately, the number of students able to participate in this unique education in Al-Aflaj is not sufficient.”
Lincoln also faced some financial hardship in the process of getting its Saudi project off the ground.
In March last year a spokesperson told FE Week there had been “exceptional costs” related to the “initial mobilisation and recruitment for a male college, which was discontinued by CoE and replaced with the female college in Al-Qatif”.
However, when speaking to FE Week on April 19, the spokesperson said: “Lincoln College International will make surplus from 2017 onwards.”
The Hertvec consortium also faced initial challenges in Saudi Arabia after it rapidly lost a member.
The partnership, between Hertford Regional College and North Hertfordshire College, was supposed to be supported by the University of Hertfordshire and the Samama Holdings Group, a Saudi Arabian company specialising in construction and facilities management.
But an enquiry from FE Week revealed the university had pulled out shortly after a bid for the contract was made.
HRC audit committee minutes from March 2015 also showed that a payment of £713,000 due from Saudi Arabia had been delayed for a period.
A Hertvec statement described the first year of the project as “a challenging one, from which we take many invaluable lessons”.
Nescot found itself under a cloud last year when its then-principal Sunaina Mann left her post, after FE Week reported she had paid her husband almost £200,000 in a contract for consultancy work in Saudi Arabia.
FE Week understands Ms Mann still heads the Nescot Consortium’s Jeddah Female College in Saudi, despite cutting ties with the college in the UK.
According to Moulton College corporation board meeting minutes from Jan 26, 2017, the Oxford Partnership recently underwent significant changes, after GEMS Education dropped out and was replaced by a new partner.
The minutes said: “TOP had received final confirmation from the CoE that approval had been given for the new partner Global Dimension for Education Training and GEMS had formally withdrawn from the partnership.”
Both Sally Dicketts, the chair of the partnership, and Moulton College declined to comment, while GEMS Education was unable to respond by the time of going to press.
*Main image: Lincoln College Group chief executive, Gary Headland, with guests and higher education graduates at a graduation ceremony in Riyadh in March this year
The presenter of Channel 4 series First Dates, is heading up a new programme to get young offenders filling hospitality skills gaps.
Presenter Fred Sirieix – who previously worked in Michelin star restaurants as a maître d’ – has established an initiative called ‘The Right Course’, which aims to get prison restaurants operating like high street establishments.
The initiative, which is funded by donations, will prepare young offenders for the world of work, and give them the skills they will need to get into the hospitality industry upon completion of their prison term.
The initiative will be run in partnership with offender learning and skills company Novus, as well as the DM Thomas Foundation, and has already started at HM Prison Isis, an institution for male offenders.
“The whole aim is to reduce reoffending and teach prisoners about service and cooking within prisons so that they can join our industry upon release,” said Sirieix.
“The work we do together with Novus and the DM Thomas Foundation gets young learners to practice delivering high standards that will ultimately make them great professionals.
“Prison environments should be about forgiveness and redemption. We should be educating these young people and instilling strong values within them to underpin it all.”
Main image: Fred Sirieix, centre, with Novus and prison representatives
The principal of Portland College is celebrating a decade at the helm by taking 10 different challenges over 10 months to raise money for a new activity centre.
Mark Dale has been principal of the specialist college in Nottinghamshire since October 2006, and wanted to mark his decade of service by doing something different.
Dressing up as Robin Hood
He hopes to raise £1,000 to pay for a new woodland activity centre at the college with an accessible climbing wall, a zipline and walking paths, which will enable disabled students to access Sherwood Forest nearby.
So far, Mr Dale has dressed up as Robin Hood, and recorded a music video while performing the song ‘I’m Too Sexy’ – a challenge set by students.
Other challenges in the pipeline include losing two stone by September, using a wheelchair for a day and letting learners throw pies at him.
Speaking of his fundraising campaign, dubbed ‘Challenge Mark’, he said: “When the learners challenged me to a series of 10 challenges over 10 months I had to take it up.
“Portland has a wonderful woodland campus in historic Sherwood Forest, linked with the legend of Robin Hood. I am really proud to draw attention to our exciting plans to open up our woodland to disabled people.”
A national autism charity has celebrated the official launch of London’s first-ever FE college for learners with complex autism. Samantha King reports
Operating across two campuses in Tottenham and Isleworth, Ambitious College is the first specialist day college solely for young people with autism, catering for those between the ages of 16 to 25.
After operating out of temporary accommodation for more than two years, charity Ambitious About Autism raised enough money to take Ambitious College to a more permanent home, with two campuses colocated within mainstream colleges, the College of Haringey, Enfield and North East London (CONEL) and West Thames College.
The new college’s Pears campus (colocated with CONEL) first opened its doors to a small number of learners in September 2016, and has already received an award for its impact on the local community.
Now the college has celebrated its official launch with an event on March 30, attended by the vulnerable children minister Edward Timpson MP, local MP David Lammy, Catherine West MP and the deputy mayor of London, Joanne McCartney.
