FUTURISTIC TRAINING KEY TO DEVELOPING NEXT GENERATION SKILLS

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Today, tomorrow’s leaders are learning skills of the future at Education Partnership North East (EPNE), a dynamic partnership between Sunderland College, Hartlepool Sixth Form College and Northumberland College.

With more than £90 million invested across the group’s facilities in the last six years, and more to come, CONTACT speaks to chief executive Ellen Thinnesen about how the North East’s largest regional group is working to stay one step ahead of industry to ensure students leave with the skills and experience to drive the future economy.

Walk around any of Education Partnership North East’s (EPNE) six campuses, and you will see transformational development projects underway.

Across all its sites – spanning Northumberland in the north of the region, to Hartlepool in the south – there
have been significant programmes of investment.

Some have been cosmetic – creating the most aspirational learning environment possible – but for the
most part, the changes taking place across the college’s estate have been driven by a desire to deliver the most advanced training available, that will drive future-focused skills to help level up the region.

“When visitors see our resources, they often comment on how business-like our campuses are – how the facilities feel like a real work environment,” says chief executive Ellen Thinnesen, who has been at the helm of the college group since 2016.

“And that’s critical. We want students to get the most authentic training possible – whether they’re studying for
a technical qualification or an academic route.

“Further education should prepare them for their next career steps.

“We can only do that if we not only prepare them for the industry of today, but for the changes that are coming down the line.

“And that means tight relationships with employers, so we are absolutely on top of what’s changing – and indeed, moving in lockstep with emerging trends that are disrupting industry, so we adapt our training in a really agile way.

“We are deeply focused on the labour market – we have to understand how it is going to change in the North East and what the requirements of businesses will be, so we can ensure the talent pipeline we create is absolutely aligned.”

Among the areas of focus at EPNE is delivering digitally-enhanced learning – using technology to take training to the next level and keep pace with the speed at which it is permeating every single sector.

“This is something we’re really passionate about,” says Ellen.

“There can be little doubt that IT, and the enhanced capability it provides, is cutting through almost every industry, from healthcare to communications, and engineering to architecture.

“And that means that every young person who leaves school, college or university has to be a digital citizen ready to utilise tech in whatever sector they move in to; equally our adult students need to keep pace with digital developments in the workplace too.

“This is why we embed digital into our training so students leave us digitally equipped and can apply these skills within their chosen industry.

“And we also use tech to enhance the quality of our training.

“At Sunderland College, we’ll soon be opening a new immersive space – part of a £3 million capital programme – that will simulate a range of digital environments to enable our T Level students to train in a space that, for instance, might feel like a factory or a hospital.

“We want it to feel authentic, and to bridge the gap between education and industry.”

Perhaps the most telling signs of the group being focused on the future are recent investments in spaces that will support the development of emerging eco-systems within the North East.


The college is set to play a key role in driving the skills base needed to support Nissan EV36Zero, a £1 billion electric vehicle eco-system that will create and secure thousands of jobs across the region.

EPNE has secured £1.3 million to deliver improved facilities at Sunderland College’s City Campus, that will allow the group to deliver training around green technology, ensuring the skills pipeline is strong.

Ellen says: “We are really passionate about the role education can play in the economic development of this region, and we’ve recently been working with Ford Next Generation Learning (NGL), Edge Foundation and the North East Local Enterprise Partnership to embed new approaches to teaching that have transformed outcomes in Nashville, in the US, and that we know can do the same for us in the North East.


“The approach relies on those close working relationships with local employers and community partners and experiential learning, and that’s what we will be developing to support the region’s EV hub and ensure that Envision AESC – the company that is leading the development of a £450 million gigafactory to drive EV36Zero – has the skills base it needs to drive the growth of automotive in the future.”

And, just as EPNE will be at the cutting-edge of advanced manufacturing of cars, the group is also set to blaze a trail when it comes to skills for modern methods of construction.

Sunderland City Council, EPNE and the Ministry of Building Innovation and Education have secured funding from the Government’s Levelling Up Fund that will see the development of a Housing Innovation and Construction Skills Academy (HICSA), a groundbreaking facility that will educate, train and upskill local people to create innovative factory-built new homes, the first of which will be assembled at Riverside Sunderland.


Ellen adds: “HICSA is really innovative.

“Just like Nissan EV36Zero, this is about powering the green revolution, that we know will create sustainable opportunities for our young people, as well as advancing the agenda of the region – and indeed the country – when it comes to building homes using modern methods of construction that are faster to construct and deliver exemplary quality and energy efficiency standards.

“This is about future-proofing our young people and supporting existing employees – ensuring they have the skills
that will power the economy of tomorrow and we’re thrilled to be able to advance this important agenda and play a part in building a green future for our region.

