Let me pose a fascinating thought challenge about the purpose of Further Education & Skills provision and why, of late, Ofsted seems to have its trolleys in a tangle over IAG. Before I do, however, I’d like to ask a couple of questions. Does achieving their qualification guarantee learners a job or a university place? Of course, unless there’s some sort of special relationship in place, the answer is no. While it should go without saying that qualification success is […]

In this Thursday’s open, online training session, we’re going to be taking a forensic look at Progress Reviews. One delegate summed up the session by say it “identified that progress reviews will be a cultural change and not a procedural change”. Couldn’t have said it better. When you’re next surfing inspection reports, sharpen your antennae for judgements on Progress Reviews. You may well find that there are a significant number of weaknesses on this themes, few strengths, and, well.. have […]

I have an experiment for you. Put the kettle on and make a brew. As you create that warm thinking space, just sit back and imagine your classrooms full of expert learners. What is it that you see? What are the traits these learners have that set them apart from reality (if, indeed, there’s any difference.) Now imagine the impact on your workload if you could enable your learners to develop all of those traits. Sadly, while many children do […]

When I get to the part of this session where I give labels to a set of challenging Emotional Learning States, delegates often say that they can give a learner’s name for each one. How about you? Have you ever had, or do you currently have, learners who are: disengaged, filled with self-doubt, fear exclusion, daunted, anxious, fear failure and/or hit cognitive overload far too quickly? The important question this raises is: if you have a learner in this state, […]

Would anyone like to make a small (or large!) contribution to a quick-n-dirty research project please? Years ago, when I was on the Board of the LSIS Excellence Gateway, I worked with a metadata specialist and a taxonomist (and many, many specialist staff and inspectors from every corner of FE & Skills) to produce the sector’s first Taxonomy of Issues. This was a list of every possible issue in the FE & Skills sector. It was then used to create […]