The big reveal

Last Friday was notable not only for the freakishly hot October sunshine, but also for the first public display of student success of the new academic year.

Public art is never everyone’s cup of tea and the so-called experts often look down their noses at it, but I will not have a bad word said about the Watford Community Housing Trust’s latest installation.

The Trust set our 3D Design students the task of coming up with a sculpture that represented its locality and the theme of ‘home’.

‘Nesting’, which is the work of three of our students Jade Spires , Katie Kennedy and Oliver Matthews, was unveiled in the green space behind Cussans House, Croxley View last week. Not only is it a beautiful piece, carefully thought out, that fits perfectly into the design brief, but it is already highly appreciated by the residents.

The nearby park and green space were awash with people making the most of the weather and every single one of them took time to investigate the piece; each of them offering a smile and a compliment. Not quite Cameron’s ideal of the Big Society, but the afternoon certainly seemed to offer plenty for everyone involved. The excellent work that the Trust does should never go unnoticed and in just a few months since contact was first made we have received great help from them on more than one occasion.

We have been working hard as a College to find a way around the loss of EMA throughout a summer where education in general has been under constant fire. One of the several ways we have combated this is with the help of the Trust, which has provided the College with a bursary fund to help those most in need to stay in education; but enrolment figures are only half of the battle.

Colleges are often judged not just on the quality of provision but learner destinations and with ‘Nesting’ the Trust has come good again. In a world were employers are increasingly looking for new starters/graduates/first jobbers to come with many years of experience, a portfolio of published work, prize-winning projects and high quality work experience is the perfect foot in the door. These three students have now not only received outstanding tutoring during their time studying 3D Design, but have now received a clients brief, pitched an idea and seen their design constructed and installed. An excellent start to any portfolio. When pitching to the Trust’s judging panel earlier this year Oliver Matthews, spokesperson for the winning team, was visibly uneasy, but will no doubt have learnt from this successful, yet nerve-racking experience. That experience can only better his chances of future success. And that is our new bottom line – not simply what students achieve now, but how well these achievements serve them in the future.

Gill Worgan, Principal and Chief Executive

Sky Blue Thinking

As a lifelong Manchester United fan I can honestly say not once have I been jealous of our sky blue neighbours and certainly never previously have I found them inspiring my own thoughts.

 

But as I opened last Monday’s papers and then later that evening caught up with the day’s events online I was bowled over by the number of journalists gushing over Manchester City’s latest investment. They gushed not over a new ridiculous addition to the wage bill or outlandish statement of intent in the transfer market, but an investment of a different kind.

 

Their latest outlay is much more of a long-term project than those with which they have been recently associated. The proposed Etihad Campus will be an 80-acre site, creating hundreds of jobs, designed to cater for up to 400 young players, 40 of whom will be schooled on site. In addition around 5.5 acres of the development will be put aside solely for community use and the site will include an FE college.

 

The same day, players from Watford FC visited our Football Centre of Excellence students to talk to them about discipline, hard work, education and community. Whatever you may wish to believe about your average footballer, these professionals, including Watford ‘keeper Scott Loach who has been named in several of Fabio Capello’s recent England squads, were more than happy to pass on what they had learned so far in their fledgling careers.

 

Rightly or wrongly footballers are role models and rightly (or more likely) wrongly they get paid hugely inflated salaries with the turnovers of some clubs moving nearer to the astronomical mark with each passing TV rights deal.

 

It is only fair that communities and young people should benefit from this. And there are, as Manchester City have realised, many ways for this to happen, some might even be mutually beneficial.

Credit where credit is due, Watford FC – West Herts College’s local club – has been on the ball with their community output for several years.

Not every club can build huge complexes and open them to the community as well as using them to create a conveyor belt of future stars, but every club, and what’s more every large organisation, can give back by offering its ‘stars’ up for time with young people that may aspire to follow in their footsteps.

 

As well as offering several brilliant pieces of advice for our own aspiring Rios and Rooneys (or even Tommy Mooneys) the Watford FC players also served up a dose of reality. Not the hard-hitting sort that you might half expect, but a version that is far more palatable.

The stone cold truth is that very few of us will ever make it to the top of the world in our childhood passion. That is not to say we cannot remain involved with it in a professional manner and it is this sense of unflagging aspiration, with a realistic backup plan, that we should encourage in our students.

 

Manchester City have seen that signing up every half decent young talent within a given radius, and then letting them go at 18 with little education or career prospects to speak of is not a sustainable business model. Eventually their reputation will precede them and the next Ryan Giggs will skip down the motorway and join Oldham in favour of a real apprenticeship.

