DIPLOMAS
Sarah
Resources available for schools
McCarthy-
Dedicated Diploma website: A website for teaching
staff providing advice on delivering the Diploma
and on how the qualification is structured. It offers
Fry MP gives
bespoke training sessions, online forums sharing
insights and best practice, and includes other support
a ministerial
tools and resources. Visit www.diploma-support.org
update on the delivery of
14 to 19 briefing sessions: Schools can still book
a staff briefing to provide an overview of 14 to 19
the new Diplomas and
reforms, including information on the Diploma.
These will run until September. Contact 020 8735
2375 or support@14-19Briefing.co.uk
points us towards some
The 14 to 19 Reforms and You Toolkit: This is a
useful resources
resource to help leaders and managers in schools to
disseminate information about the 14 to 19 Reforms
to staff. It includes a booklet summarising the
RECENTLY ATTENDED a fantastic event
I
at Microsoft’s London headquarters with
students studying the Diploma in information
technology. The workshop was one of five
learner events hosted by employers across the
Diploma
reforms, a summary leaflet, and a memory stick with
a presentation that can be edited and video material.
Visit www.publications.teachernet.gov.uk
The Diploma wall-chart: The wall-chart offers
country to celebrate the first five Diploma information about the Diploma structure, assessment
lines. and grading, and the additional subject lines being
I had the chance to hear about the experiences
of students as well as professionals working in the
industry, including Microsoft’s UK managing director,
Gordon Frazer. This brought to life for me what the
Diploma represents – students learning essential skills
update
introduced over the next few years. The wall-chart is
being distributed by stakeholder groups and unions.
Other resources:
The Diploma: A Guide for Schools provides general
for further and higher education and work. details and overview information about the Diploma
As part of the 14 to 19 reforms, the Diploma for teachers, careers advisors and Connexions
represents a major change to teaching methods. Creating advisors (reference DCSF-00499-2008).
an innovative new curriculum through a blend of practical We have encouraged professionals from all sectors We are offering a suite of support for school and
and theoretical learning is not an overnight task. We want and sizes of organisation to find out how they can college teaching staff delivering the Diploma this year. The Diploma: Choosing Your Options for Year 10
to support teachers through this major change and we support the Diploma in their area, by arranging a work This includes a website, briefing sessions, a toolkit and provides information about the Diploma, including
have committed to investment to deliver that support. experience placement or going into a school or college a range of publications, as well as the tailored local how they work and what they can lead to, for pupils
We have introduced the Diploma to provide young to teach a lesson in their area of expertise. It is so support package and a range of guidance documents in year 9 (reference DCSF-00502-2008).
people with the right mix of learning to motivate, interest important that employers use what they have learnt to on key issues.
and challenge them – as well as giving young people the inspire and prepare the workforce of the future. This additional funding and support is essential to The Diploma: Choosing Your Options for Year 12 is
knowledge, skills and attitude they need to succeed in We are committed to ensuring that the workforce resolve any concerns or confusion among the workforce a similar publication to the above, but for pupils in
education, work and life. In designing the Diploma, we delivering the Diploma is prepared to do so. and to build capacity for the future. year 11 (reference DCSF-00503-2008).
have worked closely with employers and universities to We have invested £81 million to help schools and As I have seen from the students and employers I
ensure that when students complete the Diploma they colleges prepare to deliver Diplomas in 2008/09, on have met who are already involved with the Diploma, The Diploma: A Guide for Parents gives details and
have the required skills for work or university. top of the funding we have already supplied for those this qualification has real potential to provide students overview information about the Diploma to help
All universities have said that an Advanced Diploma teaching the Diploma from September 2008. This with the skills and experience they need to succeed, parents and carers guide and advise the young people
holder can apply for degree courses. This includes resource helps local areas build their capacity to deliver and we are determined to ensure that the education under their care (reference DCSF-00498-2008).
the research-intensive Russell Group and 1994 Group all 17 Diplomas in a sustainable way as they move professionals have all the support they need to be
universities, and all Million+ and University Alliance towards the entitlement in 2013. It also ensures teachers prepared to deliver it. SecEd • Order these publications at www.publications.
universities. and leaders in schools and colleges are fully trained to teachernet.gov.uk or contact 0845 60 222 60 and
Employers have also been involved in the design teach the qualification and able to develop challenging • Sarah McCarthy-Fry MP is the parliamentary under 0845 60 555 60 (textphone).
of the Diploma and they are integral to its delivery. curricula for their students. secretary of state for schools and learners.
Notes and jottings Independent thinking
Getting to the root cause Music to all our ears
SO THE police are called into British schools their own record and increasingly thuggish image? I VISITED the Royal Festival Hall several times in every kind for young people, but this began to
100,000 times a year. That means that in England, Somehow we have to get down to causes and change the week after Easter; it was packed with people of all be dismantled in the late 1980s. However, we do
alone, they are called out four times a year on attitudes – always the hardest task of all. ages, including lots of children and teenagers, and the still have wonderful youth orchestras, including the
average to each of the 21,500 schools. whole atmosphere was buzzing. This was most unusual National Youth Orchestra, which also played at the
It is worrying and it takes me back to several How long should a lesson be? The most recent for a classical music venue. However, this was the Royal Festival Hall that week.
