Welcome to FE Soundbite edition 643.

Well, Ofsted was 30 years old this week… time to celebrate? Not for NEU members… I am in two minds about what NEU did next… they sent unhappy birthday cards to Ofsted.. loads of them. We wouldn’t think this was a good idea to encourage our students and learners to did this to someone … but at the same time it did stick out in my mind. What do you think about it? Is it out of order / toxic to send Ofsted unhappy birthday cards.. or is it just a bit of banter? Personally I think this sort of thing is all a bit – ‘Requires Improvement’… but what do I know?

Have you checked out this podcast with MH&A: The Apprenticeship Levy: What’s the problem we’re trying to solve?

… and SkillsWorld LIVE …. Is back… have you checked out the latest episode:

Delivering on the Skills Bill – What next?

The AoC Beacon Awards were this week… and who were the winners?... check it out here

We had some great exclusive articles this week, including this cracker from Suki on Students and staff co-producing to lead the way to success, and take a Deep Dive with Lou Doyle, Mandy Crawford Lee on The Lifelong Loan Entitlement, Apprenticeship Levy and Employer Funded Training – Policy Contradictions and Practical Implications, Derek on STEM retention and Aneta wrote about Rebuilding internal relationships to build the future talent pipeline and a vert popular article by Megan Savage Shaw on Apprenticeships: unlocking the opportunity

Ofqual also launched their 3 year plan.

This week was also Star Wars day on May 4^th. Now since the launch of the new FE News site in November… It has bothered me that I didn’t name our AI to help people upload content for approval. On the old system, we had Obi1… so on Star Wars day… Steve Lawrence mentioned Padawans, now for those not into Star Wars, a Padawan is a Jedi’s Apprentice… so that hit a spark in my brain and the AI now has a name Pada1.. or Padawan. I feel a peace and May the Force be with you as well.

Also, very exciting... we are experimenting. For the summer period, the FE News team will be finishing up at 13.30 to take some time out. So if you need to reach the FE News team about anything on a Friday.. best to reach out in the morning and not after 13.30 (or just before 13.30, that won't go down well!). We started our Friday afternoon experiment this week... and to be open, it feels weird finishing up early, but also proper amazing! So we will let you know how our experiment goes. The FE News team works super hard, we all live in Devon, so why not take some time out to enjoy the summer and beautiful surroundings!