Vocational Qualifications – Making Sense of the Policy Quagmire Paper 1
Many senior managers in colleges are grappling with the new qualification structures and are trying to make sense of the new performance reports that are emanating from the Department for Education.
This is a pressing issue, as the new ‘score card’, that presents the performance for 2017 against the five headline measures is due to be published very soon (around the 25th January 2018).
The overall framework of qualifications and their relationship to the new 16-18 Headline Measures for accountability can be readily understood by looking at the chart below:
The changes embodied in the new Headline Measure focus on five kinds of measurement:
- Progress – based on the new level-3 value-added measure for Academic and Applied General qualifications
- Attainment – compares the average grade achieved by your students on Tech Levels and Tech Certificate qualifications with the national average grade
- English and Maths – a measure of the progress (based on a points system) made by all the young students to improve their English and Maths where they have not previously achieved grades A*- C (in old money) or grades 9 – 4 (in new money)
- Retention – there are now several measures of the extent to which schools and colleges keep their students (after the qualifying period). This year (2017), the measure will be extended to include measures for all the following categories:
- Level 3 academic programmes (including A levels)
- A level programmes
- Level 3 Applied General programmes
- Level 3 Tech Level programmes
- Level 2 vocational qualification programmes (including tech certificates)
- Level 2 tech certificates programmes
In 2017, there is a new retention measure which reports on the percentage of level-3 learners (on 2-year programmes) who return for the second year.
- Destinations – Destination measures show the percentage of Key Stage 5 students going to or remaining in an education and/or employment destination. Previously the measure only applied to students who were studying Level 3 qualifications. From 2017, it will be extended to students on other qualifications – including those on Level 2 vocational qualifications.
Managing Performance Depends on Your Curriculum Mix
The importance of some of the specific new measures will impact on colleges differently – depending on their curriculum mix. The chart below (taken from eTrackrilp data) shows the mix of four very different colleges based on the new Level 3 categories.
For College 4 (a large Sixth Form College), the challenge is one of ensuring high value-added scores.
However, many large General FE Colleges (e.g. College 1) will have a high proportion of courses which deliver qualifications in the Tech Level category (and a low proportion of Academic and Applied General qualifications). For these colleges, the challenge will be to ensure that the average outcome grade for each Tech Level qualification is above the national average for the same qualification. For these colleges, the impact of value-added scores on the overall provision is relatively small.
Managing Performance – Based on Target Grades
The key to managing and improving performance depends on several important processes:
- Ensuring good initial and diagnostic assessment
- Setting challenging targets for learners
- Engaging the learner through good teaching
- Managing rigorous assessment
- Ensuring close monitoring of progress through effective progress review systems
eTrackrilp is a leading software package designed to support all these processes within the FE environment. A series of following articles will explore in more detail how eTrackrilp can support colleges to score highly against the five headline performance measures.
VLE Support Ltd
January 2018
