Current Y9 will be first to be offered T-levels

[noblegiraffe]

Damian Hinds has rejected calls to delay the introduction of T-levels, so they will be first taught in 2020 in 3 subjects by a small number of providers before being properly rolled out.

The areas they will eventually cover will be: digital; construction; education and childcare; engineering and manufacturing; health and science; legal, finance and accounting; hair and beauty; agriculture, environment and animal care; business and administration; catering and hospitality; and creative and design.

Four other routes will be delivered through apprenticeships only: protective services; transport and logistics; sales, marketing and procurement; and social care.

www.tes.com/news/t-levels-what-we-know-so-far

They sound quite interesting, and a huge amount of money is being ploughed into this. BUT it’s a bit worrying that it seems there are concerns that they are being rushed and thus won’t be properly implemented.

Some Employers seem to think graduates or school leavers are not good enough because they are not ready made employees. Some Employers seem loath to offer training and don’t get the best graduates or school leavers and then blame everyone else.

As an accountant, I was working in various accountancy practices that offered school leaver training schemes for best part of 25 years. In fact, I joined such a practice literally days after leaving school and trained to become a qualified accountant by that route rather than university. In some of those firms, I was charged with supervising the trainee scheme including recruitment, training, etc. I also spent some time working part time as an accountancy lecturer at my local college of FE providing tuition to such people working as trainees in local accountancy practices.

In every single firm I worked in, they were very supportive of the trainees, providing time off for exams & revision, paying for course fees, study materials, etc. and most importantly providing the "on the job" training. Most larger accountancy practices (and many smaller ones) continue to do this to day and accountancy remains one of the most sought after professions not requiring a degree.

But, over that time, the quality/support from local colleges etc massively deteriorated. 30+ years ago when I started the teaching quality was superb. For my period of lecturing, I had no teaching qualifications but the college didn't care, so I was let loose without any classroom experience and absolutely no support nor supervision - but as I had done plenty of in-house training in my jobs and also knew accountancy like the back of my hand, I did a good enough job and got most through their exams. But I was appalled at the college "leadership" team for the accountancy department - the departmental manager hadn't a clue, wasn't an accountant, had no accountancy experience, and despite promises of support, admin assistance, etc., basically showed no interest and gave me no support whatsoever (one of the main reasons I eventually gave it up).

As for the trainees themselves, all the practices I worked in were more than happy to provide comprehensive accountancy related training. What they weren't happy to do was what we considered "the schools' job", i.e. basic literacy and numeracy, and basic lifeskills such as turning up to work on time. Despite minimum entry requirements of GCSE grade C or above in Maths & English and 3 A levels (one of which had to be Maths), the sheer number of trainees who couldn't work out simple percentages really depressed us, not to mention those who didn't know how many days in a month (and couldn't be arsed to look it up either!). Such simple basics got worse as each year passed and sadly a fair number of trainees had to be let go because of their lack of basic skills, and lack of any interest from them in improving.

You can't blame everything on the employers. In my experience, the entire education system is also failing. Before employers can start to do any job-specific training, the trainees have to be "workplace ready" which has to be the schools' job when it comes down to basic literacy and numeracy.

I don’t know that that’s the school’s fault as much as an issue with the curriculum. It was pointed out to the government that we’d be better with 2 maths GCSEs. They chose to ignore that.

In terms of attitude I doubt the teachers of the trainees that I’ve known with issues would be in any way surprised. They’ve probably torn their hair out trying to change that.

“Only 8 per cent of employers provide placements of the duration required for T levels, and 85 per cent of employers and two-thirds of training providers feel that financial support would be necessary to enable employers to offer the required quantity of long-form work placements.”

Oh dear. www.tes.com/news/serious-concerns-over-t-level-work-placements

Financial support necessary? Good luck with that!

On the one hand, I do think employers, especially large employers, have a bit of a duty to offer work placements. Especially as so many of them expect their work force to come "work-ready" with previous experience, and not needing much training.

However, for small and medium size employers, taking on a sixteen year old placement student can mean changing their insurance, which can be pretty expensive. They might do it for a known student, but probably not for an unknown one.

