in this issue:
14-19 Education and Skills
The Personal Touch
14-19 Education and Skills
Future plans...
This document came out on 14 December 2005 and sets out the Government’s detailed plans for implementing the major educational reforms outlined in the February 2005 White Paper 14-19 Education and Skills.
Key features of the Implementation Plan
- A new National Curriculum and qualifications entitlement for all 14-19 year olds offering a choice of routes.
- 14 specialised (vocational) diplomas at three levels that incorporate GCSEs and A levels.
- Diplomas to be developed by Diploma Development Partnerships led by employers.
- Strong emphasis on functional skills in English, maths and ICT incorporated into diplomas.
- A new General Diploma for those achieving the equivalent of five GCSEs grade A-C, including both English and maths. This will become the new, higher benchmark of performance reported in the school Achievement and Attainment Tables from 2006. This also means that school achievement tables must now include English and maths.
- 14-19 partnerships in every area involving Local Authorities, LSCs and other partners and publishing a prospectus listing provision in the area by September 2006.
- Schools are required to ensure young people’s access to all diplomas via 14-19 partnerships.
- Reform of Key Stage 3 and A level.
Timescale
2006:
- school achievement tables to include
English and maths
- trialling of functional skills
- local prospectuses published.
2008:
- first five specialised diplomas introduced in ICT, engineering, health and social care, creative and media, and construction and the built environment.
2009:
- first teaching of revised English and ICT GCSEs
- further five specialised diplomas introduced in land based and environmental, manufacturing, hair and beauty, business administration and finance, and hospitality and catering.
2010:
- first teaching of revised maths GCSE
- final four specialised diplomas introduced in public services, sport and leisure, retail,
and travel and tourism.
2013:
- all aspects of 14-19 reform in place following a three year evaluation period
- a new national entitlement for all students to study towards any of the 14 specialised diplomas and functional English, maths and ICT.
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The Personal Touch
Nottinghamshire 14-19 Conference & Integrating Personal Development
The 14-19 Conference was extremely well attended by staff from educational institutions across the city and county. These included senior managers and practitioners.
Delegates felt that the workshops reflected the current national and local context and challenges, with topical sessions including:
- Delivering the enterprise curriculum and accrediting the outcomes
- The ‘thinking’ approach to personalised learning
- Achieving success at KS4: alternative vocational curriculum pathways
- Using drama to introduce emotional intelligence
- Using ICT to record learning and achievement
- Using Labour Market Information (LMI) in schools and colleges
- Progression routes within Nottinghamshire
Integrating personal development
Connexions Nottinghamshire’s Curriculum Development Team co-delivered this workshop with Karen Birchenall, head of PSHE and Citizenship at Bramcote Hills School. Titled Integrating the Personal Development Curriculum, the sub-title could have been A Whistle Stop Tour!
Significantly, the Every Child Matters strategy was very clearly linked to education, and particularly the concept of personal development (PD) in the curriculum, by the first keynote speaker, John Westburnham. Every Child Matters (HMSO, 2003) outlines 5 key themes, such that every child, whatever their background or their circumstances, should have the support they need to:
- be healthy
- stay safe
- make a positive contribution
- achieve economic well-being
- enjoy and achieve
We feel that integration of the personal development curriculum is important and we are working to develop an integrated approach to provide further support to institutions through consultation, staff training, INSET and planned workshops.This should complement work that has been undertaken by 4 city institutions in connection with the Learn2Earn programme.
The following should provide a flavour to whet your appetite!
Links which may seem obvious often need highlighting to become apparent. We consider that the skills that CEG develops are the same as those taught in related areas of the curriculum; namely, to enable all students to make and implement well informed and realistic decisions about their lives and successfully manage change and transition. These skills are:
- decision–making
- self development
- researching information/options (career exploration)
- planning for change (career management)
The learning outcomes for these skills should be the same. It is the topics or hooks you use to ‘hang them on’ that change. With this in mind, we are developing a Suggested CEG Programme that reflects how this integration could work. Karen Birchenall gave some brilliant examples of how she is approaching this in her school. Taking Decision Making as the desired learning outcome, you can deliver this as part of work on, say, healthy eating and the basis of decisions about the school canteen menus.
With ever increasing demands on curriculum time the advantages to schools of considering this approach are:
- saves time in a crowded curriculum
- more meaning and relevance for students
- greater curriculum coherence when working to common themes
Guidelines from the DfES are imminent on Personal, Learning and Thinking Skills, or PLTS. These can also be ‘mapped’ to the PD curriculum, as can the Personal Development and Well Being section of the Self Evaluation Framework (SEF).
More information and support will follow on the integration of personal development from Connexions’ Curriculum Development Team as the approach unfolds!
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