Doing the Ministerial shuffle

In the last few weeks, Britain’s political landscape has been shaken. The first big change was the EU Referendum result, with the subsequent resignation of David Cameron, the Conservative leadership race and finally the appointment of a new PM, alongside a team of new ministers.

As someone who’s always been proud to say they attended a comprehensive school, I felt that it was positive news the new Secretary of State heading up the Department for Education shared a similar educational background.

Justine Greening’s appointment to head up the department has doubtless come as further good news to those who attended a sixth form college, as she is well known for sitting her A Levels at one, before progressing on the well tread higher education pathway. This, it has been argued, will stand her in good stead as she moves into her new position. The chief executive of the AoC, Martin Doel, told TES that he was ‘pleased’ her good knowledge of the FE and skills sector as well as other college issues. The new Secretary of State herself also feels comfortable with FE, stating in the past that it was a ‘vital’ pathway for students, and also promoting her commitment to education as a tool for social mobility.

Justine Greening comes to the role from DFID Pic: https://www.flickr.com/photos/dfid/26580149602/

But she will undoubtedly face challenging times, as austerity endures and funding continues to dry up. There are also other big changes in her own department, which will undoubtedly cause fresh challenges, as the DfE takes on responsibility for further education policy, alongside apprenticeship and wider skills policy.

These changes make a lot of sense in my view, with the DfE able to act in a more strategically synchronised manner – a style of working I’ve previously advocated. Rather than the DfE’s responsibility for education automatically cutting off at age 18, the new changes will ensure that there is greater joined up thinking in order to ensure that students – whatever their age – are getting the best possible further education outcomes. And surely that’s good news.

This new style of working will also mean the incoming Apprentices and Skills Minister, Robert Halfon, gets the benefit of working in one department, rather than splitting his time between BIS and the DfE. And Mr Halfon will be bringing a solid knowledge of the FE and skills sector to the role, having had significant experience of it and as a leading Westminster champion for apprenticeships.

Robert Halfon is the new skills minister Pic: https://www.gov.uk/government/people/robert-halfon

So am I pleased with the changes at the Department for Education? While I’m certainly not disappointed by them, I think it’s really a question of waiting to see what happens as a consequence of the ministerial shuffle, as well as the departmental shuffle. I would like to think joining up the responsibilities of the new Apprentices and Skills Minister to have him working with one department will make education policy ever more robust for every learner, but as with most things in life, only time will really tell.

Regardless of what might happen in future, I would like to wish all of the new ministers a warm welcome, and say that I look forward to working with you to further our common goal of getting the best possible outcome for every student.

The importance of synchronicity in Further Education

Synchronicity. A simple word, but a tough concept to actually deliver. Nonetheless it’s a way of working which our College has tried to adopt in recent years, and we’re now beginning to see the fruit of our labours in a number of ways.

So what exactly do I mean by the word synchronicity in a further education context? For East Kent College it means working innovatively to deliver first class skills training, but also ticking other boxes at the same time; a holistic style of strategic planning which feeds down into our work at an operational level. Rather than simply providing the maximum number of courses, synchronicity ensures that the training is also in harmony with local needs. It means our staff working alongside business to ensure that skills gaps are filled through relevant training, resulting in better progression for our learners.

We have a couple of good examples of this behaviour in action recently. Working in partnership with Dover’s Marine Skills Academy – set up by the Viking group of companies – we’ve begun offering a marine engineering qualification from our campus in the town. It’s a good example of how we’ve looked to the local economy, identifying partners to highlight skills gaps in the area, before looking to deliver courses which help fill them.

We’re investing in areas which require better facilities to help deliver the skills the local economy needs too. Our construction area in Folkestone has recently received £1.48 million funding in order to expand its existing facility. This was based on the need for new skilled workers in the area, with the Construction Skills Network South East estimating that 970 more bricklayers alone will be required across the region by 2019.

Our employability area is also delivering results by working in partnership with local business. The team has begun a system of ‘sector based work academies’, which give their employability students intensive skills training for particular areas of the local economy in need of workers. Through the programme, they’ve managed a number of high profile placements, ensuring that students taking the programme are progressed into a suitable role which they are likely to stay in over the long term.

And of course, we have our new training hotel, The Yarrow. The College identified that there was a need for greater hospitality, and professional catering skills in the local area. With a buoyant tourism industry in Thanet, it made perfect sense to ensure our students were getting the high quality, real world commercial training required to be successful in this industry. The Yarrow helps ensure that we can deliver this for the local economy, and our local community.

But synchronicity isn’t simply about marrying education and the local economy. It’s also about ensuring the College, and its students are integrated into their community. I have already talked passionately about our community social action programmes in two of my blogs which I have linked here, so will instead highlight a couple of other instances of the College delivering for the community.

