Module 6 - glossary and useful resources! by Claire Whiting-May https://padlet.com/clairelouise24/wew3cktqxnxt Use this space to upload useful information for M6. en-us 2018-02-22 22:29:31 UTC 2023-02-15 03:28:00 UTC hello@padlet.com https://padlet-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/icons/Lightdecrease.png Welcome to your shiny new resource padlet! clairelouise24 https://padlet.com/clairelouise24/wew3cktqxnxt/wish/234517484 Use this padlet to upload homework and useful resources for your M6.]]> 2018-02-22 22:32:26 UTC https://padlet.com/clairelouise24/wew3cktqxnxt/wish/234517484 Katie https://padlet.com/clairelouise24/wew3cktqxnxt/wish/235081286


]]> 2018-02-25 12:35:17 UTC https://padlet.com/clairelouise24/wew3cktqxnxt/wish/235081286 Katie katylou20 https://padlet.com/clairelouise24/wew3cktqxnxt/wish/235082196 Managerialism has become the predominant ideology in English educational management. Although there are different definitions of managerialism, as a fad and buzzword, it has been given various names including, New public Management, New Managerialism, Entrepreneurial Governance and Neo-Taylorism" (Power 1997 cited in McGrah. 2004)

]]> 2018-02-25 12:46:03 UTC https://padlet.com/clairelouise24/wew3cktqxnxt/wish/235082196 Katie katylou20 https://padlet.com/clairelouise24/wew3cktqxnxt/wish/235082584 The evidence from a lecturer questionnaire circulated at Cityshire suggests that staff reject the values represented by these developments and are opposed to the threat they perceive to the professional culture of FE. The outcome of the various processes currently taking place at Cityshire and across the sector as a whole suggest that the deprofessionalization and, indeed, the ‘proletarianization’ of the FE lecturer may be taking place.]]> 2018-02-25 12:51:06 UTC https://padlet.com/clairelouise24/wew3cktqxnxt/wish/235082584 Simon https://padlet.com/clairelouise24/wew3cktqxnxt/wish/235642542 Marketization & Managerialism

The process of applying market forces of consumer choice to education....
In the public sector, it involves the prioritization of private (for-profit) sector values of efficiency and productivity in the regulation of public bodies, on the assumption that the former is superior to the latter. It gives primacy to product and output over process and input, and it endorses strong market-type accountability in public sector spending. The attainment of financial and other targets is a priority, and success in meeting targets is measured through public audits of the quality of service delivery. The development of quasi-markets for services is also a key goal; this operates as a further form of control through competition and public surveillance (Clarke, Gewirtz and McLaughlin, 2000). 
Lynch, K, 2014. New Managerialism: The Impact on Education. Concept, 5, 1.
]]> 2018-02-26 21:26:37 UTC https://padlet.com/clairelouise24/wew3cktqxnxt/wish/235642542 New Managerialism: The Impact on Education Kathleen Lynch https://padlet.com/clairelouise24/wew3cktqxnxt/wish/235643616 2018-02-26 21:29:09 UTC https://padlet.com/clairelouise24/wew3cktqxnxt/wish/235643616 Katie katylou20 https://padlet.com/clairelouise24/wew3cktqxnxt/wish/237692005 Key Findings and Recommendations of the Tomlinson Report 
 The central recommendation is the development of a more inclusive further education sector.  
Other key findings and recommendations towards that goal include: 
 Develop an adequately funded, nationally co-ordinated staff training initiative for inclusive learning to cover teacher training, management training, and organisational development.  
 
 Encourage colleges to produce long-term strategy and action plans on inclusive learning.  
 
 Encourage colleges to establish inclusive learning managers.  
 
 FEFC to continue recognising the costs of providing effective individual student assessment, promote wider understanding of its funding methods, and consider allocating funds to cover new costs which may arise as a result of ensuring effective assessments for inclusive learning.  
 
 FEFC to ensure its funding arrangements continue to enable colleges to meet the costs of individual support for learning.  
 
 New regional sub-committees to recommend funding new provision where there is evidence of emerging need and/or it can be done more effectively than at specialist colleges.  
 
 Any review of funding methodology should promote inclusive learning and participation.  
 
 Colleges to measure their progress towards inclusive learning through self-assessment.  
 
 Colleges to be inspected on how they provide learning which is inclusive.  
 
 Recognise all students' achievements within a national framework which gives value to their learning, including developing a pre-foundation award called Skills for Adult Life relevant to all students.  
 
 Take a wider view of the meaning of progression to include transferring and maintaining knowledge, skills and understanding.  
 
