Intuition- Summer 2022

The journal for professional teachers, trainers and leaders in the further education and training sector

Issue 48 Summer 2022

set.et-foundation.co.uk

Exploring the further education and training sector’s role in driving equality of opportunity 19

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24

How artificial intelligence is changing education

Why independent training providers are essential

Driving professionalism with the ATS programme

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DEMONSTRATE YOUR MASTERY IN TEACHING AND LEARNING Your route to becoming a Chartered Teacher

APPLY BY 31 AUGUST FOR OCTOBER 2022 START

Advanced Teacher Status (ATS) is the badge of advanced professionalism and mastery in further education and training.

ATS allows you to focus on your personal and professional development, gain confidence in your teaching skills, improve learner outcomes and advance your career.

Apply for ATS: set.etfoundation.co.uk/ats See SET website for full details of ATS eligibility criteria which includes holding a minimum of a Level 5 teaching qualification.

The Society for Education and Training (SET) is part of the Education and Training Foundation (ETF).

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CONTENTS

SUMMER 2022

UPFRONT

THE KNOWLEDGE

05 NEWS

26 INDEPENDENT THINKERS

Government sustainability strategy a good foundation to build on, says ETF

How granting learners the autonomy to control their learning and motivation can help in an ESOL setting

08 OPINION Views from Jenny Jarvis, Dee Vickers MSET QTLS and Martine Ellis FSET ATS

12 INTERVIEW Ofqual’s Catherine Large OBE outlines the regulator’s role in ensuring changes࣢to qualifications are fit for learners

29 EXTRA-CURRICULAR ACTIVITY Removing a sense of failure around Functional Skills by changing the narrative

32 SHADES OF GREY The challenge of teaching effective critical literacy skills in an age of fake news

19

14 ADVICE How to boost your resilience to cope with change and stress

MEMBERS’ CORNER

FEATURES 16 MIND THE GAPS

36 THE FORUM

14

SET head of membership Jane Galbraith provides essential dates for your diary

Further education should be at the heart of the government’s push to level up, but much more needs to be done to ensure this can be delivered

19 AUTOMATED ASSISTANCE 38 MY LIFE IN TEACHING Nik Turner MSET QTLS on combining his love of sports and teaching

Artificial intelligence may still sound like science fiction, but it is already influencing further education. We look at how it is helping organisations and teachers alike

22 VALUED CONTRIBUTION Independent training providers play an essential role in delivering skills and qualifications. But sometimes their value can be overlooked

39 BOOK REVIEWS The latest educational titles reviewed

InTuition is published on behalf of the Society for Education and Training Redactive Publishing Ltd 9 Dallington Street London EC1V 0LN redactive.co.uk

EDITOR: Nick Martindale

DIRECTOR: Martin Reid

LEAD DESIGNER: David Twardawa

HEAD OF COMMUNICATIONS: Mike Morgan-Giles

SUBEDITORS: James Hundleby, Rob Loveday PICTURE RESEARCHER: Claire Echavarry PRODUCTION: Jane Easterman jane.easterman@redactive.co.uk +44 (0)20 7880 6248

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While every care has been taken in the compilation of this magazine, errors or omissions are not the responsibility of the publishers. Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the publishers or editorial staff, the Society for Education and Training or the Education and Training Foundation.

All rights reserved. Unless specifically stated, goods or services mentioned are not formally endorsed by the Society for Education and Training or the Education and Training Foundation, which do not guarantee or endorse or accept any liability for any goods and/ or services featured in this publication.

ISSN: 2050-8980

SUMMER 2022 INTUITION 3

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WELCOME

FIRST WORDS

D R B A R B A R A VA N D E R E E C K E N M S E T

Maintaining standards The ETF’s Professional Standards for teachers and trainers have been updated to reflect the changing needs of society aintaining and enhancing the quality of teaching is central to everything we do as professionals, and part of that is the need to uphold standards. Following a review in 2021, the Education and Training Foundation has now launched updated Professional Standards for teachers and trainers in the English further education and training sector.

As well as the core principles of teaching, the standards focus on emerging trends and priorities, including the growing importance of the sustainability agenda; changes regarding gender, sexuality, racism, mental health and wellbeing; and the need to rebuild and support the industry following the pandemic. You can view these at et-foundation.co.uk/ professional-standards One of the biggest challenges in the wake of the pandemic is the need to “level up” and ensure people in every part of the UK can make the most of their potential and flourish in their local area.

The new Levelling Up white paper outlines the government’s vision for this, including changes to further education.

But questions remain around both vision and delivery, which we explore in our cover feature.

As the sector starts to emerge from Covid-related disruption, it seems appropriate to think about how other trends may affect the delivery of teaching.

One notable development is the use of artificial intelligence to help deliver some of the simpler tasks occupying our time. Some colleges are already exploring how this can help teachers; read about

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this on page 19. Elsewhere, we take an in-depth look at independent training providers. They play an important role in complementing state-run institutions. But they face unique challenges around funding and status, which risk overshadowing the vital work they do. Find out more on page 22.

I’d also like to welcome Martine Ellis FSET ATS as a regular columnist. She talks openly about her battles to cope with pressure, and why the highs outweigh the lows, on page 10.

Make sure you look at this issue’s Knowledge section, featuring research projects and learnings from a range of practitioners.

Dr Marcin Lewandowski FSET explores autonomy among English for speakers of other languages learners, while Stacey Stevens looks at developing critical literacy skills among learners in an age when “fake news” is on the rise. Also, Kerry Scattergood MSET QTLS explores how to give learners a voice around functional skills English.

Remember too, if you have yet to do so, that our SET Conference is back as an in-person event this year, taking place on 3 November at the Vox in Birmingham. Tickets are selling fast, so make sure you book your place through the SET website.

THE UPDATED STANDARDS FOCUS ON EMERGING PRIORITIES, INCLUDING GENDER, SEXUALITY, RACISM AND MENTAL HEALTH

DR BARBARA VAN DER EECKEN MSET, vice-chair, SET Management Board

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LATEST UPDATES FROM SET AND THE ETF

NEWS Sustainability is set to become an increasingly large part of further education curriculam

ENVIRONMENT

SUSTAINABILITY STRATEGY A ‘GOOD FOUNDATION’ he Department for Education’s sustainability and climate change strategy provides a good foundation to build on, according to the Education and Training Foundation (ETF).

The strategy recognises the important role education has to play in contributing to climate action and achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, as well as the work already being undertaken by further education and training providers to embed sustainability in courses, decarbonise their estates and drive whole-setting approaches.

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It also incorporates recommendations from ETF-led work that seek to place sustainability at the heart of teacher training, with the development of an occupational standard for further education teaching. This would require all new teachers to integrate sustainability into their teaching through modelling sustainable practices and promoting sustainable development principles in relation to their subject specialism.

The ETF believes there is more work to do, including curriculum reform to ensure that all learners receive highquality sustainability education.

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NEW BOARD REVIEW SERVICE FROM ETF AND IOD The Education and Training Foundation has partnered with the Institute of Directors to offer a board review service to the further education and training sector. The service will help provider organisations meet the requirement to undertake regular external board reviews, one of the reforms set out in the government’s 2021 Skills For Jobs White Paper and included in the 2021-22 Education and Skills Funding Agency agreement.

The reviews will evaluate the effectiveness of boards, and have been informed by best practice in governance reviews and the Department for Education’s draft guidance on external governance reviews. The new service builds on pilots conducted in 2020-21, when reviews were provided to 28 further education colleges, sixth-form colleges and other institutions. Surveys assessing those pilots found they had an immediate impact on college board attributes that are essential for effective governance.

More information can be found at et-foundation.co.uk/professionaldevelopment/leadership-and-governanceprogrammes/board-review-service

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NEWS

SECTOR UPDATE

ROUND FIVE OF TAKING TEACHING FURTHER PROGRAMME OPEN Recruitment for round five of Taking Teaching Further (TTF), the initiative that helps further education and training sector providers attract experienced business and industry professionals into teaching careers, is now open.

For round five, TTF has been expanded beyond the 15 technical route subjects it originally focused on.

It now includes a ‘core skills’ element, which aims to support the recruitment of experienced professionals such as English, maths or SEND teachers for technical subjects.

The initiative supports further education and training providers with funding of up to £18,200 per recruit to enable them to gain a Level࣢5 teaching qualification and help provide intensive support such as paired teaching, mentoring or work shadowing. It also allows for reduced teaching workloads in a new recruit’s first year of teaching.

It has two routes: one is open to further education and sixth-form colleges. The other is for independent training providers; 16-19 academy converters and university technical colleges; and employer-led, third sector training, local authority, adult and community learning providers.

Recruitment for round five will be open until 15 December 2022, with the support provided running until July 2024. For more information, visit et-foundation.co.uk/professionaldevelopment/taking-teaching-further

S TO ETFUNBSCRIBE EWSLET Receiv e regu TERS lar up the

ETF o n new dates from CPD c and u ourse pdate s and d well a reso s sele cted to urces as p ic a Sig reas. et-fou n up at ndatio n.co.u newsle k/ tters

TECHNICAL TE ACHING

APPLY FOR TECHNICAL TEACHING FELLOWSHIPS pplications are now open for the 2023/24 ETF–Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 Technical Teaching Fellowships. The deadline is 5pm on 25 November 2022. They are open to exceptional technical teachers who deliver effective outcomes for learners in the further education and training sector.

Fellows play an important role in driving quality improvement, facilitating CPD and sharing effective practice, resources and ideas.

Successful applicants receive up to £15,000 to support knowledge transfer activity and ensure remission time is guaranteed, and are allocated a mentor to support them.

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They also become Fellows of SET. The 2021-22 and 2022-23 Fellows were presented with their awards at a ceremony at the Royal Society in London in March. They are: Rosa Wells FSET of Solihull College & University Centre, Ben Houlihan FSET of Capita (and formerly of Bridgwater and Taunton College), Peter Jackson FSET QTLS of Lincoln College, Alison Ackroyd FSET QTLS of Mid Kent College, Adam Hackney FSET of Exeter College, and Simon Parker FSET of South Essex College.

Details of how to apply are available at et-foundation.co.uk/professionaldevelopment/technical-education/technicalteaching-fellowship-ttf-programme

P H O T O G R A P H Y: G E T T Y

REFRESHED PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS PUBLISHED The Education and Training Foundation (ETF) launched its refreshed Professional Standards for teachers and trainers in England’s further education and training sector in May. First published in 2014, the standards are now widely used across the sector and have enabled teachers and

trainers to deliver enhanced learning experiences and outcomes for students.

The updates focus on emerging priorities in the sector and wider society, including the escalating importance of sustainability; changes in expectations around gender, sexuality, racism, mental health and wellbeing; the need to rebuild

following Covid-19; and the revolution in online working and learning following the pandemic.

The updated standards were developed with a wide range of organisations. They are available at: etfoundation.co.uk/ professional-standards

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SECTOR UPDATE

NEWS

LEADERSHIP

NEWSINNUMBERS

JENNY JARVIS TAKES HELM AT ETF AS INTERIM CEO

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enny Jarvis has been appointed interim chief executive of the Education and Training Foundation (ETF), succeeding David Russell MSET, who stepped down in April after eight years. He is now executive in residence at the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School, where he will focus on creating a self-improving system in further education.

Chair of the ETF board, Peter Latchford OBE, said: “We would like to offer our sincere thanks to

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MATHS, ENGLISH AND ESOL WEBINARS The ETF is hosting free webinars for teachers of maths, English and English for speakers of other languages (ESOL). ‘Integrating maths into vocational courses’ takes place on 20 June from 3-5pm. ‘Integrating English into vocational courses’ takes place on 27 June at the same time.

‘Giving your ESOL Learners the best chance to pass Functional Skills’ will be on 21 June (part A) and 28 June (part B) between 3-5pm. ‘Maths problem solving’ will take place on 30 June from 3-5pm. ‘Key factors in maths lesson planning’ will take place from 10am-12 noon on 5 July.

Launch events for the ETF’s Maths and English Networks, which begin in September, are also now bookable.

The English event is on 27 June from 9.30am-12.30pm. The maths event is on 4 July in the same time slot.

More details, including booking links, are available at: Maths CPD: bit.ly/ETFmathsCPD. English CPD: bit.ly/ETFenglishCPD

David for his skilled and principled leadership, which has enabled the ETF to grow to become a highly respected and integral part of further education. We are delighted he will be using his unique knowledge and experience to further develop our vibrant and critical sector.

“The board is delighted that Jenny Jarvis has agreed to step up on an interim basis, and we look forward to supporting her in working collaboratively with the sector in developing our next steps.”

ETF AND AOC SCOOP WORLDSKILLS UK DIVERSITY AWARD The ETF and Association of Colleges (AoC) have been awarded the prestigious ‘EDI initiative of the year’ title by WorldSkills UK at its Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Heroes Awards.

The award recognises the Diversity in Leadership programme, which is funded and managed by the ETF and delivered

by AoC. It aims to challenge bias, remove obstacles to leadership roles and build confidence.

