Teaching 14-19

Everything you need to know....about learning and teaching across the phases

Georgina Donovan

• Publisher: David Fulton Publishers
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781317854920
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Pedagogía
• Subtopic: Educación general

The emergence of the new 14-19 sector raises huge learning and teaching issues for both schools and colleges of further education. A new generation of skilled and flexible professionals will need to be trained and re-trained. Teachers in both sectors are understandably nervous about the impending changes. Covering everything a teacher needs to know about learning and teaching across these phases, this book:

• supports recent government policy initiatives for the 14-19 sector
• covers how to teach the 14-19 age phase in both schools and colleges
• addresses issues of concern for both teachers and college lectures
• helps both groups appreciate the background and rationale of the other sector.

With a FAQ format, lots of practical advice and illustrative case studies, this book will be vital for all practitioners, experienced and trainee, in both secondary and post-compulsory education.

Chapter 1
14–19: policies and initiatives

The ‘14–19 Education and Skills’ White Paper is twinned with the ‘Skills: Getting On in Business Getting On at Work’ White Paper (DfES 2005c), and this link in itself demonstrates the nature of the agenda and provides insight into underpinning government philosophy. Whether they approve or not, those involved in education in any capacity must understand that it is now defined in terms of its function as an arm of the economy. The focus on individuals of all ages – their creativity talents, attitudes and aspirations – is a focus on their potential contribution to national growth and wealth creation.

On 3 April 2005, in the final budget before the election, the Chancellor Gordon Brown announced an extra £12 billion for schools and colleges. Most of the key points for education in this budget were expected since, in spite of the ministerial changes, there has been a relatively consistent approach to policy spending over two Labour terms. Education spending in England will grow by an annual average of 4.4 per cent in real terms so that by 2007–8 spending will be £7.4 billion higher than in 2005–6. This will bring education spending in the UK to 5.6 per cent of GDP, with the increased spending directed at continuing to raise standards and pursuing the skills agenda.

The vision for the 14–19 phase that all young people should reach the age of 19 ‘ready for skilled employment or higher education’ is constantly promoted. The strategy and funding to support this is, in spite of the reduced scale of change, referred to as ‘reform’ and reflects the sense of shifting education to serve and develop the potential of all individuals but with national economic and social interests uppermost. This generation of 14–19-year-olds are the first to receive such treatment and their choices, experiences and destinations will be the test of these twenty-first-century policies.

What did the White Paper finally unveil?

’Today’s teenagers are tomorrow’s parents, entrepreneurs, public servants and community leaders.’ Ruth Kelly laid a dual emphasis on social and economic aims in the Foreword to the White Paper, ‘14–19 Education and Skills’ (DfES 2005a).

Stakeholder disappointment has been mentioned, as has the Secretary of State’s insistence that the White Paper was a genuine and potentially effective response to the challenges issued in the Tomlinson Final Report. So what full-policy picture did it propose?

In brief, the White Paper (DfES 2005a) offered the following:

• Retention of GCSE and A levels as ‘cornerstones’ of a new system
• New ‘general’ diploma for 5 GCSE grades A*-C (including English and maths)
• GCSE English and maths to include compulsory functional skills test
• New specialised Diplomas in 14 subject areas, with apprenticeships entering the framework
• Diplomas to be designed with SSC and employer input
• Pilot 14–16 programme based on E2E scheme to be made available to 10,000 young people from 2007

Across all sectors of education, the learner was given increased attention at the expense of learning, and the 14–19 phase is no exception. The White Paper as a whole emphasised the individual and set out the new ‘personalised’ and ‘tailored’ phase.

Moral and economic imperatives seemed linked in the White Paper though there was no doubt where the main emphasis lay. There is an extensive section (Chapter 2) dealing with the economic background, all set in the widest international context. Less prominent but still present is the following:

In this context, the need to offer every young person the opportunity to become educated and skilled is not only an economic imperative, but a moral one. Young people who do not have a good grounding in the basics and the right skills and knowledge for employment will not have much prospect of making the most of themselves in life and at work. If young people leave full-time education without well-respected and recognised qualifications, then they are unlikely to be able to gain employment and then cope with the changing context of work through their lives. And the ongoing social and technological change that affects our world demands that more young people are prepared not only with transferable skills but also to adapt and learn throughout their lifetime. In simple financial terms, as Figure 1.1 shows, those who achieve higher levels of qualification will earn more.