 Create and define a framework for collaboration between the FEFC, government departments and other agencies to provide a 'seamless robe' of provision and support services and opportunities to move in and out of learning as needed.  
 Colleges to be required to take more systematic account of local needs and to receive help with strategic planning to take account of under-represented groups of adult learners, including those with multiple difficulties, mental health difficulties, and emotional and behavioural difficulties. ]]> 2018-03-03 14:34:19 UTC https://padlet.com/clairelouise24/wew3cktqxnxt/wish/237692005 Andy https://padlet.com/clairelouise24/wew3cktqxnxt/wish/237807663 From: Shain, F. (1999) 'Changing notions of teacher professionalism in the Further Education sector'. Available at: http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/000000939.htm. Accessed: 02/03/18

Central to the processes of regulation and intensification is the discourse of managerialism that has pervaded the new management of FE in an attempt to elicit the compliance of workers in new modes of control over their work. Ostensibly, managerialism has been introduced into Education and the public sector as a rational process, linked with new principles of funding, efficiency and professionalism. A number of features of managerialism have been outlined in recent research (Pollit 1993, Fergusson 1994; Clarke & Newman 1997) which associate its economic rationalism with ulterior motives. These include on the one hand, its control over professionals, by reasserting ‘management’s right to manage’. On the other, it conveys the notion that good management resides only in the private sector and by implication, that the public sector is characterised by liberalism, and dogged sloth. This ‘economising of education’ brings with it the discipline of the market into the workplace, and the legitimising language that goes with it (Kenway 1994). Through its discourse of Human Resources Management (HRM) and Total Quality Management (TQM) such ‘economising’ represents a powerful mechanism for both the internalisation of control, and surveillance of workers. Another controlling feature is the way in which managerialism turns senior professionals, who might be resistant to loss of professional autonomy, into managers, ‘by giving them budgets or by setting them adrift as quasi-autonomous business units’ (Hoggett, cited in Avis 1996:109). This led to a shift in the locus of control from the centre to the local college site with power invested in the Principal as manager for the state in face to face relations (Ozga 1995).

In short - FE colleges being run as businesses (in the market) and therefore having management positions (for financial and quality reasons).]]> 2018-03-04 15:48:22 UTC https://padlet.com/clairelouise24/wew3cktqxnxt/wish/237807663 Andy https://padlet.com/clairelouise24/wew3cktqxnxt/wish/237809126 Oxford Reference description of the Tomlinson Report (1996) - http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803104859254

"The Tomlinson Report Inclusive Learning played a key role in the post‐compulsory sector's widening participation agenda. Where the Kennedy Report of 1997 examined ways of improving learning opportunities for all, the Tomlinson Report explored widening participation specifically for learners with learning difficulties or disabilities. Tomlinson found that students with special educational needs were underachieving in the post‐compulsory sector; were unable to access the wider curriculum; and were, for the most part, lacking in confidence, possibly because of their previous school experience of education and learning. The Report found that historically learners with learning difficulties or disabilities were excluded from mainstream opportunities in the post‐compulsory sector. It also found that this form of exclusion affected the culture of learning providers such as further education colleges.

Tomlinson recommended that the responsibility should be on the educational institution to empathize and respond to the individual, and to address the needs of that individual learner. Among the Report's recommendations was a requirement that institutions should publish their own disability statements, with information regarding entry and openness of access, which should operate regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, or disability. The Report envisaged that such a focus on inclusive learning would improve the quality of learner experience for students with difficulties or disabilities, and, indeed, change the culture of educational establishments by focusing on planning with and supporting the needs of individuals."

]]> 2018-03-04 15:59:27 UTC https://padlet.com/clairelouise24/wew3cktqxnxt/wish/237809126 Jake https://padlet.com/clairelouise24/wew3cktqxnxt/wish/238191105 Frank Coffield -
General idea is that 'teaching and learning' should be at the forefront of an educational establishments focus and not targets, inspections, funding etc.

Coffield believes that a switch in focus would enhance student engagement, relationships between learners and tutors. In relevance to professionalism, Coffield also notes that their could be an increase if there was a switch in view from an institution run as a business and instead as a centre for lifelong learning.

Coffield mentions that there is currently nothing in place where those who enact policy are able to respond on the strengths and weaknesses and the impact on teaching and learning and that this has a negative impact curriculum/s and the people on the front-line. 