Participants reported high satisfaction with the breadth and depth of topics, and the quality of the coaching offered by and to those from minority backgrounds. The selection of some participants as ‘Game Changers’ – who are supported to develop their own EDI projects – is creating a network of practitioners that is helping drive transformation across colleges.

The rise in apprenticeship starts in small employers in 2020-21, government figures show. This is the first increase in five years

15

The number of years it will take to erode the gender pay gap in England’s colleges at the current rate of progress, according to FE Week

30%

The proportion of employers who say they are interested in providing T Level placements, down from 36 per cent in 2019, government research finds

£2,000

The minimum rise in pay for college staff being proposed by the University and College Union, as part of its plans for a 10 per cent hike

£20.9m The amount the Department for Education has set aside for local skills improvement plans in 38 areas, over the next three years

SUMMER 2022 INTUITION 7

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OPINION

JENNY JARVIS

T H E F E A N D T R A I N I N G C O N V E R S AT I O N

Time to talk The Education and Training Foundation is keen to hear your thoughts, concerns and needs as the further education and training sector continues to evolve, says Jenny Jarvis t is a great privilege to have been appointed interim chief executive of the Education and Training Foundation (ETF).

It is an organisation that does genuinely transformative things for the sector, for those that dedicate themselves to it, and for the learners whose lives they touch.

My service at the ETF stretches back five years, and my time as deputy chief executive has been an important factor in ensuring a smooth transition from my predecessor, David Russell MSET. During those years, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting hundreds of practitioners and leaders from across the sector, taking inspiration from their work, seeing how the ETF’s support contributes to their successes, and learning first-hand about the numerous and varied challenges they face.

In recent years, Covid-19 has seen the rapid adoption of technology and raised concerns over safeguarding. In the same period, we have seen long overdue

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YOUR PARTICIPATION WILL HELP TO ENSURE THAT OUR PRIORITIES ARE ALIGNED WITH YOUR DEVELOPMENT NEEDS

recognition of the need to address issues of sustainability and inclusivity.

Politically, we have seen government take a greater interest in our sector and its role in ‘levelling up’, and its priorities have been set out in the Skills Act. The advent of T Levels – and qualifications reform associated with it – has its own opportunities and challenges.

On top of all of that are longer-term considerations the sector must deal with, including funding, developing leadership capacity, and the design and evolution of the curriculum to meet the needs of students, employers and society.

Although many aspects of our work and the way we undertake it – including our values, our commitment to seeking the very best partners, and our belief in championing excellence – are unaltered, the ETF and our operating environment are evolving.

To ensure we understand the challenges you face and help you overcome them as effectively as possible, we have launched ‘The FE and Training Conversation’ – research that will engage colleagues across the sector to find out more about their concerns and the support they need. To ensure the results are independent, impartial and anonymous, we have chosen educational research specialist Membership Matters to conduct it on our behalf.

The input of SET members – who we know have a deep interest in and commitment to their professionalism and development – will be a very important part of this research. I know you will appreciate the importance of this kind of reflection and evaluation,

because it is a fundamental aspect of educators’ practice and helps to improve the effectiveness of teaching.

That’s why these activities continue to figure prominently in the ETF’s Professional Standards, which have recently been refreshed and relaunched. As you will read in this issue of inTuition, the new standards reflect emerging trends and priorities in the sector and wider society.

These include the escalating importance of sustainability; changes in expectations around gender, sexuality, racism, mental health and wellbeing; the need to rebuild following Covid-19; and the revolution in online working and learning practices following the pandemic.

In refreshing our standards, we have been careful to again collaborate with the sector to ensure their continued currency and value for individuals and professional communities alike. SET members have told us how the standards have helped drive collaboration between staff, and also with learners. This in turn has worked as a catalyst for improvements in training, as well as providing a foundation for communities to enhance teaching. By doing those things, our standards have helped to drive the professionalism agenda that contributes to the greater recognition of our sector.

That makes them a great example of how collaboration and listening can ensure that the support the ETF provides is current, valued and effective – and it’s why we consulted across the sector again in refreshing them.

It also serves as a reminder of why your contribution to ‘The FE and Training Conversation’ matters so much. Your participation will help to ensure that our priorities are aligned with your development needs, and that we are well placed to continue supporting you as you help your learners achieve the best possible outcomes. Have your say at bit.ly/3woFtvu.

JENNY JARVIS is interim chief executive of the Education and Training Foundation

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DEE VICKERS

APPRENTICESHIP REQUIREMENTS

Conscious uncoupling Basic maths and English skills are vital but tying them into apprenticeship qualifications can be counter-productive, says Dee Vickers MSET QTLS pprenticeships are almost unique in having to ensure achievement in maths and English to be able to complete the actual main aim. Despite that, any time spent completing maths and English doesn’t count towards off-the-job training. To further complicate matters, the funding arrangements for English and maths are separate.

Negative attitudes are at the root of our numeracy crisis, rather than a lack of innate talent. It is culturally acceptable in the UK to be negative about maths in a way that we don’t talk about other life skills. We hear “I can’t do maths” so often it seems a normal thing to say, almost as if numeracy is a genetic gift possessed only by a rare few, and inaccessible to the general public.

So many of the important decisions we must make as adults are based on numbers. The National Numeracy website makes the following points: Those who are not confident and capable with numbers are estimated to be worse off. A 2014 report found the average cost to people with poor numeracy is £460 a year.

People with poor numeracy skills are more than twice as likely to face unemployment.

A quarter of young people in custody have numeracy below that expected of a seven-year-old. Similarly, 65 per cent of adult prisoners have numeracy skills at or below the level expected of an 11-year-old.

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But… I can’t do maths!

There’s a certain inevitability when someone utters these words, and we

SURELY IT WOULD BE BETTER TO FOCUS ON THOSE FUNCTIONAL SKILLS, BUT DE-LINK THEM FROM THE CORE APPRENTICESHIP should explore why a person would state this self-defeating opinion. Are they actually incapable of undertaking mathematical and numerical tasks, or are there deeper, underlying reasons?

We often see apprentices and learners that lack confidence in their understanding of basic concepts and can’t see the everyday relevance or value of maths. Many will have bad memories of maths at school that have influenced how they feel about maths throughout their adult lives.

To some extent this is the very power of functional skills being delivered within apprenticeships. Functional skills are more about the vocational and real-life uses of numeracy. The term ‘mathematical resilience’ is used to promote a positive response to negative situations, and is based on three factors: Value: believing that studying maths is worth it, and recognising the benefits of improving numeracy.

Belief: to achieve growth, people must

OPINION

believe that their maths abilities are not fixed, and feel confident that anyone can develop mathematical skills.

Effort: people must believe that learning is challenging, but possible and worth it.

In essence, saying “I can’t do maths” does not indicate ability but a mindset that is based on poor experience and a perceived lack of relevance.

Breaking the link In the workplace, it’s not uncommon for employees to have to interpret data, charts and diagrams; process information; solve problems; check answers; understand and explain solutions; and make decisions based on logical thinking and reasoning.

These are exactly the sorts of tasks that numeracy and functional skills are designed to develop. It’s also at the heart of apprenticeships.

Mapping workplace activities to the maths syllabus results in authentic, meaningful and instantly useful learning.

This is achieved by starting with reallife or work tasks, problems, projects or challenges and then mapping back to the outcomes covered in the syllabus or programme specification.

It’s worth adding that this approach also removes the teacher-led, schoolbased and “irrelevant” perceptions that often hold individuals back. In this way, mathematical resilience can be developed via a combined approach between the apprentice, employer and training provider.

Removing the apprenticeship exit requirement for maths and English would allow learners that struggle with numeracy and literacy to still achieve their core goal. At the moment, apprentices can fail maths or English and their apprenticeship. Surely it would be better to focus on those functional skills, but de-link them from the core apprenticeship?

DEE VICKERS MSET QTLS is head of apprenticeships at Kingston Maurward College

SUMMER AUTUMN 2022 2021 INTUITION 9

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OPINION

MARTINE ELLIS

WELLBEING

Top job Teaching can – and should – be the best job in the world, but only if we take the time to prioritise our own wellbeing, says Martine Ellis FSET ATS elcome to the first of my regular columns! Because we’re both new here, let’s start with an introduction: I’m Martine Ellis, and I’ve worked in further education and training for over a decade, most recently in teacher training and professional development. I am also a writer and lifelong learner, living in Guernsey in the Channel Islands.

Like many of my further education and training colleagues, my journey into teaching was complicated. In my late twenties I worked as a senior leader in Guernsey’s finance sector. I earned great money, drove a convertible and had my own glass-walled corner office. I looked like I had it all. But I wasn’t happy. None of my family understood my work; if I’m honest, I’m not even sure I did. It felt meaningless.

Who was I helping? But, of course, I had a mortgage to pay and a lifestyle I enjoyed. I couldn’t leave. Could I? Just as I was starting to entertain the possibility that life could be different, I spotted an advertisement for a oneyear maternity cover at my local further education college, teaching office administration. Since I had my (as it was called then) 730 teaching certificate and some corporate training experience, I applied. To my surprise, I got the job.

What followed was the biggest gamble of my career: I left finance to become an unqualified further education lecturer.

The interview panel clearly saw something in me that I could not because, 13 years later, I am head of professional development and teacher training at that same college. I never left.

While I’d love to tell you that my transition into teaching was easy, I

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MY BRUSH WITH BURNOUT SHOWED ME THAT PRODUCTIVITY COULD QUICKLY BECOME TOXIC can’t: it was tough. I thought being a director of a trust company was hard work but, compared with teaching, it was easy. Teaching is the most demanding job I have ever done: I experienced stress, anxiety, panic attacks and burnout. While some of this was due to undiagnosed autism, it was mainly about the reality of working in education.

A non-teacher reading this column might be thinking at this point: why did she stay? The answer is simple – the lows were punctuated by incredible highs.

There is no better feeling than seeing a learner thrive in their first job, partly because of things you taught them. Also, I was lucky enough to be surrounded by incredibly inspiring and supportive colleagues. Despite my bumpy arrival into the profession, I believe that teaching is the best job in the world, but it took me some time to realise it.

As an early career teacher, I quickly learned that I would only be able to do my job well if I was physically and mentally well. Furthermore, I needed productivity strategies to stay on top of my workload.

My brush with burnout showed me that productivity could quickly become toxic. One minute you are interested in productivity tools and strategies, the next you are an efficiency-obsessed workaholic. That’s not who I wanted to be, so I took a different approach. I started looking at productivity through the lens of wellbeing.

Instead of filling the time I saved by being productive with more work, I filled it with rest and recovery. I made my wellbeing my priority. At the time, it felt selfish and wrong, but it wasn’t.

You cannot be productive if you are exhausted, and you certainly cannot look after others if you do not look after yourself.

Productivity needs a rethink. It should not be about doing more with less; it should be driven by wellbeing. If you prioritise your wellbeing, you will be more productive – everybody wins.

Wellbeing-driven productivity is one of the main topics I will focus on in this column, and I will share practical tools and strategies you can implement immediately to help you be well and do well.

One of the wonderful side-effects of prioritising your wellbeing and being more productive is creating time and space to focus on yourself – specifically, your personal and professional development. That’s the other thing I love writing about: personal and professional learning. Expect to see plenty of strategies and resources on this subject, particularly on personal knowledge management, reading, note-taking and academic study.

That’s my introduction. Let’s talk more about this concept of wellbeingdriven productivity and the positive effects it can have on your personal and professional development. If you are on Twitter, look me up – I’m @MartineGuernsey.

MARTINE ELLIS FSET ATS is a teacher, writer and lifelong learner @MartineGuernsey

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Book your place at SET22 The award winning annual SET conference returns to Birmingham on Thursday 3 November 2022 and we can’t wait to welcome you back to an in-person event!

SET22 is the must-attend conference for teachers, trainers and leaders in the Further Education and Training sector. Join us for a day of fascinating sessions, participate in inspiring breakout sessions and live Q&As, network with colleagues from across the sector and learn practical tips that can help you in your every day practice.

We look forward to seeing you there.

SET member tickets

£119

Book your ticket: set.et-foundation.co.uk/conference

#SETConf22

Discounts available for bulk booking INT.SUMMER22_011.indd 11

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INTERVIEW

CATHERINE LARGE OBE

INTERVIEW

Quality control

After the disruption caused by the pandemic, wider reform around post-16 qualifications is on the cards. Ofqual has an important role to play in ensuring any changes are fit for learners, says its executive director for vocational and technical qualifications Catherine Large OBE

BY NICK MARTINDALE atherine Large OBE joined Ofqual in 2016, initially as director for vocational and technical qualifications, bringing with her a strong background in skills and apprentices.

Having worked for a decade at the skills council for the creative sector, Creative & Cultural Skills, and eventually rising to joint Chief Executive, she found the move over to the Civil Service a natural step.

“We were really driving apprenticeship take-up in the creative sector,” she says.

