Earlier this week, the Government launched its new Industrial Strategy, designed to ‘increase innovation, develop skills, grow business and drive productivity in urban and rural places across the UK’. Dedicated investment has been pledged to drive growth across the UK, with an acknowledgement that London has had a very large slice of the cake, and that investment in transport, housing and digital infrastructure needs to be strategically distributed across the country to create extra economic growth and address equality of opportunity issues.

Educational standards, relevant skills development and progression routes into the right types of employment play critical roles in this agenda and, as a new and ambitious multi-academy trust, SSMAT is committed to playing its part in supporting the Industrial Strategy in the West Midlands region. ‘Relationship with the community’ is one of our five areas of strategic intent and major foci, within this strand, are on Information, Advice and Guidance for young people and on working with local employers to broker and develop support for members of the community looking to improve their employment prospects. Where members of the community are parents or other family members of SSMAT schools, these two strands are mutually supportive.

SSMAT staff are getting as involved as we can in local business networks, including the local Skills and Enterprise Board and the Chamber of Commerce, and aim to have some partnership initiatives in place later in the year. Any local businesses interested in working with us should contact Sharon Thorp, Trust Business Manager, for a chat about how we can work together for the benefit of the community and help to address business goals.

 

Congratulations to Chase Terrace Technology College for being shortlisted in the ‘ 2017 Outstanding Contribution to Society’ category for the annual awards presented by the Asian Business Chamber of Commerce. I’m thrilled for the school and special mention must go to Julie Poppleton, Head of Information, Advice and Guidance, whose work on careers education and the development of employability skills, through strong involvement with local business, is becoming widely recognised as ‘leading edge’ practice.

http://stephensuttonmat.co.uk/2017/11/06/607/

 

Youth Employment UK have awarded CTTC its ‘Gold Award’ in recognition of its outstanding work in preparing young people for their journey into work. The school is the first in the country to achieve the award, so this is an accolade of which the school should be very proud. Julie Poppleton, the school’s Head of Information, Advice and Guidance, leads this aspect of the school’s work and has ensured that CTTC is very well connected to the local business community, for the benefit of the students, who need to understand what the labour market is like and how they need to prepare themselves for the opportunities and challenges ahead.

 

As a parent, I’ve been through the process of applying for secondary school places three times and appreciate that there’s a lot to consider. First of all, there’s how the decision is made: my children, my wife and I were not always looking for the same things in the schools we were comparing but we all had a vested interest and a stake and had to a lot of talking to find the ‘best fit’. Then there’s the broad range of things to consider:

Will the school provide the right type of environment and support?

Will my son/daughter be treated as an individual, so that their abilities will develop and flourish?

Is the school’s record of academic achievement strong over time?

Is there a breadth and flexibility in the curriculum and a full extra-curricular programme?

There are also the practical issues:

How will they get to school and how much will it cost (transport, uniform etc.)?

What are the chances of getting in and how should I order my preferences?

We considered each of these points carefully, read the Ofsted reports, checked the DfE performance tables and browsed through the websites. However (at the risk of sounding clichéd), in my opinion, there really is no substitute for getting into the schools and getting a feel of what they are like. I’d encourage all parents making this tough decision over the next few weeks to take any opportunity you can to visit the schools you’re considering in good time before the deadline (31 October). Best of luck!

 

Yesterday, the Government finally published its response to the English Baccalaureate (EBacc) consultation, which closed 18 months ago! The EBacc is a combination of ‘core academic’ GCSE qualifications – English, maths, science , a modern foreign language and either history or geography. Over the course of 2011 to 2015, having introduced the EBacc as a school performance measure (it is not a qualification in its own right), the Government shifted its position and announced its intention to make this combination of subjects compulsory. Compulsory has subsequently become 90% of students, 90% has become 75% and the time-scale for achieving this measure has been shifted back 5 years.

There are few people who do not support the argument that, as is the case without the EBacc, English, maths and science should sensibly be included in the school curriculum for all young people. There are also compelling arguments for the place of languages and humanities subjects in the curriculum (though many question the specific choice of history or geography, rather that RE or other humanities-based courses). However, as English and science courses are typically double or triple qualifications, a full EBacc combination comprises seven or eight GCSEs, leaving very little space for creative and performing arts, other humanities, technology/engineering, other vocationally orientated courses, PSHE (personal, social and health education), citizenship / enterprise and careers education. In particular, the drop in entries for creative arts and technology-related subjects has resulted in many industry leaders calling for a re-think, on the basis that the UK will lose its competitive edge in these economically important industry sectors.

My view is that schools can be expected to design their curricula so that students can choose from a broad range of courses and that could sensibly include ensuring that students have an entitlement to study a combination of GCSEs, including languages, arts and humanities subjects. However, compelling schools to impose an EBacc curriculum on all (or the great majority of) students is, it seems to me, misconceived. Students need: to be supported through strong information, advice and guidance; to be given gradually increased responsibility for their choices; to have opportunities to develop employability skills; and to be able to undertake courses that enable them to be successful. These characteristics, together with the core academic subjects of English, maths and science, seem to me to be a more suitable basis for the curriculum experience of young people aged 15/16 . We’ll have to see how it all works out but, as far as possible, I hope that schools will be able to make decisions on the basis of what they believe to be in the best interests of the students themselves.