York College
‘ofsted’
A number of University Technical Colleges (UTCs) were running at around 10 per cent capacity last academic year — while the overall enrolment figure plummeted to just 30 per cent, FE Week can reveal. Figures, supplied to FE Week under the Freedom of Information Act, indicate there was a total capacity of around 9,500 places […]
News
Wigan and Leigh College has started the new academic year with a new principal, Michael Sheehan. Mr Sheehan, who has previously led Pendleton College in Salford and Runshaw College in Lancashire, has replaced Catherine Hurst, its principal of six years, who left in July to “explore new challenges”. In a statement, the college said Mr […]
Movers and Shakers
The funding, teaching and organisation of adult literacy and numeracy programmes are in need of government action, says Adrian Bailey. Problems with reading, writing and maths can have a huge impact on people’s daily lives, including getting and keeping a job, understanding bills, forms and documents, and guiding children through education. It can affect adults […]
Opinion
Study programmes will be “central to inspections” from this week as Ofsted seeks to challenge a slow response to the initiative. Lorna Fitzjohn, Ofsted’s director for FE and skills, told FE Week in an exclusive interview that providers should expect to see their ratings fall if they had not made enough changes to curriculum to […]
Ofsted boss Sir Michael Wilshaw has told of his shock at GCSE English and maths attainment levels and teaching quality — and just days later figures for 2012/13 revealed nearly half of 16 to 18-year-olds without at least grade C in GCSE English or maths failed to repeat or even study alternative qualifications at the […]
An improvement plan aimed at turning around the fortunes of an inadequate-rated university technical college (UTC) has been ripped up and rewritten by its new general FE college sponsorship team. Ofsted inspectors revisited Central Bedfordshire UTC to see how it was getting on after the grade four result, but branded its improvement plan “not fit […]
A former principal who stood down from the top job at London’s Newham College amid a series of damaging allegations has been given a deputy’s role at another college. Denise Brown (formerly Brown-Sackey) left Newham in January, two months after it was claimed the college had failed to take action over a recording posted on […]
Two FE colleges and one sixth form college are expected to bid to open their own free schools when the next round of Department for Education (DfE) bidding opens, FE Week can reveal. Croydon College and New College Swindon want to open free schools with sixth form provision, while New College Pontefract — a sixth […]
Implementation of the government’s study programmes among providers surveyed by Ofsted has been “too slow,” the education watchdog’s director for skills has said. Ofsted director for FE and skills Lorna Fitzjohn (pictured) made the comments during her lecture today at Spotlight youth centre in Poplar, East London. Ms Fitzjohn used the lecture to release Ofsted’s […]
