Leadership

Educating For The Modern World

More than three-quarters of businesses expect to increase the number of higher-skilled roles over the coming years. Yet two-thirds fear that there will be a lack of sufficiently skilled people to fill vacancies, according to this 2018 CBI Education and Skills Annual Report.

The report represents 28,000 businesses and reveals that 85% of firms are expecting to maintain or increase investment in training in their workforce. Currently UK employers spend £44.2 billion on training expenditure each year.

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      string(303) "By deciding to withdraw from the EU’s world leading international education exchange programme ‘Erasmus+’, the UK has undoubtedly shot itself badly in the foot.  Simon Sharron writes how this Brexit 'surprise' serves to underline again the lamentable state of language learning in the UK."
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      string(374) "... Janice Carruthers write:“Enhanced language skills in the workforce would be a major benefit toUK business. All sectors represented echo the CBI’s comment in ‘Educating forthe Modern World’ (2018): ‘To achieve the government’s ambition for a “GlobalBritain”, we have to get language teaching in our schools right’. Whether ..."
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      string(303) "By deciding to withdraw from the EU’s world leading international education exchange programme ‘Erasmus+’, the UK has undoubtedly shot itself badly in the foot.  Simon Sharron writes how this Brexit 'surprise' serves to underline again the lamentable state of language learning in the UK."
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      string(5644) "The move brings back into painful focus the crisis of languages learning in Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It sheds a dim light on the government’s woeful lack of a national languages strategy. Its myopic reliance on the currency of English as a global language is widely disputed as a cogent strategy to expand ‘unfettered’ international trade with Europe and the rest of the world. Because  there are now twice as many people in theworld who speak English as another language than native users of the language.  The reality is that native proficiency in English is no longer a global advantage.Lost export revenues for Britishbusinesses: £46 billion?However, despite the globalisation ofEnglish, a report commissioned for the UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) in 2006 calculatedthat the UK’s deficit in language skills and intercultural agility might be costingit 3.5% of its GDP, a colossal £46 billion per annum. This staggering amount completelydwarfs any sum that the UK might think it is saving in the short term byexiting the Erasmus+ Programme. Accordingto a UK Parliamentary All-Party Working Group reporting in 2019: “SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises)using languages report 43% higher export/turnover ratios. But over 80% of SMEsoperate in English only, and the DIT’s (Department of Trade and Industry)Export Strategy doesn’t mention language skills….. The case for languages iscompelling and urgent. The UK’s languages deficit is holding us backeconomically, socially and culturally.”Erasmus+ benefits for the UKSince its inception in 2014, Erasmus+funding supported more than UK 4.700 projects and 128000 participants. Itremains to be seen whether the £1 million pound replacement Turing Programme,named after the World War II code breaker, will live up to the Government’spromises. Even its target number of 35000 participants is well below the 54619 UKstudents, trainees, school pupils and teachers who took part in Erasmus+ in2019.While it is widely believed that Erasmus +was simply a university student exchange scheme, the programme also createdthousands of opportunities for schools and post-16 FE’s to subsidise language, culturaland training projects with partner schools and colleges in other EU countries. Erasmus+ was particularly valuablebecause it gave young people from disadvantaged backgrounds and those withspecial needs a real experience of international engagement. According to aHouse of Lords report, this is because it offered “unparalleled financialsupport and flexibility to enable people from lower income backgrounds, andthose with medical needs or disabilities, to take part in educationalexchanges.Making language learning work forBritainIn their ‘Policy Briefing on Languages, Business, Tradeand Innovation’, Wendy Ayres-Bennett and Janice Carruthers write:“Enhanced language skills in the workforce would be a major benefit toUK business. All sectors represented echo the CBI’s comment in ‘Educating forthe Modern World’ (2018): ‘To achieve the government’s ambition for a “GlobalBritain”, we have to get language teaching in our schools right’. Whether they need more basic language skills in one or more languages,or a high level of linguistic and cultural fluency, UK businesses would be moreproductive and competitive if language skills were stronger. This applies atevery level of fluency, from basic knowledge to near-native fluency.”Primary LanguagesIn its 2020 edition of ‘Language Trends’, the British Council whose role is to promote the UK’s trade and business interestsoverseas, catalogues the inequalities in access to high quality languageteaching.Its survey of primary schools where languagesis a statutory part of the curriculum found that:“Over the past three years, thenumber of primary schools availing of opportunities for internationalengagement has steadily decreased. 61% of primary schools reported having noopportunities for international engagement for pupils or teachers,whether teaching is by classteachers, specialist speakers including some HLTAs or specialist languagesteachers, over 70% of teachers have not accessed language-specific ContinuingProfessional Development (CPD) in the last year. Where the highest languagequalification of school staff is a GCSE, the figure for those who have notavailed of subject specific CPD increases to 86%.of the 167 primary schoolswhich were inspected by Ofsted, just 7.7% reported that languages were a focusof the inspection (‘deep dive’)12 and/or were mentioned in the public report.”Language Learning for children aged 11-14 – alarming declineThe ‘Language Trends’ survey laid bare evidence of the continuing demise of languages in  UK secondary education, a decline which it shows is magnified in schools where there are high concentrations of pupils entitled to Free School Meals and Pupil Premium.“Schools with fewer teaching hours for languages at KS3 are more likelyto have higher proportions of pupils eligible for FSM and lower overalleducational attainment. Schools in the lowest quintile for FSM eligibility areover twice as likely as those in the highest quintile to offer more than threehours of languages per week at KS3.”‘Language Trends’ research by the British Council indicates that disadvantaged pupil groups, who tended to benefit from the EU Erasmus+ Programme,  are exactly the populations of young people in the UK who have become the least likely to be offered an equal opportunity to learn a modern language in secondary school and benefit from"
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Leadership