Ensuring that synchronicity is embedded in every aspect of the College, right down to the fabric of the buildings we develop, is core to the philosophy. One great example of this is the recent launch of our new Michael Wright Centre for the Creative Industries on the College’s Broadstairs Campus. A large new capital development project, from the very beginning our design brief required the architect ensure community functions could take place in the building. That was delivered, and we’ve already opened up the auditorium to local groups to use, with great success.

Our Edge creative agency in Folkestone has also worked to build links in the community. The town – which has a booming creative sector – has seen the area working hand in hand with the local newspaper, producing a range of high quality photojournalism which has been published regularly. It helps students build a professional portfolio, and network, while ensuring the local community is able to appreciate the work the College does. It also helps build the reputation of the students, and the wider work which is done on the campus, building the profile among stakeholders, the public and local businesses.

It is this type of holistic, synchronised further education provision which has helped the College embed itself into our communities, better the outcomes for our learners, and deliver the necessary skills for the local economy. It helps us make the most of every opportunity, and ticks all of the different boxes we want – as a whole College community – to deliver.

The importance of getting the basics right

Just a couple of weeks ago campaigners from a group called ‘Save our Early Years’ announced that there would soon be ‘catastrophic’ staff shortages in nurseries. Why this dire prediction for an entire industry – and one which is of critical importance? English and mathematics.

In September all nursery staff will be required to have at least Grade C GCSEs in these subjects, with Government deeming numeracy and literacy skills an essential component to work in this sector.

There is little doubt that these subjects are two of the most basic, and yet fundamental skills a person can have in our society. The importance of a good knowledge of both is clear. After all, English, both written and verbal, is critical to communicating successfully, and as a person who chose to train in maths, the importance of a decent understanding of its principles is all too clear to me.



You could say that these two areas of learning, above all others, are the building blocks for growing a person’s knowledge in other subjects. If a student is unable to communicate clearly and accurately, how can they progress their studies in other areas?

But despite that importance, there is a real struggle in FE to help our learners’ progress in both English and maths to Grade C at GCSE level. It isn’t a lack of desire on our part, nor is necessarily a lack of resources. Instead, it is a battle to inspire students who, having left school without the all-important Grade C, simply do not want to learn these key subjects.

And while there is – in my College, and many others – a real emphasis placed on the importance of learning these basic skills, improving results is neither easy, nor simple. Our maths and English tutors are being asked to achieve something in a mere 36 weeks which the pre-16 education system has failed to do after 11 years. And they are being asked to achieve this with the most challenging students; those who have already failed to achieve the required standard in these core subjects. That’s no criticism of the schools – rather the system itself – but it does place the issue into context, illustrating just how difficult it is for the FE sector to perform in this key test.



And yet FE is beginning to win the battle, with the Department for Education recently publishing a report (Level two and three attainment in England: Attainment by age 19 in 2015) which found that students achieving level two English and maths had risen from 67.8 per cent in 2014, to 70 per cent in 2015. Hardly meteoric, but it is definitely a step in the right direction.

And our college has also seen some successes, with good levels of achievement in a blended learning pilot we delivered last year. In fact, at East Kent College our students managed to achieve a fantastic 585 qualifications in English, and 588 qualifications in Maths. As a mathematician, it’ll come as little surprise that I’m particularly proud of our achievements in that subject, with a cross-campus rate of A* to C passes for 16-18 year olds at 31.8 per cent in 2014-15. During that academic year our Broadstairs Campus performed best, with a solid 37.2 per cent of all 16-18 year olds entered into GCSE maths getting the targeted A* to C grade. It’s also an area which Ofsted, at their recent visit to our Dover and Folkestone campuses flagged up, stating that “the focus on English and mathematics remains unrelenting, and the college’s determination to get this right is beyond reproach.” There is still more to do to meet the GCSE maths and English challenge, but FE – and East Kent College – is improving.

That’s good news for learners, for FE and for college principals across the country; but it’s not nearly good enough, and in fact a recent study of skills in England by the OECD has shown that the UK is still far below other countries in terms of numeracy and literacy. In fact, it sits very close to the bottom of a list with more students who’ve progressed to university with weak literacy and numeracy than most countries. And that’s the learners who have progressed to higher education – the story is worse between 16 and 19-year-old learners, with one third of them considered to have low basic skills.

So what now? What do we do as a sector to continue to grow these achievements? I suppose in many ways, we should treat maths and English studies as a bedrock to a student’s learning, because more than any other skills they may develop, these are the foundations for everything else. And our students can’t just be expected to learn these skills in a subject specific vacuum. Instead, we need to embed this core learning into everything we, as a sector do with our students. In order to grow their skills in their chosen areas, we need to ensure that high quality maths and English learning is emerging in all of their study. That means if we have a student on a professional catering course, tutors need to build functional maths and English skills into their everyday learning.

