Diplomas are being made more complex

Every day on radio 4, ed balls seems to have something new to say about diplomas. Good to see the Government so committed!

In the Guardian today a good piece from Mike Baker:

To summarise, he says that the recommedations of the Tomlinson report that was rejected when Tony Blair was in charge seem now to be coming to fruition under Gordon Brown.

But the warning signs are there. There will be an election around 2010, just about the time of the real birtyh of diplomas and a porr reputaion and performance then could see a negative outcome to incorporating A levels into reforms come 2013.

And there may a change of Government of course ......

ANd that's without the practical problems of implemtation, work experience, timetabling.

The final paragraph is
"The desire to give diplomas academic responsibility is understandable in view of the british tendency to devalue vocational qualifications. But that desire is the cause of the confusion, complexity and ambivalence that could scupper this much needed reform."

The New Curriculum

So the announcement this week of major revisions to the GCSE programme as well as the extended Diplomas.
And another mailing from KSSP reminding me that Key Skills continues until 2010 only - It is starting to feel like a new curriculum all round.

In fact I've registered www.thenewcurriculum.co.uk - suggestions as to what I should put on this site?

4 and a half A levels

As a bit of an addundum to the last posting.
Apparently, there will be a super Diploma worth 4.5 A levels!

I have a feeling that it's all a bit too complex and perhaps, going back to basics would be a better way forward all round?

Is this really the right thing to do

I haven't checked this out yet in any form but on the news this morning an announcement that the Government is to make the new Diploma level 3 quals more acadmeic and worth 4.5 A levels.

Surely this can't be right. I know it was a long time ago but I only did 3 A levels, and I was there full time at school, every day and had masses of extra work to do. Further, we are faliing a significant proportion of youngsetrs already in not having the right studty programme for them. Students who are academically minded already have good routes, those who haven't the ability to get acadmeic quals are again being marginalised.

I also simply don't believe that it is possible to do the equivalent of 4.5 A levels and then have employers beleive it was wotrh 4.5 A levels. Saying it is is just wrong, as no-one will believe it and therefore the qual will be devalued.

More on this when I have investigated.


I'm a big supporter of the new quals (as you'd expect) but this looks like a step too far

LSN

Just recieved an email from the KSSP part of LSN this morning saying that most support ends in March. But not a lot on what takes over other than a link to the excellence gateway - strange!

Astonishing press coverage of 16 year old school leavers

In todays Daily Mail.
p12 - pupils in big schools are doomed to failure - a focus on those 78000 pupils who leave without even the basic qualifications.
p19 - tories pledge to get Jeremy Kyle generation into jobs - main focus of the story is dissaffected young men and the growth of NEETS
p24 - head of eton calls for overhaul of GCSE - do 6 instead of 16 plus a range of other interetsing stuff. You don't have to test and examine everything.
p29 - the Hair and Beauty diploma that doesn't actually involve cutting hair - comment of the new diplomas.

Four stories, all focussed on 16 year olds and with a clear tendency towards fising the problems of low achievement.

Using games for learning

An interesting poll by YouGov on behalf of RM shows how something can be spun in each direction.

RM says "There is a strongly expressed interest in using these for learning, with 30% saying they would like to use video games to help them learn, 20% an MP3 player and 18% social networking sites".

Now I'm quite diappointed at some of these figures. Given that virtaully every teenager has a games player of some description, only 1 in 3 want to use it for learning and an even lower number for sites such as MSN.

There's been loads of talk about how msn and bebo and myspace can be used for learning, perhaps all of us "advisers/adults/teachers/commentators" shouldn't bother as I think the spin on this story is that teenagers don't want to use their technologies for learning. Games are games they appear to say, now leave me alone whilst I play!