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’.

Ruth Dyga age 16, 1969

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.

Gordon Marsden

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.

Glacial progress exposed for colleges’ apprentice delivery

Colleges deliver just one in five apprenticeships last year, meaning virtually no progress has been made in the 18 months since they were told to get more involved by the minister at the time.

This figure, based on FE Week analysis of data obtained by the Association of Employment and Learning Providers through a freedom of information request, exposes widespread failure to act on former skills minister Nick Boles’ (pictured above) 2015 plea to Association of Colleges’ conference delegates to stop letting independent providers “nick your lunch”.

The data, from the Department for Education, shows that 74 per cent of all apprenticeship starts, or 376,940 of 510,070 made in 2015/16, were with independent training providers.

There were just 21 per cent (104,690) for FE colleges – one percentage point up from 2014/15.

The remaining 28,440 were delivered by local authorities, universities, sixth form and specialist colleges.

Put another way, for every 20 apprentices, 15 were trained by ITPs, four at colleges and one elsewhere.

David Hughes, the AoC’s chief executive brushed aside the lack of college progress, saying: “The next government should help employers of all sizes use apprenticeships, as part of their workforce development and ensure all apprentices get a great experience. Who delivers on the number of apprenticeships is less important.”

AELP boss Mark Dawe argued that this low percentage was “no surprise”, and insisted the government should not to try and fix the market to benefit colleges.

“With the information available including Ofsted judgements, employers are perfectly capable of choosing a training provider, college or another type of provider that will be responsive to their needs,” he said. “Let them get on with it.”

The FoI data showed colleges had subcontracted around 40 per cent (64,930) of their apprenticeships last academic year.

Nearly one in three overall apprenticeships, or 29 per cent (147,320), were subcontracted. 

FE Week invited a number of colleges that subcontract the majority of their provision to explain why they are not delivering the provision themselves.

Monica Box, the interim principal of Lambeth College, which only delivered 12 per cent of its 950 starts directly last year, said: “The college is working to increase the internal delivery of apprenticeships from 2017/18.

“This will take the form of a phased increase over three years and will be supported by staff development and quality improvement plans, that ensure the transition generates high-quality delivery.”

A spokesperson for Newham College, which delivered 13 per cent of its 1,290 starts directly, said it took “a successful approach some years ago, to subcontract apprenticeship provision, maximising its reach into local communities.

“The college group’s apprenticeship capacity has increased, and it is now focusing on delivering more apprenticeships directly.

“The amount of partnership delivery has reduced and the planned direct delivery for the college group in 2017/18 is 40 per cent.”

Mike Hopkins, the interim principal of Bournville College, which delivered 26 per cent of its 810 starts directly, conceded that it “has delivered a large proportion of its apprenticeship provision through subcontracting”.

“But this will be changing as part of the merger with South and City College Birmingham, where there are no subcontracting arrangements,” he added.

“As a merged college, we will continue to be committed to delivering high quality apprenticeship provision and we look forward to growing this area.”

Conservatives announce surprise pledge to let levy pay wages

A surprise move has been made by the Conservatives to allow large firms to use apprentice levy funds to pay wages – in a manifesto retaining the commitment to 3 million starts by 2020.

The document, launched this morning, also commits to a major review of tertiary education funding, which it is thought could review the future of advanced learning loans.

But no commitment is made to expanding university technical colleges, in stark contrast to the party’s 2015 general election manifesto.

As part of a pledge to introduce a national retraining scheme, this year’s document says: “Under the scheme, the costs of training will be met by the government, with companies able to gain access to the apprenticeship levy to support wage costs during the training period”.

The pledge will add further strain on the levy, which is also expected to fund apprenticeship training in companies not subject to the charge.

And it remains unclear whether this would prioritise young apprentices, given concern as reported in FE Week that employers would shun them over older and more experienced candidates.

There is nothing mentioned about how the Conservatives plan to support skills training for small and medium sized enterprises.

Read Editor Nick Linford’s view here

It follows concerns over providers receiving much-reduced allocations for delivering apprenticeships to smaller non-levy employers, for the next eight months.

