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The new session follows a tense wait by NCFE, and many other Awarding organisations, as we anticipated the response and feedback from the Department for Education on which of our qualifications have been approved in the 2019 performance tables. We’re delighted to have 19 qualifications approved, including the new Level 2 Award in Childcare and Development from CACHE, which is the only level 2 qualification that serves as an introduction to child development and well-being. We’re delighted with the progress that we’re making for technical education and continue to work closely with the DfE on the feedback received to develop more technical qualifications and expand our offer further. 

Over the summer, we’ve seen young people all over the country receiving their GCSE and A Level results and witnessed the dizzying highs but also some disappointing lows when results aren’t what pupils were hoping for. As an Awarding Organisation that specialise in vocational and technical qualifications, we want to highlight the importance of diversity in learning. Young people are under pressure to achieve academically but the world is changing rapidly and with new technologies and sectors emerging, traditional academia may no longer be fit for purpose across all sectors. We need to ensure we empower young people to embrace change in learning and let them know that there isn’t just one route to success. We’ve been speaking to colleagues here at NCFE about their own career journeys and paths to success, and have been taking part in the #NoWrongPath campaign on social media. What we’ve learned is that everyone is so different, life throws curveballs that you don’t see coming, and that it’s never too late to change direction and learn something new.

I’m Lucy Thompson, Product Manager for Schools here at NCFE. I’m responsible for ensuring that we have great qualifications to offer pupils aged 14 to 16, useful resources to help in delivering the qualifications, and to ensure that our schools receive fantastic service from our support teams. The past week has seen social media awash with ‘first day’ photos as children begin a new year at school. With this in mind we want to let you know how NCFE will be supporting schools this year.

Two big stories have surfaced in the FE press in recent weeks.  One concerns the complex and convoluted process introduced by the ESFA to determine how public funding for those apprenticeships not covered by the levy will be allocated.  Commentators and sector representatives have expressed increasing alarm fearing that colleges and other providers will be destabilised and the ultimate losers will be potential apprentices.  Those not up to speed with the issue can find a good account by Nick Linford on the NCFE blog so the details are not repeated here. The other story, which broke only recently, concerns Somerset Skills and Learning (SSL), the dominant provider of adult education in the county, which until now has offered hundreds of courses to thousands of students.  After its extensive programme had been advertised, staff and students recruited and premises booked, it learned at the very last minute that its funding allocation had been cut by an astonishing 97%.  I must declare an interest: I have paid fees up front to an organisation that is now threatened with bankruptcy and the need to sack hundreds of staff; it is not just my ability to learn Italian but also my hard-earned cash that is threatened.

After a delayed, expensive and ultimately aborted exercise, the ESFA is having another go at tendering apprenticeship funding allocations for providers working with small (non-levy) employers. Up to £650 million is available over the 15 months between January 2018 and March 2019, and around 1,800 eligible organisations will be offered a crack at getting their hands on some of it.

The pace of apprenticeship reform continues steadily, with the recent relaunch of the non-levy apprenticeships tender. Following a stalled attempt earlier in the year, which was hugely oversubscribed, the Department for Education (DfE) has taken a breather, reset the clock and issued a new bidding round. The admission that the first round didn’t go to plan has been anticipated for a while, but it shows some acceptance from the DfE and ESFA that the first round was flawed. There are also some critical differences between the tenders which may have some bearing on who gets a contract or not.

With August sharp becoming one of the wettest months of the year, the Department for Education (DfE) released their own deluge of information and documents, in time for us in the sector to wade through and pick out anything of value. One of the many things released was the long overdue DfE/Frontier report: Economics Assessing the Vocational Qualifications Market in England.

Just over a year ago, the Post-16 Skills Plan was published, and the government committed to a hugely ambitious reform of the technical education system. The plan proposes a complete overhaul of the technical education system, and the timescales for implementation always appeared ambitious. It was therefore no surprise that Skills Minister Anne Milton announced a one year delay to implementation of the first T-Levels, which will now be phased in from 2020-22. The announcement was a welcome one. Department for Education (DfE) staff have been increasingly stretched in the past few years, with a vast array of changes to action and a string of new ministers. It is clear that staff are taking time to understand the complexities of the changes, and previous timescales would be impossible to meet.

Scotland has begun to lead with way with many students receiving their exam results and the rest of the UK will follow suit by the end of August. Anxiously biting their nails, students and pupils may think they can just about see their future unfolding before them like a yellow brick road. If only it were that simple. In a show of solidarity to those who think their future success is hinged on the results they have, or shortly will receive, and the choices they make in the immediate aftermath, the more worldly-wise are letting them know this is not necessarily so. A wave of social media support has begun in the form of the hashtag #NoWrongPath. People from around around the country are sharing their own less than linear paths to success. They show twists, turns, back steps and full circles that aren’t so obvious when all you can see is the end result.

The introduction of the Apprenticeship Levy has catapulted the role of the employer in further and higher education into the spotlight like never before. Employers are now integral to the development of new apprenticeship standards, to ensure that learners are equipped with work-ready knowledge and practical skills to meet the sector specific needs of the job they wish to enter. Ofqual recently published their employer qualification perceptions survey with the aim of understanding what employers think about qualifications both when hiring new employees and when investing in training and upskilling staff. Conducted by Pye Tait, the survey asked over 2,000 employers in England for their views on vocational and technical qualifications and assessments.