Tomlinson rejection 'led to a rag-bag'

Ministers have failed in their promise to reform the 14-19 curriculum and created a "rag-bag" of changes by rejecting the findings of the Tomlinson inquiry, England's General Teaching Council said in April 2005. It said the Government had missed an opportunity to revise the qualifications process, in particular to make it more equitable for low-achievers. In a draft response to the 14-19 education and skills white paper, the council backed plans for greater support for key stage 3 pupils performing below Level 5 in core subjects. It was critical, however, of the failure to raise the status of vocational qualifications, the "narrowness" of the proposed new diploma and the lack of emphasis on teacher assessment. There was also a lack of alignment with the Government's Every Child Matters policy, which promoted greater cooperation between education, health and social services, it said.

(TES, 22 April 2005)

More on Every Child Matters

New vocational diplomas will be introduced in schools and colleges from 2008 under plans to raise the "scandalously" low proportion of English teenagers staying on in education past the age of 16. The work-related qualification is the central proposal in a White Paper, which ministers said would transform secondary education, published in response to the 18-month Tomlinson inquiry. There will also be a new diploma for 16-year-olds. To get it they will have to get five Cs or better at GCSE, including at least a C in both English and maths. This measure of success will also be used in league tables next year.

GCSE English and maths will be redesigned to make it impossible to get a C without having mastered "functional" aspects of the subjects, said the paper. But there will be no basic English or maths exams, as Tomlinson wanted. There has been widespread dismay at ministers' decision to reject Sir Mike Tomlinson's central recommendation: a diploma including both vocational and academic courses. A-levels and GCSEs, which he wanted scrapped, will continue alongside the new vocational diploma.

Union leaders, educationalists and bodies including the Independent Schools Council said the White Paper represented a missed opportunity to put vocational and academic courses on an equal footing. The Government's 2003 Green Paper, which set up the Tomlinson review, said it should move to a "unified qualifications structure suitable for all young people". But this has been rejected. Instead, it focused on streamlining the current 3500 vocational courses for 14 to 19-year-olds to three-level diplomas in 14 subjects by 2015.

(TES, 25 February 2005)

Row over vocational training

Chief inspector David Bell is on a collision course with colleges over suggested reforms to the way 14 to 16-year-olds are taught. Mr Bell has called for a new type of vocational school to provide work-related teaching for teenagers. While these schools should act in concern with schools and colleges they eould have a specific brief to provide quality work-related studies. However, colleges accuse Mr Bell of failing to fully understand government initiatives already in place to get more pupils onto college courses and workplace training from 14 as part of a wider share school programme.

(TES, 7 January 2005)

Read the White Paper's key points

Tomlinson report suggests radical changes

Report from the Financial Times:

Schools need to go back to basics
Secondary schools should put the core skills of reading, writing and numeracy at the heart of the curriculum, according to a far-reaching report. But the government rejected any rush to overhaul the examinations systems as "foolhardy", promising to publish its own plan for curriculum reform in January 2005 (for more details see the link below). Charles Clarke, education secretary, welcomed proposals for the 14-19 age group from Mike Tomlinson, former chief inspector for schools. He said that plans, which call for the biggest overhaul of schools for more than 50 years were "a cogently argued, challenging and compelling vision of the future."

But Mr Clarke fell well short of promising to adopt the radical and potentially expensive package wholesale, leading to speculation the Government would make some changes to the curriculum quickly, leaving other reforms until well after the general election, and abandon the most controversial. A-level courses, for example, could soon involve fewer external exams, with the new AS level abandoned as a compulsory staging post to the full qualification.

The greater emphasis on vocational learning will require a dramatic increase in teachers with a relevant career background, and better facilities, both of which will be expensive to provide. Absorbing existing qualifications such as GCSEs and A-levels into a new diploma structure could take as long as a decade, and the Government has promised that the existing examinations would not be abolished but provide the "building blocks" of any new system.

(FT, 19 October 2004)

Under the proposals of the Tomlinson review of secondary schools, GCSEs and A-levels will be replaced by a four-level diploma qualification by 2014. The highest A-level equivalent will be assessed mainly by external exams. But lower levels, including that taken by 16-year-olds, will predominately be graded by teachers based on pupils' work during the course. The report will also propose:

• Teachers to be trained as chartered examiners to oversee internal assessment in schools
• The diploma to be offered at pass, merit and distinction levels
• All students to take compulsory courses in functional maths, English and information technology
• Formal coursework to be scrapped in many subjects, replaced by a single, cross-curricular project at advanced level
• Within the next three to four years, advanced extension awards and a compulsory project to be incorporated into A-levels, which would have A* and A** grades
• A-levels would be cut from six modules to four

A separate taskforce also proposes that from 2008 students will apply to university after their A-level results are published. A-levels would be brought forward by two weeks, and university terms put back, to give an 11-week gap between the results being released and the undergraduate courses starting.

The Tomlinson report is expected to call for changes to the schools league table system. With an intermediate diploma at 16 seen only as a progress check, and most pupils staying in education until 18, the group believes it would make little sense for tables of 16-year-olds' results to continue. A group member said: "There are a lot of issues where change will be needed, including league tables." One suggestion is that the tables should include groups of schools in the new system, encouraging collaboration.

Ministers have not yet agreed the details, however, and most of the recommendations will undergo lengthy trials before being implemented.

(TES, 16 October 2004)

The White Paper 14-19 Education and Skills was the Government's response to the Tomlinson report.