Mark Dawe, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said he was “a little concerned” about the wages pledge, and lack of apparent support for SME apprenticeships.

“The levy is going to transform skills and productivity among large employers, but growth in the economy is heavily dependent on SMEs. We must ensure that enough funding from whichever source is being directed towards supporting the apprenticeships of these businesses,” he said.

But the proposal was welcomed by Neil Carberry, CBI director for people and skills policy, who said it was a “good first step towards creating the flexible skills levy that employers want to see: one which enables levy funds to be invested in a much broader range of training and associated cost and delivers the skills needed to boost growth and productivity in the economy”.

And David Hughes, Association of Colleges chief executive, said the proposal “has merit”, although he warned that it “must not result in employers reducing their own training spending”.

A Conservative party spokesperson said the party believed the levy funds “should be sufficient to support wage costs”.

Today’s manifesto includes a promise to “deliver on the commitment to create 3 million apprenticeships for young people by 2020” – the same target it set two years ago.

There is a commitment to “launch a major review of funding across tertiary education as a whole, looking at how students can get access to financial support that offers value for money, is available across different routes and encourages the development of the skills needed as a country”.

James Kewin, deputy chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges’ Association, was “delighted” the Conservatives had promised to carry out this funding review.

“This should focus on the growing gap between the funding made available to educate sixth formers and the actual cost of delivering an academic curriculum,” he said.

FE Week has asked for further details about this review, and whether it will focus specifically on advanced learner loans, but has not yet received a response.

Take-up on advanced learner loans, first introduced in 2013, has been slow, with the system open to fraud.

There is no mention in the manifesto of troubled UTCs, which have struggled to attract sufficient learners to their post-14 recruitment model, in contrast to the 2015 manifesto which said “We will ensure there is a UTC within reach of every city”.

A spokesperson for the Baker Dearing Trust, which promotes UTCs, said: “The UTC programme has had cross party support since it started in 2010 and we hope that the next government will continue to encourage them.”

The Conservatives have though committed this time to “introduce significantly discounted bus and train travel for apprentices”.

That comes after a pledge by Labour to cover apprentices’ travel costs dropped off its published manifesto, after it appeared in a draft version leaked to our sister paper FE Week.

The Tories have also promised to double the Immigration Skills Charge from £1,000 to £2,000.

This is a charge, introduced in April, on employers that take on skilled workers from outside the European Union, and will be invested in “higher level skills training for workers in the UK”.

FE Week has asked the Conservatives for more detail on its election pledges but has not yet received a response.

 

Breaking: Conservative manifesto pledges for FE and skills published

The Conservatives’ long-awaited general election manifesto, called ‘Forward Together’, has just been launched, outlining its plans for FE and skills.

Click here to download the full document.

Key pledges include:

  • National Productivity Investment Fund, including £250 million in funding for skills by 2020 to boost productivity
  • Double the Immigration Skills Charge for business employing skilled workers from outside the EU from £1,000 to £2,000 per employee
  • Establish new institutes of technology, backed by leading employers and linked to leading universities, in every major city in England. They will provide courses at degree level and above, specialising in technical disciplines, such as STEM, whilst also providing higher-level apprenticeships and bespoke courses for employers.
  • Launch a major review of funding across tertiary education as a whole, looking at how students can get access to financial support that offers value for money, is available across different routes and encourages the development of the skills needed as a country
  • Deal with local skills shortages and ensure that colleges deliver the skills required by local businesses through Skills Advisory Panels and Local Enterprise Partnerships working at a regional and local level.
  • Deliver commitment to create 3 million apprenticeships for young people by 2020
  • Allow large firms to pass levy funds to small firms in their supply chain, and work with the business community to develop a new programme to allow larger firms to place apprentices in their supply chains
  • Explore teaching apprenticeships sponsored by major companies, especially in STEM subjects
  • Introduce a UCAS-style portal for technical education
  • Introduce significantly discounted bus and train travel for apprentices to ensure that no young person is deterred from an apprenticeship due to travel costs
  • Help all workers seeking to develop their skills in their existing jobs by introducing a new right to request leave for training for all employees
  • Help workers to stay in secure jobs as the economy changes by introducing a national retraining scheme. Under the scheme, the costs of training will be met by the government, with companies able to gain access to the Apprenticeship Levy to support wage costs during the training period
  • Ensure that teaching assistants can become qualified teachers and healthcare assistants can become nurses via a degree apprenticeship route, in addition to other routes
  • Introduce a right to lifelong learning in digital skills
  • Replace 13,000 existing technical qualifications with new qualifications, known as T-levels, across fifteen routes in subjects including construction, creative and design, digital, engineering and manufacturing, and health and science
  • Increase the number of teaching hours by fifty per cent to an average of 900 hours per year and make sure that each student does a three-month work placement as part of their course
  • Invest in further education colleges to make sure they have world-class equipment and facilities and will create a new national programme to attract experienced industry professionals to work in FE colleges
  • Make a modern technical education available to everyone, throughout their lives, to provide the skills they need

