May 2012

The know zone

  • Anti-Social Media
    With the use of social network sites becoming a daily ritual for the vast majority of us, Richard Bird explains why personal photographs, inappropriate comments and hackers are still causing problems for staff in schools and colleges. More
  • Tough love
    Jo Shuter CBE is headteacher of Quintin Kynaston School, a community academy in London. She co-founded QK House, a charity for homeless sixth formers at the school. More
  • Great rewards
    The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) offers grants to help schools support the most disadvantaged children. More
  • A partnership to support school improvement
    Capita SIMS has renewed its partnership with ASCL for the next three years, meaning that members will continue to have access to great deals on SIMS support. More
  • Same difference?
    Now that the DfE has published the final list of vocational equivalencies, is it a step backwards, a step too far or just right? More importantly, what effect will it have on curriculum pathways or options in schools and colleges? ASCL members share their views. More
  • Leaders' surgery
    Advice on careers advisers and School behaviour policies More
  • Decisive deliberations
    As the March Council meeting took place a few weeks before ASCL Annual Conference 2012, government messages about the education system, as well as recently announced proposals to change school inspection, were high on the agenda. More
  • A brighter forecast?
    In his speech to delegates at ASCL’s Annual Conference in March, Brian Lightman challenged members not to be sucked into the splenetic tornado of negativity coming from some corners of government and the media. In this excerpt from his speech, he lays down the challenge. More
  • You can’t win...
    Leading a school is nothing compared to coaching an under 8s football team, although the similarities are striking. More
Bookmark and Share

Now that the DfE has published the final list of vocational equivalencies, is it a step backwards, a step too far or just right? More importantly, what effect will it have on curriculum pathways or options in schools and colleges? ASCL members share their views.

Same difference?

Solid foundations

Vocational qualifications have enabled our disaffected students to feel engaged with learning and provided alternative ways for them to access the curriculum.

Equivalences have been inflated compared to GCSEs and the change to enable equivalences to value only one GCSE is broadly sound. However, I believe limiting the equivalences to a maximum of two is too limiting.

My biggest concern, though, relates to students studying at the foundation learning stage. Many of them find GCSEs difficult and demotivating. Since the introduction of alternative qualifications, the behaviour in our year 10 and 11 students has substantially improved.

More equivalences should be allowed to be counted but their value should not equate to a grade C. I worry that the pressure for success in terms of VA scoring will lead many schools to reject alternative courses even for less able students, which would lead to disengagement.

Phil Munday
Principal, Henry Cort
Community College,
Hampshire

Eyes on 2015

Losing the two GCSE equivalent BTEC in sport, art and design, and ICT has been a real blow. We only allocated one GCSE worth of curriculum time to these so they would have remained ‘good value’ qualifications had they made the 2014 list. Fortunately, we give our students four option choices, which means that we can keep a few qualifications in that ‘do not count’.

We are going with the OCR nationals in the short-term for core ICT and we are going to stick with BTEC sport and art for this cohort and hope they appear in the list for 2015. This ‘one year at a time’ hand to mouth approach is infuriating and if announcements follow this year’s pattern, we will be guessing what we can offer. Suggestions that academies have curricular freedoms is an increasingly cynical and cruel lie as the league table limitations narrow our curricula.

Sally Morris
Deputy Headteacher, Dyson
Perrins CE Academy, Malvern

Reducing NEETs

Most of our vocational courses have been two GCSE equivalents. Internally we have not used the four model although we have students in other centres following them and this will now end. The rest will have to return to singles with only one per person – what a pity!

I find the withdrawal of a wide range of vocational courses shocking. The government seems to be ignorant of the fact that having a breadth of curriculum is what has so significantly reduced the number of NEETs and increased achievement levels.

Without appropriate courses, we would not have reduced truancy to the extent we have or reduced numbers without any qualification. Young people, not all of whom wish to go to university, are being penalised for the government’s prejudice.

Trisha Jaffe
Principal, Corelli College,
London

Languages lost

In 2011, we were given ‘good with some outstanding features’ for our curriculum and the inspector praised us for the range of vocational subjects we offered. We now find ourselves back in a position five years previous. Ofsted particularly praised the effort we put into NVQ languages because it had raised the profile of languages and gave students a sense of achievement. These no longer appear in any of the tables – why not?

Many GCSEs changed syllabus and format in either 2009 or 2010 and now departments find themselves rewriting schemes of work yet again. However, I do understand the need to remove multiple equivalences even though this will mean the need for me to tweak my spreadsheet for whole school data analysis.

Carol House
Deputy Headteacher,
Miltoncross School,
Portsmouth

On balance...

I feel it is right to review the equivalences. School leaders and teachers have always known the equivalences are too high and in the past this has allowed some schools to ‘play the game’. I value the vocational accreditation but feel its standing and value is seriously devalued currently due to being worth too many GCSEs.

A level 2 Btec (extended certificate) is the equivalent of a GCSE if taught and assessed well.

Karen Slater
Assistant Headteacher,
Golden Hillock School,
Birmingham

same-difference.jpg

LEADING READING