Windsor Learning Partnership
‘apprenticeships’
Just 6,375 out of 13,420 adult retail apprentices succeeded England’s biggest apprenticeship provider has come under fire from the chair of a government watchdog after “appalling” figures revealed less than half of its retail and wholesale leavers qualified last year. Just 47.5 per cent of Elmfield Training’s 13,420 leavers in the sector aged 25 or […]
News
‘It’s a comfort to be asked to stay on,’ says Coventry principal The chair of City College Coventry’s board of governors has refused to sack his principal after a disastrous inspection result. The college was branded inadequate — a grade four result — across each of the education watchdog’s headline fields. The 8,000-learner college was […]
Good governance is about far more than a checklist: it is about supporting and developing an institution to enhance opportunity and success, says Dr Paul Phillips I have to hand it to chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw. He is a man on a mission, turning his attention to governance. At face value, he seems to […]
Opinion
Third poor inspection for City College Coventry’s Paul Taylor The principal of the latest big city college to be labelled inadequate by Ofsted has told of his determination to stay on and “put things right”. After 16 years in the job and two previous poor inspections, Paul Taylor, at City College Coventry, was hit with […]
Plans for a new Tech Bacc were announced by the government today. It will be introduced for courses beginning in September 2014 and be reported for the first time in the college and school sixth-form performance tables in January 2017. The Tech Bacc will be a performance measure marking achievement by young people aged 16 […]
Skills Minister chooses Manchester meeting to ‘launch’ programme The 11-month wait for an outline of the government’s plans for traineeships appears to be almost over, just as youth unemployment figures nudge the one million mark. Skills Minister Matthew Hancock is due to speak this week at an event hosted by the Greater Manchester Chamber of […]
Business Secretary Vince Cable has promised “tough new measures” to tackle employers who pay apprentices below the legal minimum, up 3p to £2.68 an hour from October. Dr Cable’s announcement came after a Low Pay Commission report indicated 27 per cent of all apprentices, and more than 40 per cent of apprentices aged 16 and […]
The Government might say it supports university technical colleges, but it needs to take heed of criticisms of its planned curriculum reform and removal of many vocational qualifications from school league tables, says Charles Parker Ask 14–year–olds what they think about having a longer school day and fewer school holidays and their answer is likely […]
Careers advisers too often ignore apprenticeships in professions such as accountancy and try to convince students that university is the only answer, says Alison Ryder Let’s be honest, most teenagers don’t think too much about their future while they’re at school. It wouldn’t surprise me if half of them pursue a career simply because their […]