“By the time I had finished there, we’d got 4,000 apprentices placed, which was a good note to end on because by that point the apprenticeship system had also started to be reformed following the 2012 Richard Review. I was spending all my time talking to employers about the policy, so it felt quite easy to join the regulator.”

Having a background in delivering apprenticeships and lobbying for change has also helped her at Ofqual, she says, giving her an understanding of how difficult it is for small businesses to take

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on apprentices, for example. “But one thing that we’re clear about is that we’re here to regulate on behalf of students and apprentices and to serve their best interests. It’s about what’s fair for them and what’s right for them in the context of a commercial trading environment.”

Large was awarded the OBE in the 2017 New Year’s Honours list for services to the creative economy, and became executive director for vocational and technical qualifications at Ofqual in 2021.

She has largely focused on delivering the technical education reform programmes and apprenticeship reforms.

“At the moment there is a lot of change and reform, with the qualifications reviews, the introduction of T Levels, the apprenticeship reform and the development of end-point assessment [EPA], and we’re looking at further changes coming down the track with the new Level 2 review as well,” she says.

“We’re just getting to a much deeper understanding of what’s needed in terms of change. Every minister will want to put their own mark on it, but what we can do

is to help substantiate that change with clear evidence and research.” She would like to see the same standard of research and evidence-based decisions made for vocational qualifications as exists for other qualifications, she adds.

Times of change While any decisions around the upcoming qualifications review – including determining which ones survive – will be taken by the Department for Education, Ofqual will be involved in helping to ensure any new system works in practice.

“It is generally understood that there are a great many vocational qualifications,” says Large, “and that it would be helpful for all if the market were more navigable and easily understood. Our part is in making sure that what is deemed necessary is as high quality as it can possibly be.

“One of the things that the department is introducing with the Level 3 qualifications review, and will do for Level 2 as well, is a new Ofqual check. We will be providing some additional feedback when they’re making their funding decisions. So that’s a new role for us.”

The body will also feed into occupationspecific qualifications being approved by the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education, she adds.

With so much reform on the agenda, it’s important that the regulatory framework is flexible and responsive, she says, but also that any reform is given sufficient time to bed in. “We’re not going to try to go at these things too quickly,” she says.

T Levels are a case in point. “A Levels were invented 70 years ago, and they don’t look the same now as they did then,” she says. “They’ve been reformed, but the name ‘A Level’ remains and everyone understands what an A Level is. With T Levels, the content will no doubt change, because it’s designed to change to be responsive to employers.

“Some of the first T Levels were digital ones, and it’s important that those specialisms can keep up with changes in technology, for example, and there will no doubt be innovations in the construction and childcare sectors too. What I would like to see is the T Level brand really bedding in, and those of us who work

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CATHERINE LARGE OBE

INTERVIEW

developed,” she says. “One key lesson learned is that what’s fundamentally important is that students have agency over whatever initiative or national intervention is taken.

“But it’s also clear that the educational institutions, awarding organisations and exam boards that have worked well in these difficult times have been those that have financial resilience, and that really know their sector and can make adaptations quickly.”

Lasting legacy

on T Levels getting those changes right, listening to feedback and understanding how they can work best for students and employers in years to come.”

Apprenticeships are another area that have come under the spotlight, although the introduction of EPAs has been welcome. “Obviously, there are wellpublicised apprenticeship withdrawal rates at the moment, and I’m very cognisant of that,” says Large. “A lot of it is to do with the changing labour market, as well as the changes that were introduced.

“But the introduction of EPAs as a synoptic assessment and final holistic judgement on an apprentice’s abilities is an important change. With the amount going on in the apprenticeships and labour market at the moment, it’s quite hard to tell whether those changes have been successful or not yet. But I hope we’ll be able to do an evaluation in partnership with the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education to see.”

VITAL INFO FAVOURITE DRINK Cup of tea

DOG OR CAT Cat

HOLIDAY

Edinburgh Festival

FOOD

Anything vegetarian

TV SHOW

A drama boxset

The Covid-19 pandemic was a huge learning experience for Ofqual, admits Large, and this is reflected in the provisions that have been made for this summer. “There has been a lot of thinking and contingency arrangements

The consequences of the pandemic are still playing out. Large is keen to stress that the grades learners have got over the past two years should be viewed in the same way as any other year group, although she’d like to see an eventual return to pre-pandemic standards after the “degree of generosity” that will be afforded to those taking exams this year.

“We want to make sure we’re not jumping to that and causing any unintended consequences for the wider system,” she says. “We’re just so conscious of the degree of uncertainty, instability and lost learning and disruption that students have experienced, so we want to make sure that anything that’s done in future years takes that into account.”

Allowances will also need to be made for the fact that some people taking post-GCSE qualifications this year may do so without ever having sat a formal examination, she adds.

One longer-term legacy could be greater use of technology in assessments in future. “Vocational qualifications may even lead the way in that,” she says.

“With functional skills assessments, for example, awarding organisations worked hard to put in place remote invigilation because they couldn’t access workplaces to assess apprentices. I think we will see more digital innovation as a result of the pandemic – and, as the regulator, we need to make sure that the regulations aren’t holding back awarding organisations in terms of being able to innovate. We should be trying to make sure the regulations allow for that change to happen.”

NICK MARTINDALE is editor of inTuition

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ADVICE

BUILDING RESILIENCE

Taking

control More than ever, teachers are having to contend with a period of change and stress. Developing ways to boost your resilience will help you adapt and remain in control, says David Allan

esilience is a contested concept because it has often been weaponised by unscrupulous managers to browbeat individuals into accepting additional work pressures. However, it is also a critical characteristic in developing successful teachers in an ever-changing sector as it helps sharpen our ability to deal with adversity. In today’s further education culture of continual change, increasing workloads and seemingly unachievable deadlines, coping skills are essential.

Of course, resilience is more than merely accepting hard times and pushing ourselves to the limit. Rather, it requires resistance and acknowledgment of what we cannot do while addressing what we can. Resilient individuals are strategic and effective in managing their workloads, but they also challenge poor decision-making and unreasonable demands.

The following tips will help you develop and sustain your resilience for teaching.

R

RECOGNISE YOUR EXISTING RESILIENCE Think about the times when you have been strong and coped well, and then draw out the essence of what made you excel in that situation, even if it was not related to teaching. For instance, if you got lost when driving and looked for strategies to resolve the situation – such as asking for directions – then it is likely that you didn’t deem yourself a failure.

Now apply this approach to your role.

Complete a reflective journal for one month to identify instances of stress and how you dealt with them. This can provide an arsenal for building your resilience.

DAVID ALLAN is author of Developing Resilience in FE Teaching, available at Routledge.com. InTuition readers can get 20 per cent off with the code APR20 until 31 August

ADOPT A VICARIOUS APPROACH When dealing with change, distance yourself from the problem and approach it objectively. Imagine that it is someone else’s and you are merely providing advice; it is often easier to advise a colleague than to act yourself. What would you say to that colleague? This helps you to avoid procrastinating or seeking the seemingly easy route, particularly when that may not be your best option.

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BUILDING RESILIENCE

ADVICE

JUGGLE WISELY Leisure time is important. Create a balance between your job and your personal life. Teaching may be the drive that gets you out of bed in the morning, but it is essential that you learn to switch off. This helps you to strengthen your resolve, enabling you to tackle changes to your workload with a clear head.

Switching off is also a part of your working day, even if only for a short period. When you are not teaching, take regular breaks from your computer screen. Go for a short walk at least once a day to reflect on your role. This important time helps you to sharpen your focus and avoid burnout.

COLLABORATION IS KEY We are social animals and connections enable us to become more resilient. By working collaboratively, we learn to deal with changes in teaching. Collaboration allows us to gain strength as we fluctuate between being truly resilient and exhibiting moments of weakness. Seek advice or support from colleagues to avoid the destructive effects of operating in silos.

RECUPERATION Form positive sleep patterns as these will help you to focus. Tiredness is not only a distraction that makes it difficult to concentrate; it is a sign that your body and mind are overdoing things.

We make poor decisions when we are tired and our resilience is low, and often look for a quick fix. Complex problems require deep thinking, and we can only do this effectively when we are fresh.

RESILIENCE AS STRENGTH Resilience is about having the strength to make a judgment on a new situation rather than merely tolerating it. While you accept some aspects that you cannot change, it doesn’t mean you have to suffer adverse consequences.

Focus on your power and not your helplessness. Ask yourself what contribution you have made to the situation (without arbitrarily blaming yourself ) and address that. Decide whether what you are doing is helping the situation or not and identify any detrimental effects on your wellbeing.

Gain perspective of your problem and understand how it directly affects you. You may not be able

to control a situation, but you can control how you react to it. If something appears unchangeable, don’t let it eat away at you; find another mechanism for dealing with it, such as asking a colleague for help.

However, some change is necessary and is a regular part of life, so this requires acceptance. Ask yourself what the new norm will look like and how long it will take you to adjust.

Nevertheless, where necessary you should resist unreasonable demands, thereby demonstrating that you are a balanced professional who is both flexible yet strong.

Head to the resources page on the SET website and search ‘resilience’ to access further resources

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FEATURE

LEVELLING UP

Further education should be at the heart of the government’s push to level up opportunities and outcomes across the country. While the recent White Paper acknowledges this, more needs to be done to ensure it can be delivered, as Elizabeth Holmes reports he government’s Levelling Up White Paper, which was published in February, is designed to give “everyone the opportunity to flourish”. In the paper, the government focuses on geographical inequality and seeks to “begin by improving economic dynamism and innovation to drive growth across the whole country, unleashing the power of the private sector to unlock jobs and opportunities for all”.

The paper draws on what the government calls the “contemporary Medici model”. It sees the paper as a “21st century recipe for a new Industrial Revolution”, which will require boosted productivity, opportunities spread more widely and public services improved, a restored sense of community, local pride and belonging, and empowered local leaders and communities.

As a powerhouse of opportunity, further education and training should be at the heart of the levelling up agenda.

However, further detail is needed around the 55 new education investment areas, and there are questions over whether there is evidence of a need for the proposed ‘elite’ sixth-form colleges.

The prospect of competition in the system has not been widely welcomed.

In his response to the White Paper, David Hughes, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, says: “More than anything, we want to see more emphasis on place-based collaborative approaches to education and skills.

“Our analysis has shown that competition between providers results in less choice and less coherence for learners and employers. We have also campaigned for better alignment between employment support and skills, between universities, colleges and schools, and between economic development and infrastructure spend and skills.”

IL L U S T R AT ION: S HU T T E R S T O C K

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For many in the sector, there is a lack of clarity regarding the aims of the levelling up agenda. Paul Kessell-Holland FSET, national head of curriculum design projects at the Education and Training Foundation, has identified key issues that require attention. “On one level, further education and training can play a vast role in the levelling up agenda,” he says.

“But the place I would want to start is with the issue of what the levelling up agenda is trying to address. There is a difference between equality of opportunity, and the improvement of place and space. If the answer to levelling up is to leave an area, that is potentially hugely problematic.

“My question is: which bits are we trying to level, and what does ‘up’ mean? Social levelling up is where further education excels. Helping young people to improve their lot in life is what further education is good at.”

Long-term vision Sue Pember is the policy director for HOLEX, the trade association for adult community education. Her role includes supporting sector leaders and building up an evidence base on why lifelong learning is vital to increasing the UK’s productivity as well as individual prosperity and wellbeing. “I was looking forward to the Levelling Up White Paper, and it didn’t disappoint,” she says.

“In places it is quite visionary and it will, if implemented, have an impact on local democracy as it will be local people making decisions for their area.”

However, she has concerns.

“Although the government supports many of the pillars of lifelong learning, the overall narrative and strategy is incoherent and results in a postcode lottery – for example, some programmes are commissioned nationally while others are organised locally,” Pember says. “Funding is not yet joined up, with some coming from the Department for Education and some from the Department for Work and Pensions, so a White Paper that recognises there is a need to join up and talks about doing this is really good.”

One area of further education that can have a profound and unique impact on levelling up is prison education.

Jon Collins, chief executive of the Prisoners’ Education Trust, knows just how important this is. “When prisoners arrive, they typically have lower levels of literacy and numeracy than the general population,”

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LEVELLING UP

FEATURE

MIND THE

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LEVELLING UP

he says. “They also have higher levels of special educational needs and neurodiversity. Around 40 per cent have been permanently excluded from school.

“Levelling up is about providing prisoners with some equality of the same opportunities as other people in the community. They need basic skills in order to get a job. We also need – although this is very difficult – to ensure that we are finding the people who have the greatest level of need within the system and then get them the support care that they require.”

Broader key questions that remain unanswered concern further education and the levelling up agenda. Can further

education provide the opportunities that are needed in any given area, or create jobs? Who is putting opportunities into a town so that people don’t leave? And where is the funding coming from?

“Colleges are the first line of defence for local economies that are trying to rebuild,” points out Kessell-Holland. “But the first thing that new provision suggests is that existing provision isn’t good enough. I don’t necessarily agree with that. Colleges know the communities they serve.

