Episode 07: Olly Newton

We are delighted to be joined on Heads & Tales by Olly Newton, Executive Director at the Edge Foundation.  Edge is an independent, politically impartial foundation working to inspire the education system to give all young people across the UK the knowledge, skills and behaviours they need to flourish in their future life and work. 

Before that Olly spent 12 years in the Department of Education and has also acted as a specialist advisor to the House Lords Commission on Youth Unemployment.  

Thank you for joining us! 

Do you have a mentor? 

I have four mentees and a mentor called Robin Goldberg. She is the Chief Experience Officer at a cool new university in the U.S. We met in Scotland and she’s an amazing person. She helps me with strategy the bigger picture, not getting into the nitty gritty.  

Did you have experience of mentorship at a younger age? 

Near peer support is so crucial when you’re at that age. The gulf between Year 9 and Year 12 feels huge!  

I got a scholarship to an independent school; the quality of the education was good but super traditional. We didn’t have an outlet for creative and technical work. I have a very creative family but that wasn’t part of my education. I didn’t really click with the people at my school: my parents were hot metal typesetters! It was an early insight into the challenges around equity and privilege in the system.  

I don’t regret any of it, I was very lucky, but it opened my eyes to the changes needed in the system.  

Was it obvious that education was for you? 

When I was younger, I did a lot of stuff around widening access, and giving families access to university, working in scouting. It’s always been a passion of mine. 

I applied for the civil service and put down the Department of Education as my first choice and I then spent 12 years there.  I found that the civil service really values generalism which is great in some ways, but it doesn’t value deep subject expertise.  

Tell us a bit about working at the DfE and your work in apprenticeships 

I did a group of postings, particularly in 14-19 diplomas and raising the participation age. That was my area, and it was a great time as they were top of the agenda for David Cameron. You were always in the spotlight but there was also a danger it was oversold as a solution to a wide range of challenges.  

I particularly remember that we went on a quest to find the 2 millionth apprentice. We scoured the database, and we met an apprenticeship working at an engineering startup called Page near Oxford Station. We took her to 10 Downing Street to meet the PM!  

When there’s a lot of pressure around numbers, and goals, it can be really challenging. Lots of late nights but great fun too. 

What is the direction of travel for apprenticeships? 

They are brilliant but we need to make sure there are enough opportunities for people of younger ages. All the stats are suggesting that apprenticeships are drifting towards higher levels and people re-skilling. They should be a great access route and if older established workers only win out from what they offer that will be unfortunate.  

Apprenticeships should remain simple and accessible to SMEs as well as the big corporates who can attract large numbers.  

What about UCAS? 

There are two big pieces of news from UCAS:  

1. Greater apprenticeship visibility and applicability through that portal is great. That said, many apprenticeships don’t always get fully advertised; we need to push on equity via tools like pre apprenticeship programmes. Pre– apprenticeship work needs addressing. Young people need a bit of ‘wiring’ to find the language for the employable skills they need. Essentially, we need to do stuff on the supply side.  
2. Changes to the Personal Statement is also good news and dovetails with the work we’ve been doing at Rethinking Assessment. We need to develop lots of different types of evidence that showcase a broad range of skills.  

Joint Dialogue Series 

How do we help develop Character Education nationally?  

It should come from both the Government and the schools themselves. It needs to be the norm, not the expectation. We’ve had pilots of schools looking to assess creativity, inter-disciplinarity, and democratic learning.  

There is no shortage of teachers looking to develop things like this, but it does also need direct government sponsorship. The more that can be said from the top, the better.  

Assessment needs to change, with small changes in the way students are challenged. For example, a US group of schools changed a written exam to a passage presentation where students had to showcase artefacts and were asked about how they’d applied the skills they’d learnt to a wider life. This ‘lecture’ was in front of lots of different people including family and friends.  

One Latino woman spoke about how in English she’d learnt about critical arguments but, moreover, how the government was attacking people from her community with extra bills to pay and eviction notices. She was working with a local organisation to help support those people, especially those for whom English wasn’t a first language.  

She could demonstrate how those learned skills had helped her address this problem. The school showed me the trickle-down effect of that final assessment and how this informed the way students were taught.  

I don’t think the performance measures are working and schools are overwhelmed with how much content has to be taught. Brave institutions like School 21 and BIG Education, are shifting the narrative around what is important. They’ve added work experience as ‘the 9th GCSE’.  

More flexibility and trust are what is needed for teachers.   

What are you trying to achieve personally and for Edge? 

We’ve broadened our remit to: how do we make education more relevant in school, college and university? 

One key area for us is so many amazing people in the sector. We need forums to bring people together. I want to continue to play that neutral role around convening and bringing those amazing groups together to compound the work being done.