He suggests a number of improvements toward CPD and the impact that this would have on professionalism


]]> 2018-03-05 16:42:59 UTC https://padlet.com/clairelouise24/wew3cktqxnxt/wish/238191105 Simon https://padlet.com/clairelouise24/wew3cktqxnxt/wish/238489288 1996 - The Tomlinson Report

Mon 18 Oct 2004 11.00 BST

Key points of the Tomlinson report into replacing GCSEs and A-levels
· Replace GCSEs, A-levels and vocational qualifications with a new single diploma over 10-year period of reform.
· Slash the number of exams pupils have to take.
· Replace all coursework with a single extended project. Some hands-on courses, such as art and design, would still have project-based work, but this would be done in school - rather than independently - to reduce cheating. Cheats would also be weeded out when they had to sit an oral exam.
· The diploma would come at four levels: entry (equivalent to pre-GCSEs), foundation (GCSEs at grade D-G), intermediate (GCSE A*-C) and advanced (A-level).
· Students would be able to progress at their own rate, paving the way for mixed-aged classes.
· Advanced-level students would be able to sit extra hard questions to get even higher marks than are currently available under the A-level system to add extra "stretch". These would be introduced to A-levels as A-plus and A-double plus before the diploma was introduced.
· The diploma would be made up of the modules, which would be adapted from the existing A-level and GCSE modules.
· Students could pick their own combination (open diploma) or opt for one of the 20 pre-designed combinations (specialised diploma). This should give stronger and more respected vocational qualifications.
· Introduce a new "core" which all pupils would have to do to pass the diploma, made up of: "functional" - maths, ICT and communication skills, an extended essay, and "wider activities" - work experience, paid jobs, voluntary work and family responsibilities.
· "Graduates" of the diploma would be given a transcript of their achievements, including a breakdown of individual module marks, which would be available to employers and universities online.

www.theguardian.com. 2004. Key points: the Tomlinson report. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2004/oct/18/1419education.furthereducation1. [Accessed 27 February 2018].]]> 2018-03-06 08:33:33 UTC https://padlet.com/clairelouise24/wew3cktqxnxt/wish/238489288 Simon https://padlet.com/clairelouise24/wew3cktqxnxt/wish/238489519 1997 - The Dearing Report


Higher Education in the Learning Society is in fact a collection of reports. The main one is more than 460 pages long. In addition there is the separate report of the Scottish Committee, 14 reports from the various working groups and 5 appendices (one with specific recommendations for Northern Ireland). This brief provides a short summary of some of the inquiry's key recommendations in its main report.
The Inquiry makes a total of 93 recommendations, 49 of which are addressed to the Government. Funding bodies, student unions, employers and research councils are other bodies to whom recommendations are addressed.

Funding for Higher Education
In an introduction to the report, Sir Ron Dearing singles out the issue of funding: "We express here our concern that the long term well-being of higher education should not be damaged by the needs of the short term. We are particularly concerned about planned further reductions in the unit of funding for higher education... We believe that this would damage both the quality and effectiveness of higher education.... We therefore recommend that students enter into an obligation to make contributions to the cost of their education once they are in work."
The Inquiry estimates that an additional £350 million in funding is required in 1998-99 and a further £565 million in 1999-2000. In 20 years' time additional funding of almost £2 billion is thought by the Committee to be required to pay for an expansion in student numbers, provide more support for part-time students, ensure an adequate infrastructure for higher education, provide proper funding for research, improve maintenance support for students and increase higher education pay in line with average earnings. The Inquiry recommends that public spending on higher education should increase with the growth in the Gross Domestic Product.
The Inquiry recommends to Government that it shifts the balance of funding away from block grants towards a system of funding which follows the student, with a target of distributing at least 60 per cent of total public funding to institutions according to student choice by 2003.
After examining different options for the funding of student tuition and maintenance costs, the Inquiry sets out various options. The Inquiry favours a combination of student tuition fees (on a loan basis) and the continuation of means-tested maintenance grants and student loans as the best way to seek contributions from higher income families and graduates in work.
It recommends that the Government introduces arrangements for graduates in work to make a flat rate contribution of around 25 per cent of the average cost of higher education tuition, through an income-based mechanism. The Inquiry recommends that such a mechanism should be established by Government by 1998/99. The tuition costs for students would be proportional to the number of years of study, although the Inquiry conceded that Government bursary or scholarship arrangements may be needed for longer courses. A discount for upfront payment or a modest rate of interest is recommended for those who can afford to make a contribution at the time of study. The Inquiry recommends that the Inland Revenue should be used as the principal route for the collection of contributions from students, on behalf of the Student Loans Company.
The Inquiry would like to see an assurance that the proportion of tuition costs to be paid cannot be increased without an independent review and an affirmative resolution of both Houses of Parliament, and that the money raised should go back into higher education.
In terms of low-paid students, the Inquiry recommends that from 1998/99 institutions should be able to waive tuition fees for part-time students in receipt of jobseekers' allowance or certain family benefits, that the Government includes in its review of the social security system the interaction between part-time benefits and part-time study and that eligibility for Access Fund payments to part-time students be extended from 1998/99.
The Inquiry also proposes the setting up of a Student Support Agency to bring together all the various bodies providing financial support for students.