“We need long-term vision and investment beyond the political electoral cycles if we are serious about levelling up. If you are the principal of a further education college and a White Paper

CAS E S T U DY

DEVELOPING LOCAL SKILLS Alistair Mulvey, vice principal for finance and planning at Blackpool and The Fylde College, explains exactly why skills training is so important in achieving the Levelling Up agenda.

“Levelling up recognises that ability and capability are evenly spread across the country, but opportunity is not,” he says. “It also recognises that the productivity challenge needs to be addressed to grow the economy and that high-quality skills and training are two of the critical keys to unlock this.”

Mulvey says the college works with its learners to develop technical, professional and employability skills, aligned to the needs of the economy.

“For us, this is about securing and sustaining high-value employment by championing the new T Level programmes and the pathway this offers to

higher and degree apprenticeships, as an industry-led alternative to A Levels and university.

“It’s about providing opportunity through a curriculum that truly meets the skills and training needs of employers not just now but in the future. It’s also about being proactive, seeking out opportunities in new and emerging technologies –such as air-source heat pumps, for example – engaging with employer partners and building industry-leading training programmes to meet the needs of employers and the economy.

“But most of all, it is about equipping every learner and apprentice with the skills that will set and sustain them on career paths to success, and building vibrant employment communities where individuals can stay local and still go far.”

arrives on Monday, what is different about what you do on Tuesday? You were already trying to level up and maximise opportunities for learners. The proposed increase in adults in training is positive, and possibly the most important part of the levelling up agenda.”

Funding quest Calls for adequate investment can be heard from every corner of the sector. Collins argues that we have to recognise that prison teachers are dealing with large groups with complex needs and that prisons are difficult environments to work in. “Prison education is underfunded and does not have enough resources,” he says. “The Prisons White Paper recognised the need to roll out digital in-cell technology, but it is going to take time. Better funding is part of that.

The direction of travel is there, but what is missing is a clear plan of how to get there.”

Pember argues the levelling up agenda needs to be combined with a future vision that has equality of opportunity at its core. “The rest of the world is focusing on the need to ensure the workforce is ready for major changes ahead, such as the use of artificial intelligence, driverless cars, working in the age of Covid and other associated needs, and these are the baseline issues that lifelong learning strategies are trying to address,” she points out. “We still have many inconsistencies, and Level 2 vocational skills for adults still needs more investment. There is a lot of focus on Level 3 and above, but not enough on Level 2.

“Adult education is mentioned throughout the Levelling Up and further education White Papers, but the rhetoric and policy need funding. Many of the things we advocate are there, so it’s a great start, but the funding needs to be in place.

All the pillars of a fantastic lifelong learning strategy need joining up right now.”

ELIZABETH HOLMES is a freelance journalist specialising in the education sector

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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

FEATURE

Artificial intelligence may still sound like science fiction, but it is already having an impact on how further education providers operate. Jo Faragher outlines how it is helping organisations and teachers alike

AUTOMATED ASSISTANCE ur perceptions of artificial intelligence (AI) have come a long way since The Matrix hit the screens in 1999. We’re no longer afraid that sentient machines will dominate humanity; instead we’re asking voice assistants if they can add items to our shopping list. So it seems a natural progression for further education and training to exploit the benefits of AI, whether that’s for learners to access information about timetables and

IL L U S T R AT ION S : I S T O C K

O

courses or to help teaching and support staff run simple tasks more efficiently.

Last year, digital solutions membership organisation Jisc launched a national centre to explore the use of AI in tertiary education. The centre’s aim is to pilot new products to see which ones can add value, to consult with colleges and universities to find out how AI could address their problems, and to discuss how institutions can use AI in the most ethical way.

Michael Webb, director of technology and analytics at Jisc, says there are two

main drivers for expanding the use of AI: to improve efficiency, such as speeding up enrolment processes; and then bring this into the teaching process, for example personalising learning or giving real-time feedback. “Often colleges don’t know where to start, so we do a ‘deep dive’ with them to find out where it might help,” he explains.

Bolton College is one of further education and training’s AI trailblazers.

In 2017, it launched a chatbot known as Ada (Academic Digital Assistant,

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FEATURE

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

named after mathematician Ada Lovelace) to respond to learners’ questions. Ada is connected to multiple datasets within the college so she can access information based on a learner’s personal context, so a question such as “when is my assignment due?” interrogates the information relevant to that person’s studies and feeds back a response.

The bot also supports business processes at the college; for the past two years, it’s given learners their grades on GCSE results day and dramatically reduced the number of in-person queries to the college administration office. “We have hundreds of students logging on every minute, and she can give them results, tell them how to appeal if necessary, and say what they need to do if they want to retake,” says Aftab Hussain, strategic ILT lead at the college.

Bolton is now evolving its use of AI to help teaching staff with feedback and assessment. It has developed a tool called FirstPass that uses natural language processing to scan answers to open-ended questions, providing feedback in real time so learners can structure a better response or teachers can develop their own feedback.

“For years, we’ve only been able to pose closed questions to a computer for mediation – normally when you hand in open-ended work, you have to wait for a teacher to return it,” adds Hussain.

“This can help you make corrections and teachers can still provide feedback.”

Ensuring the datasets are accurate and able to ‘talk’ to each other has been a challenge, but teaching staff embrace the tools, he says: “In the long run, these digital systems act as an enabler rather than a replacement – the computers do the drudge work so teachers can use their skills to support students on campus.”

Rapid response Gower College in Swansea started its journey into AI with a library chatbot called Marcel. Since many learners commute long distances to the college or are on work-based assignments such as apprenticeships, Marcel allows them to interrogate the college’s library system at a time and place that suits them.

The college was awarded grant funding

IT REALLY COMES INTO ITS OWN IN THE EVENINGS AND AT WEEKENDS WHEN WE CAN’T PROVIDE AN INPERSON SERVICE from the UFI VocTech seed fund, which enabled it to work with a developer at Emotion Robotics to develop and ‘train’ Marcel. “We started with transactional questions such as ‘what time does the library open?’” says Mark Ludlam, learning resources manager. “Even simple questions can be asked in a variety of ways – some people say ‘lend’ instead of ‘borrow’, for example – so the data process is really time-consuming.”

The process is ongoing, with Ludlam’s team monitoring questions and responses to verify their accuracy and adding information as policies are updated. “It really comes into its own in the evenings and at weekends when we can’t provide an in-person service,” he adds. “It’s not there to replace staff – far from it – it’s an adjunct when we’re not open or accessible to learners.”

One of the conditions of Gower receiving its grant was that it shared resources with the further education community, and this is something that Jisc and many colleges are keen to embrace. “The answers in our chatbot wouldn’t be useful to other colleges, but we can share the question set,” says Ludlam.

Vikki Liogier, national head of EdTech and digital skills at the Education and Training Foundation, believes that the greater the collaboration in this space, the more further education settings can gain from it. She says: “A collaborative approach can add a lot of value to learners and teachers – if we share on a national level, we have more data, meaning we can identify trends a lot faster than an individual could.” Performance data from algorithms could be used to identify course gaps or pain points where colleges aren’t responding to learners’ needs, for example.

Stepping stones For most further education and training settings, the AI journey is likely to start with streamlining processes or answering simple queries before moving on to more intuitive uses in teaching and assessment, according to Dr Eric Wang, senior director of machine learning at Turnitin, which offers an AI assessment tool called Gradescope.

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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

“As a first step, I see the foundations of AI in education being improved before its usage evolves,” he says. “I envisage further refinement in how AI assists low-stakes, repetitive administrative tasks; this could mean a great deal to educators and course capacity – and, most importantly, student learning.”

However, settings must be careful about how they govern data and train the teams that will ‘teach’ the algorithms to make important decisions. “For AI to improve and evolve, we need to look more closely at data and make sure access to contributing and training that data is equitable.

This will create good AI that can help to improve learning outcomes for all students, and give increased capacity to all educators,” Wang adds.

“One of the interesting things about further education and training is that all of the students have different gaps in their learning,” says Tom Thacker, chief education officer of Century, which offers an AI tool that helps teachers to personalise their support for learners.

“They often don’t know what they don’t know, and our tool uses diagnostics and machine learning to work out what the best path for them is. You can’t do this with a linear textbook approach – this removes the weight of not knowing what to practise next.”

And because tools like Century’s tend to be used by multiple institutions, they can draw on millions of data points to identify wider trends. “Colleges can take our data dashboards and adjust their scheme of work because we can see what’s helped students before, or change groupings in class,” he adds.

Learners can see their own gaps in knowledge more clearly and work on them using the tool, meaning class time can focus on more interactive teaching such as a debate.

Basingstoke College of Technology (BToC) has been using Century to give

English and maths learners instant feedback through revision and diagnostic tools, and as part of its digital wellbeing course learners take during induction.

“The use of machine learning helps us free up more time in class for our brilliant teachers to have more of the human, one-to-one coaching relationships that learners value,” says Scott Hayden, who leads the college’s digital team.

BToC has also built self-marking mechanisms using Google Forms and the open-source content creation framework H5P, and is experimenting with a virtual reality tool that can help learners develop social skills for situations such as interviews or presentations.

FEATURE

Early adopters of AI are enjoying real benefits in terms of reduced teacher workload and improved learner outcomes learners, but could an algorithm ever replace a member of teaching staff ? No, says Hayden. “The tech is only ever a tool – if it does not improve teaching, learning or wellbeing we do not use it,” he concludes.

JO FARAGHER is a freelance journalist and former editor of TES magazine

FirstPass was explored at one of our Special Interest Group events. To attend future events, sign up to our special interest digest topics on your member dashboard and be the first to hear about upcoming events in your areas of interest

LEARNING MATERIALS

AI’S IMPACT ON TEACHING CONTENT In 2019, the Office for National Statistics published an analysis of 20 million jobs in England, predicting which would be at the highest risk of automation. It found that 1.5 million people could be at risk of losing their jobs, particularly in low-skilled and routine roles, while there could be dramatic changes to certain aspects of other professions; all of which will have an impact on the delivery and content of education.

“It will become a far more important part of our lives,” says Liogier. “Colleges could look at how to embed AI into regular courses, whether that’s introducing some coding into a business studies course or students working on crosscurricular projects that harness the benefits of AI.” Further education and training settings will need to work closely with employers on how digital vocational skills

are evolving to ensure what they’re teaching is up to date, she adds.

For example, health and social care courses could begin to look at AI’s role in early diagnosis or alerts that save staff time. The World Economic Forum (WEF) predicts that 97 million new roles could emerge as a result of AI by 2025, so keeping an eye on a fast-changing labour market will be essential.

With machines taking over some tasks, there will be greater emphasis on ‘soft’ skills such as communication, self-management and resilience, the WEF says. Equally, the growing dominance of AI could create ethical issues where algorithms are involved in decision-making, so courses could emerge in this area.

Further education and training settings may choose not to offer full qualifications in complementary AI skills, but we could see the rise of ‘micro-credentials’ being taught alongside or as part of core courses.

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SECTOR FOCUS

INDEPENDENT TRAINING PROVIDERS

hen you consider the number of independent training providers (ITPs) and the variety and importance of their work, it is strange that their contribution to the further education and training sector is sometimes overlooked. There are roughly 1,200 ITPs, accounting for 67 per cent of all further education and training institutions and employing around 25,000 people. Four out of five (80 per cent) of ITPs are rated ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted.

They are all different; a few are large businesses, but many more are small firms, charities or other not-for-profit organisations. They are not run by the public sector, but most are funded at least in part by public money and they are regulated alongside state-run institutions.

ITPs delivered almost two-thirds (64 per cent) of apprenticeships started in 2018-19, according to figures from the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP). But they also work with 30 per cent of all adults in education or training (more than 500,000 people), deliver 56 per cent of all traineeships in the UK, and trained more than 50 per cent of learners who achieved functional skills Level 2 qualifications during 2019-20.

Many have strong track records in working with learners who have special educational needs or young people from economically and socially deprived backgrounds.

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Specialist service Some ITPs specialise in a few areas; others provide much wider ranges of courses and qualifications. For example, Bournemouth-based Paragon Skills focuses on delivering apprenticeships for the care and education sectors, while London and Essex-based ITP AspiretoLearn runs training and courses on subjects including business administration, accounting and finance, education, childcare, social care, and digital marketing. Some ITPs deliver subcontracted services for further education colleges and/or work with specialist

VALUED CONTRIBUTION Independent training providers play an essential role in delivering skills and qualifications to learners of all ages, complementing the work of public sector institutions. But sometimes the value of ITPs can be overlooked, says David Adams subcontractors to deliver training linked to particular professions or trades.

A couple of generalisations can be applied to most ITPs. First, because they are often small and not tied to the term/holiday structure that governs most colleges, many can provide flexible services to employers on a roll-on, roll-off basis. Second, learning and assessments are shaped directly by employers’ requirements. Also, many ITP staff have been recruited directly

from industry, helping to ensure the relevance of their work.

In February 2022, AELP published a research-based report on ITPs: Excellent for learners, value for employers, written by their director of strategy and business development Paul Warner. It concludes that ITPs make “a huge and positive contribution to the skills system” and “constantly innovate and implement provision in

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INDEPENDENT TRAINING PROVIDERS

a timely, effective and economic manner”.

