Blog Archives: April 2016

Visitors to the North Sea Tall Ships Regatta Blyth 2016 this summer will be able to navigate around the county using a taxi service with a difference. Active Northumberland and Northumberland College have set up a new training scheme, which will help taxi drivers boost their skills and knowledge to become ‘chauffeur guides’.

In this pamphlet published by NCFE and the Campaign for Learning, Mark Corney analyses the Government's expectation that all 18 to 21 year olds should be 'earning or learning'. Mark looks at the policy reasons for treating 18 to 21 year olds as a new and distinct age group. He also considers how 'earning or learning' can be fully realised for all young people given existing and proposed policies, such as the removal of the cap on student numbers in higher education, the introduction of the Youth Obligation and the proposed abolition of the automatic entitlement to Housing Benefit.

Careers advice has once again been a hot topic in the news, as many in and outside of the sector have emphasised its importance, and some have criticised the current resources available to school learners and leavers. Gatsby has carried out a survey on the current state of careers advice in the UK and made recommendations to improve the guidance young people receive going forward. In the foreword of the report, Lord Sainsbury argues that, while many reports in the past have been critical of the careers advice available to learners, the situation hasn’t improved. He cites persistent youth unemployment and the widening skills gap facing UK employers as evidence of this.

A petition to include more creative subjects in the EBacc will be discussed in parliament after gaining over 100,000 signatures. The petition states: “The English Baccalaureate, or Ebacc, is a standard which maintains that English, maths, science, a language and a humanity [subject] define a good education. The exclusion of art, music, drama and other expressive subjects is limiting, short sighted and cruel. Creativity must be at the heart of our schools.” Many believe the EBacc’s focus on more traditionally academic subjects may push creative qualifications to the side, which will result in pupils being discouraged from taking them. Malcolm Trobe, Interim General Secretary at the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) argues this could lead to arts becoming a “preserve of the elite”.

More learners than ever are achieving Level 3 vocational qualifications, while the number of learners taking A Levels has fallen. The number of learners earning Level 3 vocational qualifications by the age of 19 rose by 0.8% in 2015 to 18.4%, representing an increase of more than 15% over the previous 10 years. In contrast, the number of learners studying A Levels has fallen by 0.3%; this is the first time the number has fallen since 2008.

In March the Department for Education (DfE) published the long anticipated ‘stage one’ consultation into the National Funding Formula (NFF) for schools. The DfE believe a change to the way schools are funded will create a“fair, transparent funding system where the amount of funding children attract for their schools is based on need and is consistent across the country”. The consultation essentially proposes a transition so that by 2019-2020 “a pupil would attract the same amount of funding to his or her school no matter where they are in the country”. As the amount each pupil at a school would attract is determined on a national level, there would be less of a role for Local Authorities under these proposals.

Last week the House of Lords Select Committee on Social Mobility released its Overlooked and left behind: improving the transition from school to work for the majority of young people report. The report follows a 9 month inquiry in the senior chamber, and makes a series of conclusions and recommendations for the government. The committee feels that “Non-academic routes to employment are complex, confusing and incoherent. The qualifications system is similarly confused and has been subjected to continual change”. It also notes that non-academic routes don’t guarantee entry into quality employment and are poorly understood by employers.

In April, the Department for Education published a list of facts that we need to know about academies. There’s been a good deal of lighted hearted analysis and conversation about this on Twitter, but my chief concern is that not a single source of the purported evidence is referenced (beyond the Schools White Paper itself). Whilst the social media dust was settling on the above publication, the Number 10 Press Office (possibly to anticipate the Labour-led opposition day debate on the schools White Paper in Parliament), sent out the following tweet:

It’s World Autism Awareness Week (WAAW) 2016, a week dedicated to promoting understanding of autism and improving the lives of autistic people around the world. The awareness week, running from 2-8 April, is run by The National Autistic Society and was set up last year. Over 5000 people took part in last year’s inaugural event, participating in fundraising activities that raised an amazing £235,395! After huge success last year, the Night Walks for Autism are happening again in London and Manchester on Saturday 2 April.