UK’s Huge Languages Skills Deficit Revealed By Erasmus Exit

23 Jan 2021

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      string(5492) "linked with secondary schools and sixth-form colleges and +44% for those linked with FE colleges. All our respondents with links to schools have ties with state-funded schools of various type. The leading areas of activity by businesses are providing work experience/site visits (83%), offering information about apprenticeships and traineeships (70%), and giving careers advice and talks (68%). Gaps in understanding can act as obstacles to maximising the benefits of partnership. For example, less than half of businesses (46%) are fully aware of the new GCSE system and understand the grading arrangements. Two thirds of respondents (65%) are willing to play a greater role in supporting schools and/or colleges, but they report barriers including inadequate guidance on how to make work experience and other encounters worthwhile for young people (48%) and the difficult, time-consuming processes involved around for example health and safety and DBS checks (47%). Businesses see apprenticeships as a valuable route to training and developing their future workforces, but many firms struggle to fill places: over half (59%) of respondents have experienced difficulty in recruiting apprentices or expect to do so in the next three years. The number of firms operating apprenticeship programmes has shown a sharp fall since introduction of the Apprenticeship Levy (from 83% in 2017 to 70% in 2018). The Apprenticeship Levy has triggered widespread changes, with nearly three quarters of businesses (73%) reporting some impact. While close to a third of firms have created new apprenticeship programmes (34%), increased apprentice places (32%), and/or reconfigured training into apprenticeships (31%), more than a quarter (26%) are simply absorbing the Levy as an added cost of doing business. The biggest challenges posed by the Levy are the inflexibility of the funding rules (seen by 34% of businesses as the single biggest problem) and the lack of clear guidance and confusion about the rules and the system’s operation (the biggest problem for 20%). The Levy offers opportunities to develop and upskill existing staff (seen by 30% as the biggest opportunity) and to extend apprenticeships into new areas of the business where these have not been traditional (19%), but radical change is needed to improve these opportunities. The main changes that would boost business confidence in the Apprenticeship Levy are allowing use of Levy funds to cover a wider range of costs for training (59%), greater flexibility in spending the funds including their transfer and pooling (51%), and less bureaucracy to make the system more responsive and more user-friendly (47%). At this early stage in the development of T-levels, two in five employers (41%) think the T-level reforms are necessary as part of developing technical qualifications fit for future needs while a similar number (41%) are uncertain at this point. Increasing employer understanding of and access to T-levels must be a key priority for government: our findings show that over four in ten employers (42%) were unaware of T-levels while under one in five (18%) reported being very aware of them. Levels of awareness of the 45-day work placement element of T-levels are even lower, with two thirds (64%) of businesses largely or wholly unaware. The value of graduates to business is clear, with graduates having higher levels of employment, lower levels of economic inactivity, and higher levels of earnings on average compared to non-graduates. Close to nine in ten (87%) of businesses that employ graduates have maintained or increased their levels of graduate recruitment over the past year.For the sixth consecutive year, more businesses have expanded their graduate intakes than have cut back on graduate recruitment, cumulatively raising the number of graduate openings. More than half (54%) of those firms with ties to higher education have increased their engagement over the past year, with just 6% cutting back. The upward-shift in skills demand, with increasing demand for higher skills, means there is more to do to ensure levels 4 and 5 qualifications are developed on the scale and in flexible forms that fit with business demand as well as open progression routes for individuals. In training and a similar number of businesses (37%) face a problem finding a provider who can deliver when and where training is needed. More than four in five businesses (85%) will be maintaining or increasing their investment in the year ahead while only (15%) plan to cut back. Among businesses using FE colleges, the balance of firms satisfied with their performance stands above +50% in relation to the quality of the trainers/assessors (+61%) and the relevance of course content (+57%), but is markedly lower in relation to costs (+40%) and responsiveness to the firm’s training requirements (+43%). On most measures of satisfaction universities are rated as surpassing FE colleges by those organisations that use them to deliver training programmes, but the main area of dissatisfaction among businesses using universities is the cost of programmes (with a balance of only +33% satisfied). WEB LINK Educating For The Modern WorldKeywords Education, apprenticeship programmes, productivity, business, economic prosperity, training, schools, colleges, engagement, skills "
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Leadership