Expansion
The Inquiry recommends that the Government should allow for the expansion of higher education by lifting the cap on full-time sub-degree places immediately and should lift the cap on full-time undergraduate places over the next two to three years. No particular target is set - the Inquiry sees student and employer demand as the main determinant of the level of participation in higher education.
The expansion of sub-degree provision is proposed as a priority in further education colleges but the Inquiry recommends that there should be no growth in degree level qualifications offered by further education colleges.
In order to address the underrepresentation of certain groups, the Inquiry recommends a range of measures including giving priority in the allocation of funds to those institutions who are committed to widening participation and have a strategy to do so and pilot projects to allocate funds to institutions who enrol students from particularly disadvantaged areas.

Teaching
The Inquiry recommends the setting up of a professional Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education which would accredit professionals in teaching, commission research into learning and advise institutions on using IT for learning and teaching.
The Inquiry recommends that all new full-time academic staff with teaching responsibilities are required to achieve at least associate membership of the Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education for the successful completion of probation.
It is proposed that the teacher training responsibilities of the Higher Education Funding Council for England and the Teacher Training Agency are reviewed in drawing up proposals for a General Teaching Council.
On staff pay and conditions, the Inquiry recommends that an independent review committee report by April 1998 on the framework for determining pay and conditions of service of staff in higher education.

Standards
The Inquiry proposes a broad framework of qualifications which it believes will be well understood within and outside the sector and incorporates provision for the accumulation of credits which could be transferred from one institution to another. It recommends limits on the franchising of courses by institutions and the establishment of criteria for franchising arrangements.
The Inquiry recommends that institutions develop a programme specification for each course they offer to outline the intended outcomes of the course and stopping-off points.
In addition the Inquiry supports a change to the remit of the Quality Assurance Agency so that it is responsible for quality assurance and public information, standards verification, maintenance of the qualifications framework, and arrangements for institutions to adopt a code of practice by 2001/02.

The Future
Dearing urges further funding to be urgently found for research to put right past under-investment. The Inquiry proposes allowing institutions to opt out of the Research Assessment Exercise in order to seek a lower level of non-competitive funding to support research and scholarship which underpins teaching and the establishment of a £400-£500million fund to support a limited number of top quality research departments.
The Inquiry proposes that by 2000/1 all students should have open access to a networked desktop computer and by 2005/06 access to their own portable computer.
The Inquiry recommends that higher education institution governing bodies should review their own effectiveness and performance at least every five years.
The Inquiry recommends that in five years' time and then every ten years, the Government constitutes a UK-wide Dearing-style inquiry to assess the state of higher education, advise on its financing and further development and any changes in the level of student support or contributions from graduates in employment.

www.bbc.co.uk. 1997. The Dearing Report. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/politics97/news/07/0723/dearbrief.shtml. [Accessed 27 February 2018].]]> 2018-03-06 08:34:14 UTC https://padlet.com/clairelouise24/wew3cktqxnxt/wish/238489519 Simon https://padlet.com/clairelouise24/wew3cktqxnxt/wish/238489654 2004 - Coffield - Fashion victims

