Andy to introduce new technical pathways for GCSEs in 2028(!)

[noblegiraffe]

Or perhaps not GCSEs but some other sort of qualification which will apparently tie into local industry, for students going into Y8 in September.

"The “prestigious” new technical pathways, which will pair skills training with work experience and connections with local employers, are set to be rolled out from September 2028."

Is Andy Burnham actually mad? 2028? Does he realise that it actually takes time to develop qualifications (or 'skills training'), resource them (particularly technical ones which require more equipment than a maths lesson) and then find the teachers to actually teach them? And the local employers to do the work experience? One of the major problems with setting up T-levels was problems with finding work placements, and that's for age 16+.

I know he has the MBacc in Manchester (although this seems to be merely a label for a set of already existing qualifications rather than new ones - does anyone have any experience of this?) but I expect it is easier to organise work experience for kids in a large city with good transport links than it would be in a more rural/coastal area - and the problem with a lot of those places is a lack of job opportunities for young people in the first place.

And he's announced this in the summer holidays, which one of his teacher relatives should really have warned him is what is considered a 'dick move' in education.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/schools-prime-minister-burnham-lucy-powell-ofsted-b1291512.html

https://www.tes.com/magazine/news/secondary/new-technical-pathways-for-students-announced-by-andy-burnham

Andy should also be aware that calling them 'prestigious technical pathways' is a noble effort, but there is, and always has been a massive issue with vocational subjects being seen as lesser than academic ones. If these prestigious pathways end up being for the kids who are not going to get decent GCSEs - which is always the kids who people think should do vocational qualifications - then they will not be prestigious and the middle classes will continue to steer their kids down the academic route.

I started work in the education sector in 2000 and the then government was making a big fuss about ensuring vocational qualifications were equally valuable and prestigious as academic ones (they invented Vocational GCSEs and Vocational A Levels to achieve this, unsuccessfully).

Quarter of a century later, successive governemnts have said the same thing again and again and invented various other vocational qualifications which have encountered all the same sort of problems.

Yes there have been some hard-fought, limited successes along the way (the surviving UTCs are often quite good now) but I also roll my eyes at a government which comes out with the same repetitive lines without apparently having learnt from recent history about how hard vocational education is to get right.

Aren't the more vocational Btechs (at GCSE level) being phased out.

I know it's early days but I'm impressed with Andy and hope he doesn't disappoint 🤞🏻

And why would you want
1: kids to go the long way round
2: certain kids to be excluded because they weren’t Uni material
3: kids to have massive debt?

That's interesting, MBacc not till 2030, but the rest of the whole country 2028?

Your link about employers offering work experience is about T-levels - they've had to work really hard to find placements for 1000 college kids....not GCSE kids!

The Wikipedia page is really lacking in detail. Kids pick GCSE courses and if they are on the MBacc route then they will proceed to T-levels.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Manchester_Baccalaureate

T-levels are level 3 qualifications, and require English and maths GCSE (or compulsory resits). So the MBacc route isn't for kids who are going to fail all their GCSES.

PP was talking about current uni graduates who can't get jobs, and employers who can't find people with the right skills. An obvious immediate solution would be to offer training to the uni graduates who are on the job market, right? But employers often can't be bothered with that.

It's high time that teachers began to value the vocational trades.

I value the vocational trades. But that doesn't mean I'm going to clap and cheer an announcement when I can see a huge number of issues with it.

I can think of several students in the current y8 who this might be perfect for. But first we need to know how it's being delivered, who by and what funding is going to be in place. Otherwise it's just jam tomorrow.

I mean, there are instant problems obvious from people on this thread who assume

1. it's for electricians and plumbers
2. it's for kids who wont pass their GCSEs.

People are saying how great plumbing is and how much plumbers make (I agree and tell the kids I teach too), but then they're still suggesting it's for kids who can't do the academic route rather than an active choice for any child. Do we not need clever plumbers?

Also, if it's about major local employers, that would be Faceless Corporation as much as Bob the local Builder.

@noblegiraffe have all the promised additional teachers appeared yet, following the VAT changes for private schools? Breakfast clubs, how are they working out? A lot of policies and promises sound great until the poor schools have to try and implement them

Additional teachers? We're going to have to make redundancies and cut courses next year.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-hits-70-of-pledge-two-years-into-this-parliament

Apparently there are more than 4000 extra teachers in schools and colleges. No, I don’t know where either given yours isn’t the only school making redundancies.

out of their existing budgets. That's never mentioned!

They must be in a cupboard somewhere. Because we've not replaced everyone who left, let alone got any more.

I do know that a lot were trained - but of the 5 trainees we had this year, I'd only employ one of them. The others were varying degrees of questionable.

Clearly just wanting to blame Burnham for daring to have an idea.