Educating For The Modern World

21 Nov 2018

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      string(372) "... and levels in the Framework     · Ensure that accredited courses place greater emphasis on enabling pupils to understand the changing social significance of religion in the modern world    · When reviewing the Framework, consider whether the two attainment targets for RE are an effective basis for planning and assessment.Local authorities, in ..."
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      string(613) "A report on religious education in schools and the impact of locally agreed syllabuses.  
Recent world events have raised the profile of religious education significantly and schools have new responsibilities to promote community cohesion. Those with responsibility for RE therefore have the task of ensuring that children and young people are able to make sense of religion in the modern world and issues of identity and diversity. This report looks at the progress made in enhancing the provision for religious education in recent years.

Folder: Leadership Briefings Issue 2.08 (20)"
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      string(2601) "become the statutory basis for locally agreed syllabuses, allowing for some local determination of specific content to reflect local circumstances· the Framework could become the basis for the inclusion of RE within the National Curriculum· Consider ways in which SACREs might be enabled to play a stronger role in promoting the priorities of community cohesion and educating for diversity.The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) should:· Develop further guidance to support the effective use of the Framework in constructing agreed syllabuses· Provide further opportunities for SACREs to share good practice    · Extend the range of accredited courses for RE to ensure that the needs of all students are met    · Secure greater continuity and progression in RE for the 11 to 19 years age group by aligning the assessment criteria for accredited courses with the attainment targets and levels in the Framework     · Ensure that accredited courses place greater emphasis on enabling pupils to understand the changing social significance of religion in the modern world    · When reviewing the Framework, consider whether the two attainment targets for RE are an effective basis for planning and assessment.Local authorities, in partnership with their SACREs, need to:· Consider ways in which SACREs can be better supported to enable them to fulfil their responsibilities effectively    · Use the Framework rigorously in reviewing their agreed syllabus, and thoroughly assess the impact of their existing syllabus on standards and the quality of planning and assessment    · Consider how the work of SACREs might support further the promotion of community cohesion and educating for diversity.Secondary schools should:· Improve the quality of curriculum planning and assessment, particularly at Key Stage 3    · Use their locally agreed syllabus more systematically and effectively to improve provision for RE.Primary schools should:· Improve the quality of teachers’ RE subject knowledge    · Focus on RE in the course of whole-school development work, where appropriate.All schools should:· Ensure that RE contributes strongly to pupils’ understanding of the changing role of religion, diversity and community cohesion.Providers of ITT should:· Strengthen the arrangements for selecting and training RE subject mentors to ensure that trainees receive high quality training.NotesAuthorRaspal Chima, Questions PublishingDate CreatedJuly 2007Enquiries to:rchima@qiis.co.uk (Authoring Unit)Month / YearPage 1 of 1©Birmingham City Council"
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Leadership