Peter KingstonTue 4 May 2004 02.22 BST
Could tests to diagnose 'learning styles' do more harm than good, asks Peter Kingston
Mind if I ask you a personal question? Are you a left-brainer or a right-brainer? When it comes to learning, what style best suits you? Are you a pragmatist, theorist, activist or reflector?
If you've no idea, that's no problem. Just fill in this questionnaire. Or if you prefer, there is this other questionnaire - in fact, we've got a whole sheaf of the things. Take your pick . . .
The current buzzes in further education about "differentiation" and "individualised learning" have created perfect conditions for anyone peddling tests purporting to diagnose students' learning styles.
But according to new research, most of these processes, designed to pinpoint the best way for an individual to learn, are deeply flawed, and for teachers to act on the diagnoses they produce could be damaging for students.
"I learned that I was a low auditory, kinaesthetic learner. So there's no point me reading a book or listening to anyone for more than a few minutes," was the perhaps ironic reflection, quoted in the report, from one student after using a product on the market.
The report, Should we be using learning styles?, by a team at Newcastle University, concludes that only a couple of the most popular test-your-learning-style kits on the market stand up to rigorous scrutiny. Many of them could be potentially damaging if they led to students being labelled as one sort of learner or other, says Frank Coffield, professor of education at Newcastle University, who headed the research on behalf of the Learning and Skills Development Agency.
"You find you have four different types of learner in the classroom and you match your teaching accordingly, but our research indicates that there's as much evidence to show that matching teaching and learning styles doesn't work as to show that it does," he says.
The team began its investigation by setting out to establish how many different tests were on the market. "We found 71, which amazed us," says Coffield. "We decided to look at 13 of the most popular and influential. We found that only two of them could be recommended in higher education and none that were immediately relevant for post-16."
The researchers did not have to go far to find the techniques being deployed in colleges. Megan, for instance, is a communications lecturer in a college, studying for a BA in post-16 education. Inspired by some sessions on learning style in her own course she decided to administer a well known learning styles inventory, or checklist, to her own class of students doing an access course for higher education entry.
She analysed the questionnaires they filled in and grouped the students into four learning styles. She decided to adapt her teaching over the year to suit all four learning styles, with the aim of turning them all into "rounded learners".
This might be considered "good practice", the report concludes. But does it really measure learning style at all, or is it actually a personality test? And even if the test does do what it says on the bottle, how should teachers respond?
Some, like Megan, might decide to satisfy the mélange of supposed learning styles in her class so everyone gets everything. Others might try to aim techniques at students to fit their styles, though this ends up with the teacher spread very thin and chopping up time into very small parcels.
Others again identify a student's learning style as, say, kinaesthetic - "perceiving through an awareness of body movements" - and decide that what he or she needs is to be taught in the diametrically opposite style, whatever that is, in an effort to counter a supposed weakness.
And others still, perhaps because there was a learning styles session in their initial teacher training or because the inspectors mention learning styles in their reports, do as did the teacher on an advanced level catering course, cited in the research. He handed round questionnaires to the 30 mostly 16- to 19-year-old students and told them he wanted them to reflect on their learning styles. They spent 15 minutes scoring each item, which asked them to tick or put a cross against such statements as "I prefer learning things from books". They then categorised each answer into four groups: pragmatist, theorist, activist or reflector. The teacher asked Craig his result.
"I'm a pragmatist and a bit of something or other - activist."
"What do you reckon that tells you about your learning style, then?"
"Well, I'm gobby and like talking a lot and I don't like all that boring stuff in books, or when lecturers waffle on and it's not relevant to catering at all."
The teacher urged the group to look at the statements they had put crosses against and develop them over the two years "because the idea is to have a spread of styles . . ."
The matter is never raised again during the course but the course leader is able to claim in the self-assessment form for the forthcoming inspection that the college "diagnoses students' learning styles". Six months later inspectors commended this practice in their report.
Kinaesthetic is by no means the most exotic term in a field overflowing with dichotomies. There are, theorists would claim, convergers or divergers, verbalisers or imagers, holists or serialists, adaptors or innovators, deep or surface learners, non-committers or plungers, assimilators or accommodators . . .
"This field suffers from serious conceptual confusion and a lack of accumulated theoretical knowledge," says Coffield. "It's deeply confusing even for psychologists attempting to make sense of it."
There are all the hallmarks of an "area at an early stage of development" even though there is research on the tests going back at least 50 years." This problem is worsened by a tendency for academics to build reputations by setting out clearly individual territories which they vigorously defend. This form of intellectual trench warfare, while common throughout academia, is a particular feature of the learning styles movement, which militates against cumulative knowledge and cooperative research," Coffield says.
"The commercial gains for creators of successful learning styles instruments are so large that critical engagement with the theoretical and empirical bases of their claims tends to be unwelcome."
Why are they so popular, particularly in business? "They've got intuitive appeal. You ask someone to fill in a questionnaire of two pages and at the end of that you've apparently got an insight into how they think and learn."

www.theguardian.com. 2004. Fashion victims. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2004/may/04/furthereducation.uk1. [Accessed 27 February 2018].]]> 2018-03-06 08:34:40 UTC https://padlet.com/clairelouise24/wew3cktqxnxt/wish/238489654 Simon https://padlet.com/clairelouise24/wew3cktqxnxt/wish/238489787 2009 - Nuffield Review (Spours)

How children became customers
Warwick MansellTue 9 Jun 2009 00.01 BST


The biggest review of 14-19 education in 50 years says corporate values now rule schools. By Warwick Mansell

Are corporate values now running education? Have schools been taken over by the language of management consultancy? And does this imply an undermining of a central purpose of teaching: to encourage a sense of inquiry and morality in young people?
These are some of the questions raised - and answered in the affirmative - by a new report published today, which is billed as the largest investigation into education and training for 14- to 19-year-olds in England and Wales for 50 years.
The Nuffield 14-19 review, based at Oxford University, has taken six years to compile. Its report, which runs to 230 pages, attacks the "relentless change" in education as often counterproductive; renews calls for a baccalaureate system for secondary schools; asks why many young people drop out of education and training in their late teens, and calls for the government to rethink plans to "coerce" them into staying on; and offers contrasts between England's approach to school reform and that which has operated in Wales since devolution.
It also finds space to praise ministers for, among other things, their commitment to raising participation rates among 16- to 18-year-olds and their investment in school buildings.
But it is what it has to say on the often troubled relationship between schools and business in England that is, perhaps, most eye-catching, raising questions about the philosophy that has governed schools policy for many years.

