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.
and I used to be quite interested in your (many) thoughts on education too..

All btechs are being phased out apparently at a level as well where people could go into all sorts

Yes and none of them are banging down the door of the local FE college to teach the next generation of electricians and plumbers for £30 an hour when they could be earning double that. So who is going to teach them? Plumbing and electrical systems are hugely more complicated now than they were. Young people need to he taught the basics then need people to take the time to sit with them and teach them about n the job. There just aren't enough people doing that, and not enough people willing to teach in colleges. Maybe instead of harassing teachers the government should have a campaign to get older semi retired plumbers etc who can't do the physical work anymore to teach young people? Employers and other adults need to do their bit too instead of complaining about ' Mickey mouse degrees' and apprenticeships that they want other people to provide so they don't have to.

There's a difference between 'daring to have an idea' and suggesting that the (as yet unworked-out) idea be realistically implemented over the next two years.

One is fine, the other is silly.

Problem is many of these ideas are thrown out there with little thought on how they will actually work. How long has Andy and new Secretary of State for Education had time to sit down with advisors to work out how this is going to work.

In the meantime schools are meant to be able to deliver them. Were schools consulted on this change?

There’s also a large white paper on Education just gone through consultation which can have huge impacts on schools. And other changes to qualifications. Let’s just keep throwing things at schools (apart from any additional funding, don’t like throwing that at them!)

@noblegiraffe
Not having this choice in the UK has not removed social inequity or class divide.
If you look at schools in the deprived areas, you have the vast majority of students taking the same “academic” GCSEs but the pass rate is often 40%-50%( grades 4 and above).

You then have 50% students knowing that they will have to take the exams but the chances are they are going to fail. And believe me the students know that if their CWG in year 10 or 11 is 1 or 2, they are not likely to pass.

This creates a large group of frustrated and unmotivated young people who don’t see any point of learning. They will leave school and either end up unemployed/on benefits, or even worse, committing crime.

However, I know a school which offers subjects like Construction, Hair and Beauty, Food Tech to Y10 and Y11 students. They are very popular among less academic students, who often choose to continue them in post 16 colleges.

I am sure there are plenty of other schools, which offer some of these options.

Andy Burnham’s proposal will build on from this. He is proposing a gradual roll out from 2028, so the schools which offer practical subjects will already have the staff and facilities and can be the first to move on to the new system.

I think it a great idea as we need solid provision for the students who are not going to Sixth Form/ University. It should be offered at secondary schools, not after failed GCSEs.

There isn’t a single ‘German system’. Every state is different. I was referring specifically to the Bavarian system which is extremely successful at producing both academic students, and skilled technical
workers. There is not a single hauptschule (the lowest tier of secondary school) in Bavaria that is classed as a problem school.

The major local employer for the area in which I teach is the Cat A prison. They obviously won't be offering any work experience. In fact we had quite a number of year 10 students this year who couldn't find any placement and so we had to accommodate them in departments. This seems like an idea that would be much more difficult to implement in rural and coastal areas. In schools in areas of deprivation and low prior attainment which are already struggling to do well in the new Ofsted framework, something else to hammer us with when we don't find the work placements for these kids is going to be really disheartening.
For the record, vocational courses that are well thought out and resourced are to be welcomed, short timescales, not so much.

I think it's important to note regarding Bavaria that it has one of the highest GDPs per capita in Germany and lots of large industrial and technology based companies. It would be extremely hard to emulate that in the UK in the short or even medium term given that our industrial areas are badly off and our well off areas are service based. Maybe it could be trialled around the Oxford-Cambridge corridor, especially if they ever finish the railway line!

I like the idea in principle around having a stronger well regarded vocational offering.

But I agree the summer holidays is a stupid time to announce it; that 2 years is really short to specify and staff it; and the existing T levels for level 3 found the employer side really hard to establish to the point some colleges dropped them. I think employers are going to be even less keen on 14 year olds than 16 year olds.

They are going to be so expensive to do well.

The plumber I sometimes employ is really clever. You can see it in his problem solving capacity. He got no qualifications at school as he is very dyslexic. His sister is a senior teacher with several degrees.

A gardener I occasionally employ was also miserable at school. He has ADHD. He is a very happy and incredibly focused gardener.

Last time I needed an osteopath I found one online through recommendations. On hearing I was a teacher he detailed his disastrous school career and then said he could easily deal with the human race in 15 minute segments. Also neurodiverse.

I wish they hadn't had to fail at school to reinvent themselves later though (the plumber was fortunate as his dad trained him).

I don't think Burnham's plan can possibly work unless schools are allowed and funded to be more flexible and (frankly) the middle classes stop being snobby about "trades".

Bristol (aerospace), West Midlands and Sunderland (auto manufacturing), Hull (offshore wind), Cambridge (pharma), Thames valley (IT), Southampton (shipping), Derby (rail engineering), Cumbria (nuclear engineering), Newport (steel). Lots of options.