Not dissimilar to a college that offers the world and then does not deliver. Facilities are great, but compassionate tutors with industry knowledge and a college with good community links will benefit students more in the long run.

 

If the potential players of the future receive a fine education for when their career in professional football falters, whether it be at 14 or 40, they could become a nutritionist, physiotherapist, PE teacher, sports psychologist, agent, accountant, journalist, coach or any one of the hundreds of careers that are available alongside the game.

This does not just stand for sport, but many other subjects and careers. Colleges should look to build better relationships with local charities, theatres, newspapers, construction companies. We often trumpet our tutors industry experience, so why not go that step further and bring in the ‘stars’ of any given industry to provide our students with that extra guidance. Not only that, but their voices should be heard when the College is making decisions or planning for the future.

 

There is a whole community of opportunities out there waiting for colleges to add an extra dimension to their provision and it is time that larger organisations gave something back to their community. As a large FE college based at the heart of our community we understand that we are on both sides of this fence and have plenty to offer as well as our students having plenty to gain.

 

As much as it pains me to admit it, I have been inspired by the sky blue half of Manchester. Maybe tutors nationwide should be asking themselves ‘who is my Tommy Mooney?’

 

Gill Worgan, Principal and Chief Executive

Measure for measure

And so, within a fortnight of the publication of this summer’s exam results, the new academic year is upon us. And it is this speedy turnaround between the previous year’s final sign off and the dawn of another which has inspired me.

 

The far-reaching beauty of the internet, and Twitter in particular, recently led me to an article in American journal The Smithsonian which left me with more questions than answers.

I think it is fair to say that the British education system is in a state of flux, and since the Second World War only on the rare occasions when a single political party has maintained power for a succession of terms has it not been in a state of reform too. Changes in the last decade have seen grades, percentages, statistics and league tables dominate nearly all levels of our education.

 

I am not about to claim that standards should not be set and aspired to or performance go unmeasured.  West Herts College has, by Ofsted’s reckoning, risen to Outstanding – an achievement that may not have happened had we not had a measurement to aspire to. The Times Educational Supplement reported this week that Ofsted inspectors are to allow colleges to pay a fee and bring forward their inspection if they feel they are now worthy of a higher grade than that which they have most recently been bestowed. A colleague of mine compared this to Manchester City finishing the weekend at the top of the Premier League and paying the officials to end the season and declare City the champions. We should aim for a sustainable success, not one which will be gone in the blink of an eye. If you wish to wear your badge of success for six years until your next inspection then I think it fair that you should have achieved something that you can sustain. The last thing we need is add another measure that favours the short-term.

 

 LynNell Hancock’s article in the Smithsonian looks at how Finnish education approaches teaching in the opposite manner to the American model – one which the UK in general is very close to.  Somewhat ironically the Finnish system boldly ignored the numbers game and by doing so emerged (statistically) as one of the success stories of the last decades.  

 

Finland’s 62,000 teachers are trusted to use their better judgement and decide how best a student will receive their education. Some of this freedom comes from the lack of tests and rankings.  Hancock says: “There are no mandated standardized tests in Finland, apart from one exam at the end of the students’ senior year in high school. There are no rankings, no comparisons or competition between students, schools or regions…Every school has the same national goals and draws from the same pool of university-trained educators.”

 

The Finnish model is very much designed at preparing young people for a lifelong learning experience rather than teaching them how to pass a test. We, as much as any other place of learning, wish that our students achieve the best grades possible. But teaching them the value of learning and treating them as individuals is a far more important exercise in the long run than teaching them nothing more than how to pass an exam.

 

If our mantra is to ‘transform life through learning’ let us make it our goal that that learning is lifelong. Let’s give the teachers here a career in which they have the freedom to be creative in the classroom. Let’s give them permission to be ‘worldly’ and also stay in touch with the world that our young people face. Students and staff alike should love what they do and do what they love and it is foolish to think that might be the same for everyone.

 

Gill Worgan, Principal and Chief Executive

Sharing and Scaring

My summer stay-cation began with the thoughts of Julia Hobsbawm ringing in my ears. It wasn’t quite eight o’clock in the morning on day one of my break when I caught her on BBC radio celebrating the truth that we live in a Golden Age of Sharing. A reference to the democratising power of the internet and the galaxy of online inspiration available for free. Being the head of networking outfit Editorial Intelligence, Julia is well placed to comment.

 

A similar point was referenced later the same day, with Vince Cable’s declaration that copyright law has no choice but to catch up – be relaxed – in line with the new realities of our digital world. Life has changed.