(DfES 2005a)

At the broadest level the proposals claimed to:

• tackle low post-16 participation – with participation at age 17 to increase from 75 per cent to 90 per cent over the next ten years;
• ensure that every young person has a sound grounding in the basics of English and maths and the skills they need for employment;
• provide better vocational routes which equip young people with the knowledge and skills they need for further learning and employment;

Figure 1.1 The impact of qualifications on wage potential

Source: DfES 2005a

¹ Levels refer to National Qualifications Framework (NQF) levels. Level 2 is intermediate level (equivalent to 5 or more A*-C grade GCSEs), level 3 is advanced level (equivalent to 2 or more A levels), level 4 is equivalent to first degree level.

• stretch all young people, and
• re-engage the disaffected.

High hopes for the social impact of education reforms were also evident in some statements, reminding us of the enduring central place of education in New Labour policy. The citizen employee of tomorrow is to be shaped in the redesigned system of today. The White Paper highlighted the correlation between truancy and offending behaviour in both male and female populations extending into their later life. The issue of disaffection has also been placed firmly in the foreground:

• There is a strong and well-documented association between poor attendance and behaviour at school and later anti-social behaviour and criminality as Table 1.1 shows.

Table 1.1 The correlation between offending behaviour and truancy

• If we are to have a healthy society of responsible, active citizens, well-prepared to take a role in our democracy and the international community, then our education system provides us with the means of achieving that. (DfES 2005a, P. 14)

What are these reforms designed to achieve?

The reforms have been designed to ensure:

• a reduction in the amount of prescription in the Key Stage 4 curriculum, providing more scope for schools to support catch-up in English and maths;
• an extension of the Key Stage 3 Strategy to improve classroom practice, so that it provides support across secondary schools;
• the expectation for more teenagers to achieve 5 A*-C grade GCSEs including English and maths and the introduction of a general (GCSE) Diploma to recognise those who achieve this standard;
• a revision of the GCSE Achievement and Attainment Tables, showing what percentage of young people have achieved the Diploma standard, i.e. 5 A*-C grade GCSEs including English and maths. The existing 5 A*-C measure will be phased out by 2008;
• the provision that no-one can get a C or better in English and maths without mastering the functional elements. Where a young person achieves the functional element only, it will be recognised separately.

The drive in the proposals is obviously aimed at fuelling improvements in achievement of functional skills in English and maths before and during the 14–19 phase. These skills are deemed essential to support learning in other subjects and employment. Achieving level 2 (GCSE level) in functional English and maths placed at the heart of the reforms. More opportunities and incentives are to be put place for teenagers who have not achieved level 2 by 16 to do so post-16 and support them in achieving level 1 or entry-level qualifications as steps on the way. Below there is a welcome recognition of the importance of Key Stage 3 with an emphasis on developing a strong base in the 11–14 phase. So the increased choice of the year should in theory rest upon a sound foundation built in the preceding years.

The following proposals express this plan to:

• retain all of the core and foundation subjects within that phase, but review the curriculum to improve its coherence in subjects where there are problems. Reduce prescription so that schools have space to help those below the expected level to catch up and to stretch all their pupils;
• support and challenge schools through the Secondary National Strategy and the New Relationship with Schools to use the new flexibility well;
• strengthen the emphasis on English and maths, in particular by expecting schools to focus systematically on those who arrive from primary school without having reached the expected standard in the Key Stage 2 literacy and numeracy tests, continue to publish national test results and introduce a new on-line test of ICT skills;
• introduce models of moderated teacher assessment in the other compulsory subjects, providing professional development for teachers to support their skills in assessing young people, which will help to raise standards across the curriculum, and
• emphasise the importance of achievement at age 14 by recording in a ‘Pupil Profile’ for each young person and their parents, achievement across the curriculum.

These proposals aim to increase the numbers of young people achieving National Curriculum level 5 in English, maths, science and ICT, and to stretch achievement across all subjects.