Serving the economy
In a section on "aims and values" of the education system, the report says that one set of goals - the need to improve schooling to serve the requirements of the economy - has been given prominence. It cites a speech by Tony Blair in 2005 in which he said: "The country will succeed or fail on the basis of how it changes itself and gears up to this new economy, based on knowledge. Education is now the centre of economic policymaking for the future."
The government, says the report, has therefore laid down a set of aims that are dominated by the need to develop skills for the economy. This comes across not just in the set of exam results-based performance indicators by which schools are judged, but in the language that is used to describe education policy and its implementation.
The report says that growing central control of education has helped to produce a drive to talk about schooling from a "performance management" perspective, which is borrowed from business.
It says: "The consumer or client replaces the learner. The curriculum is delivered. Aims are spelt out in terms of targets. Audits (based on performance indicators) measure success defined in terms of hitting the targets."
It adds: "As the language of performance and management has advanced, so we have proportionately lost a language of education which recognises the intrinsic value of pursuing certain sorts of question ... of seeking understanding [and] of exploring through literature and the arts what it means to be human."
The report cites the decision by ministers, when they were developing a system of performance management for teachers in the late 1990s, to bring in management consultants Hay-McBer to define what constituted good teaching. Another consultancy, McKinsey and Company, was seen as the authority on effective teaching after producing a report in 2007 looking at outstanding practice around the world.
The assumption behind much of education policy - that performance targets are set for teachers in the form of pupils' test and exam success, and the means by which they reach them are less important - is also borrowed from industry. But the report adds that the "means" (typically, how much pupils become interested in the particulars of a subject) are vital. "There may well be spin-offs from the teaching of Macbeth (the meeting of externally imposed targets and the passing of exams)," it says, "but the educational value lies in the engagement with a valuable text."
Describing the language of targets and delivery as "impoverished", the report ends with a further flourish. "The Orwellian language of 'performance management and control' has come to dominate educational deliberation and planning, namely the language of measurable 'inputs', 'outputs', of 'performance indicators' and 'audits', of 'customers' and 'deliverers', of 'efficiency gains' and 'bottom lines'. Perhaps George Orwell's 1984 should be made the essential reading for all trainee teachers."
The inquiry's starting point was to ask: "What counts as an educated 19-year-old in this day and age?" The answer it comes up with embraces intellectual development, practical capability, community participation and a sense of social justice, self-awareness, and even a perhaps unfashionable suggestion that young people should be imbued with a sense of "moral seriousness". Education, it says, has an essentially "moral purpose": to help young people to develop as human beings. This will include preparation for work.
Richard Pring, professor of educational studies at Oxford and the inquiry's leader, says it is more difficult for these rounded qualities to be developed under the current system. He says: "Once performance management takes over, it does begin to narrow the educational experiences on offer, classically through teaching to the test in the pursuit of performance targets.
"I suppose many newly trained teachers may just take the language of performance management for granted these days. If you go back 20 years, it would be seen as foolish."
The inquiry is not alone in making these criticisms. In February, the Cambridge review of primary education attacked the marginalisation of creativity in schools in favour of literacy and numeracy lessons as "utilitarian and philistine".

