⚓️ Bidders for major government contracts will score double points for offering training, apprenticeships and work experience from January feweek.co.uk/skills-weigh...

Skills weighting doubled for major public contracts

Bidders will score more points for offering apprenticeships and work placements in social value revamp

feweek.co.uk

🪖 Defence giant BAE Systems has been rated ‘exceptional’ by Ofsted for its 'life-changing' approach to inclusion and leadership of its 2,600 apprentices https://feweek.co.uk/exceptional-ofsted-result-for-bae-systems/

🤷 Researchers could not judge whether catch-up tuition worked in colleges after more than 500 institutions that took the funding failed to log which students received it feweek.co.uk/missing-reco...

Missing records thwart evaluation of covid tuition fund

Evaluation of the 16-19 tuition fund could not assess colleges after providers failed to record which students received tuition

feweek.co.uk

🆕 Ofqual has fined engineering awarding body EAL £150,000 over ‘serious and repeated’ apprenticeship assessment failures. Learners were tested against the wrong standards, received flawed results and were subjected to mishandled appeals feweek.co.uk/eal-hit-with...

EAL hit with record £150k apprenticeship assessment fine

Serious breaches included wrong assessment plans, flawed results and mishandled appeals

feweek.co.uk

❌ TEC Partnership has become the first college to fail safeguarding under Ofsted’s new inspection framework – triggering government intervention https://feweek.co.uk/first-college-hit-with-ofsted-safeguarding-not-met-judgment-faces-intervention/

⚠️ Hull City Council’s education arm has failed to meet Ofsted’s safeguarding standards after inspectors found leaders had not responded effectively to 'potentially serious' issues posing risks to learners https://feweek.co.uk/hull-council-education-arm-fails-ofsted-safeguarding-standards/

➕ Get Further founder @sarahjwaite.bsky.social has been appointed a special adviser to education secretary Lucy Powell feweek.co.uk/powell-hires...

Powell hires Get Further boss as special adviser

Sarah Waite joins the education secretary's political team after nine years running the tuition charity

feweek.co.uk

📰 FE Week Weekly News Update Check out this week's news summary. If you still need to register for our newsletter updates, you can sign-up at the below link. 🔗 https://mailchi.mp/b644e35da56c/weekly-news-summary-from-fe-week-13371137

🚨 BREAKING: Mayors will be handed control of 16-19 funding in a radical break from England’s Whitehall-run post-16 system. Colleges and schools are all in scope, with plans due alongside the autumn budget. feweek.co.uk/mayors-to-ta...

Mayors to take control of 16-19 funding

Andy Burnham's devolution package ends years of DfE resistance to handing local leaders power over post-16 budgets

feweek.co.uk

🎭 Exclusive: College HE grants have fallen 2.4 times faster than the wider sector, with leaders warning some arts courses will now have to close https://feweek.co.uk/colleges-hit-hard-as-high-cost-he-funding-withdrawn/

Colleges hit hard as high-cost HE funding withdrawn

Leaders warns creative courses face closure as analysis reveals £2.7m stripped in a year

feweek.co.uk

🗳️ Greater Manchester voters go to the polls tomorrow to elect a new mayor after Andy Burnham won the Makerfield by-election, automatically disqualifying him from the mayoralty. FE Week looked at what each candidate brings to the brief and what they have pledged so far feweek.co.uk/meet-the-gre...

Meet the Greater Manchester mayoral hopefuls

Voters go to the polls tomorrow, with the winner set to inherit a £421 million skills and employment pot

feweek.co.uk

↩️ Under-25s will be exempted from increased apprenticeship co-investment costs just days before it was due to take effect https://feweek.co.uk/under-25s-exempted-from-apprenticeship-co-investment-hike/

Under-25s exempted from apprenticeship co-investment hike

Levy payers that exhaust their accounts will avoid the new 25 per cent charge for younger apprentices

feweek.co.uk

🏡 Households will be able to claim a new bursary worth up to £4,500 a year to help offset the benefits they lose when a young person takes up an apprenticeship feweek.co.uk/benefit-hit-...

Benefit-hit households boosted by apprenticeship bursary

Apprentices can claim a new bursary up to £4,500 to offset costs of work-based training

feweek.co.uk

💰 Sixty-seven colleges and other post-16 institutions have been selected for capital projects the government says will create more than 22,000 additional learner places feweek.co.uk/287m-buildin...

£287m building cash for colleges short of places

Sixty-seven colleges and other post-16 institutions have been selected for capital projects the government says will create more than 22,000 additional learner places. The Department for Education (Df...

feweek.co.uk

🚨Breaking: Mayors to design technical education programmes for 14 year olds, Andy Burnham has announced feweek.co.uk/mayors-to-de...