 

Fast forward a week and like you I was transfixed by the rioting and looting ricocheting around my TV screen. A couple of days that, amongst many things, showed us the best and worst of social media. Although it is always best to remember the truism that communication channels are, by definition, morally neutral.

 

All this just as retailers were predicting that increasing affordability and dependence on technology will make tablets and smart phones the must-have gifts this Christmas. With more robust models now available, hand-held technology will be the item of choice not just for pre-teens but even pre-schoolers. Indeed, it appears that tablets for two-year olds are already standard issue at many grander day-care nurseries.

 

With no rioting and, I’m guessing, few tablet-toting toddlers in the immediate vicinity of West Herts College it’s tempting to feel quite removed from the extremes of modern life. But with more students than ever joining us this September it’s also true that we could be regarded as a barometer of contemporary attitudes – those of young people and the local communities with whom we share public space.

 

Forget the revamped Big Brother TV show, there’s an all-new social experiment playing out on a high street near you. And, as ever, the best colleges have a significant role to play.

 

Is there likely to be a beefed-up bravado among some of the young people who join us this year? We attract students from an ever-widening postcode halo, and whether from near or far many of them are looking to take a new direction at 16. It’s a journey shared with tutors, advisers – plus their parents and carers.

 

We have a zero tolerance on wasted talent. The objective is developing skills required for jobs locally. Do we sometimes need to work particularly hard to channel the energies and frustrations among some young people? Yes – because that’s what colleges do. We’re not quite the fourth emergency service but its right and proper that we serve all who need us in our communities.

 

Do we have our fair share of hoodies? Again, yes, if that’s your collective noun of choice. But the day when teenagers forego tribal fashions to appease their elders is not coming any time soon. Hoodies may have acquired a certain reputation, but a young person’s dress often stems from their taste in music. And since when has that been an indicator of true potential?

 

I’m far more certain that the vast majority of the class of 2011/12 will – as ever – be polite and conscientious. Reinforcing this will be induction sessions at the start of term for students to discuss the impression that young people can unwittingly create, especially en mass. These sessions are well established and well received – and will be delivered with added vigour this year.

 

Of course, packing the pocket of every student will almost certainly be a smart phone. All the more reason for the college to seize the opportunity and catch up by starting a meaningful online dialogue with each of them. Our Facebook page has 2,000-plus followers, triple that of other pages in our region and sector. This shared experience is the future. It’s the hidden curriculum that will help us all understand the Golden Age of Sharing.

 

Gill Worgan,

Principal and Chief Executive

World at our fingertips

We’ve just been invited to attend WorldSkills London 2011, dubbed the Skills Olympics, this October.

An expo of skills, talents and trades, it promises to be as action packed as a pentathlon – with ‘young people from across the globe competing to be the best of the best in their chosen skill’, to quote the host’s website.

It’s also a chance for education and industry to showcase training opportunities. Chief among these will be apprenticeships, naturally enough. No surprise then to see the big hitters from FE and HE taking part, plus major employers and the leading training companies.

Good luck to all involved. There really is a rich mix of people attending. One organisation, in particular, caught my eye. Tucked away at the foot of the alphabetical exhibitors’ listing was the memorably titled Worshipful Company of Saddlers, Cordwainers and Loriners.

Beat that for branding – and like all the most powerful brands it has a long and illustrious past. For it transpires that this is the worshipful company for leather work in shoes and saddles, plus the metal crafting of stirrups, bridles and the like. Member master craftsmen (and women, no doubt) span the globe and include one Jimmy Choo from Japan.

Clicking through the worshipful website of this esteemed organisation reignited my belief that colleges should trumpet their own historical roots and contemporary relevance. As places where skills are honed and professional pride inculcated. Be it online expertise for tomorrow’s digital age or the timeless traditions of top-notch cheffing. To pick just two examples at random.

It reminds me of a moment during the planning of our new Watford campus, when we realised we weren’t constructing a building so much as a city. In which case it was only proper to group like-minded subjects together into neighbourhoods. Each one inhabited by students eager to share their ideas. And with everyone aspiring to membership of demanding trade guilds. Sounds faintly medieval? Maybe the best things in life are worth preserving – and reinventing.

Inspiration is the driver. Only the best will do. Now, about those Jimmy Choos…

Summer lovin’

‘We learn from those we love,’ espouses David Brooks in his latest book Social Animal. Mr Brooks may be the Marmite of social psychology but his headline sentiment certainly seems to run true here at West Herts College.

