Welcome to FE Soundbite Edition 821: 1st November 2025. What is a Green Mindset? ... and how can you be one of the 3% that inspires and influences the 85%?
NEBOSH is sponsoring this week’s Soundbite
This is the weekly e-newsletter and e-journal by FE News: ISSN 2732-4095. We know life is busy, so here's a snapshot of the latest announcements and epic thought leadership articles from sector influencers and thought leaders across FE and Skills this week on FE News.
Soundbite Sponsor Spotlight
The Changing Learner Landscape: Trends, Challenges and Opportunities
Tim Oates CBE unveils new research on the 13th November at 1-2pm, where he will be exploring how 16-25 year-olds want to learn in 2024.
Supported by NEBOSH and the Federation of Awarding Bodies, Tim's report combines multiple strands of evidence revealing critical shifts in learner expectations and behaviours. Discover what young people really want from skills training, which assessment strategies are working across Europe, and the key trends that will shape technical and vocational education over the next decade. This is essential for anyone working with learners or planning provision in our evolving landscape.
Wow, what a week. This week we kicked off the Green Mindset Collective. This was 50 leaders, together for one day creating one report. My word. This was the third collective, and thank you to Education Training Foundation, this was the best yet and what a partner you have been on this journey. It was brilliant. We opened with Jacqui Smith (who is really interested in the findings), Toby Perkins and Katerina (and what a cool perspective with the Environmental Audit Committee and Apprenticeship all party group ... and Shadow Skills hat on... Joanna Moonan, Deputy Director for Clean Energy and Life Sciences from Skills England.. and 50 brilliant, collaborative leaders.
So... what is the Green Mindset?
The report is coming on the 10th Dec and thanks to Dr Vikki Smith from ETF and Charlotte Bonner from EAUC for co-authoring this.. but my takeaways were:
The Green Mindset isn't just a tick box. Or a Green course! It needs to be a 'golden thread' woven through our organisation and services.
The implement... just 3% of people can influence and impact 85% of an organisation (Lou shared this from Helen Bevan's work in the NHS), and this is really interesting, to make impactful change and a shift on your organisation... to a sector wide Green Mindset shift, it just takes a core of 3%. What could 3% of the FE and Skills sector do to positively impact 85%?!.. and then the Green Mindset to our local area, our local employers.. really interesting!
Micro to the Macro - micro changes can make macro impacts. We don't just need to ask for massive policy changes, what are the micro things we can change today? (not even tomorrow)?
Community and culture matters with this... and how can you encourage change in your supply chains matter, if you are buying from an Awarding Organisation, or EdTech firm, what is their sustainability and impact? What is yours... if you are supplying services to employers?
This, for me, is the Green Mindset!
I can't wait to see what is in the report (out on the 10th Dec). If you want to see Jacqui Smith's address, here it is:
https://youtu.be/GgT_tex2TPA
Skills England Launches Three New Tools to Close UK’s AI Skills Gap
Skills England launched a new report ‘AI skills for the UK workforce’, they also launched an AI Skills Framework, Adoption Pathway and Employer Checklist to support wider and more responsible AI use. Pretty Cool!
Skills England also announced that 7.5 million UK workers are set to gain essential AI skills by 2030 through industry partnerships with NVIDIA, Google, IBM and Microsoft, again.. cool!
So definitely one to help signpost to employers and get stuck into as well.
DWP Publishes Response to Pathways to Work Consultation
Right to Try Work was well received... but... the fear of losing support permanently was identified as one of the biggest barriers preventing disabled people from attempting employment.
The consultation highlighted that the assessment process is fundamentally broken... which goes hand in glove with the concerns over the Right to Try Work Guarantees!
There was a strong opposition to age-based eligibility; 43% of responses opposed delaying the Universal Credit health element to age 22, arguing that support should be based on need, not age. 12% warned this would cause financial hardship, particularly for care leavers and estranged young people. I have long banged on about the fact that half of all NEETS are aged 22 to 24 and they need support!
Timms Review
Access to Work needs shorter wait times for support, but is generally very well accepted (Access to Work helps with reasonable adjustments). ... and the main concerns were around PIP and there is a new review called the Timms Review (The Review will be co-chaired by Sir Stephen Timms, Minister for Social Security and Disability, Sharron Brennan and Dr Clenton Farquharson CBE... and you can get involved, they are looking for people to join them). So if you are interested, this is your moment basically.
So let's see what shakes out. The feedback on support to 22-year-olds is really interesting, and what could this mean for NEET numbers?
Also, Access To Work, when it gets reviewed, is often brilliant... but Access to Work reviews take forever in my experience. I have Access to Work for some of my Neurodivergent challenges, some of my new support services that have been recommend for me, are not being reviewed for 32 weeks for reasonable adjustment support... this is a really long time and this is all about supporting people to remain in work, I wonder if anyone is tracking the impact of the wait times on employers and people needing support how often this support then comes too late to offer reasonable adjustments? At 32 weeks, it's like over half a year to wait for support which is ages!
We have also announced the SEND Collective (that also includes Neuro-inclusion) on the 12th Feb in London, so if you are interested in this, you can also help shape a sector led report on this!
The Electoral Age Reduction Plan Gets my VoteBy Vwaire Ikwe, 19, Students’ Union President at Leeds City College, Leeds Sixth Form College, Harrogate College, Keighley College and Pudsey Sixth Form College.
In The Know
Join us on Feb 12th in London for our SEND collective intelligence event, where you'll co-create strategies and policy recommendations alongside sector leaders. This isn't lectures, it's rolling up sleeves and making real change. This isn't just SEND, this is Neuro inclusion and breaking down the silos to help every learner, not just 16-18, but all life long. This is a massively important Collective, so help shape the report!
