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Welcome back! I wanted to start this first newsletter of the year by recapping on the last academic year. Despite the mounting pressures on your Key Stage 4 curriculum and timetables, it is great to see so many of you continuing to offer a broad range of vocational qualifications in schools. Last year alone we saw over 10,000 pupils registered on our V Cert qualifications with thousands more registered on our broader range. This demonstrates the continued value in having subjects that appeal to different learning styles whilst providing hands on practical insight into subjects and topics.

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Certificates are a great way to evidence your pupils’ and school achievements. If your school has pupils who’ve successfully passed their V Certs this year and you haven’t yet claimed your V Cert certificates for the 2015 performance tables then you don’t have long left.

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Firstly, welcome back after the Easter break! An important milestone in your annual school calendar, I’m sure. No doubt a busy term lays ahead for you and your school. To support you with the delivery of all NCFE qualifications, we’ll look forward to continuing to support you with our award winning service during this busy time. Last term NCFE also hit a very important milestone. But before I go into that I’d like to give a little bit of context. In September 2013 we saw the first Year 11 pupils begin their V Cert studies with NCFE. As a new range of qualifications designed to respond to the Department for Education (DfE) performance table we were certain of their value to you and your pupils.

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As we get increasingly closer to May’s General Election, each of the major political parties are setting out their stall in terms of how they would improve education within Schools. With this in mind, it’s interesting to see Labour’s pledge to move arts to the heart of education, giving each child an entitlement to a creative learning experience. In his first major speech on the arts, Ed Miliband, Labour leader, told a gathering of cultural leaders that arts, culture and creativity would be integral to the next Labour government’s mission. He talked passionately about the “wider impact” these subjects can have on a young person’s education.

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A number of schools have been hit by the changes in which qualifications count in the school performance tables. This year, 330 schools fell below the required benchmark which is up from 154 in the previous year - clearly a big increase but probably not a big surprise to the schools it has impacted upon.

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Christmas is here and we have a new performance table list from the DfE. This means we’ve now received confirmation from the Department for Education (DfE) on which qualifications will feature in the 2017 Key Stage 4 performance tables.

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It was great to read earlier this year that parents want to see more practical teaching in schools. To mark its 10th anniversary, the Edge Foundation surveyed over 1,000 parents of secondary aged children to get their views about vocational education. I am pleased to say that there was majority support from the sample with most agreeing that technical degrees combining academic and vocational study are of equal value to traditional academic subjects.

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Over the last few weeks there has been a number of news stories linked to vocational qualifications. Whether it’s been the growing recognition that vocational qualifications offer a valid alternative to GCSEs, or the increasing acceptance of a number of higher level vocational qualifications as valid entry into university. The debate goes on about the merit of both of these elements and within this is the long running discussion about careers advice and guidance within schools

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Last month, thousands of UK teens received their GCSE results. Pupils, parents and teachers interrupted their summer holidays and congregated at schools across the country to open that all-important envelope! Overall, the 2014 results show a 98.5% pass rate, down 0.3 percentage points (but with a rise in students receiving A*s). Significantly, the number of English entries dropped by more than 215,000 while the number of maths entries dropped by 76 per cent, from 170,357 down to 39,292.

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As another cohort of 14-16 year olds embark on the next chapter in their education I wonder how much each is considering their next steps beyond the classroom? Where will they go once they leave school and what guidance is there to help them make those choices beyond just the A level and university route? Earlier this year, the Guardian newspaper picked up on new research showing that thousands of university graduates are now earning less than school leavers who’ve taken apprenticeships, despite accumulating far higher debts. Based on research from the Office for National Statistics, the figures show that more than a quarter of graduates were paid, on average, less than the £11.10 per hour for those on work-based training schemes last year.

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NCFE is a national Awarding Organisation

Blog posts for tags:V Certs, V Certs

Long live vocational study

Time is almost up.

An important milestone for V Certs

Embedding creativity in your curriculum

DfE changes begin to bite

NCFE V Certs and the 2017 Performance tables

It’s all in the balance

Changing perceptions of vocational education

GCSE changes: What impact will this have?

Careers Guidance on the Cards

Authors

Lindsay Plumpton

David Grailey

Andrew Gladstone-Heighton

Esme Winch

Michael Lemin

Categories

Archive

Blog posts for tags:V Certs, V Certs

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Authors

Lindsay Plumpton

David Grailey

Andrew Gladstone-Heighton

Esme Winch

Michael Lemin

Categories

Archive