Yet ITPs are also often neglected by government, with policy usually shaped primarily by the priorities of state-run further education and training institutions. This has created problems, including funding discrepancies for the provision of functional skills qualifications for apprentices, and the exclusion of ITPs from capital funding to support T Level provision.

Another problem is the differences in the way ITPs and other further education and training institutions are treated following negative Ofsted reports. While a college receiving a poor rating can expect to enter a process designed to deliver improvements that could take years, an ITP receiving a similar rating might see its contracts terminated early.

The AELP report makes several recommendations for government, including a request for state and public sector bodies to ensure that changes to rules and regulations accommodate the different drivers that underpin ITP activities. “The point is, there’s no good reason why ITPs should be restricted in what they do,” Warner says.

One example of what they can do is the work of east London and Essex-based ITP and charity City Gateway. It provides apprenticeships, traineeships and other workplace training and educational opportunities to people aged 16 to 24 living in economically deprived areas of east London.

These people may have grown up close to the City of London, or the plush office blocks in the city’s Docklands, yet feel they have no connection to them. “We work with employers and those young people, saying ‘You have as much right as anyone to work in those institutions’,” says Mark Pike, City Gateway’s head of education and inclusion.

P H O T O G R A P H Y: C I T Y G AT E WAY

Changing picture The pandemic has created new challenges for the organisation, including steeply increasing the demand for traineeships for 16- to 18 year-olds, but also causing some falls in demand for apprenticeships among those aged 19 or over.

The precise reasons are uncertain, but there is some evidence that the cohort of

80%

The proportion of ITPs rated good or outstanding by Ofsted

64% The proportion of apprenticeships delivered by ITPs in 2018-19

25,000 T

he num 16- to 18 year-olds ber of people emplo emerging from two

by ITP yed years of pandemics disrupted education are suffering from mental health issues and are more likely to have poor maths and English skills, which restricts other education or training opportunities. Meanwhile, some of those aged 19 and over are desperate to start earning money during difficult economic times. “Committing to a longterm training programme doesn’t meet their needs,” says Pike.

Another challenge is supporting larger numbers of learners with extra educational needs. “The additional support requirements are not funded,” Pike says. “It’s something you would normally cost under an educational healthcare plan, but we don’t have access to that.” The organisation is in discussion with local authorities to find a financially sustainable solution.

Staffing challenges for ITPs generally differ from those faced by other further education and training institutions.

About 80 per cent of ITP staff work full-time, compared with 46 per cent of staff in further education colleges; also,

SECTOR FOCUS

95 per cent are on permanent contracts, compared with fewer than 50 per cent of college staff. But salaries in ITPs also tend to be lower than in colleges, where workforces are more likely to be unionised and enjoy better employee benefits packages. Consequently, ITPs often lose talented staff to colleges.

Unfair perception Meanwhile, the fact that some ITPs are profit-generating businesses means they may be subject to prejudice in the broader further education and training sector – but this is usually unfair, says Paul Kessell-Holland FSET, national head of curriculum design projects at the Education and Training Foundation.

“You don’t get profiteering,” he says.

“You get people making sure their business can survive if they have a lean time. If an ITP doesn’t adapt to the changing market, then it won’t be there in two years’ time.” During the pandemic, ITPs received much less government support than colleges and some went out of business, meaning valuable expertise and services developed to meet specific needs have been lost, he points out.

It is impossible to predict what the future holds for such a varied and swiftly evolving part of the further education and training landscape. An optimistic view would be that many ITPs are genuinely innovative and produce excellent results for learners and employers. A pessimistic view would reflect the way they are treated by policymakers.

As Warner writes in the AELP report, there should be another way: “by working with them, policymakers, regulators and funding authorities have the opportunity to make an enormous positive impact on skills delivery across the country”.

Pike agrees, stressing the need for ITPs and the broader further education and training community to help ensure this is the case through further engagement with policymakers. He adds that this is because, as well as meeting employers’ and employees’ training needs, “ITPs make such a huge difference in terms of changing people’s life chances.” Their value really should not be underestimated.

DAVID ADAMS is a freelance journalist

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FEATURE

ADVANCED TEACHER STATUS

RAISING STANDARDS The Advanced Teacher Status programme aims to drive professionalism in the further education and training sector, and give teachers the opportunity to reflect and improve

CONVERSATIONS ABOUT TEACHING AND LEARNING HAPPEN OVER COFFEE IN THE STAFF ROOM t’s five years since Advanced Teacher Status (ATS) was launched to recognise experienced teaching and training professionals in the further education and training sector. As well as inspiring individual staff to reflect on their own teaching and learning practice, organisations that have supported their staff in gaining ATS report improvements to how they approach and discuss pedagogy as a whole, as well as their ability to attract and retain high-calibre teaching staff.

“Individuals commit to supporting and developing colleagues when they undertake ATS, and an improvement project designed to have benefits outside the classroom as well as in it is a large part of their programme,” says Andrew Dowell MSET QTLS, head of professional status and standards at the

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Education and Training Foundation (ETF).

Walsall College is just one institution seeing the benefits, both personally and professionally. The focus is not only on teachers pursuing ATS, but also on preparing experienced practitioners at an earlier stage in their career.

A number of teachers have been supported by the ETF’s Advanced Practitioner Connect programme (Skylark Pathway), which provides funding for existing advanced practitioners (APs) to build their confidence before moving on to ATS. “Some of our APs were not quite ready, but we didn’t want to leave anyone out,” explains Sarah Cattell, workforce development and innovation manager.

As with ATS, staff complete a self-assessment against the Professional Standards at the beginning and end of the programme so they can reflect on their

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ADVANCED TEACHER STATUS

practice. “They get continuous professional development but also meet other practitioners outside the college to trial new techniques and models,” she adds.

So far, 13 Walsall staff have started ATS and five are working through the APConnect programme supported by other practitioners on the Skylark Pathway. The wider benefit for the college has been in the confidence staff have in discussing the pedagogy behind their teaching and learning.

Mozz Baker MSET QTLS, an advanced practitioner in construction, says learner input into his 360-degree review was both humbling and informative. “It has given me a huge amount of food for thought, and from that I will be able to implement further improvements to my practice over the coming year,” he adds.

Development strategy At Guernsey Institute, ATS also forms part of a wider professional development strategy. Around four years ago, the institute stopped formal lesson observations and instead asks teachers to review themselves and their peers against the ETF’s Professional Standards.

“Often observations are branded as professional development, but people know they’re being observed so they’re not useful as a measure of quality,” says Martine Ellis FSET ATS, professional development manager.

Staff choose a single pedagogy-related skill they want to develop over the coming academic year and are allocated a member of the advanced practitioner team to support them. “It’s like a supported experiment: they’re not being judged, we want them to innovate,” Ellis explains. Past examples include keeping a reflective learning journal or exploring different approaches to assessment with learners.

There has been more collaboration and greater willingness to take ownership for professional development, Ellis believes. “Conversations about teaching and learning happen over coffee in the staff room, which is really positive,” she says.

Communities of practice Forming communities of practice is one of the lasting benefits of expanding discussions around professional development. Chloë Hynes MSET ATS, creative development officer at Claire Collins Consultancy, was completing her own ATS year in 2021 when she

FEATURE

I WILL BE ABLE TO IMPLEMENT FURTHER IMPROVEMENTS TO MY PRACTICE OVER THE COMING YEAR saw a need for a community to share stories and challenges after the pandemic shifted teaching online.

She says: “I built an online ‘staffroom’ where teachers could have ‘digital sandpits’, go into breakout rooms, and try out tools such as Mentimeter.”

Alongside experimenting with their digital skills, the community was a space where practitioners could check in with each other for professional and social support. “We ran a session every fortnight and spent around a third of it asking how people were,” she adds.

Hynes also built a virtual ATS café to meet up with other practitioners in their ATS year, as well as a further education reading circle. “We did writing rooms and reflective diaries together, and tried out things for our final observations,” she says. “It was a safe space where I could reflect with other practitioners and see people from other organisations.

Being able to check in was so important – I don’t know how I would have got through ATS without them.”

Tangible impact The range of projects submitted by the most recent ATS cohort shows the value the professional standard can have at an organisational level. Jacqui Scott FSET ATS at Riverside College in Warrington introduced a way of using video observations to help underperforming teachers reflect on and improve their practice; Helen Sonnenfeld MSET ATS from the education services team in Cumbria, Northumberland and Tyne and Wear, looked at the role of literacy and numeracy skills in secure care recovery pathways; and Mine Tana MSET ATS from Barnet and Southgate College developed a bespoke teaching framework including a set of digital teaching tools aligned to the 5E model of instruction.

Dowell sees ATS as “a way to support advanced teachers to develop themselves, as they’re often so busy developing everyone else”. As these examples show, encouraging staff to reach the pinnacle of their career can have lasting benefits for teachers and the wider workforce alike.

ATS holders must re-accredit every three years. The ETF recently held its first ATS re-accreditation event. Find out more on page 37

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RESEARCH AND INSIGHT FROM THE FURTHER EDUCATION SECTOR

utonomy is an important concept in education – one that we as teachers instinctively know we should promote. We recognise that creating an autonomy-supportive environment will help learners develop the ability to organise their own learning. We also know that learning autonomously makes for more personalised and thus more relevant learning.

According to psychologist Edward L. Deci, autonomy is essential in fostering competence.

Not only does it promote intrinsic motivation, without which gaining mastery would be a much more arduous process, but also it allows us to feel competent and to flourish (Deci & Flaste, 1995).

Interest in the subject matter and willingness to learn are other necessary prerequisites for successful individual learning as they enable learners to engage in deeper learning processes (for example, Andre & Windschitl, 2003; Pintrich, 2003; Ryan & Powelson, 1991 in Furtak and Kutner, 2012).

Of course, sometimes making the subject matter interesting to all learners is easier said than done, yet creating an autonomysupportive environment can help here too. It seems that affording learners more autonomy over their own learning process may help them to engage in meaningful learning activities and ultimately achieve favourable outcomes (Furtak and Kutner, 2012).

Autonomy features prominently in language learning. In a study titled Motivation and autonomy in learning English as foreign

A

Independent en thinkers

Granting learners the power to control their own learning can increase motivation and enable them to see more real-world applications for their study.

Dr Marcin Lewandowski FSET draws on his own research and that of others to apply this to learners in an ESOL setting

language, researcher Jorge Cevallos and colleagues argue that autonomy plays an important role in the process of learning a second language because it “allows learners to materialise their learning aspirations through hard work and persistent dedication” (Cevallos et al, 2017). Whether independently or in collaboration with others, autonomous learners will take more responsibility for learning and are likely to be more effective than those that rely on the teacher (Cevallos et al, 2017).

Autonomy is not a new concept. As early as 1978, in an article titled Successful language

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AUTONOMY IN ESOL

learners: What do we know about them?, researcher A. C. Omaggio lists seven key characteristics and behaviours of autonomous learners that make them more effective at learning languages.

As such, autonomous learners: DR MARCIN LEWANDOWSKI have insights into their learning FSET is head of styles and strategies learning at Action take an active approach to the West London and learning task at hand an academic tutor are willing to take risks (in at Sunderland University. His other words, to communicate in most recent the target language at all costs) research looked are good guessers at the individual attend to form as well as learning plan and the goal-setting to content – that is, placing methodology importance on accuracy as underlying this well as appropriacy article and sought develop the target language to establish into a separate reference system if it could be re-engineered and are willing to revise and and ‘dereject hypotheses and rules institutionalised’ that do not apply to foster learner have a tolerant and outgoing autonomy and promote out-ofapproach to the target language. classroom learning (Omaggio, 1978, cited in Thanasoulas, 2000) These characteristics have clearly stood the test of time and are still relevant today. They also remind us why it is so important to help learners become more independent.

Harnessing autonomy Learner autonomy may well be an important factor in successful learning; however, for all its benefits, expecting autonomous behaviour from learners too soon may backfire. Not all learners will have the psycho-cognitive skills required to take full advantage of such learning freedoms. The characteristics described

by Omaggio take time to develop, and teachers do play an important role in facilitating this process.

To this end, teachers use a number of techniques to help learners develop independent learning skills in the classroom. Depending on the learners’ current skills or educational background, this may start with a ‘weaning off ’ period, during which teachers may use a combination of learner-centred classroom management strategies, such as pair and group work, self and peer correction, peer support and teaching, and move to a provision of freer learning activities as learners grow in confidence. These activities may involve project work where learners are responsible for different aspects of the task such as researching information independently, agreeing on what is and isn’t relevant, writing up a report and so on.

Lessons from practitioner researchers Recent studies by practitioner researchers on the Education and Training Foundation (ETF) Practitioner Research Programme have examined this aspect of teaching and learning. Their findings confirm that autonomy is worth pursuing.

Autonomous goals Setting goals to increase language use outside the classroom was the theme of my own research (Lewandowski, 2021). More specifically, I wanted to see if individual learning plans could be re-engineered to serve that purpose more effectively.

