14-19 Education and Skills HE Newsletter - Issue 5, Summer Term 2008

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Contents

• Introduction
• Diploma Update
  • Training for teaching Diplomas
  • The Diploma qualification - Certification and the Transcript
  • Phase 4 Diplomas
  • Diploma numbers
  • Support from HE
  • New Specialist Learning Options
  • Employer champions for the Diploma
  • Work experience within the Diploma
• Consultation
  • Qualifications Strategy
• Policy Updates
  • Changes to the secondary National Curriculum
  • HE support grant for those on EMA 2008/9
  • OFQUAL
  • Machinery of Government Changes
• Communications
  • Illustrations of progression from Advanced Diploma to University courses
  • 2008/9 Diploma marketing campaign
  • To come - Guidance leaflets on A levels and Extended Project

INTRODUCTION

This Newsletter keeps you up to date on the progress of the 14-19 educational reform programme. To ensure you receive a copy please subscribe on-line via the newsletter section of the 14-19 Website.

Diploma Update

Training for teaching Diplomas

£81m additional funding is available to prepare school and college staff to offer Diplomas in 2008-9. The Specialist Schools and Colleges Trust will be working with other agencies to provide face to face and online training.

The Diploma qualification - Certification and the Transcript

Successful Diploma candidates will receive a transcript with their award which will cover

• Overall Diploma grade
• Principal learning Units and overall grade
• Description of personal learning and thinking skills and record of their achievement
• Project grade
• Functional skills
• Additional and specialist learning grades
• Confirmation of completion of work experience

Each qualification within the Diploma will be certificated as usual by the component Awarding bodies; completing all the components successfully will trigger the Diploma Awarding Body to award a transcript and overall Diploma certificate. If a learner does not achieve all the necessary components, the component certificates still hold their value as standalone certificates.

Phase 4 Diplomas

The chairs for the Phase 4 Diploma Development Partnerships have been appointed.

Their first task will be a wide-ranging consultation about the Diploma line of learning statements.

The qualifications are being developed for first teaching in September 2011. There will be an entitlement for all students to study any of the first 14 Diplomas by 2013; and , for 16-18 year olds this entitlement will extend to all 17 Diplomas.

Diploma numbers

20,000 learners are expected to study a Diploma from September 2008. The Department has worked closely with consortia to ensure quality. This year about a quarter of schools and half of colleges offered the Diplomas and next year this will rise to nearly three quarters of secondary schools and almost nine out of ten of colleges offering the Diploma in September 2009. For more information see the Press Notice.

Support from HE

We are pleased to see that around 150 HE Institutions have now provided statements on the UCAS website on the acceptability of Diplomas, and some provide information at course level. Colleagues are encouraged to ensure their institution has made a statement .

For more information on the UCAS announcement see their Press Notices.

Young people will begin studying the first Advanced Diplomas this September and those considering university will need to know the options open to them to ensure that they make the right choices, particularly of additional and specialist learning.

New Specialist Learning Options available

An updated catalogue of Additional and Specialist Learning (ASL) for the Diploma was published on 21 May. The catalogue lists all the qualifications that can be combined within a Diploma, see www.accreditedqualifications.org.uk.

ASL qualifications should not overlap the content of the Principal learning by more than 30%. QCA are working with Awarding Bodies to ensuring that all qualification in the ASL catalogue meet this requirement. All the new BTEC qualifications coming into the new catalogue have been specifically designed to fit alongside without overlap.

Employer champions for the Diploma

Employer support for Diplomas is growing. The Employer Diploma Champions Network is expanding so that by September 2008 there will be a champion in each region for each Diploma subject

Work experience within the Diploma

There have been some misleading statements in the media about work experience in the Diploma. Each learner undertaking a Diploma at any level must complete a minimum of 10 days' work experience.

Work experience is defined as: ‘A placement with an employer in which a young person carries out a task - or range of tasks - and duties in much the same way as an employee with the emphasis on learning from the experience.

Work experience is one form of work-related learning. Other forms include visits to employers' premises, project work, business mentoring, mock interviews and enterprise activities. In 2006/07 over 470,000 young people had work experience at Key Stage 4 alone, excluding other placements organised directly by schools and colleges. We are confident that there will be sufficient high quality places

Consultation

Qualifications Strategy ‘Promoting achievement, valuing success: a strategy for 14-19 qualifications'

Consultation ends this month on the Qualifications Strategy. The Strategy proposes simplifying the system, with a new process to bring the best of existing qualifications into the four national routes - Diplomas; GCSEs and A-levels; Apprenticeships; and the Foundation Learning Tier - while building towards a more streamlined offer

Key elements of the strategy include:

• Establishing a new process for determining which qualifications will be funded for young people in England in the future, including through:
  • a new set of criteria for section 96 of the Learning and Skills Act 2000;
  • a new body - the Joint Committee for Qualifications Approval - to advise the Secretary of State on how these criteria should be applied.
• Ensuring that new qualification options are made as comprehensive as possible through:
  • the Extended Diploma, to recognise a wider range of achievement within the Diploma framework;
  • plans to make the Extended Project an entitlement for all young people who study A Levels;
  • an extension of the Diploma entitlement from the first 14 to all 17 Diplomas post-16 from 2013.