Mayors to design technical education routes for 14-year-olds

Department for Education will examine how existing budgets can be 'prioritised' for 2028 rollout

feweek.co.uk

✍️Britain taxes firms for hiring young people, and often pays more to those who stay on benefits than to those who work. @johncope.bsky.social of @plmr.co.uk on what the prime minister must fix first feweek.co.uk/theres-a-wal...

There’s a wall keeping jobless teenagers and employers apart

We tax firms for hiring young people, and pay young people not to work - then wonder why they don't, writes John Cope

feweek.co.uk

📰 FE Week Weekly News Update Check out this week's news summary. If you still need to register for our newsletter updates, you can sign-up at the below link. 🔗 https://mailchi.mp/0f7f547e044d/weekly-news-summary-from-fe-week-13371099

With Lucy Powell newly appointed as Secretary of State for Education, it is timely of @feweek.bsky.social to publish their profile interview of me. feweek.co.uk/waite-and-se...

🔍 Scrutiny of adult skills subcontracting by colleges is blighted by ‘gaps and weaknesses’ in the West Midlands, an audit review has revealed. feweek.co.uk/auditor-wave...

Auditor waves red flags over adult-skills subcontracting

Scrutiny of adult skills subcontracting by colleges is blighted by 'gaps and weaknesses' in the West Midlands, an audit review has revealed.

feweek.co.uk

🗣️ MPs have criticised ministers for failing to consult Skills England and employers before removing public funding for level 7 apprenticeships. feweek.co.uk/pointless-to...

Pointless to ask advice on Level 7 defunding after pulling the trigger, say MPs

MPs have criticised ministers for failing to consult Skills England and employers before removing public funding for level 7 apprenticeships.

feweek.co.uk

🚨Breaking: Jacqui Smith has been reappointed minister for skills by Andy Burnham feweek.co.uk/jacqui-smith...

Jacqui Smith reappointed minister for skills

Baroness Smith with continue working across the Department for Education and Department for Work and Pensions

feweek.co.uk

🎓 Nominations for the @london.gov.uk adult learning awards have been extended to Monday 27 July. Meet last year's winners, and see what's new for 2026: feweek.co.uk/i-dont-teach...

‘I don’t teach English as a subject, I teach it as a lifeline’

The Mayor of London's adult learning awards 2026 nominations will now close on Monday

feweek.co.uk

🚨Breaking: Lucy Powell has replaced Bridget Phillipson as education secretary feweek.co.uk/lucy-powell-...

Lucy Powell appointed education secretary

Bridget Phillipson remains minister for equalities

feweek.co.uk

🚨Breaking: Pat McFadden has been reappointed work and pensions secretary feweek.co.uk/mcfadden-rea...

McFadden reappointed work and pensions secretary

New prime minister Andy Burnham keeps Pat McFadden in post

feweek.co.uk

✍️ As Andy Burnham prepares to move into Number 10, Natspec's Clare Howard says the debate over “place-based inclusion” has been clouded by two very different meanings of place feweek.co.uk/specialist-f...

Specialist FE belongs in Burnham’s Britain

The politics of place can bring specialist and mainstream provision together if inclusion is defined by belonging and opportunity, not setting

feweek.co.uk

🤝 Preston College has appointed Burnley College deputy principal Kate Wallace as its next principal and chief executive feweek.co.uk/preston-coll...

Preston College appoints Burnley deputy as next principal

Kate Wallace takes over in August after serving as Burnley’s interim boss through leadership upheaval and an Ofsted downgrade

feweek.co.uk

💪 Team UK are honing tactics and sharpening their competition mindset with just weeks to go before WorldSkills Shanghai. Anviksha Patel joined them at their weekend getaway feweek.co.uk/bonding-at-a...

Bonding at a bootcamp before their march east to China

Team UK are sharpening their tactics and competition mindset with just weeks to go before WorldSkills Shanghai

feweek.co.uk

🚨 Employers warn a fivefold hike in apprenticeship co-investment costs from August will force them to cut recruitment, including for young jobseekers feweek.co.uk/co-investmen...

Co-investment cost hike ‘will turn firms off apprenticeships’

Employers warn ministers are shooting themselves in the foot with new 25% rate

feweek.co.uk

💻 Fewer than half of respondents to a DfE consultation on subject content backed proposals for the new V Level in digital feweek.co.uk/dfe-sticks-w...

DfE sticks with ‘overly broad’ digital V Level

Consultation response also cuts 60 hours from a new level 2 early years qualification

feweek.co.uk

🙁 Staff morale at Skills England was among the worst in the civil service after the agency was moved to a new department, its first annual accounts reveal. Fewer than half of staff were proud of, felt attached to or would recommend the agency as a great place to work. feweek.co.uk/skills-engla...

Skills England staff morale among worst in civil service

Civil servants’ rating of Skills England as a place to work nosedived amid move from DfE to DWP

feweek.co.uk