“Today, we’re thinking about tomorrow, trying to stay one step ahead and absolutely focused on the industries that will prosper – and the skills they will need – in the future.


“Our role is to ensure that it is our students who are able to step forward and be the leaders of tomorrow, thanks to the skills they’re developing right now at EPNE.”

Results 2021: Disadvantaged pupils fall behind

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Last week, 782,000 students across the country received their GCSE, BTEC and A-Level results. On the surface, the results painted a positive picture, with the number of students achieving top GCSE and A-Level results at a record high. Nationally, 44.5% of A-Level students achieved grades equivalent to an A or A*, up by 75% since the last time conventional exams were taken in 2019.

What is concerning, however, is the widening gap between the most and least affluent students. The past eighteen months have been deeply challenging for schools and students. with teachers having to adapt to online learning and battle to keep students learning whilst at home during school closures. Although teachers have worked incredibly hard to support students throughout the crisis, the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on poorer students has been exposed in recent research by the Social Mobility Commission.

The Commission warned that so-called ‘learning loss’ has disproportionately affected disadvantaged pupils who, generally, had less access to digital infrastructure, were less able to find quiet places to work and were less likely to have parents who could support at-home learning during school closures. The Commission also noted that poorer students were less likely to have access to additional support like tutoring or subscription education services to support learning when schools were closed or to catch up on lost learning. Worryingly, areas like the North East with higher numbers of disadvantaged pupils suffered greater learning loss levels than other regions.

Due to the pandemic, exams were cancelled for the second year running, leaving hundreds of thousands of students receiving results determined by their teachers. While teacher assessed grades are viewed by many as the fairest way of calculating student grades for students this year, the method of calculation chosen by the Government has drawn criticism from some. With learning loss disproportionately impacting poorer students, some experts argue that students should be assessed on their potential as well as their attainment to prevent poorer students from being disadvantaged due to the pandemic in this year’s results.  

The predictions of rising inequality have been borne out in this year’s GCSE and A-Level results, with attainment gaps widening between the wealthiest and least wealthy pupils. The gap between independent schools and comprehensives in A* and A grade A levels, for example, rose from 24% to 31%. The increase in top A-Level grades has generally been concentrated in the most privileged schools, which experts warn could cause pupils from lower socio-economic backgrounds to be disadvantaged in the labour market and crowded out of the UK’s top universities. Not only have this week’s results confirmed a widening gap between pupils, but they have also confirmed suspicions that regional gaps in attainment will grow due to the pandemic. In London, almost 48% of results were A* or A grades, compared with 39% in the North East.

With the fears of experts of the pandemic widening inequalities between students being realised, the Government needs to act urgently to support pupils in all regions to achieve. Increased investment in the 16-19 education system, which has seen more funding cut than in other areas of education, will be important to ensure that students who have lost learning during the pandemic can be fully supported to catch up. It will also be vital that universities are creative in offering special consideration to young people from lower-income backgrounds to prevent poorer pupils from being crowded out of university courses. Finally, Government needs to outline and implement a long-term plan for tackling growing inequality in society to ensure that pupils from all backgrounds can achieve in education and progress into high-quality careers.

Colleges week

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Colleges Week has allowed us to celebrate our region’s excellent colleges and the important role they play in the North East. Colleges are engines of opportunity and offer people in our region the chance to reach their full potential. What is more, they help ensure that our region’s workforce have the skills that businesses need to succeed.

Whilst this week has shone a spotlight on the important role further education colleges play in our local community and economy, we have a long way to go in ensuring that the importance of colleges is recognised by policymakers. In the last decade, per-student funding has fallen by 12% in colleges, whilst funding into adult education has fallen by 45% in real terms. Successive years of disinvestment in the sector has disproportionately impacted people in the North East, with 50% of pupils in the region progressing into an apprenticeship or learning at a further education college, compared to just 26% of pupils in London.

The pandemic has highlighted the vulnerability of young people and less qualified adults in economic downturns, as well as the important role colleges will play in the economic recovery from Covid-19. Colleges will be instrumental in supporting school-leavers into their first jobs, helping redundant workers back into the workplace or into new careers and ensuring that the skills needs of our rapidly changing economy are met.

This Government has been vocal in its support for colleges and its desire to see renewed focus on the further education system. Whilst the Government’s recent announcement of the Lifetime Skills Guarantee and £1.5bn cash injection for capital improvements are a start, much more needs to be done level up the further education system. With the FE White Paper on the horizon, now is the opportunity for Government to put its money where its mouth is and outline increased and long-term college funding agreements, more power for regional authorities to target local skills needs and a real commitment to life-long learning and training.

We must ensure that the further education system is fit for purpose and able to deliver the upskilling and reskilling of the workforce needed for the North East to truly “build back better”.