Edward Timpson MP cut the ribbon
Also in attendance was Trevor Pears from the Pears Foundation, the lead partner of Ambitious College.
Ambitious About Autism hopes to raise a total of £4.4 million to fully establish the college and continue its work, and is £1 million away from its target. The appeal has already garnered support from broadcaster Jon Snow, John Bercow MP and author Nick Hornby, and has received donations from Sir Harvey McGrath and Baroness Dido Harding, the chief executive of TalkTalk.
“Through the model we have, we can support our colocated partners – West Thames and CONEL – to become more autism confident. In doing that, it makes it easier for young people with autism to enrol on courses there so it’s a win-win. That was important for us,” said the college’s principal Vivienne Berkeley.
“It’s a real symbiotic relationship. The more autism-confident mainstream providers get, it opens the world of learning opens up much easier for young people with autism.”
Principal Viv Berkeley
Across its two campuses, Ambitious College currently has around 44 learners, with plans to expand its student numbers over the coming years.
“Complex autism means our learners have a diagnosis of autism and a further diagnosis of a learning disability,” said Ms Berkeley.
“Having a day provision rather than a residential one means we can keep young people in their local communities and develop opportunities for them here.”
The charity has released figures showing that only one in four young people with complex autism progress to further education.
The college day starts at half-past nine and finishes at four, with a total academic year of 48 weeks; the majority of learners come to the college five days a week.
Edward Timpson cut the ribbon to officially open the college.
“Ambitious about Autism should be congratulated for leading the way in providing this type of education provision for young people with autism in London,” he said. “I hope that there are many more colleges like this in the coming years.”
Do you want to be in campus round-up? If you have a story you’d like to see featured, get in touch by emailing samantha.king@feweek.co.uk
Clare Marchant has been named the new chief executive of the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service, which operates the application process for all British universities and offering advice to college staff on how to help college leavers complete the application process.
Ms Marchant will take up the new role from her current position as chief executive of Worcestershire County Council. She first joined the council in 2010 and became its chief executive in 2014.
Before this, she worked for Deloitte, and lead delivery and deployment of IT services across the NHS for seven years.
Speaking of her appointment, Ms Marchant said she was “thrilled”, adding “UCAS is a unique organisation which fulfils a critical national role connecting people with education opportunities.
“I look forward to working with customers, staff, and stakeholders to enable UCAS to realise its goal of delivering outstanding digital services to students, advisers and universities and colleges.”
Ms Marchant will take up the role in July this year, succeeding Mary Curnock Cook who has been at the helm of UCAS for more than seven years.
Andrew Hargreaves, UCAS’ director of customer experience and marketing, will act as interim CEO following Cook’s departure at the end of April.
Marc Doyle has started as principal of Humber University Technical College, which opened in September 2015, and specialises in engineering and renewable energy.
Mr Doyle has been teaching for 21 years, beginning his career as a maths teacher at Horbury School in Wakefield in 1995, before becoming head of maths at Thornhill School, which recently featured in the Channel 4 programme Educating Yorkshire.
Most recently, he was core team principal at the Delta Academies trust.
One of his key responsibilities will be working closely with local employers to get them involved with the UTC, allowing students to actively interact with their potential future employers.
Mr Doyle said: “I firmly believe that wherever there are industry links in education, there is always greater success.
“As such, Humber UTC fits everything that I consider to be important in education. It has huge potential and is unique in its approach, turning students into the skilled professionals that local industry needs.”
Katy Quinn has been appointed principal and CEO of Strode College in Somerset.
Ms Quinn is currently the deputy chief executive of Eastleigh College in Hampshire, and will take up her new role in June this year, replacing James Staniforth.
Prior to her position at Eastleigh, she held roles including vice principal of curriculum and quality at Canterbury College, vice principal of Seevic College as well as a variety of positions in South Essex College at the start of her career.
At Strode, Ms Quinn will oversee leadership and management, business development, quality improvement and broadening learning opportunities.
Speaking of her appointment, she said: “I’m looking forward to working with such a dedicated team of staff and governors. My key priorities will be to ensure that all students continue to receive an outstanding experience and that the college remains at the heart of the local community. “
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
A company with no apparent track record or trading history is being put up for sale because it managed to win a place on the new register of approved training providers, FE Week has learned.
What’s more, multiple companies that do change hands may even be allowed to remain on the register, according to a government spokesperson, who told FE Week that such decisions would be made on a case-by-case basis.
The register, which lists providers that will be eligible to deliver apprenticeships from May, was published in March – and at least 19 colleges with a combined current allocation of £44 million initially missed out, even though many other providers were accepted despite a complete lack of experience of running such training.
FE Week has now seen a post on the LinkedIn page of a consultancy group called The Leadership Team, which provides services to colleges, training providers and employers, offering one such RoATP newcomer for sale, along with another listed on the old register of training organisations.