After the end of term shows, exhibitions and parties came the farewells this week between students and tutors. With so many students intent on coming back next year it was more au revoir than so long, farewell – but no less heartfelt for it.

Great learning begins with a great relationship between tutors and the students they’re teaching. It’s a group effort, with inspiring teaching and attention to the needs of individual learners the starting point. From here engaging lessons follow naturally, shared by all the in the room (or studio, salon or restaurant in our case). Get the fundamentals right and high attendance and good grades for assignments follow naturally.

Such is the cycle of the college year that just as our full-time teaching came to its yearly close, so preparation for next year stepped up a gear. Sustaining an outstanding Ofsted rating begins with healthy enrolments – made all the more imperative by the need, this year, to compensate for funding cuts with greater student numbers.

And so it was that we opened the doors to all campuses at the start of July, with more of next year’s prospective students given the chance to look around with family and friends.

With Watford staff still showing off our new campus opening up at weekends is more a labour of love than a required necessity. Prospective students are often impressed by the highlights and intrigued as much by facilities outside their chosen subject area as in.

And who would have thought that people from as far as Croydon would have taken the time to join us. We’re open right through the vacation period, with all-comers welcome to take a peek or sit down for impartial advice and guidance. Come GCSE results day, just before the August bank holiday weekend, and its open all hours again to help people looking ahead to September.

With universities being urged to show prospective students more before asking them to part with their thousands, why should we be any different. In comparison with HE we have an eminently straightforward message to communicate; we are offering training in real skills for real jobs in the local economy.

And if you’ve got it, why not flaunt it. First impressions are vital, but often far from conclusive. Who are we to ask those who enquire about studying with us to rush into any decision with only a passing glance as evidence. 

Wise men say “only fools rush in” so forget speed dating, here’s to a summer of love.

Gill Worgan, Principal & Chief Executive

Sign of the times

Last week’s Watford Jobs Fair was simultaneously evident of the best of times and the worst of times.

The urban area of Watford has a population of 120,000; so seeing 5,000 visitors through the door of a jobs fair in just six hours is, while brilliant for the employers on site, indicative of the challenges we collectively face.

 Flipping this coin, and taking a strictly local view, it is also hugely encouraging to see 60 employers and training providers from the Watford area offering a host of vacancies and other opportunities. Watford would appear to be ‘open for business’ and determined to stay so.

It was a day full of rousing anecdotes: one gentleman had been made redundant less than 24 hours previous, but in a show of defiance had dusted off his interview suit and kicked off the search immediately. The man in question was one of many people to return to the High St with a new job, interview date or course to look forward to.

It was also striking just how many people were taking control of their own situation. People of all ages looking to invest in themselves, retrain and subsequently do something they love for a living. Whichever way you looked there was inspiration to be had.

While a large part of the local population may commute to London in search of greener pastures Watford has yet to forego its traditional self-sufficiency in favour of being swallowed by the big smoke. Last Thursday was proof of what a community can achieve when it stands shoulder to shoulder – long may it continue.

 

Gill Worgan, Principal and Chief Executive

Personal touch

In last week’s FT, no doubt publicising his own book on the subject, Simon Kuper wrote about the influence of statistics on modern thinking, specifically in football.  

For the last five years Michael Lewis’ Moneyball, which the article references, has been required reading for many senior staff at our college. We have used data to drive our successive Ofsted promotions – rising from having ‘no discernable strengths’ to Ofsted’s first Outstanding FE College under the new framework.

 We are now aiming to turn back the clock, and with the stats still tucked neatly in our top pocket are moving in a more personal direction. Away from the ‘Blairism of arbitrary targets.’

In education, superman head or not, only those with pick of the students can rely on statistics in the long term. For others, such as ourselves, training must be tweaked and personalised, constantly monitored so that each of our students leaves us as a success.

 When it comes to sustaining that success, statistics will always be an aid, but an individual touch is equally important.

 

Gill Worgan, Principal and Chief Executive

Enterprise – a pressing issue?

Is it me or is the nation’s new-found fondness for enterprise at risk of becoming a sharp new stick to wield at young people who appear to lack a work ethic?

 

Encouraging enterprising thought in young people is essential and a new national initiative  has many benefits but some of my peers have suggested that students starting this September should also come expecting much longer college terms, a tighter timetable and something described as a downgrading of traditional qualifications.

 

At times it can sound like a dose of national service; with the thinly veiled threat that anyone who fails to meet the grade and secure a good old fashioned job offer at the end had better have a start-up business plan in their back pocket. A sort of boot camp with basic training in getting real, really quick. Stand by your BTECS, you ‘orrible lot!