In designing the study, I was keen to recreate the conditions under which we would normally set goals – namely, linking learning goals to things that were personally important to learners.

To do this, I had to establish the reasons why they were in class in the first place. By framing goalsetting around things that were important to my learners, I was able to establish a link between the classroom and the outside world.

It was also clear to me that learners would not only have to decide what their goals were but also make all the decisions related to pursuing and achieving them, such as when and what to study with whom, and so on. In other words, they would have to have full autonomy over their actions.

I discovered that goals set by learners themselves are not only more relevant but also more meaningful. Because they were responsible for setting and completing tasks related to their course goals on a weekly basis, learners were more likely to use and practise English outside of the classroom. Being fully autonomous also meant they were more motivated to complete their goals and more likely to seek solutions when faced with obstacles.

THE KNOWLEDGE

Task autonomy Autonomy is also at play in a study designed by Dr Sarah Peters FSET, an English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) practitioner at Hull College. Dissatisfied with the linear, predictable and heavily scripted nature of the teaching materials she had been using, Peters (2020) decided to explore the concept of reading and writing circles – groups of learners working together towards developing a shared understanding of a text or a task before producing their own work. To facilitate the process, learners were assigned roles such as discussion leader, summariser, connector, word master, and so on. This allowed them to take responsibility for certain aspects of the task and to lead on them.

Peters discovered that the structure underpinning writing circles creates space for cognitive autonomy to emerge, which “encourages learners to freely discuss, question, debate and justify a range of issues and possible solutions together, thereby drawing on individual and group critical thinking with guidance from a teacher” (Peters, 2020). As such, interactions within circles depart from the linear and scripted coursebook dialogues and become more akin to the natural and often unpredictable interactions outside the classroom.

Moreover, the spontaneity of conversations within circles, coupled with learners’ varied language competence, can lead to errors and breakdowns in communication. Peters observes that this can create useful language learning opportunities while providing invaluable lessons in overcoming such breakdowns and dealing with frustration.

Peters also describes organisational and procedural autonomy (learners being able to choose their own groups

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THE KNOWLEDGE

AUTONOMY IN ESOL

or group members, and their own materials, respectively), although she observes that reading/ writing circles don’t support these types of autonomy well.

Community settings However, organisational and procedural autonomy are very evident in a study by Sophia White FSET ATS, a practitioner researcher who supports Syrian refugees in community learning settings.

White (2021) investigates the effects of informal learning environments, such as community classes, on language learning.

More specifically, she looks at two types of provision: firstly gardening and cookery classes, where the focus is on the development of practical skills with embedded language learning opportunities; and what she calls ‘pre-formal’ or ‘emergency ESOL’ classes, where learners practise essential language skills to be able to accomplish day-to-day tasks.

Both offer opportunities for learners to develop language skills without the pressures of formal learning contexts such as tests/ exams or strict attendance rules. As White argues, these are often the reason why many learners drop out of formal ESOL provision.

Cognitive autonomy is at play in the skills classes, which provide immersive learning opportunities akin to free language practice where new language is introduced spontaneously and naturally, and learners use their full linguistic repertoire to accomplish the task.

Meanwhile, the emergency ESOL classes offer opportunities for procedural and organisational autonomy to emerge.

White suggests the informal nature of community classes affords teachers freedom and flexibility, allowing them to respond to learners’ needs

whenever they arise.

In the classes she describes, learners not only negotiate and shape the content of the course but also are the source of content on a lesson-bylesson basis.

When considered relevant to the group, a range of issues brought up by learners – such as dental and medical appointments – are discussed in the class and in the language that is being practised. White observes that this format allows for more relevant and meaningful language learning (2021).

Porous classrooms In his article P is for Postmodern method, author and linguist

References and further information Cevallos J, Intriago E, Villafuerte J, Garzón G. and Arcia L. (2017) Motivation and Autonomy in Learning English as Foreign Language: A Case Study of Ecuadorian College Students. English Language Teaching, 10(2), 100-113 Deci EL and Flaste R. (1995) Why we do what we do: Understanding self-motivation. New York: Penguin Furtak EM and Kutner M. (2012) Effects of AutonomySupportive Teaching on Student Learning and Motivation, The Journal of Experimental Education, 80(3), 284-316 Lewandowski M. (2021) Beyond Individual Learning Plans – exploring goal setting with adult learners. Doctoral thesis, University of Sunderland Peters S. (2020) Integrated circles and learner autonomy in the adult ESOL classroom, Language Issues, 31(2), 118-132 Thanasoulas D. (2000). What is learner autonomy and how can it be fostered? The Internet TESL Journal, 6(11), 37-48 Thornbury S. (2012) P is for Postmodern Method.

Available at bit.ly/PforPost White S. (2021) An investigation into the value of informal and experiential learning with Syrian refugees in the ESOL context. Masters thesis, University of Sunderland. Available at bit.ly/SyriaESOL

Scott Thornbury refers to Michael Breen’s concept of “porous classrooms in which the boundaries between the classroom, the school, the society, and the world are weak and permeable” (Breen, 1999 cited in Thornbury, 2012). Classrooms become places where the teacher and the teaching materials are no longer the sole sources of knowledge but rather a “place from which knowledge of language and its use is sought by teacher and learners together; the classroom walls become its windows” (Breen, 1999, cited in Thornbury, 2012).

The examples above demonstrate how such porous classrooms could emerge spontaneously in an autonomysupportive learning environment.

By carefully harnessing autonomy in their classrooms, these teachers were not only able to ensure greater learner engagement and participation but also created conditions under which learners could decide what was important to them and set their own goals, consider the target language in the context of their own experiences or troubleshoot real-life issues.

Inevitably, this led to more relevant and more authentic language practice.

However, it is quite apparent that it takes autonomy to give autonomy. In other words, teachers themselves need autonomy over the design and outcomes of their courses to create autonomy-supportive conditions.

This is not always easy; strict funding and audit regimes, and the pursuit of success rates linked to test and exam performance rather than mastery, are a few examples why some teachers may struggle to create autonomy for themselves.

But when they do, the results can be impactful.

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FUNCTIONAL SKILLS ENGLISH

THE KNOWLEDGE

Extra-curricular activity With many learners arriving in further education with a sense of failure around Functional Skills, a project at Solihull College aimed to change the narrative by giving learners the opportunity to ‘re-story’ themselves.

Kerry Scattergood MSET QTLS explains how they went about it ractitioner research is an empowering tool for professional development, and developing teacher agency. It’s also addictive. My interest in practitioner research started when I had the opportunity to use my own practice as an area for inquiry for an undergraduate course.

While only very small-scale, the lessons I learnt from it were not only practice-changing but have shaped my pedagogy as a teacher.

In further education, we sometimes suffer from a bit of imposter syndrome around the ‘teacher’ label, due to being first and foremost vocational professionals (I was a graphic designer before I became a teacher). This therefore seems to me to be a really powerful and empowering opportunity to help shape us as teachers. Further education is so context-focused, which is often overlooked in wider research circles. As Lawrence Stenhouse believed, there is a lot of research published on ‘the world’, but not much on ‘the village’ (1981).

I currently teach Functional Skills English, although I perceive myself as a basic skills teacher: in essence, teaching literacy to adults. The Functional Skills qualifications were developed in reaction to employers, who felt that 16-18-year-olds, even those with GCSEs, were not employment-ready when they left school. The suite of Functional Skills qualifications was actually

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designed with employers, with a focus on employability.

For my learners, this has led to a disconnect between the focus of Functional Skills and learners’ own everyday lives and aspirations. Most of my learners are adults enrolled on Level 1 and Level 2; as adults, they have their own motivations for returning to learning.

My first project made me more aware of how and why learners write, and of ways we can relate to that in classrooms to help them develop their own academic literacy skills. Writing is thinking (Vygotsky, 1986), but many of our learners come into further education unclear of how to write effectively for purpose.

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THE KNOWLEDGE

FUNCTIONAL SKILLS ENGLISH

ALL OUR LEARNERS HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO RESHAPE THEMSELVES THROUGHOUT THEIR TIME IN FURTHER EDUCATION That said, some of our learners also enter further education feeling that they are academic failures in some way, often telling stories of being ‘no good at school’; this anxiety can be particularly heightened around English and maths failure. I applied for the Education and Training Foundation-funded Practitioner Research Programme to enable me to explore these concepts in greater depth. The project covered an academic year, including tasks across the curriculum.

Starting point At the beginning of all English and maths courses, learners are asked to complete an initial assessment. Traditionally, this is a quantitative tool of assessment because the purpose is to ascertain what level they are working at. In English, learners also often complete a first piece of writing for diagnostic purposes, which is used to ascertain what skills they can achieve within their level and to highlight areas of development.

In my college, we used a letterwriting task, where learners had to write offering a donation to a charity, which seemed to me to be a missed opportunity to gather more qualitative data about their motivations for study. Instead of the usual letter, I asked my learners to write a letter to me, as their tutor, to introduce themselves, say why they had decided to enrol on

the programme, and what they wanted to do next. I could use this not only to look at their skills in writing a letter, but also to understand their motivations for study a little better.

The motivations for study were varied: “I want to apply for a teaching assistant course” “Since Covid started and many people lost their lives, it made me think about mine a little more” “Me at 15 didn’t think education was at all important; it wasn’t until I had my children that I realised how much I had missed and how much they enjoyed and gained from learning” These motivations for study made a good starting point for the project, giving opportunities to develop relevant curriculum tasks in line with learners’ aspirations and realities. Many of the tasks available for teaching Functional Skills are employment-focused, but there is no reason we can’t develop our own. In the early days of my basic skills career, it was very common for learners on all sorts of programmes to write for ‘real’ reasons, including about their experiences of education, and often for publication, such as in college newsletters.

The year before I started my research project, some of my learners had contributed to a research project writing about their own experiences, and we had ‘published’ a class book. These

KERRY SCATTERGOOD MSET QTLS is further education research coach at Solihull College & University Centre, and sits on the Research College Group steering group

were not only a source of pride, but also an opportunity for my learners and myself to explore meaningful curriculum tasks, which we wrote for real reasons.

I don’t think any of this will be unfamiliar to anyone who is a basic skills tutor, or any other foundation tutors, because using real reading and writing tasks were very common in practice in the pre-Functional Skills days. However, it does seem increasingly uncommon in current practice, and using standards within Functional Skills English appears to lend itself to ‘teaching to the test’.

This is not the fault of teachers, but is perhaps an unintended consequence of a curriculum designed around employability.

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FUNCTIONAL SKILLS ENGLISH

THE KNOWLEDGE

Assessment pathway INITIAL ASSESSMENT

classroom, giving learners some flexibility when choosing their topics. The group chose to revisit the initial assessment questions, but this time asked themselves: what was my motivation for joining the programme, what have I learned on the programme, and what do I want to do next?

Impact on learners

Once I had developed the initial assessment task, the next step was to develop other curriculum tasks within the programme that were accessible and in line with learners’ motivations. Learners reported that this gave them the opportunity to build confidence in more familiar tasks before expanding their writing through more unfamiliar contexts and in writing for purpose.

The final stage of the project was co-developed with the learners themselves, as a small cohort of contributors within the project identified they could revisit their initial assessment task for their final summative assessment.

Although reading and writing are assessed through standardised tests, the speaking and listening assessment is assessed within the

This gave learners the opportunity to revisit and to ‘re-story’ themselves (Connelly and Clandinin, 1990). Those stories of educational failure can be turned around into stories of educational success. As both learners and teachers, we can retell our own stories and in shaping and reshaping our stories, we “form and reform who (we) have been, are presently and hope to become” (McAlpine, 2016).

All our learners have the opportunity to reshape themselves throughout their time in further education. Therefore, these tasks offer an opportunity not only as real curriculum tasks but are also meaning-making both for me as a practitioner researcher and for the learners participating.

Furthermore, it enabled clarity in learning new writing styles.

I had often found that trying to learn a new style of writing, with all the implications of learning different styles and tones of writing, was harder if learners were simultaneously trying to ‘make up’ the scenario that they’d been asked to write about (see the charity letter example above).

However, once learners became more confident in writing in different ways, such as a narrative or a blog, they were then more

CURRICULUM TASKS

SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT

confident in approaching less familiar tasks. This has worked as a form of scaffolding: supporting learners in the early stages, and then allowing them to practise with less familiar writing.

The opportunity to research my own practice and to develop a curriculum offers a great chance to improve teaching, learning and assessment. There is a Lawrence Stenhouse quote that is very popular in teacher-researcher circles: “It’s not enough that teachers’ work should be studied: they need to study it themselves” (1975).

At risk of stating the obvious, practitioner research gives us an opportunity to better understand our practice. I’d hazard most teachers are too busy in their daily work to spend a lot of time pondering educational theory outside the classroom.

But most are ingrained in their practice without necessarily thinking about it too much, so any inquiry is an opportunity for improvement.