I also think that colleges/the course requirements need to think carefully about how to make placements work over time. If it's a fixed 40 days at a time that may not be suitable for employers, it's probably not going to be easy to find students placements. However, if there's a bit more flexibility, employers and placement students can both benefit.

If the government want this to work, and they want say 20-30% of 16-18yo doing T-levels, I do think they'll have to do something to incentivize employers to offer placements.

The other issue with work placements for 16/17yos is transport.
Obviously not an issue in cities with good public transport, but in more rural areas it can be an issue. To get to college there may well be special buses, but to get to a random work location? We drove DD1 for 2 weeks for work experience in a hotel in the middle of nowhere (iirc she wrote 20 letters and got 1 reply), but it wouldn't have been sustainable for 9 weeks. It is not the same as being 'in work' and thus able to afford to run a moped/car (assuming you have passed your test).

Only 8 per cent of employers provide placements

8% of who? Does it include ALL employers or does it just include medium/large employers?

Thing is that the vast majority of "employers" are one man bands, and usually their only "employee" is themselves if they're a limited company or their wife if they're a sole trader such as a plumber. So, basically, they're in no position to take on a trainee anyway as they'd need enhanced insurances, need to create employment contracts, employee policies, H&S evaluations etc, not to mention lack of time to train (as spending time training reduces their own efficiency and therefore income).

76% of businesses don't employ anyone apart from their owners.

The 8% statistic is pretty meaningless - if it's 8% of the total, then it's really 8% out of the 24% who employ others, i.e. 33%. But even then it's meaningless as many of the remaining 24% will also be small and maybe only employee 1 or 2 people themselves, i.e. maybe an administrator, so are also in no position to train.

The only meaningful figures are the larger employers. There shouldn't be a single large employer without a proper training/apprentice scheme and most medium sized employers should likewise have a training scheme. So, for the comment to be useful, how many medium sized firms don't take trainees/apprentices and likewise how many large employers?

I also think that colleges/the course requirements need to think carefully about how to make placements work over time.

This is the number one reason I hear from tradesmen etc who'd like to take on a trainee/apprentice. The college wants the trainee in college on say a Monday or Wednesday to suit their teachers. But a typical tradesman does their bigger jobs at the start of the week, i.e. installing a conservatory is a Mon-Thur job. So the trainee may miss the first day and may miss one of the middle days, both of which are pretty important days. It means a lack of continuity. My tradesmen clients have been unanimous in saying they'd rather have the trainee for full weeks and would prefer a pattern of, say, 3 weeks working and then 1 full week at college, or a say a 4 day working week (Mon -Thu) and the college work being done either in the evenings, and/or Friday or weekend. Colleges seem to plan it around themselves and expect the workplace to fit in with them, rather than be more flexible.

The number two reason is working hours. Tradesmen usually start around 8am, but many report that trainees/apprentices don't want to start before 9am (often backed up by the college who expect the trainees to work to College timings), again, the college/trainee expecting the employer to change their methods to accommodate them!

One of the childcare courses we looked at for DD alternated weeks, so a week in the classroom, and a week on site somewhere.

Thinking more about it, if there isn't a need for regular contact with the college (which of course there might be), the practical element could be covered in the July-August holiday period between year 1 and year 2.
In fact, if you were being really flexible you could say no college up until after October half term (so miss the first 6 weeks of the second year) and then the student has from early July-end October to fit in 9 weeks work placement, for 'just' 6/7 weeks off college.

Yes, surely work placements should be done in blocks, otherwise it’s very disjointed, not a real experience of work and students can’t get their teeth stuck into anything.

School placements on teacher training are in 2 blocks over a year so schools have one set of students before Christmas (short placement), then a different set of students after Christmas (longer placement). Schools can offer to host students on either placement, or both. They are in school most of the time while on placement with the odd recall day to university.

Something like this would be better than a day here and there.

That's pretty much how our students work. The time in college is blocked in 1 week blocks over the two years. And then they get a half day study time while they are with us to do college work.

pacer142 I agree with nearly everything you're saying- although I would say I've known stables with only, say 3-4 employees take on placement students, so it can be done.