Making Sense Of Religion

9 Jul 2007

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      string(4681) "13Reference………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..Future schools: theprofessional developmentchallengePaul Clarke poses startling questions about the nature of improvement, the purposeof education and the viability of the society we are preparing children for. He says thatwhilst we need to consider our hopes for the future, these are defined by what we dotoday, with a new emphasis on professional development in terms of growth and service.What has drawn the modern world into being is astrange, almost occult yearning for the future. Themodern mind longs for the future as the medievalmind longed for heaven. Wendell Berry (1977) TheUnsettling of America p.56■■■ The future begins now!One of the frequently heard claims about school andcommunity improvement and their accompanyingregeneration programmes is that they will pave theway for a better future, and a brighter tomorrow1.In education speak this translates into the form ofour bright new buildings bringing about a smarterworkforce, a more literate generation of youth,leading to a population more suited to a knowledgeeconomy. But what drives these utopian dreams isnot the aspiration for individual emancipation; ifthat were so then we would be educating our youngpeople to deviate and challenge convention. So wehave to ask ourselves what is all this improvement for?Likewise, there is little point in educating our youngpeople so that they can become the latest cohort ofconsumers hell-bent on exploiting and draining thefinite resources we have at our disposal. Little point ineducating our population for what effectively comesdown to ecological genocide. Much of modern living isbased upon the myth, perpetuated by any of a numberof professions and services ranging from education,to business to politics – promising ‘things can onlyget better’.The future as it is conceived in education andeducational reform, has our modern world in a tight,totalitarian knot. It is often presented to us in a formthat suggests we can neither avoid its arrival, nor,seemingly, step onto a different track to meet it. Thetension of the knot is created through industrialization,our complete dependency upon the belief that through1. Almlov and Moberg 2008Future schools: the professional development challenge ■■■■■14…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….“This preoccupationwith the ‘new,’ meansthat we abandonthe adequate orthe acceptable inpreference for thelatest version ”this industrialization all of our lives will get better. Thisis the modern day opiate of the people; it transcendsnational boundaries and forms the fundamentalview of economy, that industrialized commerce andproduction are the route, and the only route to thePromised Land. It is a vision of the future that bindstogether the collective global modern mind; it leadsus to believe that all the cars and planes, cookers andcomputers, ipods and ipads, hoodies and trainers, andproduce of every kind are all mere prototype versionsof their final future-perfect form. This preoccupationwith the ‘new,’ means that we abandon the adequateor the acceptable in preference for the latest version.For example: my operating system on my computer,prompts me every time I start up themachine, telling me that I need toupdate my software, but my needs aremet perfectly adequately with what Ialready have installed, on a machinethat is more than three years old andde facto obsolete.Education is locked into the verysame mode of thinking. We havegrown accustomed to ‘BuildingSchools for the Future’ and EveryChild Matters in the UK, or No Child Left Behind inthe USA. Worldwide national systems for schooling arelocking into the effective improvement model. It is apowerful toxin, and it plays on the public imaginationas personal choice, and on the professional mind asperformance culture, it defines our plans, and it drivesour spending habits in such projects"
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Professional Development

Future schools: the professional development challenge

22 Jul 2010