Examination of Witnesses (Questions 85
- 99)
MONDAY 22 JANUARY 2007
DR ELAINE
MCMAHON,
MR GODFREY
GLYN, MR
PAUL HAFREN,
MS LORRAINE
MCCARTHY,
MR PETER
HAWTHORNE AND
MR JOHN
BANGS
Q85 Chairman: Can I welcome, from
left to right, Elaine McMahon, Paul Hafren, Lorraine McCarthy,
Godfrey Glyn, Peter Hawthorne and John Bangs. I am delighted to
have such a good spread of the talent in our education sector,
from different parts of the country. This is supposed to be the
most depressing day of the year. I said to my team here, I am
dedicated to cheering them up with this amazing session we are
about to embark on; so we all have a job, to enlighten the world
and make it the happiest day of the year. That sounds like Ken
Dodd, does it not? I am not going to ask all of you to say much,
in terms of an introduction. There are two of you from Wolverhampton,
so, Lorraine, Peter, who would like to say a few words about what
the situation is in your neck of the woods, in terms of the introduction
of the new Diplomas?
Ms McCarthy: I think Peter should
do that.
Q86 Chairman: Peter, do you want
to start us off then; in two minutes, will you tell us how it
is in your neck of the woods?
Mr Hawthorne: I am Head of 14-19
Development in Wolverhampton. I was a head teacher; now I facilitate
collaboration in the city. We were a Phase One Pathfinder and
now we do quite a lot of pilot work for the QCA and the Department
for Education and Skills with regard to the Diploma. I believe
that the most important thing to do is, in each area, one has
to establish what we call an infrastructure to facilitate an area
approach to curriculum delivery, and I think that is the critical
thing for the Diplomas. The Specialised Diplomas cannot be delivered
by individual schools and colleges, or even small consortia; it
requires an area-wide approach. For that, we have done a lot of
work on timetabling and curriculum models, common understandings
of standards, the area prospectus and electronic ILP and the policies,
the protocols, the principles, to make it all work so that learners
can benefit from specialist provision from specialist providers,
be it a large FE college, specialist schools, or now we use a
large number of voluntary organisations and training providers.
I believe they will be absolutely critical for the success of
the Diploma, because we will require a lot of diversity, a lot
of choice and a lot of specialism when we come to threading our
way through the progression routes. If we can do that, I think
we can be extremely successful.
Q87 Chairman: Thank you for that,
Peter. Elaine McMahon, would you like to comment, in the light
of your varied and interesting experience? Now you are in Hull,
via the United States and Salford, I understand, and you are trying
to make up your mind which side of England you want to settle
in?
Dr McMahon: I am here also representing
the Association of Colleges and I would like to remind everybody
that every year over four million people are trained in colleges.
Whilst a partnership approach, in the area I work in now and every
area I have worked in, is the best way of delivering any innovation,
and particularly innovation of curriculum of this nature, I believe
strongly that colleges understand the principles of this reform
and are very much at the forefront of the practical expression
of it. In Hull, and East Riding itself, which I am representing
specifically here today, in a college in Goole, in East Riding,
and Hull College, we have been very much involved in increasing
flexibility, that project. That has given us a very strong foundation
for delivery, I believe, of the Diplomas, because it is a very
strong partnership, it involves employers, thousands of employers
in the area involved in various ways, in connection with that
programme. Also it includes colleges and schools, every college,
every school in the locality, and we are building on the good
practice which has been developed already, I think, through that
programme, and other programmes, because we join together on the
apprenticeships and piloting of that. The Diploma I think is very
much welcomed in the localities I work in; also we see it as an
opportunity to break down, once and for all, hopefully, the academic
and the vocational divide, which still exists unfortunately in
this country. This is another way of tackling that and we will
work hard to ensure that happens.
Q88 Chairman: Thank you for that,
Elaine. I would be in terrible trouble, Paul, if I did not ask
you to say something, because I am sitting next to the Member
of Parliament for one of the Warrington seats: Paul?
Mr Hafren: Our context is that
we have a general further education college, which is Warrington
Collegiate, and a very successful sixth form college, Priestley
College, working with 12 schools in the Warrington Borough. We
are working from a tradition of having a successful, increased
flexibility project, which is the project which helps 14-16-year-olds
access college courses already. As a college, we have about 600
pupils in any given year accessing our programmes. That has led
us, as a consortium, a partnership, to put forward a proposal
to the Gateway process, so we are looking to be obviously in the
forefront of delivering the Diplomas. What is interesting, from
our point of view, is that we are rebuilding the whole college,
we have just moved into what is a capital investment of about
£27 million, and as a college we have committed fully to
being a vocational college; so that is what we do, that is our
expertise. I guess the interesting proposition for us, as a college,
is how our expertise can be used best by the schools, so that
we get a very coherent set of pathways through, which enables
the best of the facilities, the resources and the staff expertise
to be used. We have got a number of issues, the same as Wolverhampton,
in terms of timetabling and prospectuses, and so on and so forth.