More to follow

Breaking: Updated register of apprenticeship training providers published

The updated register of apprenticeship training providers has now been published.

An extra 507 providers have been added by the Education and Skills Funding Agency.

It comes after many established apprenticeship providers were left disappointed, when they were not accepted through the first round in March – when 1,708 providers were accepted as eligible to deliver from this month.

More to come…

 

Exclusive: Providers finally successful in apprentice register applications

Hundreds of providers including a college from the nation’s second largest city, which largely missed out last time, have made it onto the register of apprenticeship training providers at the second time of asking.

FE Week understands providers have been finding out this morning if they’ve been successful or not, in the second round of applications to RoATP.

The Education and Skills Funding Agency subsequently published the new register this afternoon.

Among the major players who told us they’ve been added was Birmingham Metropolitan College, rated ‘good’ for apprenticeships by Ofsted in March, and Hartlepool College of FE, rated ‘outstanding’ for apprenticeships in April.

Andrew Cleaves, principal at BMet, told FE Week today: “It has been confirmed that we are on RoATP and we’re really pleased that we can get on with growing and developing our successful Apprenticeship provision with our fantastic business partners.”

Darren Hankey, principal of Hartlepool College of FE, added: “We’re absolutely delighted. We have a long and well-established track record of delivering high quality apprenticeships and this was recognised in our recent Ofsted inspection.

“The employers with whom we work have been unwavering in their support for the college over the last couple of months, and we look forward to working with them, and many new firms, to continue what we do best – delivering high quality professional and technical education.”

West Kent and Ashford College, which was rated as ‘requires improvement’ at its most recent inspection in March, has also told us they’ve been successful in the second round of applications to the register. 

Tracy-Anne Barker, group director of business development, said the news “reinforces the quality of our provision and expertise that we have as a provider of apprenticeships across a range of subject disciplines”.

The independent training providers that also told FE Week they have been added so far, are Acacia Training, rated ‘good’ for apprenticeships by Ofsted last January, and Paragon Skills, most recently rated grade three for such training.

Other providers, including Protrain Solutions, have taken to Twitter to share their success.

Anne-Marie Morris, assessor at Acacia, said they had “been informed by ESFA that we are on the register which will be updated shortly”.

FE Week reported in March that the former Skills Funding Agency had  published the full list of 1,708 providers on the new register which will be eligible to deliver apprenticeships from May, whittled down from 2,327 applications.

Many colleges with significant current apprenticeship allocations, including Hartlepool College, Birmingham Metropolitan College and Northbrook College, expressed dismay at the time after they didn’t make it.

Exclusive FE Week analysis also found that a number of much smaller providers with little or no experience of running apprenticeships had been accepted.

The shadow skills minister Gordon Marsden told FE Week that the register was “looking like an omnishambles”, and there was widespread concern that no general FE colleges had made it on from Britain’s second largest city Birmingham.

But we revealed in April that after significant political pressure, the Department for Education had quietly added South & City College Birmingham.

Two further additions at the time were private training providers: Norfolk Training Services Limited and The IT Skills Management Company Limited.