SecEd The ONLY weekly voice for secondary education Inside this issue
Issue 262 • October 14 2010 Price £1.00
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Parkour training inspires students
Parkour, or free-running, has become well known across the world and is now finding a place in education with classes engaging a range of students in schools and local authorities Page 6
Diploma fight: Delegates at the SecEd National Delivering Diplomas Conference heard that the qualifications are proving to be rigorous and challenging Musical inspiration
Patrick Allen tells the story of when his music class was joined by a group of students who had moved to the UK from the Chagos Islands, and the inspirational journey that followed Pages 8 and 9
Fight is on to ensure the Diplomas survive
Angry deliverers urged to ‘get the message across’ to ministers by Dorothy Lepkowska
STEM: Café Sci
The Café Sci network helps to engage students and the community in STEM debates. We look at how it works Page 12
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Employers need to spell out to ministers the importance of retaining the Diploma because of the quality of skills developed by young people leaving school with the qualification, SecEd’s National Delivering Diplomas conference heard this week. At the same time, the loosen-
ing of the regulations surrounding the Diploma and the government’s lukewarm endorsement of it should be seen by schools as an opportu- nity to be creative in the way it is delivered. Sue Kirkham, one of the keynote
speakers, told delegates from both education and industry gathered in Birmingham that the coalition seemed to be under the misappre- hension that the qualification was “an easy option” and that it refused to acknowledge the specific place occupied by the Diploma – strad- dling the academic and vocational – in the overall suite of qualifications. She urged schools and colleges
not to wait for further ministerial announcements, but to go ahead and continue to develop the qualifi- cations according to their students’ needs. Since coming to power in May,
the government has angered advo- cates of the Diploma by suspend- ing phase 4 of their roll out and stating that it should be allowed to “sink or swim” alongside other qualifications. Education secre- tary Michael Gove was known to have been appalled by Labour proposals that the Diploma should eventually replace GCSE and A levels, and has apparently pigeon-holed it with other voca- tional courses. But Ms Kirkham, education
policy specialist at the Association of School and College Leaders, said that it was down to schools, col- leges and particularly employers to get the message across to ministers that the qualification has rigour and meets the needs of business and industry. She said she feared that schools currently offering Diplomas might
be swayed towards abandoning it because the government had not indicated what its currency would be in league tables. Currently Diplomas have equivalence with GCSE and A level. She said: “It would have a great
deal of impact if employers were to say that this is not an easy option. It is rigorous and challenging, and needs to have true value in league tables. “We all need to keep talking to
the government, though it does not help that people such as the CBI make negative comments about it. Clearly some people still don’t understand what Diplomas are.” Ms Kirkham said that while
schools had been given greater freedoms by Mr Gove in the way they delivered Diploma courses, teachers should always have the interests of young people in mind when faced with its uncertain future. “Because Diplomas will no
longer attract additional funding, schools and colleges will now have to consider whether they are fulfill-
ing the needs of their students,” she said. “They might have to discard
what is too expensive to run, but it would be a great pity with all the work that has been done for Diplomas to wither on the vine. “Teachers also need to con-
sider that abandoning them could lead to inequality of opportunity, because if schools choose not to offer Diplomas their young people will be disadvantaged.” Brian Rossiter, head of Valley
School, part of the Bassetlaw Partnership in Nottinghamshire, told the conference that headteach- ers in his locality had been angered by the government’s initial remarks, and now what he described as “the information vacuum” over the future of Diplomas. This had led the consortium to
begin a review of the way the quali- fications would be delivered. But he added: “We will continue working with Diplomas because we believe they offer strength and value to our students.” Graham Lane, chairman of the
Engineering Diploma Development Partnership, told SecEd that unlike the CBI, some organisations, includ- ing the Institute of Directors had spoken up in favour of Diplomas. He said: “This government is
getting very bogged down in try- ing to define the academic and vocational. “We did point out to them in
meetings while they were still in opposition, that no-one would con- sider medicine or law to be voca- tional subjects, and it is not as simple as to draw a line between the two. “But I believe the civil service
contains some very shrewd people who have seen the evidence about the effectiveness of Diplomas and we have to hope those messages will get through to ministers.”
• SeeSecEd next Thursday (October 21) for a full round-up from the Sixth National Delivering Diplomas Conference. SecEd also publishes, Delivering Diplomas, a termly magazine for all Diploma deliverers. Visit
www.deliveringdiplomas.com
UK news n SecEd: On Your Side n Independent thinking n Moral support n NQT diary n Managing ICT n At the chalkface
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