ATL

Delivering the diploma

It is six months since some schools and colleges in England started teaching the diploma, the first in a series of planned 14-19 reforms to hit classrooms. Report finds out how it is going. Words by Charlotte Tamvakis

With five diplomas now being taught, rollout of the new qualification is well under way. Local authorities have a duty to offer diploma places and must offer all 17 subjects by 2011.

The key to delivering a high-quality diploma is collaboration, particularly between schools, sixth forms and FE colleges, as ATL member Paul Burchett - a curriculum leader for ICT, business and enterprise who delivers the creative and media diploma - found out.

Paul is based at Ringmer Community College, a secondary school in East Sussex. In their first project - one of the business partnerships that underlines the diploma's mix of academic and vocational - Level 2 students competed for the chance to publicise a youth opera for Glyndebourne, based nearby. The results speak for themselves - Glyndebourne is going to be using six of their ideas.

Paul says: "Collaboration is something that's worked really well for us, but it has to happen at the higher level to work. You need to have good senior management in place. Our LA has been good. It pushed schools to bid for diplomas. If someone just says 'you can do this and you have a couple of hours a week to do it ', then it's going to fail."

Cooperation between schools and colleges in his area means there is joint timetable planning and transport between sites.

Such successful collaboration has not been mirrored everywhere. ATL's national official for the post-16 sector, Norman Crowther, says: "Schools are still pretty reluctant to engage with partnerships. There are issues - how are they going to send their students to the college? Do they have a common timetable? Are they going to share resources with a local school? There is competition and lack of will to engage because schools and colleges are set up as autonomous institutions."

The experience of an FE lecturer in Northamptonshire currently pitching for the business diploma illustrates this problem. She says: "Just arranging the meetings to plan the diploma has been difficult. Take something as simple as the timetable - we've had to ask schools if a member of staff could be released to come and talk. We've not crossed the hurdle of students' timetables yet."

As one of a small group taking part in pilot training for diploma delivery, she says she feels more confident than most. She wants to see more training and suggests the PGCE and Cert Ed are adapted to prepare teachers for the diploma.

Worryingly, she adds: "If I put on my hat as the mother of a 16-year-old, it's quite scary. I can say that I wouldn't know the difference between a diploma and an A-level. Employers and people in higher education need to be educated about what it is."

The fact is numbers are significantly lower than expected. The September 2008 target was reduced from 50,000 to 20,000 students, while actual take-up was more like 12,500.

Norman believes the diploma's delivery was not properly planned. He says: "You've got a voluntary culture to meet a mandatory structure, which means you're going to have a variety of models around the country of what is on offer and assumptions on how far people are willing to travel. What does rollout mean when you can't determine the numbers?

"I've no issue with the integrity of the diploma qualifications. In fact, ATL is supportive of the core vision, but unlike the Welsh baccalaureate, there was no pilot of the diplomas.

This causes a whole set of complex problems about the nature of the rollout. A lot of staff are working in isolation. There might only be one person running the diploma at a college and they are the only person who knows about it."

He also believes the government has not thought through the practicalities of delivering the diploma. "If you want to do construction and are offered engineering at the local college and the construction course is 30 miles away, which are you going to choose? Are students really getting what they want in the best way possible?" he says.

ATL member Rachel Dormor worked on the diploma in Cambridge, where she says the process actually broke down barriers and improved relationships. She credits good support from forward-thinking management, training and information.

However, she agrees the government should be doing more to publicise diplomas. Now in charge of the creative and media diploma at a college in Staffordshire, she says: "Students don't know about it, but when you talk to them they are really interested."

The Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) says it is on hand to support teachers, students and employers, and points out that the diploma saw the highest ever number of students starting a new qualification in its first year.

The information on its 14-19 web pages has been expanded and it is working hard to ensure teachers, parents and employers can find the information they need as quickly and easily as possible.

A DCSF spokesperson said: "The diploma's unique blend of applied and theoretical learning is breaking down the perceived historic academic/vocational divide and preparing young people for both higher education and the world of work. Some of the highest-performing and most innovative secondary schools in the country are offering them. Learners and teachers are being highly motivated by the experience of the diplomas since the course started in September.

"We are currently planning around 1,500 nationwide briefing sessions for teachers and lecturers about the diplomas and wider reforms, which will give teachers the information they need to recommend diplomas to students of all abilities with confidence."

Jon Mitchell, an ATL member who led the engineering diploma at an FE college before moving to the LA in St Helens, Merseyside, where he covers all diploma lines, believes the government has informed people, but that bad press is hampering its success.

He says: "The press is always negative. We had an options evening where there was a lot of interest from students, but when they came back after speaking to their parents they had changed their minds," he says.
"The biggest challenge is the number of schools that we have. They are all different institutions that don't work in the same way and are struggling to adapt because of the low take-up."

Delivering the diploma is undoubtedly a challenge, particularly at a time when schools and colleges are being asked to implement a swathe of changes as part of the 14-19 reforms. The government is belatedly working with trade unions and professional associations on the crucial factors that could make all the difference locally.

Wider developments will also have an impact. Pay disparities between teachers and lecturers delivering the diploma remain - ATL is continuing to call for fair pay through its joint 'Time to pay up' campaign, and the recession will affect businesses working with schools and colleges. There is also the effect of a potential change of government at the next election to consider.

Yet young people are clearly interested in the qualification and, with the right support, it can be a success, as Paul Burchett's experience shows. He says: "We've had a lot to do, but it's been positive. We've taken it as an opportunity to be quite creative and students are being very creative themselves. We have got people who came to this school and weren't brilliant and they have come back and are doing this and doing it well. Because of the nature of the content they are more motivated and want to prove themselves."

You can find out more about diplomas at www.dcsf.gov.uk/14-19.

Image (c) Alamy