 

Surely the coming years are about working smarter rather than simply being press-ganged into upping your work rate. New ideas are always welcome, especially in the current circumstances, but would an even more enterprising approach from the top result in more long-term work experience or internships?

 

True, the new realities apply to us all, but all the more reason to take a closer look and move away from one-size-fits-all solutions. To even try and brand enterprise as the new default setting seems unwise. An enterprising ethic in the real sense is not quantifiable; it cannot be bottled and is completely open to interpretation.

 

Is it about following a passion or purely about making a profit? The BBC1’s Apprentice would have you thinking it is about telesales. Period. And some colleges would have you thinking it is all about improving their learner outcome statistics.

 

Tell me about untapped potential, squashed dreams, hidden talents, but profligately clouding enterprise with unrealistic expectations doesn’t help matters.

 

An enterprising spirit is open to interpretation and guarded by the occasional limitation. And let us not be fooled that it is class-free, no matter how many barrow boys to business baron we may know. Young enterprise is the tennis of the business world; everyone can be encouraged to have a go, but only a certain few have the funds to follow through long term.

 

And here in lies the heart of the matter, perhaps. Is it, instead, a new-found self-confidence that Colleges should be delivering as a bolt-on to qualifications? The confidence to cope with different ways of studying if traditional teaching models need to be modified, but also the confidence to embrace new ideas – among them assessing whether self employment is the right choice, right now for every young person.

Smart choice

Ever heard of the German expression Schadenfreude? Turns out it means ‘taking pleasure from the misfortunes of others’. It’s listed close to veal Schnitzel in my German phrase book, which is an unrelated fact except to say that both are doubtless guilty pleasures in the eyes of many.

Speaking as a college principal it would be fair cop to assume I’ve taken more than a sideways glance at the university fees predicament. Not that West Herts College is untouched by this moving financial feast.

Future fees for our foundation degrees validated by the University of Hertfordshire will be priced according to the same principles and stand at £5,800 per annum for these two-year courses from September 2012. Possible options to alleviate matters for those who are financially disadvantaged have yet to be finalised but either way this coming September’s entrants will be the final ones here before a substantial price hike for all.

But if FE is not immune from the worst effects of £9k headline fees, neither is it new to the power of positioning in post-16 education. That the majority of universities are opting for fees at or close to the £9k ceiling ultimately makes perfect business sense, albeit at the expense of the consumer. Services are often judged by their cost – there being no way to try before you by – so what choice do most universities have? Charge less and be judged as inferior or, worst of all, lacking true value? Who can afford to look ordinary in a league of elite players accordingly priced?

There’s also the small matter of universities balancing their books. The government is pushing the need for efficiency savings to reduce the cost of delivery. And who would dismiss this as an option in some of the darker recesses of such a substantial sector.

What I do know only too well as an FE person of some years is the sinking feeling that can accompany a sense of ‘otherness’. Neither a school full of hope nor a university for the elite. Just plain ordinary FE – allegedly. And herein lies an opportunity.

Aided and abetted by the hike in HE fees the FE market potentially has the chance to grow without alienating our natural heartlands.

The vast majority of any college’s courses remain unaffected by HE cost increases, a fact that should help FE reposition as the fresh, logical choice rather than being squeezed between schools and universities. They are ordinary courses for all the right reasons: offering real skills for jobs in the real economy. A straight forward choice with straightforwardly priced training that is safely separate from the uncertainty surrounding higher education.

FE’s enduring appeal as the basis for a lifetime in a vocational (skills-based) career is surely its appeal to a new group of people thinking laterally instead of progressing straight on to university. Be this for a formal qualification in the ‘trades’ or a short course to top-up skills. Whether it’s the basis for a long-term future or something more temporary before reassessing more mainstream options in due course.

And the fly in the ointment is? The small matter that FE fees for adults (that’s the cost to anyone 19 or older) are also set to rise. Far less dramatically than HE and certainly to less uproar and disbelief… but increasing nonetheless.

Without government subsidy, the fees have to come much closer to commercial (pay their way) levels. The true price for training of true value, perhaps, but an increase all the same – and another reason to despair at the rising cost of living.

Your local college: here for you when you need it most or just another brick in the wall? Only time will tell – we’ll know what the appeal is come final enrolments in September, but if this is the year to invest what you have wisely it’s still one of the safest bets around. Ask any German, they’ve long championed vocational skills and revered the professionals that have them.

 Gill Worgan, Principal and Chief Executive