The challenge though, becomes even deeper when – as is the case for East Kent College – the areas in which it is located are economically deprived. Much of a student’s educational results are dependent on parental background, with those from disadvantaged areas less likely to achieve a high standard in core skills like maths and English. In constituencies with high levels of deprivation, the challenge to teach these skills to the required level becomes even greater. There is as yet, no clear solution to creating equity with more affluent areas in this respect, and that will continue to make the teaching of these core skills more challenging for colleges such as my own. Despite that, I’m proud to say that our commitment to promoting these basic skills is unwavering, and in fact has never been stronger than it is right now.

Investing in the future of our creative sector

As a College which is passionate about ensuring our students have the best possible outcomes, we have worked hard over the past few years to ensure the courses we offer mirror the opportunities available in our local economies.

One of the fastest growing sectors in Thanet over the past few years has been the creative one. It has seen wide scale growth as cash has poured into regenerating Margate, first with the Turner Contemporary and then with Margate’s Old Town. The sector has also grown more broadly across Kent, providing almost 14,000 high quality jobs for those with the right skills.

This week East Kent College officially launched its Michael Wright Centre for the Creative Industries. The entire building is dedicated to ensuring that our students who want to break into this competitive sector have the finest facilities available to them. Ensuring they already have experience of working with industry standard equipment is of real importance if they are going to be able to move from our College straight into this exciting sector.
It was also a wonderful opportunity for me to meet up with the former Chair of our Governing body, and the man who the building was named after, Professor Michael Wright CBE DL.

L-R Graham Razey, Lucy McLeod, and Michael Wright

Michael was the man at the helm of East Kent College when I joined, so effectively became my boss and line manager. He became a real mentor to me, showing me the value of taking control and standing behind my decisions. I was proud to see our new building bear his name, as a legacy of his time working with East Kent College and promoting the cause of further education. It was his vision which saw the creative sector as a key area to expand into, in order to ensure the best opportunities for the young people who study with us.

When the building was conceived by Michael and other senior members of the College, the hope was that it would become a centre of excellence for the creative industries, with the highest specification equipment. That dream has been realised, with state-of-the-art technology embedded throughout the building, ensuring students are able to get the best opportunity to learn, create and build their skills. A large auditorium, digital media suite with the latest in computing technology, and large music performance spaces all mean staff and students are given the best opportunities to teach and learn.

Michael Wright sees students using the Mac Lab

These features also mean that the building is able to serve as a venue for community use, with the Principal of our Broadstairs Campus, Lucy McLeod, highlighting this as being one of the key uses for the auditorium. It has already held a talk about the history of the E-Type Jaguar, with a leading expert discussing the history of the company, and there are plans afoot to create a community choral society as well.

It’s a building which ticks all of the boxes, with our local economy, community and education all playing their part in its creation.

The problem with being too personal

It's with a certain sense of irony that I write this blog, and once you get into the meat of it, you'll understand just why.

That's because I've started to wonder just how possible it has become for a professional person to split their personal and working lives. In an era where tools like social media are a 24/7 instrument, and blogging is for all, the lines are becoming - perhaps somewhat dangerously - blurred.

But is it important to split these two potentially competing things, and is it even possible when a person's views will inherently bias them in their professional setting? It’s a debate I not only think we should have, but must have.

We all need to think more carefully about personal comments being made in a professional capacity

So what’s galvanised me into action on this topic? Some of the recent comments made by Sir Michael Wilshaw, the man who heads up Ofsted are responsible for making me reappraise how the personal and professional intermingle. The comments Sir Michael chose to make in a very public manner took aim at the world of further education institutions, despite the fact that his organisation is responsible for inspecting, and grading, those very establishments. Those remarks, it could be argued, are at odds with the impartiality that his office demands. And yet Sir Michael, a man held in great esteem by many, still thought it was appropriate to make them. And not just make them, but defend them in the face of a veritable onslaught from the further education sector. His defence was that the remarks were not a bias, stating “it’s criticism of what we see — and have seen for a number of years.”

Sir Michael Wilshaw Pic credit: UK Government

And while I may not agree with Sir Michael’s statements – in fact, I absolutely disagree with all of these particular pronouncements – and think that his attempt to defend them was poor, there’s clearly a bigger issue at play. Namely, that the real problem is not what he said, but how and when it was said. He chose to air his very personal views, not on a blog like this one, or on his Twitter feed (both of which are fairly clearly forums for opinion), but during an evidence session to the Education Select Committee.

That is where the real issue lies; the fact that he made very personal comments in a very professional setting. And his comments were presented as being fact, as if all of the FE sector was “in a mess.” In my view (and I recognise that some will disagree with me) the platform which he has as a consequence of his job shouldn’t be used to make a case which is inherently personal. Nor indeed should anyone’s position be used to make personal comment.

