The Basic Skills Agency - Developing Effective Practice
series, June 2005
This report forms part of the Basic Skills Agency's research
into current practice in college provision for 14 to 16-year
olds (key stage 4). It is based on a sample of 11 colleges,
and includes case studies. The report highlights features
of emerging practice and curriculum development. For example,
in many cases, when key stage 4 programmes were established
it was assumed that the development of literacy, language
and numeracy would take place in schools, because this was
where the young people would spend most of their time. Increasingly,
however, colleges were putting into place measures to embed
literacy and numeracy in vocational teaching and to provide
additional support.
The research covered:
- What could be learned about successful transitions from
school to college and vice versa?
- What practices were in place to ensure that this younger
age group was successfully assimilated into (traditionally
post-16) colleges?
- What were colleges doing to support the professional
development of staff?
- What pedagogical liaison between schools and colleges
was effective in ensuring progression?
The colleges were working in various ways. Some had assimilated
14 to 16-year-olds into sessions for post-16 learners, finding
the more adult atmosphere motivating for the younger students;
others found that behavioural problems made it better to
teach the 14 to 16-year-olds in discrete groups. While some
pupils attended college as part of an Alternative Learning
Environment programme because they were not receiving mainstream
schooling, others had good levels of achievement in school
and were attending college because they wished to follow
a vocational education route. In one college's programme,
young people who were very disaffected spent all their time
with work-based learning providers; the young people found
this very motivating, although the providers lacked confidence
in their capacity to address basic skills.
Get the curriculum offer right - effective colleges
changed the curriculum to make it appropriate to learners'
prior achievements, making use of national assessment (SATs)
data where this was available. This sometimes meant introducing
courses at a lower level than was initially envisaged. Colleges
also used the admissions process to identify literacy and
numeracy needs.
Make literacy and numeracy an integral
part of the vocational curriculum
and put in place systems of support - these may include
providing for learning support assistants, and staff development
for vocational tutors.
Develop a shared understanding
between schools and colleges of the structures and terminology
used to describe attainment in literacy and numeracy.
The report suggests that the following could form the basis
of a national development agenda:
Embedding basic skills -
this is more than 'smuggling' in literacy and numeracy as
an add-on to the curriculum, or using contextualised learning
materials. It requires the identification of the specific
requirements of the vocational subject, and the use of a
range of teaching strategies. Use could be made of the Secondary
National Strategy (formerly the Key Stage 3 Strategy) and the experience of national
projects developed through Skills
for Life.
Breaking the pattern of low expectations
- making a new start with a fresh environment and curriculum
means the opportunity to develop a new learning contract
between the young person, school, college and parent or
carer. In some cases this alone is enough to provide the
motivational boost a disaffected young person needs. Staff
in the colleges visited were highly conscious of the need
to create a climate that rewarded effort, interest and more
mature behaviour, and to maintain positive contact with
parents and carers.
Initial assessment should inform the student's Individual
Learning Plan and targets (which should include a focus
on learning gains as well as improvements in attitude and
behaviour), and also classroom practice.
Catching up - attention needs
to be paid to the most effective ways of supporting those
with the lowest levels of literacy and numeracy (who by
this stage may have 'given up' on learning), including keeping
the support relevant to 'real life' and the vocational context.
G. Lobley (2005) Working with 14-16
year-olds with basic skills needs in FE Colleges: A survey
of emerging practice, London: The Basic Skills Agency
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