Your FE Week team
Our team of journalists are passionate about providing our readers with the latest FE & skills news.
Shane Chowen
Editor
About
Other than some weekend jobs delivering pizzas and working in retail while at college, Shane has dedicated his career to further education. A ‘gap-year’ in student politics changed Shane’s career plans entirely as he got involved in policy and campaigning work in the sector. Shrugging a place at Uni, Shane was instead elected Vice President (Further Education) by the National Union of Students for two one-year terms. Shane was the first ever FE student representative to stand, albeit unsuccessfully, to be President of NUS (he came second though). Since then Shane has held several policy and campaigning roles across the sector, including as head of public affairs at Learning at Work Institute and an area director at the Association of Colleges. Shane became editor at FE Week in August 2021.
Latest articles from Shane
Donelan is Minister for Further and Higher Education
Billy Camden
Deputy editor
About
Billy was appointed deputy editor in January 2019. He began his career with FE Week on a work experience placement while studying for his degree in journalism in 2014 before leaving university and working his way up the ranks.
He began as a junior for sister publication Schools Week, when it was first known as Academies Week, before holding a joint role across both titles and then moving solely onto FE Week in late-2016.
Along his way he has been nominated for various awards including in the CIPR’s Outstanding Further Education Journalist category and the Press Gazette’s Specialist Journalist of the Year category.
Billy recently moved back to Essex where he grew up. When not working, you can find him in the gym, at the pub, and playing football (in that order).
Latest articles from Billy
Jess Staufenberg
Commissioning editor
About
Jess is commissioning editor at FE Week and Schools Week, responsible for the opinion pages in FE Week and deep-dive features and profile interviews across both papers. As a reporter, her investigative work on special educational needs funding, small failing private schools, home education and off-rolling generated national coverage and in 2018 she was shortlisted in the British Journalism awards for specialist media, and came runner-up for most promising newcomer in the 2017 CIPR education journalism awards. In 2019 she researched and fronted a half-hour BBC documentary on a big northern academy trust failure. More recently, she has bagged interviews with former top civil servants, incoming and outgoing Children’s Commissioners, MPs and shadow ministers, and run series of deep-dive features on the government’s careers education plans, squeezed adult education colleges, maths schools and more. Jess has also reported for The Guardian, BBC, The Independent and the Eastern Daily Press.
Latest articles from Jess
The Staffroom: I have sometimes felt I am just a money generator for college
Focus feature: College improvement
Fraser Whieldon
Senior reporter
About
Fraser has been at FE Week for almost three years now and has fallen head over heels for the FE and skills sector because of its inspiring staff and students and how it more often than not changes the lives of those involved.
His areas of focus include provider best practice, how FE and skills impact upon social issues such as sustainability and gender identity, college finances, continual professional development, and of course his beloved Movers and Shakers column.
He previously worked at a local newspaper in his adopted home of St Albans and has a degree in politics from the University of Kent.
Outside of work, he enjoys archery with his dad and planning events for a St Albans-based social group he somehow ended up helping run.