25 APR 2024
Finally some good news for Further Education + Ofsted Rating Judgement, Earth Day & much more
The big and long over due news from the Department for Education this week has dominated the headlines... and rightly so!
Here is a selection of noteworthy articles that you may have missed:
Levelling up premium payments for Further Education
- Up to £6000 extra to teach vital subjects
- Incentive backed by £200m investment to support schools and colleges attract and retain the excellent teachers they need in vital subjects.
More subjects to receive payments including early years, maths, construction, engineering and manufacturing – supporting young people to progress.
Move is part of the Prime Minister’s pledge to make sure all young people have the skills they need to get good jobs that will help grow the economy.
The Association of Colleges welcomed the announcement:
"This extra funding will help attract and retain key staff in colleges, so I welcome the expansion of the Levelling Up premium.
The issue of teacher recruitment is one of the most pressing challenges facing the sector, particularly in these key areas where experts working in industry are likely to earn salaries significantly beyond those of teachers."
Read the full DfE press release here.
Single-phrase Ofsted judgments to remain
Ofsted’s controversial single-word judgments are here to stay, the government has ruled, in a blow to campaigners who hoped they would be scrapped after the suicide of the primary school headteacher Ruth Perry.
Perry’s sister, Prof Julia Waters, reacted with fury to the government’s statement, published on Thursday in response to an inquiry into Ofsted by MPs on the Commons education committee, describing it as “woefully inadequate”.
She lambasted the education secretary, Gillian Keegan, accusing her of going “to great lengths to be seen to be listening”, then failing to act. Full Guardian article here.
Staff retention is the biggest challenge for UK employers in 2024
Some of the biggest challenges facing employers right now include retaining top talent, meeting salary and pay rise expectations, and providing a good work-life balance for employees, according to new research.
HR software provider Ciphr commissioned a survey of 300 UK HR decision-makers to find out which workplace challenges, if any, were causing their organisations the biggest headaches in 2024. Full article.
A third of younger workers believe that their employers don't care about sustainability
New research underscores a growing expectation among UK workers for companies to prioritise sustainability.
Half (51%) of employees are keen to see their company invest more in sustainability, rising to 61% of younger workers aged 18-34.
The research also reveals that over half (53%) would like to see their company investing in more sustainable benefits such as electric vehicles and sustainable pensions, similarly rising to two-thirds (66%) of 18–34 year olds – and these demands are not going unnoticed.
More than four in ten (44%) businesses report an increase in the number of employees asking for sustainable benefits, and over half (53%) say that they have noticed an increase in the employees who care about sustainability over the last year.
Despite this, employees, particularly younger ones, believe that their company could be doing more. Full report
Adam Grant on how to identify and develop high-potential leaders
The quest to build a robust pipeline of high-potential leadership talent is increasingly urgent as the challenges facing organisations gain in complexity and speed.
But what leadership skills take priority? Psychologist and science journalist Adam Grant pinpoints one of the most critical and over-arching for today’s turbulent times — strategic problem-solving.
According to Grant, “Often our highest potential people are the ones who can diagnose a problem that nobody else has seen and then figure out how to tackle it.” The challenge is to recognise the potential for that capability when assessing future leadership talent.
Read the excellent article over on The Big Think
Education sector tops unpaid overtime list, and 17% take time off for mental health
New research has revealed how those in the education field work an average of 2.2 hours overtime per week, which accumulates to around 14 days of unpaid overtime each year – the highest industry in the country. 17% of those working in education also cited mental health issues as to why they took time off work in the past year, with an average of 4.7 sick days taken off in the past year. FE News article.
HR is failing to lead the way in gender inclusive job adverts
Despite being a women-dominated profession, the human resources industry is failing to set an example in attracting women to senior leadership roles due to job adverts containing masculine language and a lack of EDI and flexible working statements.
Research by Nottingham Business School, part of Nottingham Trent University, with Newcastle University Business School, examined the wording of more than 150 adverts for HR roles, including occurrences of agentic traits or ‘getting ahead’ (masculine) and communal behaviours or ‘getting along’ (feminine).
Findings show that as the HR role salary or title seniority increases, the proportion of words categorised as masculine – such as leadership, deliver and decision – in the job adverts increases.