Q89 Chairman: Thank you for that,
Paul. Godfrey Glyn?
Mr Glyn: I am Principal of Barton
Peveril College in Hampshire, it is in Eastleigh, and I am here,
with Lorraine, representing ASCL; a sixth form college with 2,200
students, alongside a general further education college at Eastleigh.
We have been in a consortium since the days of TVEI and when the
funding for that stopped we decided we would subscribe to our
own consortium, so we have got a long track record of working
together. Hence the development of the Diplomas is something which
attracts us greatly. We have moved already beyond students moving
into the general FE college from schools to students being bussed
around on a common timetable one day a week, at the moment on
a small scale. It is to explore the practical realities of delivering
a common curriculum across a range of ten schools, some of which
are out in the more rural areas of our catchment area and some
which are in the more urban area of our catchment.
Q90 Chairman: John, they have all
been so succinct that as long as you are brief I am going to back
to Lorraine and give her an opportunity. John; your go?
Mr Bangs: I will be succinct.
Chairman, I do not want to raise the ghost of Tomlinson or return
to it. The NUT wants the Specialist Diplomas to succeed. We have
some very deep anxieties about the operational introduction of
Diplomas, clashing as it does with a range of other government
initiatives, including the Key Stage 3 revised curriculum and
new functional units in GCSEs. We have got practical proposals
which we think the Government ought to adopt to implement the
new Specialist Diplomas. We have a lot of sympathy with the QCA
and their need to retain a high-quality Diploma and the tension
which is created between that objective and the 50,000 target
the Government has set out, in 2008. Chairman, I would like to
address those issues later on.
Q91 Chairman: You will have a chance
to do that, John. Lorraine; after saying we would not have time
for all of you, here we are?
Ms McCarthy: I am Head of one
of the largest secondary schools in Wolverhampton and I was there
for the previous five years as a Deputy, so I was pretty involved,
in terms of the operational structures across the city. Common
timetabling: we started doing common timetabling post-16 as a
way of increasing post-16 retention and a wider offer for the
students, and now obviously we are moving that down to pre-16.
I would say, alongside what Peter said, that the underpinning
systems are absolutely crucial, that to get everybody working
together and collaborating you have to have the systems in place
to enable that to happen. Because we have got that in Wolverhampton,
we feel that being able to deliver the Specialised Diploma should
be an easy transition.
Q92 Chairman: Thank you for that.
Let us get down to the questioning. First of all, I had the impression
from last week's evidence, from our witnesses, particularly Ken
Boston, that he was very reluctant for anyone to talk about these
new Diplomas in terms of a vocational offer, but you did use the
"V" word. Would you give us your thoughts on the Ken
Boston view on this? He is very worried that, if these become
branded as a vocational offer, as opposed to a broader Diploma,
they will be seen as kind of the other thing that people do if
they do not do an academic course. Is not that something which
worries you, using the "V" word?
Mr Hafren: No. About three years
ago, we decided to stop offering A levels, as a college, because
we could see clearly that the local sixth form college and the
local schools did that a lot better. Our expertise was in vocational
preparation, vocational education and vocational training, with
a particular focus on preparing people for careers which broadly
they had some idea they were going to choose and with a bias towards
a blend of theory and practical. We had anxieties that would denude
our 16-19 recruitment; in fact, it did not, it reversed it. I
have heard that story told several times by colleges, that committing
to the core of what you do and what you do best actually makes
life a lot clearer for students and clients. Probably I have a
greater anxiety, that there is ambiguity preserved about this,
in a way kind of to balance out the "A" word, so that
the distinction, I think, in many ways, needs to be made clear
rather than made fudged.
Q93 Chairman: Lorraine, what is your
take on that? As you said, you are the Head of a big comprehensive
school; what is your view on that balance between the vocational
and everything else in the Diplomas?
Ms McCarthy: We would see it that
the Specialised Diplomas could be delivered alongside. I do not
think it would be post-16. I do not think we would be likely to
get many students, for instance, doing an A level and a Specialised
Diploma, although it would be possible. Pre-16, obviously, we
would be going for a three-day/two-day split, so the Specialised
Diploma was delivered on two days, to give a broad curriculum
for the students. Until there is an academic/vocational, I think
it offers an alternative, and to give the broad curriculum would
be of benefit to all the students.
Q94 Chairman: Do you go along with
that, Godfrey?
Mr Glyn: I think I know where
Ken is coming from in this, in terms of this has got to be accepted,
bluntly, by higher education if it is to have credibility in the
English education system. There is a long tradition within education
of vocational qualifications being introduced 11-18, not just
post-16, which have been diluted, become more academic almost,
rather than vocational, in order to achieve some kind of respectability.
For me, certainly in the context which I come from, schools are
looking at this development with some anxiety, because they hope
that it will be recognised by higher education as only then will
it have credibility in their own little community.