Corporate language
And examples of corporate language in education are not difficult to come across. Minutes of meetings of the board of Ofsted, the schools and childcare inspectorate, speak extensively of performance goals and the need to build Ofsted's "brand".
Last year, a report for the School Teachers' Review Body appeared to confirm the view criticised in the Nuffield Review that, in education, "outcomes", rather than anything intrinsic to teaching quality, are what matter. The STRB said: "Our strongly held view is that teachers are accountable for outcomes, not inputs or activities, and that this principle should be supported by robust performance management." And last week, a speech made by a leading figure in school assessment referred frequently and uncritically to pupils being teachers' "customers".
The Nuffield report goes on to argue that education policy may be based on a misunderstanding of the truth behind employer-school relationships. Ministers talk about education, training and skills being important to business success, and say these are essential to developing the "knowledge-driven economy".
The implication is that employers are willing to devote large amounts of time, energy and resources to improving young people's skills levels. The reality, says the report, is that they have generally proved reluctant to do so.
In addition, the review says the very notion of a knowledge-driven economy is "at least in part, a mirage" because there is still a large demand for low-paid jobs in, for example, retailing, wholesaling and cleaning, which do not require many qualifications. Thus young people may be acting rationally in not bothering to stay in education and training beyond the age of 16.
Government policies that try to improve staying-on rates, through reforms such as the diploma, may miss the point, says the report: if pupils do not see the benefits of such courses in the labour market, they will not take them. The government, it concludes, might be better off making certain qualifications a requirement to enter certain industries, rather than seeking constantly to reform qualifications, or to "coerce" 17- and 18-year-olds into staying in education and training.
Ruth Lea, a former head of policy at the Institute of Directors and an adviser to the Arbuthnot Banking Group, says: "The public sector has been administered on a very basic, and misleading, interpretation of how the private sector operates. If you are a salesman, you have sales targets, but if you are in, for example, human resources or legal services, you have a job description and you do it, without targets. Education is not just a matter of turning sausages out of a sausage machine and hitting targets - and that's where it's gone wrong."

www.theguardian.com. 2009. How children became customers [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2009/jun/09/14-19-education-further-education [Accessed 27 February 2018].]]> 2018-03-06 08:35:08 UTC https://padlet.com/clairelouise24/wew3cktqxnxt/wish/238489787 Simon https://padlet.com/clairelouise24/wew3cktqxnxt/wish/238489886 2011 - Wolf Review of Vocational Education 

The independent Wolf Review into vocational education, commissioned by Education Secretary Michael Gove, was published on March 3 2011 
Professor Alison Wolf reports that her conclusions are that; 

• Many 14 to 16 year olds are on courses which the league table systems encourage but which lead children into dead-ends. Many young people have not been told the truth about the consequences of their choice of qualification. 
• A quarter to a third (300,000 - 400,000) of 16 to 19 year olds are on courses which do not lead to higher education or good jobs. 
• High-quality apprenticeships are too rare and an increasing proportion are being offered to older people not teenagers. 
• There are many good quality courses and institutions but they exist "in spite of” the current funding and regulatory system. Attempts to fix the system over the past decade have failed. For example, the Diploma was intended to solve the long-term problem but did not (there has been less than one per cent take-up). 
• Only 45 per cent of the cohort get a ‘C’ in GCSE English and maths at 16 and very few (four per cent) of those who fail then go on to achieve this from 16 to 19. 
• There has been a growing crisis in the youth labour market for years. 
• There is no evidence that vocational qualifications for 14-16 year olds motivate them to succeed in other subjects and prevent them becoming NEETs 
Professor Wolf recommends a radical change of direction. 
There are four main principles for reform: 
• The system must stop ‘tracking’ 14 to 16 year olds into ‘dead-end’ courses• The system must be made honest so young people are not pushed into damaging decisions • The system must be dramatically simplified to remove perverse incentives 
• We should learn best practice from countries doing things better than us, such as Denmark, France and Germany 

The proposals include: 
• Ensuring anyone who fails to achieve at least a ‘C’ in GCSE English or maths must continue to study those subjects post-16. This would apply to about half the annual cohort 
• Removing the perverse incentives, created by the funding system and performance tables, to enter students for low-quality qualifications. High quality vocational qualifications can and should be identified by the Government. Only those qualifications - both vocational and academic - that meet stringent quality criteria should form part of the performance management regime for schools. This is then to say that ministers and not Ofqual should decide which qualifications count in school league tables However, schools should also be free to offer whatever other qualifications they wish from regulated awarding bodies. It is also the case that existing courses could also be amended to meet the new criteria and thus become eligible to be included in performance tables 
• Making performance measures reinforce the commitment to a common core of study at Key Stage 4, with vocational specialisation normally confined to 20 per cent of a pupil’s timetable; and should remove incentives for schools to pile up large numbers of qualifications for ‘accountability’ reasons. 
• Making funding on a per-student basis post-16 as well as pre-16. 
• Regulation moving away from qualification accreditation towards oversight of awarding bodies. 
• Removal of the obligation for qualifications for 16 to 19 year olds to be part of the Qualifications and Credit Framework. 
• Increasing Continuing Professional Development (CPD) for maths teachers.• Allowing 14 to 16 year olds to be enrolled in colleges so they can benefit from high-quality 
vocational training available there. 
• Employers being directly involved in quality assurance and assessment activities at local level, which is the most important guarantor of high quality vocational provision. 
• Recognising that high quality apprenticeships offer great opportunities but there are problems with the system. The Department for Education and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills must work together to fix the funding and other problems 
• Work experience should wait until post 16• Subsidising employers if they offer 16 to 18 year old apprentices high-quality, off-the-job 
training, and an education with broad transferable elements. • Essential general subjects must not be crowded out 
Mr Gove said Prof Wolf’s report was "brilliant and ground-breaking”. He immediately accepted four recommendations: 
• To allow qualified further education lecturers to teach in school classrooms on the same basis as qualified school teachers. 
• To clarify the rules on allowing industry professionals to teach in schools.• To allow any vocational qualification offered by a regulated awarding body to be taken by 14- 
to19-year-olds. 
• To allow established high-quality vocational qualifications that have not been accredited to be offered in schools and colleges in September 2011. 
Michael Gove said he would now consider how best to implement Professor Wolf’s remaining recommendations. 