I totally agree about timing and flexibility. I think one day a week can work well for some employers, but week on/week off or similar sounds like a really good set up as well. However, I do think if all the local colleges are looking for placements of 8 weeks to run consecutively at the same time, then there will be a problem with a lack of available training spaces! Having a flexible period over the summer to get your weeks done might work well.

I totally agree that trainees should be expected to fit in with working hours, and also think about the best times to come. For example, I've worked in a riding school which took on placement students from the local college- the college gave them a day in the week off to help them access placements, but didn't mind when or how they actually did them as long as they did X number of hours by the end of the year. As a riding school, the yard was busiest on weekend days, and we were happy for placement students to come on a Saturday or a Sunday instead of a weekday- the ones that did (and also often did extra time in the school holidays) got a lot more out of their placements.

Equally, you'd have some placement students wanting to come 9-4 on, say, a Tuesday. Outside of school holidays, we only did after-school/evening lessons most week days, so bar a quick check in the mornings, there would only be staff on-site from, say 12-7 or similar. Obviously transport is an issue for college students, but we couldn't accommodate someone who wanted to do "office hours".

Colleges have to listen to employers, and maybe run different structures on different courses, and obviously expect those on placement to fit in with the working hours/working culture of the company they're on placement with.

lady I don't know about riding schools but ime the college route wasn't respected in its own right in other areas of the industry. Doing the paperwork and exams alongside a job akin to an old working pupil role might be. And certainly individuals were. But not those based at the big colleges as a collective group.

Ime those with little other experience didn't get an accurate picture of working reality beyond that, but their course implied they did. Or an accurate idea of how in the industry as a whole, a stage 2 or equivalent is very much novice level.

Imo the work release should be rotated through different parts of the industry.

Ugh, I just typed out a long post, then lost it.

thehogfather I think most people on what would have been considered working pupil positions are now paid/treated as apprentices (unless we're talking about the very elite levels of the sport). I agree that someone coming out of college at 18 with just their Stage 2 hasn't really achieved anything meaningful and would have to go on to achieve further qualifications or experience if they wanted to be successful. But I don't want to make the thread too equine specific!

I do agree that multiple rotating placements would be ideal, for most vocational courses- but obviously this makes it difficult for students to access them at 16/17 when they may not be able to drive. And obviously students are limited to what's available in their local area.

In general, I think the issue with T-levels is that the proposed subject areas seem very broad. I think they are being broken down into smaller "pathways" but even, say Construction-building pathway sounds very broad to me!

Sorry, I didn't mean that what they've studied is meaningless. Or that they haven't achieved much, a stage 2 for someone who has had maybe a few years of weekly lessons beforehand is very much an achievement. I didn't mean to sound elitist, more that ime some of the colleges weren't doing them any favours.

Eg being very slow at yard tasks, but finding it very disheartening to discover that fact after two years of the implied notion they were up to scratch. Ditto on the skills level, with no exposure to much else beyond their riding instructors and top pros, no idea that their own level is quite low by general standards. Again disheartening after 2years of the false impression they are far above novice level.

I suppose similar to the familiar story of the child who can ride the and handle the 'maddest' of the over worked ponies at their dodgy riding school. And then either goes to a decent school or is bought their own and finds out the hard way how little they know.

And yes, when I said jobs like the old working pupil route, I meant apprentice style jobs where they might study for the same qualification but on a working yard attending college occasionally. Those in smaller groups or as individuals doing it that way always seem to be a better standard and know the reality. Sure it's the same for reputable riding schools. Rather than those learning en masse in artificial environments.

Will stop going off topic now, but although the horse industry is different in many ways, I think the same theory is applicable to other industries.

I don’t think it is off topic because it probably is relevant to other industries.

I wonder whether the issue is that the government tends to fall back on the idea that the best way to make vocational qualifications ‘tougher’ or to raise the standard is to write more essays about it or do more non practical work.

Well, and the fact that it seems to have a complete lack of any idea about what it actually wants.

I do think, pacer, that companies should be able to filter out unuitable potential employees via a decent seletion process. Those who do not have basic skills such as English and Maths and social skills would not get through. Why would you take on trainee accountants without basic Maths? If a company cannot attract young peope with the basic attributes to be successful on their employment schemes, then they have poor selection processes, or do not offer the type of work better qualified young people want.

