T LEVELS


FROM DELIBERATIONS TO DECISIONS: HOW ‘T LEVEL’ CONTENT IS BEING DEVELOPED


Panels of experts have been busy working out the content for the first three T Levels that will be piloted in 2020. Professor Ed Sallis reports on the work of the Education and Childcare panel which he chairs.


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ppointed by the Department for Education, which currently oversees the process, the Education and Childcare panel’s


20 members are from a range of relevant backgrounds as employers, representatives of professional organisations and higher education, and practitioners from colleges, secondary and primary schools. The brief was to formulate the core content covering the relevant concepts, theories and skills for the three pathways in this T Level route. These are early years education and childcare, teaching assistants and learning mentors in FE/HE. In addition, the panel was required


to design the occupationally specific content that gives students the knowledge, skills and behaviours necessary to achieve threshold competence in their chosen pathway and to recommend the maths, English and digital skills relevant to the pathways. Work started in autumn 2017 with a deadline of summer 2018. Panel members were supported by a highly experienced educational adviser and an excellent relationship manager. They worked through face-to-face panel meetings and strong online communication and completed the task on time. There were also meetings with other panel chairs to share practice and ensure co-ordination, ministerial meetings, and


THE FIRST WAVE OF T LEVELS


T Levels from three technical routes will be delivered by 54 providers from September 2020. Those T Levels are: • Education and Childcare route: Education T Level • Digital route: Software applications design and development T Level • Construction route: Design, Surveying and Planning T Level


To see the first 54 T Level providers visit www.gov.uk/education or, if reading your digital version, click on goo.gl/1Nd1xw 8 AUTUMN 2018 • inTUITIONTECHNICAL TEACHING


consultation meetings on early drafts of the specification with groups of employers and providers. T Levels use the same standards as


the relevant apprenticeships and, in in our case, the Early Years (Level 3) Qualifications Criteria was also a strong point of reference. Meetings debated relevant concepts and theories, the underlying pedagogy of early years education, the skills required to work with children and young people, and the standards of behaviour professionals working in the field require. A major issue arising from the panel discussions was that the industrial placement requirement should be considerably higher than the 45-day minimum in the T Level specification. More time in the workplace will enable students to achieve a level of threshold competence that is as close as possible to full occupational competence after two years of college study. Learning practical skills requires considerable time


in the workplace, and in education and childcare this can’t easily be simulated in a college setting. The Institute for Apprenticeships, which monitored the panel’s work, will approve the final specification. Following the panel’s work, the next stage is the procurement process for a single awarding body. The institute will develop the qualification, based on the content developed by the panel, with the qualification available in February 2020.


Professor Ed Sallis OBE chairs the Education and Childcare panel, one of the government panels responsible for developing the outline content across each of the T Level routes. Ed chaired the Education and Training Foundation’s (ETF) review of Functional Skills qualifications in 2015 and he is a visiting professor at Plymouth University.


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