F-Tec Forklift Training Engineering Centre Ltd

F-TEC Forklift Training Engineering Centre Limited Progress monitoring report

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Name of lead inspector: Tracey Zimmerman, Her Majesty’s Inspector

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Type of provider: Independent learning provider

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Address: Unit 17 Ash Kembrey Park Swindon Wiltshire SN2 8UN Monitoring visit: Forklift Training Engineering Centre Limited, 25 – 26 February 2021

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Context and focus of visit

F-Tec Forklift Training Engineering Centre Limited (F-TEC) received a new provider monitoring visit in February 2019. At that time, inspectors made progress judgements under three themes.

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Context and focus of visit

This monitoring visit focused on the extent to which leaders and those responsible for governance are taking effective action to provide education and training in the current circumstances. It was undertaken as outlined in the operational note on visits carried out from January 2021 and with reference to the further education and skills handbook.

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Context and focus of visit

These visits are to help learners, parents, employers and government understand how providers are meeting the needs of learners in this period, including those with high needs and those with special educational needs and/or disabilities.

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Context and focus of visit

Following changes to government guidance and the imposition of COVID-19 (coronavirus) lockdown restrictions, inspectors carried out this monitoring activity remotely. As a result, the range of evidence available to inspectors was narrower than would be the case during an on-site inspection. Therefore, this report provides a more limited level of assurance.

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Context and focus of visit

The impact of COVID-19 has been taken into account in the findings and progress judgement below. Inspectors did not evaluate leaders’ response to COVID-19 during the spring and summer of 2020, when the provider was not open to all learners and there were no national expectations regarding remote education.

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Insufficient progress

F-TEC is the main UK provider of engineering technician apprenticeships for the forklift truck industry. Alongside their level 2 framework-based apprenticeship, leaders have recently introduced a new level 3 standards-based apprenticeship which they designed in partnership with employers.

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Insufficient progress

Leaders have made insufficient progress in remedying the areas of improvement identified at the previous monitoring visit. Leaders and those responsible for safeguarding do not understand this aspect well enough to ensure that all Monitoring visit: Forklift Training Engineering Centre Limited, 25 – 26 February 2021 procedures are in place to maintain the safety and security of apprentices. For example, no safer recruitment checks are in place.

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Insufficient progress

Leaders do not check the quality of apprenticeships routinely. As a result, leaders cannot assure themselves that they have identified any concerns, or put in place appropriate actions to tackle them.

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Insufficient progress

Apprenticeships are based solely on the qualification requirements, rather than the specific knowledge, skills and behaviours which apprentices need in order to gain work and make progress in their careers in the forklift truck industry. Apprentices are not taught how to keep themselves safe, such as when working online, or about how British values apply in their industry. As a result, apprentices are not clear on how to keep themselves safe or how to be good citizens.

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Insufficient progress

The board directors have expertise in the forklift truck industry and as a result are able to support leaders well with technical aspects of the qualification. However, they do not have sufficient understanding of safeguarding duties and the requirements of apprenticeships to provide adequate challenge to leaders. Leaders recognise this and are currently seeking new board members with these additional areas of expertise.

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Insufficient progress

Apprentices do not benefit from clear guidance on how they can improve their work. Feedback, written and verbal, often lacks detail and does not ensure that all apprentices understand how to reach their full potential. Trainers’ observations of apprentices at work often describe the activity, but not the knowledge, skills and behaviours which the apprentice is learning or demonstrating.

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Insufficient progress

Leaders have a clear understanding of the progress that apprentices have made towards achieving their main qualification. However, trainers are not recording apprentices’ progress in developing the wider requirements of their roles, such as in English, mathematics and team working skills.

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Insufficient progress

Leaders have worked with employers to devise the newly introduced standards- based apprenticeship. They have ensured that the technical curriculum meets the needs of the forklift industry, but also contains transferable skills, such as a wider knowledge of engines and transmission systems, that will help apprentices in complementary occupations, including motor vehicle maintenance.

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Insufficient progress

Leaders have sequenced apprenticeships as a series of learning modules, which are currently taught remotely as a result of the pandemic. Managers plan the technical maintenance curriculum well, building on apprentices’ previous skills and extending their expertise. Employers provide opportunities between learning modules for apprentices to practise their skills. This enables apprentices to cement their knowledge by applying new learning swiftly at work.

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Insufficient progress

Leaders have strong links with employers. Employers receive monthly reports about their apprentices’ progress towards the qualification. Trainers schedule progress reviews early in the apprenticeship to discuss with apprentices and employers the Monitoring visit: Forklift Training Engineering Centre Limited, 25 – 26 February 2021 specific requirements of the qualification and how apprentices’ new knowledge can be applied at work. As a result, employers understand the progress that their apprentices are making towards their technical qualifications.

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Insufficient progress

Apprentices rightly value their trainers’ technical expertise. Trainers use their industry knowledge to develop sessions that are engaging and relevant to the apprentices, including discussions around concepts such as Ohm’s law. However, staff have had very little training or development over the last two years to ensure that their knowledge remains current. Staff have had no training in how best to deliver training online, nor in how to keep apprentices safe online.

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Insufficient progress

Staff know their apprentices well. During the pandemic, staff increased the amount of time they spent with apprentices remotely, checking on their welfare through telephone calls and video conferencing sessions.

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Insufficient progress

Leaders and those responsible for governance should take further action to:

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Insufficient progress

 improve the culture and knowledge of safeguarding throughout the organisation by ensuring that their legal obligations are met and provide appropriate training for their staff and apprentices  implement quality assurance and improvement processes so that improvement actions can be monitored by managers and governors to ensure that the provision improves swiftly  provide tutors with ongoing support and training so they improve their pedagogy in order to support apprentices’ development of new knowledge, skills and behaviours. Monitoring visit: Forklift Training Engineering Centre Limited, 25 – 26 February 2021 regulates and inspects to achieve excellence in the care of children and young people, and in education and skills for learners of all ages. It regulates and inspects childcare and children’s social care, and inspects the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass), schools, colleges, initial teacher

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Insufficient progress

training, further education and skills, adult and community learning, and education and training in prisons and other secure establishments. It assesses council children’s services, and inspects services for children looked after, safeguarding and child protection.

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Insufficient progress

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Insufficient progress

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T: 0300 123 1231 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: www.gov.uk/ofsted

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