References and further reading Connelly F and Clandinin D. (1990) Stories of Experience and Narrative Inquiry. Educational Researcher, 19(5) 2-14 McAlpine L. (2016) Why might you use narrative methodology? A story about narrative. Eesti Haridusteaduste Ajakiri, 4(1) 32-57. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.12697/eha.2016.4.1.02b Stenhouse L. (1975) An Introduction to Curriculum Research and Development. Oxford: Heinemann Stenhouse L. (1981) What Counts as Research? British Journal of Educational Studies, 29(2) 103-114 Vygotsky L. (1986) Thought and language.

Cambridge, Ma.: MIT Press.

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THE KNOWLEDGE

CRITICAL THINKING

Shades of grey The digital media age has made it even harder for people to distinguish between real and fake news, and everything in between. That only makes it all the more important that critical literacy skills are taught from a young age, says Stacey Stevens n the modern age, our increasing reliance on digital information sources is well documented. In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, the implications of this, as well as the role of social media and the 24-hour news cycle, have been drawn into sharp focus.

In May 2020, two months into the first UK lockdown, a survey found more than a fifth of people in England thought the coronavirus was a hoax (University of Oxford, 2020, cited in Young, 2020). By March 2021, YouTube had removed more than 30,000 videos within five months that contained misinformation regarding Covid-19 vaccinations (BBC, 2021).

Against this backdrop, a report by the National Literacy Trust found that only two per cent of children and young people had the critical literacy skills they required to tell a fake news story

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STACEY STEVENS is an English lecturer at Shipley College in Saltaire, West Yorkshire

from a real one. Correspondingly, 54 per cent of teachers believed the National Curriculum did not equip children with the literacy skills they needed to identify fake news (National Literacy Trust, 2018).

Critical literacy Critical literacy is the ability of a reader to understand a text in its social and historical context, including the dynamic between themselves and the author, rather than absorbing it in a passive manner.(Freire, 1970).

This research focused on two specific models of critical literacy. Firstly, the ‘four resources’ model of Luke and Freebody (1999), which champions learners fostering four essential roles: Code-breaking: recognising the fundamental structure of written texts and using this to break down the information within them

Meaning-making: comprehending and creating meaningful texts in a variety of formats using an understanding of literal and inferential detail Text-using: using texts in functional ways and distinguishing purpose Text-analysing: critically analysing texts and acknowledging the perspectives and influence inherent in them, including the identification of bias and reflecting on an issue from different points of view The second model, adopted by Hinrichsen and Coombs (2013), updated this framework to embed digital elements within critical literacy by expanding the four original resources. Accordingly, the role of code-breaking became ‘decoding’: enhancing the breakdown of textual structure to include the conventions and lexical fields of digital formats.

Meaning-making was updated

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CRITICAL THINKING

making” now required. Finally, the four updated resources were supplemented by a fifth, ‘persona’, in which learners would need to develop an understanding of online personae in different contexts and acknowledge their role as participants and co-creators.

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Further investigation

to incorporate an understanding of the hypertextual nature of digital and network-based texts, as well as the added complexity of interpersonal interactions in online communities.

Text-using was adapted to take into account the shift from specialist and organisationally controlled practices to individual and group production of texts, as well as the wide availability of presentational design options and various format creation tools, resulting in a need to be aware of more fluid and constantly developing conventions.

Additionally, text-analysing was extended to consider the issue of anonymous digital authors in online spheres, and the vital role critical evaluation plays in establishing the validity of content created online as well as the ideology behind it. In terms of digital text production, Hinrichson and Coombs note the “legal, ethical and moral decision-

As an English lecturer at a further education and training college, I was intrigued as to why critical literacy remained problematic for young people in the UK and what role the English Language GCSE played in instilling critical literacy skills in the digital age.

My research took place in two West Yorkshire further education and training colleges, with teachers of learners aged 16-19 undertaking GCSE English Language. These learners have not achieved a Grade 4 at school or in their previous educational institutions, and are retaking the exams for perhaps the first or second time.

A case study was chosen in order to generate the rich data needed to illuminate teachers’ personal experiences and perspectives.

To increase the validity of the findings, a mixed methods approach was taken. A survey was distributed to teachers in both institutions, with a selection of closed questions and one optional open question for additional information. This ensured that data was clear and concise, enabling patterns to be observed with validity and reliability.

A semi-structured interview was then created, with a list of 12 probe questions to guide the discussion while encouraging respondents to elaborate on the subject matter in an open and individualistic way. There were three essential themes: barriers and approaches; the impact of the digital media age; and curriculum. From the nine respondents to the initial survey,

THE KNOWLEDGE

four individuals self-selected to participate in the interviews.

Findings: barriers to critical literacy One of the key findings was the general agreement that wider literacy skills remained a central barrier to critical literacy development in the digital age.

While all respondents noted the significant role digital literacy had to play, wider literacy skills persisted as a major obstacle in the teaching and learning of critical literacy.

The research also found that the digital era itself generated considerable barriers for learners in terms of their critical literacy.

People may now have more choice in the sources of information they access and the stories they read, but with this power shift comes the potential for young people to limit their exposure to topics beyond their immediate interest.

Respondents observed that this ‘echo chamber’, created either knowingly by the individual or through algorithmic direction by search engines or social media, resulted in learners who lacked the ability or willingness to access texts with difficult or unusual topics, and who were therefore unable to critically assess them.

Additionally, respondents claimed learners were unwilling or unable to access long-form text due to their being accustomed to short-form digital literature.

This may be seen as a further consequence of the internet ‘rabbit hole’, but may also be drawn from the impact of an excess of information; in the face of limitless data, many young people perhaps respond by absorbing less.

In the ‘post-truth’ era, interview respondents reported their learners’ general distrust, both of media and organisations. As a result, conspiracy theories and misinformation were commonly

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THE KNOWLEDGE

CRITICAL THINKING

referred to and believed by their learners, with implications for their health and wellbeing. One participant noted the tendency to rely on “social consensus”, with learners’ views often “biased to what their parents think, what the people around them think”, while another claimed to have six or seven learners in one teaching group who “thought the whole Covid thing was a load of rubbish” due to what they had read online in social media spheres.

Respondents gave a mixed view of the opportunities the GCSE curriculum provides to develop critical literacy skills. Where some participants spoke of finding the opportunities inherent in the curriculum in terms of text choice and approaches in the classroom, others lamented the rigid devotion to older text forms and historic literature. This approach, it was argued, further held learners back from accessing the context of the literature. In addition, the criteria for Grade 4 was challenged, with respondents noting that critical skills generally fell within the higher grading requirements, meaning learners were able to achieve the passing grade without necessarily gaining a good standard of critical literacy.

Survey data For your students, do you feel the main barriers to critical literacy lie in...

Specifically digital literacy learning Wider literacy learning Both

44.4% 55.6%

Developmental factors The finding that many learners enter further education without a good standard of general literacy is, of course, not groundbreaking. The factors that affect the development of an individual learner’s literacy are numerous: SEND needs and how these have been met are one clear consideration; attendance and engagement in literacy education are another. But research suggests parental involvement in activities pertaining to a child’s literacy is the most important factor in linguistic development, with family participation in a child’s school life deemed to be the major

Literacy Trust, 2022), as well as an extra month of learning loss specifically in reading (Department for Education 2021b, cited in National Literacy Trust, 2022).

Further education and training is perhaps seen as a safety net for those who do not attain Grade 4 at GCSE the first time around, but learners can only make up so much ground if they have not gained a sufficient base of general literacy proficiency when they enter our classrooms. Against this backdrop, the study highlighted approaches further education and training educators can take to best support their learners in overcoming barriers to critical literacy.

Taking action

predictor of achievement at 16 years old (McCoy and Cole, 2011).

A major consideration for further education and training educators is the attainment gap for disadvantaged learners, with twice the number of 16- to 18-yearolds from lower socioeconomic backgrounds attending further education colleges than sixth forms (Social Mobility Commission, 2019). By the time they finish compulsory education, children from disadvantaged backgrounds in England are typically around three years behind the highest income learners in their reading skills (Jerrim and Shure, 2016).

Disruption resulting from Covid-19 has only exacerbated the issue. Secondary schools with higher proportions of disadvantaged learners have apparently experienced 50 per cent greater learning losses than those serving higher-income communities (Department for Education, 2021b, cited in National

The key approach educators advocated for overcoming barriers in the classroom puts the learner at the centre of teaching and learning practice. Rather than trying to make the learner fit the curriculum, respondents reported their efforts in making the curriculum fit the learner. Participants explained how they mirrored their learners’ shortform online interactions by cutting long-form extracts into shorterform excerpts, or asking learners to access one element of the text as opposed to an overarching theme. In this way, teaching and learning was designed around developing the same skills in a more accessible format.

Where learners may be reluctant to access texts outside of historical and social contexts with which they are familiar, respondents recommended drawing comparisons between issues and concerns from the past and those of the modern world. Respondents argued that text choice is paramount, and the ability to choose fiction and non-fiction literature that reflects the experiences and interests of learners as closely as possible, while still meeting the requirements of the curriculum,

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CRITICAL THINKING

was deemed vital. Clearly, there is also a need to ensure a range of digital texts is included in any contemporary curriculum.

Further to this, participants spoke of the importance of harnessing their learners’ strengths through co-creation of learning activities. By centring learning around what learners could do, critical literacy skills could be embedded in learners’ existing skillsets.

Respondents recommended there should be regular opportunities for learners to conduct scaffolded independent internet research, followed by in-depth discussion of their findings as a class. A whole-group debate format was particularly favoured, helping learners to develop confidence in their voices and embedding opportunities to question and compare perspectives, recognising inconsistent representations of the issues at hand.

RESPONDENTS SPOKE OF THE IMPORTANCE OF BUILDING A SUPPORTIVE ATMOSPHERE IN THE CLASSROOM

If you've been working on an interesting research project and would like to write about it, let us know! Email nick.martindale@ redactive.co.uk

The vital element of such activities in terms of critical literacy development would be in training learners to examine the validity of the information they find. Encouraging learners to check sources, search for context around an issue, and check who is sharing the information and what their motivation might be serves to develop skills in recognising disinformation and misinformation when reading outside the classroom.

The Education and Training Foundation’s Enhance Digital Teaching Platform (enhance. etfoundation.co.uk) provides numerous resources to support

THE KNOWLEDGE

teachers and learners in this endeavour.

Giving learners the space and support needed to question and debate was also recommended in tackling the echo chamber of digital information sources. If there is indeed a growing culture that is highly influenced by online communities and practices, and in which questions that may lead to difficult or uncomfortable discussions are ostensibly discouraged and polarised blackand-white views are promoted, the classroom must be the place to counteract this.

Respondents spoke of the importance of building a supportive atmosphere in the classroom, in which learners could feel comfortable and confident in sharing their thoughts and ideas – and, vitally, where these could be challenged without either party fearing reprimand or ridicule.

References and further reading BBC (2021) YouTube deletes 30,000 vaccine misinfo videos.

BBC News online, 12 March 2021.

Available at: www.bbc.co.uk/news/ technology-56372184 Clark C and Picton I. (2021) Children and young people’s reading engagement in 2021: Emerging insight into the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on reading.

Available at: www.cdn.literacytrust. org.uk/media/documents/Reading_ in_2021.pdf Department for Education (2013) English language GCSE subject content and assessment objectives.

Available from: assets.publishing. service.gov.uk/government/ uploads/system/uploads/ attachment_data/file/254497/ GCSE_English_language.pdf Department for Education (2021a) The reading framework: teaching the foundations of literacy. Available at: www.gov. uk/government/publications/thereading-framework-teaching-thefoundations-of-literacy

Department for Education (2021b) Understanding progress in the 2020/21 academic year: complete findings from the Autumn term.

Available at: assets.publishing. service.gov.uk/government/ uploads/system/uploads/ attachment_data/file/994350/ Understanding_Progress_in_ the_2020_21_Academic_Year_ Report_2.pdf Freire P. (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. London: Penguin Modern Classics.

Hinrichsen J and Coombs A. (2013) The five resources of critical digital literacy: a framework for curriculum integration. Research in Learning Technology, 21. Available at: doi. org/10.3402/rlt.v21.21334 House of Lords (2020) Digital Technology and the Resurrection of Trust. House of Lords.

Available at: committees. parliament.uk/publications/1634/ documents/17731/default/

Jerrim J and Shure N. (2016) Achievement of 15-year-olds in England: PISA 2015 national report.

Available at: assets.publishing. service.gov.uk/government/uploads/ system/uploads/attachment_data/ file/574925/PISA-2015_England_ Report.pdf

National Literacy Trust (2022) COVID-19 and literacy: The attainment gap and learning loss.

Available at: literacytrust.org.uk/ information/what-is-literacy/ covid-19-and-literacy/covid-19and-literacy-the-attainment-gapand-learning-loss

Luke A and Freebody P. (1999) A map of possible practices: Further notes on the four resources model.

Practically Primary, 4(2), 5-8.

Social Mobility Commission (2019) State of the nation 2018-19: social mobility in Great Britain.