Q95 Chairman: That is at the heart
of it then. John Bangs, what is your view on this? First of all,
anyone starting to talk about vocational Diplomas was hushed,
and I think they had three descriptions. Now we are calling them
Specialised Diplomas; once they were called Practical Diplomas,
were they not? What is the politically-correct term now, do you
know?
Mr Bangs: I think Specialised
Diplomas is the politically-correct term. I see as well where
Ken Boston is coming from and I think what he is trying to say
is that we do not want to see these Specialised Diplomas ghettoised
under a particular bracket, and we agree with him. Unfortunately,
he is up against a set of other developments, and we all are,
including the development of a general Diploma, which has not
been put to rest and to bed, which I consider to be utterly divisive,
the continuing existence of GCSEs, A2 and A, which will have to
continue, plus the other genuine vocational qualifications, such
as BTEC. Also the development of the foundation tier, which is
very necessary, by QCA, which is about capturing those youngsters
who are not getting four to five GCSEs, who are the "not
in education/training" group. In a sense, I suspect what
QCA is trying to do is define the quality of the Specialised Diploma
and actually putting down a marker in terms of that quality, but
saying also "We want a lot more youngsters, other than those
bracketed in the `vocational' group, taking them up." The
problem with the 14 learning lines though, unfortunately, is that
there are great swathes of the curriculum which are left out,
including, incidentally, modern foreign languages, which is a
real anxiety.
Q96 Chairman: Can I ask Elaine McMahon,
with her experience of several institutions, what is your view,
in terms of the state of readiness across the piece, going to
conferences and talking to other people in the AoC? The real panicky
kind of note we heard in people's voices in October/November was
that this was a huge operation, much greater than the introduction
of Curriculum 2000, much greater, a much greater challenge, and
a lot of people saying "It isn't going to happen in that
timeframe." What is your view on that and did you share that
view back in October/November and have you changed your mind?
Dr McMahon: I think the devil
is in the detail and we have not got the detail yet, and there
is always that gap when there is more work to do and to know exactly
what it is going to look like, I think. I believe that we should
stick to the timeframe. I think it is important that there is
a parallel though of this new Specialised Diploma coming in whilst
BTEC National and A levels, etc, continue, and the Baccalaureate,
if that is coming in, as well. I think we should make sure that
we do not ditch any of the qualifications which parallel this
Specialised Diploma whilst it is still embedding. I think it needs
a careful, if you like, nurturing in. If that happens, I think
the timescale is manageable. In Hull, we are leading on the five
that are coming in, if we get through the Gateway, and we are
very happy to do that. I think we have a different view perhaps
from that of some of my colleagues here, in that we have nearly
4,000 16-18-year-olds full time in college and they do A levels
alongside a BTEC National, so they have an academic and vocational
offering already, in many cases, and I hope this Specialised Diploma
will enable us to put that all under one Specialised Diploma in
the future.
Q97 Helen Jones: You said you were
quite comfortable with all these different types of qualifications
staying in place—A levels, Baccalaureate, if that comes
in, Specialised Diplomas, or whatever—but really is that
a coherent system? How is a parent, or young person, to find their
way through that kind of system?
Dr McMahon: I think, in the short
term, you are looking at the Specialised Diploma coming in whilst
you have got these other qualifications parallel. Ultimately,
I can see that there will be a merging, but I think, at the moment,
whilst you are still encouraging the Baccalaureate and Specialised
Diplomas to be developed and to be encouraged as offers, it would
be even more confusing if suddenly there was a merging too quickly
of the framework for qualification offering.
Q98 Helen Jones: Does not that just
perpetuate the vocational/academic divide, which has bedevilled
English education throughout its history, almost? If we are going
to get really good vocational education, does not that have to
be integrated into a system of qualifications, rather than existing
out there somewhere on its own, which is what Tomlinson was trying
to do, of course?
Dr McMahon: It depends on how
you look at it. I think it depends how flexible the qualifications
are. At the moment, as I understand it, with the Specialised Diploma,
they are developing a core, and one with the other, to pick and
mix from those core elements. If we can get to the point where
we have a core, underpinning knowledge which can be used for several
qualifications, because certainly that is how we operate in my
college, across the board, particularly at the higher-level education
at the moment, we have some core elements in qualifications which
can be accessed by a range of disciplines. Ultimately, it depends
how flexible we want to make this. In my college, at the moment,
we have academic and vocational students accessing some elements
of core already, together.
Q99 Helen Jones: I am sorry, but
can you just give me your comments, because this seems to be a
constant problem? You talk about academic and vocational students,
everyone does; what are law and medicine except vocational qualifications,
yet we view them very differently. Is it not time that, if we
are going to get to a proper system of education, which plays
on students' strengths, we get rid of that kind of divide altogether
and have one overarching Diploma with specialist lines within
it?
Dr McMahon: I think it means that,
if you use the word "specialist", ultimately that could
override what we mean by vocational or academic; it could mean,
I agree with you, a professional route, but at the moment it is
shorthand, is it not?
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