Policy and policy-makers

New Labour, new vocationalism: in over seven years of government the two concepts have come to seem inseparable but the future for the policies is still not guaranteed. Although many plans have been laid to push forward the education for employment agenda, the final direction to be taken depended upon the outcome of the 2005 general election. In order to understand the policies in question a wider view of the government’s agenda is required. What is the vision? Individuals, especially it would seem in education, are far less important than the strategic driving forces. In the past four years there have been no less than four different ministers at the head of the DfES.

For better or for worse, politicians have become convinced that our economic advantage requires a significant vocational upgrading of the workforce. Skills gaps, competitiveness, and the notion of the ‘skills crisis’ as an accepted fact are all factors that contribute to the current vocabulary and the new orthodoxy. The new beliefs do not fall into a single group yet there is much consensus.

The 14–19 phase, its related policies, projects and new legislation cannot be viewed in isolation. There is a wider context and this will, to a large extent, influence the success or failure of policies at the implementation stage. The opinions and attitudes of professionals and the wider workforce to any new proposals will inevitably have an impact on delivery. Those responsible for putting policy into practice across all agencies and institutions involved have long and sometimes painful memories of earlier initiatives. Unless they can be persuaded to support the new policies, there is little chance that these will succeed.

Not all the new skills are easily defined and recognisable, like spoken English or ICT competence. Nor are their applications so obvious in an economic sense, like call-centre work or web-based companies. The 1990s produced and popularised such terms and concepts as ‘the knowledge economy’ (Neef 1998) and intellectual capital. Having developed different ways of reading our social and economic structures there is a growing sense among policy-makers of the importance not only of traditional notions of knowledge as the key to new products, services and markets but as a business asset to be bought, sold, audited and developed.

One outcome of this tendency has been the attempt to embed intangibles into education. From creativity and imagination to responsibility and general problem-solving skills, the issues of how to define let alone teach and assess these skills and attributes have been exercising the minds of teachers and lecturers for some time. Wurzburg (1998, p. 39) identified some important management strategies evident in the best uses of the new ‘knowledge workers’. Among these he included the employment of multi-skilled people who could operate in self-managed groups and were ‘responsive’. It is these flexibilities, which have become so desirable, and their effect on the teaching and learning of the pre-work cohort that will be discussed in detail in Chapter 2.

Having pointed to the 2005 election as a decisive point, it is worth remembering that there is considerable cross-party agreement on many of the fundamental principles driving current policy. In addition there is a degree of inertia in all major enterprises so that once instigated there will be a tendency to allow the policy implementation to play out its course with minor amendments.

In a recent policy announcement the Conservative Party planted a flag of their own in 14–19 territory with the promise of £1,000 for every 14–16 student studying on vocational options. This could be used for the direct purchase of training places. The method might be different but the commitment to the phase in terms of extending choice and supporting increased vocational training is clear.

Industry is supposedly at the heart of the new debates and is given voice through the new organs like the Sector Skills Councils as well as existing employers’ bodies, vocational examining boards and the CBI. We are told that the employers have identified a dearth of skills appropriate for industry and that companies perceive the UK to be at a huge commercial disadvantage compared to partners and competitors within and beyond Europe.

The whole learning and skills sector is central to wider government policy. Schools had a high profile as standards were driven up and the pre-school years continue to receive attention but the 14–19 phase is now playing a major role across sector boundaries. The progress planned is intended to be a generator of economic prosperity and a mechanism for improving social equality and driving forward the social-justice agenda. ‘Success for All’, launched by Charles Clarke in 2002, began the process of increasing the achievements within the learning and skills sector and subsequent changes and initiatives are driving the movement forward.

The ‘14–19: Opportunity and Excellence’ document (DfES 2003a) outlined the government’s vision for young people. It was in this policy document that the staged reform process, skills for life and work and personalised learning for young people were set out but the consultation and Wor...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Figures and tables
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 14-19: policies and initiatives
• 2 Teaching and learning 14-19: approaches and structures
• 3 Training and quality issues
• 4 New learners and new contexts
• 5 14-19 in school
• 6 14-19 in post-compulsory education and training
• 7 Partnerships
• 8 Qualifications and assessment
• 9 Where next?
• References
• Index