Available at: assets.publishing. service.gov.uk/government/ uploads/system/uploads/ attachment_data/file/798404/ SMC_State_of_the_Nation_ Report_2018-19.pdf.

McCoy E and Cole J. (2011) A snapshot of local support for literacy: 2010 survey. London: National Literacy Trust.

National Learning and Work Institute (2016) Skills and poverty Building an anti-poverty learning and skills system. Available at: learningandwork.org.uk/wp-content/ uploads/2020/07/Skills-and-Povertybuilding-an-anti-poverty-learningand-skills-system.pdf National Literacy Trust (2018) Fake news and critical literacy.

National Literacy Trust.

University of Oxford (2020), cited in Young S. (2020) Coronavirus: more than a fifth of people in England believe Covid-19 is a hoax. The Independent,. 22 May 2020. Available at: www. independent.co.uk/life-style/ health-and-families/coronavirusconspiracy-theories-hoaxgovernment-misleading-manmade-survey-a9527876.html

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TIPS AND RESOURCES TO HELP YOU MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR MEMBERSHIP

MEMBERS’ CORNER

GET SOCIAL

Plea follo se use a n w ou r has d htag to se et featu he latest res inTu from ition

#SETi nTuiti on THE FORUM

Planning ahead t’s been a busy few months for the SET team and no doubt our members too.

As we head into the summer months, I hope you’ve got something nice planned.

I’m delighted to share some great news with you: Ellie Locke, our membership engagement manager, had her baby in the spring, and we also said hello to Catherine Vale, who joins the team for the next 12 months.

We recorded the highest ever membership numbers for the year ending March 2022 – 22,737 sector practitioners and leaders are now part of our growing community.

So a very warm welcome to all our new students, members, fellows and Corporate Partners and a huge thank you to everyone who renewed their membership for a further year of support, resources, professional development and networking opportunities. Remember to use your post-nominals as these provide recognition of your competencies, expertise and commitment to CPD. We are now planning for the year ahead. The SET annual conference takes place on 3 November at the Vox in Birmingham – a fantastic venue for our flagship CPD event. Take a look

I

at how the programme is shaping up and book your member rate ticket today. There are significant savings for group bookings, so please share with colleagues. Details can be found on the SET website.

Do you aspire to be recognised as an Advanced Teacher? Registration is now open for the next Advanced Teacher Status cohort. There’s information online or you can talk to one of our friendly team members by calling us on 0800 093 9111.

May saw results day for the latest QTLS cohort. You may have seen the buzz on social media; there were lots of positive comments and very happy members! The entire SET team wishes our sincerest congratulations to our latest QTLS recipients.

Finally, we are developing case studies to illustrate the breadth of our membership and to welcome more learners and members into our community. If you would like to share your journey into further education and training with us, why you became a SET member and what you value about membership, then please contact me at membership@ etfoundation.co.uk. Happy summer!

JANE GALBRAITH is head of membership at SET

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ONLINE RESOURCES

SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP E VENTS

Tailor-made content Did you know you can sign up to our special interest digest, where you can access tailored content specific to your interests? Log in to your SET member dashboard and choose from topics ranging from health and wellbeing to improving your practice.

Sign up and you will also be the first to know when we are holding our Special Interest Group (SIG) events, which are lunchtime CPD events based on the digest topics.

In a recent SIG event, Tammara Lindsay MSET, (above right) English

lecturer at Preston College, explored how freewriting can help break down the perceived barriers of GCSE re-sit learners who have a fixed mindset or a reluctance to write or experiment with words.

And Pete Benyon MSET (below left), project and delivery manager at Derby College and a specialist in neurodiversity and behaviour, shared how behavioural acts come to take place, what our influence and accountability on them can be as educators, and introduced the purposedriven model of behaviour intervention.

AT S R E - A C C R E D I TAT I O N

From strength to strength The rising strength of the UK further education and training sector took centre stage recently at the first ever Advanced Teacher Status (ATS) re-accreditation event.

Held in London in March, the daylong event delivered a much-needed opportunity for members of the first six cohorts to both network and glean insight into each other’s work.

Those with ATS status must re-accredit every three years to demonstrate they continue to meet the criteria. Since the launch of the ATS in 2017, more than 170 professionals have achieved this nationally recognised badge of enhanced expertise.

David Russell MSET, outgoing CEO of the Education and Training Foundation (ETF), said the ETF’s aim is to build a cadre of teachers who have stepped up to the plate, and are using that momentum to influence the direction of teaching and training in the UK. “The profession should be led by practitioners,” he said.

Many ETF speakers gave talks and workshops during the day, including Teresa Carroll, head of inclusion, and Vikki Liogier, national head of EdTech and digital skills. Catherine Manning and Jacqui Howard FSET discussed how to go about mentoring colleagues.

Paul Tully FSET, ETF professionalism manager, also outlined the new set

MEMBERS’ CORNER

According to our survey, attendees certainly find the events useful:

100%

are satisfied with the experience overall

96%

are satisfied with the information they received about the event

93%

believe the training will have a positive impact on their professional practice

93%

said SIG events have content that is relevant to their role

of Professional Standards that have recently been unveiled.

Also discussed were priorities for the next 12 months, especially building a sense of community in SET. Creating awareness about SET is a priority, as are: Creating an online community where conversations take place and stimulate issue-oriented webinars Developing new special interest groups (SIGs) and events Encouraging potential ATS candidates to apply (until 31 August) The ETF also urged ATS holders to take active roles in building and shaping shared knowledge initiatives, such as running a webinar, writing an article for the ETF website, speaking at a SIG event or getting involved with governance.

“Shine a light on the great work that you’re doing and share it with others!” said Andrew Dowell MSET QTLS, the ETF’s head of professional status and standards.

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MEMBERS’ CORNER

MY LIFE IN TEACHING

How did you first get into teaching?

I was producing a sports show on a radio station and the presenter at that time was a graphics lecturer who’d been asked to deliver a unit on radio news production.

He was a little lost, and on realising I had run a radio news business he asked if I would be happy to help him and give a guest lecturer to the students.

The rest, as they say, is history!

Why did you feel this was the career for you?

As part of my radio business, I created an award-winning training programme for journalists. At the time I felt the opportunities to train in that area were limited, as they had been for me, so I began recruiting and training employees. The satisfaction to see them progress to onair shifts was very rewarding.

Where has your career taken you so far?

I started as a media lecturer at a local college before progressing to become head of media, games development and IT. I began working on the advisory board of an esports organisation and, knowing the BTEC in esports was coming, I jumped out of education to work in the industry ready for a return.

What is your current position?

I work as a lecturer in esports and media at Queen Mary’s College (QMC) Basingstoke, and as a consultant in esports and education under the name NTEsports. I really enjoy the variety of work and the different clients I’m luckily enough to work with, both here and abroad.

Can you run me through a typical day?

A ‘typical’ day is hard to describe based on the different roles I have, but whatever I’m doing it’s always satisfying.

I love teaching my students about all

it plays in the curriculum. I’m asked this all of the time by those inside and outside of education. I’m pleased to say that attitudes are changing, which is great to see.

How has the QTLS/ATS qualification helped you?

It was over a decade ago that I achieved QTLS status, and I remember at the time it opened my eyes to a whole new approach to teaching and learning.

It has been embedded ever since.

SPORTING CHANCE Nik Turner MSET QTLS has managed to combine his love of sports and teaching working as a llecturer and consultant co

of the exciting things esports has to offer in our amazing esports facility at QMC, but equally thrive on working from home to deliver solutions for my clients.

What’s the strangest request you’ve had from a learner?

I was once asked if I could take home a hoodie to wash it for a student! Apparently it was brand new and quite expensive and their parents would not have been happy to see it covered in Fanta!

What are the biggest challenges you face?

This one is very simple: explaining what esports is (a multi-billion-pound industry based on human versus human competitive video gaming) and what role

How would you like your career to develop?

It would be great to maintain a balance between teaching and consultancy work as they’re both roles I enjoy and work together nicely.

What three characteristics do you feel makes a good teacher?

Patience, understanding and being inspirational.

What one piece of advice would you have for your former self?

Happiness and work/life balance is your number one priority!

What do you most love about teaching?

Two things: the students, because they keep you on your toes, and that moment when you see them ‘get it’, when it all suddenly clicks at a deeper level. At that point, your job has been done!

What do you get up to outside work?

I’m vice chairman of a large angling society, I’m part of a group who look after our village pond and I help run my youngest son’s Beaver group. My eldest son is non-verbal autistic and I’m a parent governor at his school, but outside of work it’s all about my family.

NIK TURNER is lecturer in esports and media at Queen Mary’s College, Basingstoke

If you would like to be featured in My Life in Teaching, email intuition@redactive.co.uk

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BOOK REVIEWS

BOOK REVIEWS THE AUTISM RESOURCE MANUAL

By Debbie Riall Routledge 2022 At first I was a bit sceptical of this big spiral-bound, softbacked book. Having worked with autistic learners myself and reviewed other books on this topic, I wondered what this one could offer and what extra value would it give me. I was pleasantly surprised.

Debbie Riall is a passionate expert in the field of educating autistic students and her aim was to produce a straightforward autism strategy book containing many ideas and resources for teachers. The focus is on simple solutions to complex problems, and I feel that this is achieved.

This book is a mix of common sense and specialist knowledge.

The layout makes it easily navigable and readers are able to dip into relevant sections as needed. Each chapter contains its own list of contents as well as real-life scenarios, material that can be photocopied and resource lists.

Although aimed mainly at schools, there is a lot of relevance for educators of young adults and even more mature learners. The only drawback is that in its current format the pages could become damaged quickly, but overall this is a good resource.

InTuition readers receive a 20% discount on this book with the code APR20 at routledge.com (valid until 31 August)

MEMBERS’ CORNER

Our reviewer is DR ANNE DAVIS MSET QTLS , who has worked as a sixth form maths teacher and head of maths in south-east England.

She is also a private tutor, teaching maths, chemistry and physics, specialising in the 16+ age group. She is a cycling and kayaking coach, with experience of coaching disabled athletes

EDUCATION AND TECHNOLOGY: KEY ISSUES AND DEBATES (3RD EDITION)

By Neil Selwyn Bloomsbury Academic, 2022 The first edition of this book was published in 2011 and appears to have been popular. A decade later, the world of digital technology has moved on rapidly with a whole host of unpredicted changes to the world of education and its relationship with technology – in no small part influenced by the immediate need for remote learning due to the shutdowns of educational establishments.

This book looks at how the future of education and its use of technology could, and needs to, develop by building on the discussion of attitudes and changes to technology.

Starting with discussions about the meanings of both education and technology, each chapter tackles an aspect of technology with respect to its impact on teaching and the teacher, with a series of arguments leading to conclusions and proposed further questions for further thought.

This is quite a philosophical book that is well presented, and the author keeps his goals well in focus throughout. An interesting read that will no doubt be thought-provoking for all educators in today’s classroom and lecture hall – virtual or otherwise.

InTuition readers receive a 20% discount on paper or electronic copies of this book (EU: electronic only) with the code INTUITION20 at bloomsbury.com (valid until 31 August)

THE EMOTIONALLY INTELLIGENT TEACHER

By Niomi Clyde Roberts Bloomsbury Education, 2022 Described as a riveting read by a peer, this book aims to guide teachers in managing their emotions and hence boost their wellbeing and combat power struggles, leading to the development of positive workplace relationships in education.

The author is a primary teacher and assistant head and refers to learners as children throughout the book. This aside, there is a lot here that would be relevant for the further education and training sector, especially for those in leadership roles.

By giving real-life examples of experiences, the author discusses definitions of emotional intelligence and its impact on the different relationships teachers experience on a dayto-day basis. There are sensible ideas and concepts supported by these examples, including references to Covid-19’s impact on education and mental wellbeing.

Communication is also explored as a chapter in itself.

Although this is a relatively short book and a fairly quick read, it will be a welcome addition to the coffee table of any college staffroom. I wouldn’t go as far as to agree that it is riveting, but it’s worth taking some time to read it.

InTuition readers receive a 20% discount on paper or electronic copies of this book (EU: electronic only) with the code INTUITION20 at bloomsbury.com (valid until 31 August)

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If undelivered please return to: The Society for Education and Training 157-197 Buckingham Palace Road London SW1W 9SP

Professional Values and Attributes

Changes to the Professional Standards for teachers and trainers Inspire your professional learning and career development with the Professional Standards for the Further Education (FE) and Training sector.

Professional Knowledge and Understanding

First launched by the Education and Training Foundation (ETF) in 2014, the Professional Standards provide a national reference point for staff development in the sector, and help you identify areas for personal development.

Now updated for 2022, the Standards reflect the latest thinking and practices and position the sector at the forefront of strategic issues such as sustainability, wellbeing and digital learning.

Professional Skills

Find out more about the changes at: ETFOUNDATION.CO.UK/PROFESSIONAL-STANDARDS/TEACHERS SET036_inTuition_ad_190x120mm_AW.indd 1 INT.SUMMER22_040.indd 40

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