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Long read, SEND

SEND first class: How groundbreaking partnership are rethinking SEND support

The Sutton Life Centre is one of several partnerships between colleges and external partners, where SEND learners are prepared…

Jessica Hill
Jessica Hill
Colleges, Long read

Legrave’s last orders: build cash, challenge leaders and don’t ignore teaching

In her final interview, the outgoing FE Commissioner warns colleges not to mistake funding rises for financial safety

Shane Chowen
Shane Chowen
Devolution, Long read

The politics behind the King of the North’s MBacc mission

Andy Burnham is grabbing headlines with his ambition for the MBacc technical education programme. But take-up has been slower…

Jessica Hill
Jessica Hill
Long read, NEETs

How NEET providers are propping up a failing system

Helping inactive young people get back on track is being hampered by a youth population spike, market instability and…

Jessica Hill
Jessica Hill
Colleges, Long read

Inside Karen Redhead’s battle to rebuild West London College

‘Not for the faint-hearted’: How Redhead pulled her college back from the brink

Jessica Hill
Jessica Hill
Adult education, Long read

The wounded mothership: the WEA navigates adult education’s new era

Jessica Hill meets the WEA’s chief executive Simon Parkinson at the group’s new Brighton base to hear how the…

Jessica Hill
Jessica Hill


Long read, Training Providers

Her PET project

For 30 years Fleur Sexton has led training provider PET-Xi, with its staff of largely neurodiverse leaders and can-do…

Jessica Hill
Jessica Hill
Colleges, Governance, Long read

To pay or not to pay? The ‘divisive’ question of college governor remuneration

Relying on unpaid volunteers to hold college executive teams to account is either an important matter of principle or…

Jessica Hill
Jessica Hill
Long read, Skills reform

Tom Bewick, author of Skills Policy in Britain and the Future of Work

If history often rhymes, as Mark Twain once said, then Tom Bewick’s book, Skills Policy in England and the…

Jessica Hill
Jessica Hill
Long read

The other King’s college

Jessica Hill visits King Charles’ Dumfries House and Highgrove House estates where the King’s Foundation teaches heritage courses ranging…

Jessica Hill
Jessica Hill
Long read, Politics

Reform plots a political tsunami, but skills policy is lost at sea

Farage’s turquoise tide: The insurgent party’s supporters want to fix ‘broken Britain’, insisting that trades and industrial automation are…

Jessica Hill
Jessica Hill
Colleges, Long read

Lisa O’Loughlin, principal and CEO

As Nelson and Colne College Group unveils a new identity, its leader Lisa O’Loughlin reflects on tackling illness, steering…

Jessica Hill
Jessica Hill