With that said, the issue of making personal comments in a professional context is one which needs more debate. That is because our lives are becoming ever more blended, with professional aspects mixed more fully with our personal lives. As this professional and personal integration speeds up due to technological advancements and changes in working styles, it will become an issue which grows far faster.

So what are your views? Let me know in the comments below.

The true value of social media in a connected world

The world is more connected than it has ever been before, with social media leading the charge in real-time communications. With a whopping 236 million monthly active users on Twitter, and a massive 1.59 billion monthly active users on Facebook, the numbers are undoubtedly impressive. And while you might assume that a lot of the messages, tweets and wall posts are little more than noise, all of the tools which are now at our disposal mean we can promote and celebrate what we do more than ever before. It gives us an unrivaled opportunity to promote our message to a truly huge audience.

Recently I was honoured by Jisc – which supports the post-16 education sector in all things digital – as one of the FE sector’s top social media practitioners in the country. It’s certainly something to celebrate, as greater amounts of our lives are now being lived online and the world of social media has become a key channel to influence, converse and broadcast.

This week it has been National Apprenticeship Week 2016. It has also been the first time I’ve ever taken part in what is colloquially known as a ‘tweetathon’ – a concentrated burst of tweets by different individuals and organisations on a specific topic – normally using a hashtag to indicate that topic. The tweetathon – organised by Nestle UK – was to celebrate skills training, apprentices, and the contribution they have to UK productivity and business.

The tweetathon brought together a wide variety of individuals and organisations promoting National Apprenticeship Week

The online event proved valuable in pushing the message far and wide to a very large audience. A total of 37 Twitter users took part, managing to reach over 168,000 different accounts. That generated a huge 450,412 tweet impressions, ensuring that apprenticeships at East Kent College got great promotion.

But social media isn’t just about promotion – it’s also about celebration and it’s a tool I often use to congratulate staff and students at the College. Many of our competition successes are documented on social media with results rolling out in real-time, allowing other members of the College to know what’s happening at every moment. East Kent College even created a dedicated Twitter feed, and hashtag, to live tweet all competitions our students attend.

And we don’t stop at just Twitter as a platform. At last year’s World Skills UK final, our creative students at The Edge produced a video which documented the journey of the College’s competitors. It was uploaded to YouTube after the competition, and continues to pay tribute to the efforts of the staff and students who worked so hard to get to the finals. While much of the content which is viewed and posted on social media bears only a fleeting interest, that video and those tweets are enduring for those who took part in that competition, and remain as a record of their hard work.

And that, for me, is one of the most important reasons to use social media – it’s an unparalleled platform to celebrate what our College does well, whether that be delivering fantastic apprenticeships, or showcasing real tradecraft at World Skills. And that is exactly why I’ll continue to be an advocate for the world of social media long into the future.

Improving outcomes – and not just for students

As the Principal of a college which spans four distinct campuses, stretching across a large portion of Kent's coastline, improving the outcomes for our thousands of learners is our business.

But in order to do that, and to really ensure the College's students get the highest quality education I need each and every staff member to also be working hard. We recently celebrated our annual Star Awards, which showcases the diligence of our staff, highlighting individuals who have consistently gone above and beyond in order to better our students. It is what we all do, consistently, because it is what we are all passionate about. So it really hurts me to see that recent statements from the University and College Union (UCU) are branding college leaders like myself, as people who have failed to back their staff, or lobby to ensure the best outcomes for them.

Our staff are our stars

So let me tell you a quick tale about a job interview I recently held. When the candidate asked me what scope there was to develop their career, I was proud to have an answer which promoted my personal and professional belief that staff - or human capital in business-speak - are our greatest resource. ‎Telling that interviewee – who eventually became a member of staff with us – that we would back him, and invest in his development sums up what East Kent College, and many other colleges across the country are all about. Namely improving people, whether they be staff, or student.

After all, it is the collective staff passion which creates the environment that enables our students to succeed, and while I have a guiding hand on the tiller, it wouldn't be possible without their hard work and dedication. In return, I dedicate myself to ensuring our staff have the best possible outcomes, whether that is through workplace training opportunities or being a considerate and flexible employer.

Now, with all that I have said so far allow me repeat a point which is key; my personal belief is that our staff are our greatest asset.

I'm committed to always fighting for the best possible outcome for the College's staff members

With that in mind, understand that I will always fight for the best possible outcome for staff, and will lobby and work tirelessly to ensure they are well looked after. The dedication I give to their cause is matched by the dedication they give to our learners.

So perhaps before other off-the-cuff statements about college leaders being unwilling to fight for their staff are made, those who make the comments should visit colleges up and down the land, meeting with principals like myself, staff members who are joining, and those who have been part of our colleges for some time. We are, after all, all on the same side and with the same fundamental goal; to get the best possible outcome for FE, for our students, for our communities and for our staff. I hope that everyone keeps that in mind.