Every year, Ofsted releases an annual report looking at the key findings and emerging themes from “over 5,000 inspections of schools, colleges and providers of further education and skills.” We've pulled together the key highlights for Further Education from the report for you.

Adult Learning

• It’s of no surprise that Ofsted highlight that, as providers have had to align ‘publicly funded learning to some demonstrable community benefit’, not all providers have survived. Successful adult learning courses have evolved to be self-financing.

• The number of learners in “personal and community development learning” has dropped by over £80,000 – slightly offset by a growth in “neighbourhood learning in deprived communities”.

• Good or Outstanding providers had leaders and managers who responded quickly to changes in funding, matching it to the needs of adults, keeping an ‘ear to the ground’ and collaborating with the voluntary sector, charities and other providers.

FE and Skills – Non-Apprenticeships

• The report identifies that 17% of colleges inspected in 2014-15 were operating at a budget deficit due in part to the fact the sector lost almost 267,000 learners in a single year through funding changes.

• The introduction of English and maths as a condition requirement to receive funding has “…dramatically increased the number of learners required to take up this study or risk not having their programme funded.”

• The extent of changes in funding in the Further Education landscape, and the impact on general FE colleges, has become evident over a number of years. The result is that many colleges are under considerable financial pressure. Indeed there are a record number of colleges under improvement notices that cite financial difficulty as a primary cause of underperformance. Figures show 22 colleges were in such financial difficulties that the Further Education Commissioner needed to intervene.

• The introduction of area-based reviews of post-16 education and training institutions from September 2015 to March 2017 will have a big impact on the FE college sector. It’s anticipated that mergers and closures will take place in most, if not every, region with specialist provision becoming more available.

Apprenticeships

• Apprenticeships have, over time, provided employees with the training and hands-on experience required to succeed in highly regarded skilled occupations. Traditionally, these have been in crafts such as Masonry and Carpentry and more recently, in the Engineering and Technology industries. Since 2010, an increase in government funding has seen more than 2 million Apprenticeships taken up. However, this surge in numbers has been mainly in sectors such as Customer Service, Retail, Administration and Care.

• “Apprenticeships should be an aspirational route chosen by many young people”. The report states, but this isn't the case as Apprenticeships are frequently the last resort to be put forward to learners in school Year 11 and are still seen as the programme of failure for many.

• The quality of Apprenticeships remains a particular concern, notwithstanding the fact that there continues to be some excellent practice in this country, notably in the Construction and Engineering sectors. In addition there’s a tranche of employers who want to go back to the 3 months approach which crippled many providers a couple of years ago and which led to the minimum 12 month duration rule enforcement.

• Too many low-skilled roles were being classed as Apprenticeships and used to accredit the established skills of employees who had been in a job for some time. In some cases, apprentices were not even aware that the course they were on was an Apprenticeship.

• However where Apprenticeships rule, especially in ILP provision, is the very good off the job training provided. This was seen to enhance skills and knowledge development.

• Unfortunately one of the biggest restrictions last year was the progression from Traineeships to Apprenticeships. Traineeships are seen as the primary progression route into Apprenticeships but the numbers doing so have been disappointing. A recent announcement by the government may improve this somewhat – now all learning providers can offer Traineeships.

• Ofsted’s involvement in inspecting new Apprenticeship standards provision is still under consideration. Ofsted traditionally inspect providers (some of which are employers) but trailblazers fall outside of full provision categories. Who exactly will be involved in the inspection and regulation of trailblazers is unclear but both Ofsted and Ofqual have been named to some degree.