The Department will respond to the consultation in August

Policy Updates

Changes to the secondary National Curriculum

From this September the National Curriculum at key stages 3 and 4 will be changing for all subjects (except science which will be changing at key stage 3 only , following the introduction of changes at key stage 4 in 2006).  Schools will have greater flexibility and be able to focus on helping students to understand the 'big ideas' in each subject.  For further information see http://curriculum.qca.org.uk/.

HE support grant for those on EMA 2008/9

All young people living in England who receive an EMA for the first time from academic year 2008/09 will be guaranteed the maximum maintenance or special support grant of £2,835 (for 08/09) if they proceed into higher education. Certain conditions will apply, but these will be clearly spelt out and the offer will hold good regardless of any subsequent changes in their personal circumstances. If student support rates increase, recipients of the guarantee will benefit in full. This guarantee will support aspirations for higher education and will provide young people with certainty about the financial support available to fulfil their potential. It will also enable young people starting their studies at sixth form or college to see a clear route into higher education.

OFQUAL

"Safeguarding the standards of qualifications and assessments"

The Government is currently introducing reforms to strengthen the independence of regulation of qualifications and assessments, so as to improve confidence in standards. As part of this, a new organisation was launched in May - Ofqual, the Office of the Qualifications and Examinations Regulator - as the independent regulator of qualifications, exams and tests in England. Operating initially in shadow form, one of Ofqual's first actions was to announce a review of the reliability of tests, examinations and teacher assessments.

The Government will be bringing forward legislation as soon as possible for the formal establishment of Ofqual with stronger regulatory powers.  The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, which for the last decade has successfully had this regulatory role, will in future focus entirely on its other functions in relation to the curriculum, qualifications and assessments. To reflect this change, it will be renamed as the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency.

Machinery of Government changes

'Raising Expectations: Enabling the System to Deliver'

• Currently 16-19 funding is distributed to schools and colleges via the Learning and Skills Council (LSC). The LSC also has a duty to deliver adult learning and skills post 19. In order to drive our ambition to raise the participation age for every young person and to enable them to pursue a programme that engages them and enables them to progress, we have identified the need for reform.
• On 17 March 2008 DCSF and DIUS jointly published the White Paper and consultation document Raising Expectations: Enabling the System to Deliver (the White Paper can be found here). This proposed transferring responsibility for commissioning and funding educational provision for 16-19 year olds from the LSC to Local Authorities and reforms to the post 19 education and training funding system, including setting up a new dedicated Skills Funding Agency (SFA) which builds on the success of the LSC but is better placed to respond to national, regional and local skills needs.  
• These changes to the 16-19 system will put 0-19 commissioning in the hands of a single body, reflecting the principle of local decision making at the right level and supporting delivery of the new Participation Age and the 14-19 entitlement. They will also enable Local Authorities to take a more integrated approach to provision of all Children's Services, from 0-19.
• The consultation on the White Paper proposals closed on 9 June 2008, a summary of responses and outline of next steps will be published shortly.

Communications

Illustrations of progression from an Advanced Diploma to University courses

Illustrative case studies of progression from the first five Advanced Diplomas in, Engineering, Creative and Media, Society Health and Development, Construction and the Built Environment and IT are on the 14-19 website. They show some of the Additional and Specialist Learning options that can be taken as part of the Diploma, give examples of Extended Projects that could be undertaken and the University courses that could be selected.

A number of copies have also been printed for use at HE events and workshops if you would like copies please request these via e-mail to christine.west@dcsf.gsi.gov.uk.

The case studies support the Advanced Diploma HE information leaflets. These leaflets are available to order from DCSF Publications, telephone 0845 60 222 60 or by e-mail at dcsf@prolog.uk.com, quoting reference number 0072-2008PCL-EN for copies of all five.

Also, copies of the timeline, a month to month guide to the 14-19 reforms, are still available to order Reference number 00071-2008LEF-EN.

2008/9 Diploma marketing campaign

New leaflets and other materials to promote the Diploma will be available from early July. From September the campaign continues with radio advertising; print advertising; poster advertising; PR; advertorials; media partnerships; internet resources and roadshows. For more information please go to the communications section on the 14-19 website.

Guidance on Changes to AS / A levels and the Extended Project

These will be available next month from QCA.