incidents. The worst was when I was head of school I taught in ran on 35-minute periods which week of the visit of the Simon Bolivar Orchestra from Nevertheless, it is clear that music in its many
upper school in a Kent girls’ school. There was an always felt very inefficient and bitty to me. Others Venezuela, the product of the El Sistema programme guises has huge transformational powers and most
always-open, quiet side door at the end of a corridor: report happily of whole hour sessions (or two for a which was established more than 30 years ago. young people today are exposed to little other than the
an intruder’s dream and these days it would be double) which must, of course, be trickier because Not only were there performances, but also latest hits on their iPod. Actually making
festooned with key pads and alarms. One day, there’s less flexibility. a series of seminars, with eminent speakers music is a hugely positive and powerful
three noisy (drunk?) youths invaded looking Mulling on all this the other day I was discussing El Sistema and how we might experience. I speak with personal
for trouble and girls. intrigued to see that Monkseaton High establish some such system in the UK. insight: in spite of my advancing
A male colleague in his 60s School in Tyne and Wear is using eight I attended two of these and much years, I am currently preparing to
confronted them and asked them to (yes, eight) minute learning blocks of the discussion centred on whether take my first ever music exam
leave. He ended up on the floor so as a revision technique in year 11. British young musicians were just too – grade 1 singing. This has meant
badly hurt that we thought he’d lost “Spaced learning” means intensive repressed and well-drilled to exhibit the learning to read music properly,
an eye. Happily, the injured man exposure to facts for a short time sheer exuberance of their Venezuelan to understand time signatures, and
eventually made a full recovery, sight followed by something physical counterparts. Some referred to the master correct breathing.
intact, and the police later arrested the such as jogging and then back to very different kinds of music-making Why am I doing this? Well, I
perpetrators who were charged. the facts on a continuum. Backed which young people might enjoy, and am being sponsored as part of our
On another occasion in the same by state-of-the-art neuroscience, it asked whether we should be encouraging campaign to raise funds and awareness
school, an angry mother burst into the apparently achieves excellent results them to make music of all kinds – beatbox, of a project to build a Community Music
school after my blood – metaphorically – even if it means having to stage rock, hip-hop as well as classical. Certainly Centre in this part of south London. We
if not literally. The head hid me in her office science revision lessons in the gym. there was general consensus that making have the site, as we are fortunate to have
until she had managed, with a lot of help, to music had hugely beneficial effects on large grounds, and we have the vision
get her off the premises. Did you know that group visits children’s development, stimulating their and many local community groups
Then there was the time I arrived, to English Heritage sites – Dover imagination, creativity and intellect, who wish to share the facility with us.
as an education journalist, at Pensnett Castle, Whitby Abbey, Kenilworth and teaching them perseverance, self- It will have not only a large concert
High School in Dudley to interview Castle, various delights on Hadrian’s discipline and self-confidence. hall, but recording studios, music
the then head, Barry Bainbridge, about Wall and four hundred others – are For those readers not familiar with El therapy facilities, teaching rooms, and
vocational courses – only to find the free to school parties? They have Sistema, this is a project with an avowedly a sizeable recital room. People of all
school in disarray and Mr Bainbridge to charge for specialist services such social emphasis. It has involved more ages will come and make music and
less than himself because he’d been as their excellent “Discovery Visits” than 300,000 children, many from the listen to music, including pop, rock, jazz,
assaulted by a parent earlier that morning. which involve their education staff, and poorest areas of Venezuela, who are given folk, classical, gospel and music from many
The police had been and there were several for events, but if you simply want to take a instruments and taught as a group from different genres and cultures.
phone calls relating to the incident during group of kids on a bog-standard self-led visit an early age for up to four hours each day, Such facilities will certainly help to bring
my visit. it costs you nothing and I’m not sure that many every day. The country now has 57 children’s more creativity into young (and older) people’s
Almost every teacher and every school, teachers realise this. orchestras and 125 youth orchestras, and the lives and to provide a community focus away from
according to those chilling statistics, has alarming It means that you can take them to, for instance Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra is the pinnacle. the dangers on the streets or from the isolation which
stories like this to tell and, according to Sunday the wonderfully evocative Pendennis Castle in Meanwhile, three pilot projects are being started many experience.
Times research, Cheshire police has been called to Cornwall in connection with history, geography art, in England under the auspices of “In Harmony” to A wonderful idea – we just need rather substantial
one comprehensive 44 times in the last two years. design (and most other subjects) just for the cost of give intensive instrumental tuition to children from sums of money to make it happen! However, if we had
So what on earth can we do about it? Locking the coach. And, if Cornwall isn’t convenient, look disadvantaged areas from an early age, and a similar been investing in such projects on a national scale for
doors and arresting people – like the government’s online (www.english-heritage.org.uk) to find out project is already underway in Scotland. the past 20 years, I wonder whether we would be living
forthcoming guidance to link every school to a what they’ve got in your area. Many of those at the seminars or commenting in a different sort of society now?
named police officer – deals only with symptoms. on the events in the media noted that England
Anyway, how much notice can we expect youngsters • Susan Elkin is a freelance education journalist and had once had a wonderful music service in every • Marion Gibbs is headmistress of the independent
to take of policemen preaching non-violence given former teacher. local authority and many musical opportunities of James Allen’s Girls’ School in London.
SecEd • May 7 2009 7
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