“We have an RoATP and a ROTO company for sale currently,” it said.
“Both have conducted no transactions and their owners have decided not to pursue funded training.
“If you would like to purchase please email your interest.”
FE Week understands the usual rate for this type of sale is around £50,000.
We invited The Leadership Team to respond to criticism that the RoATP was being used as a selling point.
Tracy Myles, the firm’s financial director, told FE Week that the practice was “normal”.
“It is normal for owners of companies, whether they are on ROTO, RoATP or not, to buy or sell businesses with a view to making a profit,” she said.
“With the amount of change in this sector we believe that there will be many more mergers and acquisitions, large and small, within the next 12 to 18 months.”
But Anne-marie Morris, a team leader and assessor at Acacia Training, a provider which did not get a place on the RoATP despite its ‘good’ rating from Ofsted, disagreed, claiming the sale was “a typical example of how inadequate the whole process was for the RoATP”.
“The Education and Skills Funding Agency have enabled companies to use their acceptance on to the register as a selling point to exacerbate asking prices,” she added.
FE Week asked the Department for Education for clarification around rules for selling providers on the register.
A spokesperson said providers must notify the ESFA if there were a change their name and/or ownership.
Under the Apprenticeship Agreement for Training Providers, the ESFA then has the right to terminate the agreement if they think the sale could affect the organisation’s ability to deliver the contract.
The Leadership Team’s LinkedIn page also shows that it apparently also works in a brokerage capacity to match employers with providers for apprenticeship delivery, and offers bid-writing services for applications to RoATP.
The firm has launched a “gold” members-only “community of RoATP providers”, again promoted on LinkedIn, which it
says providers can apply to join to gain access to “employers, funding and partnerships”.
In February, the former Skills Funding Agency – which has now been merged into the new ESFA – banned the use of public funds to pay brokers’ fees.
But Ms Myles insisted The Leadership Team’s gold membership service was not in breach of this regulation.
“We are fully aware that prime providers cannot utilise the funds in their digital account to pay ‘brokers’ – we are not brokers and this is not our business model,” she said.
“We have a very experienced team of people with significant sector experience including people who have worked previously at the SFA.”
Staff and students at a Liverpool college facing “financial crisis” are fuming that they must now pay £600 per year to use a car park on campus that was previously free, after it was sold-off to a secret buyer.
City of Liverpool College has repeatedly refused to name the new owner of its Vauxhall Road campus’ car park, understood to be a private party which swiftly introduced the charges.
The move is so unpopular that angry staff contacted FE Week to complain anonymously, while the University and College Union has also spoken out on their behalf.
“The college needs to explain to staff and students why it sold a facility that was previously free for staff and students to park at,” a UCU spokesperson told FE Week.
“We expect the college to publish the full details of the sale.”
FE Week was also shown a copy of a letter sent to staff, which provided a “final reminder for car parking permits” for the site.
It said: “As previously confirmed, the daily charge will be £3 a day.”
It also explained permit parking rates, which have come into force this month – with the rate set at £54 per month, and £310 for six months.
The annual £600 permit charge, the letter said, can be paid-off “£50 monthly through salary over 12 months”.
However, only one registered car is allowed on site per permit holder at any given time.
The car park at City of Liverpool College
FE Week also visited the car park, where we witnessed permanent signage confirming the prices and installed by Britannia Parking, a private firm which manages the site for the new landowner but which also refused to reveal its identity.
There was also a temporary sign attached to railings [pictured above], apparently on behalf of the college.
The college, which declined to comment on the sale, posted a 2015/16 group deficit of over £15 million, and is understood to have sold the site to help pay off its debts.
“The college was re-referred for FE commissioner intervention because of failures of financial management,” he wrote.
“Last year, the college’s budget outturn was £8 million worse than planned, and it required £2 million exceptional funding from the SFA to continue operations.”
He also raised “particular concern” about the college’s oversight of its majority owned independent training provider – First4Skills.
This Liverpool-based company went bust in March, affecting around 200 staff and 6,500 learners, after the former Skills Funding Agency pulled its contract following a grade four Ofsted rating.
The college, which has five main campuses – all located in the Liverpool City Council Local Authority area – had an initial FE commissioner intervention in December 2013 following an ‘inadequate’ Ofsted inspection and an SFA assessment of its 2012/13 financial health, which was also graded ‘inadequate’.
It was on surer ground by November 2014, following an improved Ofsted rating (‘requires improvement’) in April 2014, and improved financial performance (‘satisfactory’) in 2013/14.
However it was referred for another intervention last January, after it informed the SFA that it needed £2 million in exceptional financial support to cover working capital requirements, prompting a further notice of concern in February.
The latest FE commissioner report summary said: “During the November stocktake the team were concerned about some of the college board’s responses to the 2015/16 financial crisis.”