It is also easy to forget that so many more young people do go to university now even than 25 years ago. Every vocational job has a degree atttached to it. Therefore who is selected for employment direct from school needs to be a refined process and old procedures probably are no longer good enough to filter out the students who do not have the basic skills. You cannot rely on exam results alone.

Talking of broad qualifications: Engineering is huge!!!! Far wider than construction. Do they mean mechanical, electrical/electronic, civil, structural, aeronautical, marine, chemical, computer, or just making widgets with greasy machines? One imagines they do not have a clue!

Thehogfather I totally agree with what you're saying- I think those who've spent two years studying for a level 3 qualification shouldn't be coming out a "stage 2" level.

Rafa I certainly think this is the way BTECs have gone. Really they are now academic qualifications rather than truly vocational ones, imo.

Bubbles I also agree with much of what you've said. I think it's standard at most first interviews (or even before) to be asked to do a maths and English task/test to assess basic competency.

I think the thing with vocational qualifications is that one size does not always fit all. What works in, say Catering and Hospitality, may not work so well in "Digital". Some jobs e.g. the traditional "trades" may require a lot more hands-on learning of skills, whereas in other areas students may need more classroom time to get their basic knowledge up to scratch. So, maybe having the same framework for all vocational qualifications is never going to work and a more specialised approach for each industry is needed?

Why would you take on trainee accountants without basic Maths?

I've taken on trainee accountants with good grades at both GCSE and A level who have been pretty innumerate and incapable of simple percentages etc. They may be able to solve simultaneous equations calculate the area of a sphere but pretty useless when it comes to basic arithmetic, percentages, etc. As a result of some bad experiences, we started giving a competence test at interview even for those with stellar GCSE/A level qualifications.

Or you could give potential trainees the heads-up that they need to brush up their basic numeracy before starting? If they’ve got stellar grades at A-level maths then binning them because they’ve forgotten how to do percentages that they probably haven’t had to do for a while is a bit premature.

DH gives competency tests to his potential graduate engineers! It is vital they can do the basics after a 4 year degree! Sometimes they make silly mistakes but when they talk through the test afterwards, its how they discuss their thought process, understand where they went wrong, what could have produced a better outcome and what they learn from the discussion that matters. They can explore further aspects to see if they are able to think more deeply about the solution(s). As good grads are not readily available, it is not wise to throw out candidates who can do a better job than they showed in the first place.

I would have thought most A level Maths candidates are capable of percentages! They might just require a nudge as noble says. I think interviews and competency tests should be flagged up before the potential trainees step through the door. They should have a programme for the day and brief details about what that will include. Many firms do that for senior staff so why not young inexperienced staff?

One would hope, LadyLance, that each industry training body has been on board with the qualifications but I am not sure this has happened. They are supposed to be employer led but one wonders which employers. I think there are all sorts of trades that are more hands-on but many that need a variety of skills so a one size fits all qualification looks difficult to deliver.

In many areas of work, years ago, people with less qualifications could work themselves up into a decent job, eg a site manager or product manager. It is difficult to know if the young people on the T levels will get those opportunities.

I do think, pacer, that companies should be able to filter out unuitable potential employees via a decent seletion process. Those who do not have basic skills such as English and Maths and social skills would not get through. Why would you take on trainee accountants without basic Maths? If a company cannot attract young peope with the basic attributes to be successful on their employment schemes, then they have poor selection processes, or do not offer the type of work better qualified young people want.

Yes, after poor experiences in the past, we started doing some basic tests at interview for trainees to ensure there were no issues with basic Maths and English. GCSE grade C in Maths and English and 3 A levels including Maths is the basic entry requirement anyway for the accountancy body so anything less and they wouldn't be eligible for student membership of the accountancy body anyway. But even with those, some applicants have really poor Maths/English skills and now won't get through the interview stage.

If the Army was an Employer option for doing the work placements do you think the students would be interested? For example someone doing a Digital T-Level doing their work placement at a Royal Signals unit.

Alternatively, if the Army offered recruits joining up to do a T Level as part of their learning instead of an apprenticeship, could this be attractive do you think?