Correspondence

DfE Update further education: 25 February 2026

Published 25 February 2026

Applies to England

1. Information: Publication of 16 to 18 English and maths progress measures at provider level

We published the 16 to 18 English and maths progress measures for the 2024 to 2025 academic year at provider level on Thursday 12 February 2026. The data shows how all schools and colleges in England perform at provider level.   

These measures apply to students who did not achieve a grade 4 or above in GCSE English or maths at key stage 4 and show how much progress they made from their GCSE result.

This is the headline accountability measure for colleges and schools in relation to the progress their students make in English and maths up to level 2 during 16 to 18 study.  

We paused publication of these measures after 2019 because COVID‑19 affected the data used to calculate them.

You can read more in the updated technical guidance.

2. Information: Effective practice in delivering 16 to 19 level 2 English and maths

We have published a new 16 to 19 English and maths effective practice guide. The guide was commissioned by DfE and developed by the Further Education (FE) Commissioner’s Office with contributions from colleges in the sector.

The guide shares examples of effective practice across ten themes to help providers deliver level 2 English and maths in a further education setting.

3. Information: New Manage Your Education Estate service

We have launched Manage Your Education Estate, a new digital service designed to support responsible bodies to manage their school and college buildings. It was announced in the Education estates strategy published on Wednesday 11 February 2026. It is designed to support those responsible for school and college buildings (‘responsible bodies’) to manage their estate.

The service brings DfE estates guidance, data and tools together in one place for the first time. Responsible bodies, schools and colleges can use it to view condition data for their settings.

We will now use Manage Your Education Estate to tell you when new guidance, funding data and opportunities are available. This is the first phase, and we will add more tools and data over time.

To access Manage Your Education Estate, log into DfE Sign‑in and select it from the list of services. It will be available from 10am on Thursday 26 February 2026.

4. Information: 16 to 19 funding for academic year 2026 to 2027

We know it’s important to confirm funding as soon as possible to help you with financial planning and aim to publish more detail in March 2026.

This will set out details of rates and methodologies to help you to understand how we will allocate funding and get a broad understanding of the amount you will be receiving, in advance of issuing individual provider-level allocations. 

We expect to issue the majority of provider-level allocations for core 16 to 19 funding by the end of March 2026, with the remaining allocations issued in April 2026. The timing of these payments in the next academic year will be as normal.

5. Information: FE Workforce Data Collection

The FE Workforce Data Collection 2024 to 2025 closed on Friday 9 January 2026.

Thank you for completing and submitting your return. Key findings are due to be published late May 2026.

Following consultation with providers, a revised submission window for the 2025 to 2026 FE Workforce Data Collection has been introduced.

This will allow us to publish data in late autumn 2026, rather than in the following May as is currently the case. This will be crucial in ensuring policy and funding decisions are informed by more timely data. 

The collection will now open on Friday 31 July 2026 and close on Friday 11 September 2026. Please ensure that you make suitable preparations for your organisation to submit FE workforce data during this revised collection window.

The updated collection specification is now available through the Further Education Workforce Data Collection 2025 to 2026.

In preparation for the new collection cycle, we will notify you of any workshops or support sessions scheduled prior to the opening of the submission window in July.

6. Reminder: Make the most of Apprenticeship Workforce Development programme resources before Tuesday 31 March 2026

The Apprenticeship Workforce Development (AWD) programme is funded by DfE and delivered by the Education Training Foundation (ETF) to support apprenticeship providers in delivering high quality provision.

We encourage providers to make full use of the current range of AWD courses available via the ETF website before the current AWD programme comes to an end on Tuesday 31 March 2026. After this date resources from this programme will continue to be available online via the ETF website.