www.aschofield.wordpress.com. 2011. Summary of findings of the Wolf Report into vocational education. [ONLINE] Available at: https://aschofield.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/summary-of-findings-of-the-wolf-report-into-vocational-educationx.pdf. [Accessed 27 February 2018].

]]> 2018-03-06 08:35:30 UTC https://padlet.com/clairelouise24/wew3cktqxnxt/wish/238489886 Simon https://padlet.com/clairelouise24/wew3cktqxnxt/wish/238489990 2017 - Ann Hodgson: New report recommends extending upper secondary education

A new report from the Centre for Post-14 Education and Work at the UCL Institute of Education (IOE) explores the idea of extending upper secondary education in England to 14-19, rather than the current 16-19.

Co-authored by Dr Lynne Rogers, Professor Ken Spours and Professor Ann Hodgson, the report argues that the current socioeconomic context in England, together with raising the participation age (RPA) to 18, requires a re-examination of upper secondary education in England. The researchers note that there is relatively low employer engagement in the education of 14-19 year olds in England, in comparison with some other European countries. 

The report suggests that an extended and more unified phase would better aid young people’s transition from child to adult, more fully support individual transition needs and offer a meaningful choice to all young people. Increased opportunities for work experience or placements during this phase would support young people in making positive decisions about their futures based on authentic understandings of different professional and technical occupations.
If these changes were to come into effect, the report recommends that an expanded and extended 14-19 phase should involve the broadening of general education learning and the enrichment of vocational learning. It also suggests that this system should be served by strong local learning systems underpinned by heightened social partnership and institutional collaboration.
Speaking of the report, Dr Rogers said:

“Putting the curriculum at the centre of 14-19 education whereby all students have access to theoretical and practical learning would enable all young people to progress to their full potential. This would require building on the strengths of successful institutions but expecting them to work in a collaborative manner with social partners in their localities to deliver a more comprehensive and cost-effective provision for all 14-19 year olds.” 

The researchers also explore reducing the emphasis on summative assessment at age 16+. They note that selection at 16 could have detrimental effects on post-16 participation and attainment because it forces young people to reach a certain level of attainment in general education at a single point, rather than when they are ready.

www.ucl.ac.uk. 2017. New report recommends extending upper secondary education. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/news-events/news-pub/jul-2017/new-report-recommends-extending-upper-secondary-education. [Accessed 27 February 2018].]]> 2018-03-06 08:35:52 UTC https://padlet.com/clairelouise24/wew3cktqxnxt/wish/238489990 Jake https://padlet.com/clairelouise24/wew3cktqxnxt/wish/238571361 Tomlinson Report

Increase opportunity for students at FE colleges and post 16.

Articles main focus is on students with SEN.

Wants to focus more on an institutions ability to cater for a students needs rather than just labelling a student. 

Differentiating for all students to ensure that they are able to learn effectively and overcome barriers to learning. This will make learners fell more positive about their provision.

Due to policies and legislation over the past 40 years - some older students wouldn't have had a 'proper' education and so their idea of education may not be very good.

Report wants to provide people with SEN the opportunity to develop life and work based skills so that they can live and work independently and contribute toward the economy in the future.]]> 2018-03-06 13:10:29 UTC https://padlet.com/clairelouise24/wew3cktqxnxt/wish/238571361 clairelouise24 https://padlet.com/clairelouise24/wew3cktqxnxt/wish/240365063 2018-03-09 20:44:41 UTC https://padlet.com/clairelouise24/wew3cktqxnxt/wish/240365063 Mentoring across Difference! clairelouise24 https://padlet.com/clairelouise24/wew3cktqxnxt/wish/240389713 2018-03-09 22:52:49 UTC https://padlet.com/clairelouise24/wew3cktqxnxt/wish/240389713