state of the art report - england · 2019-11-17 ·...

State of the Art report: England – January 2014 -‐ 526609-‐LLP-‐1-‐2012-‐1-‐NO-‐COMENIUS-‐CMP of 13

State of the art report - England

1. The English Educational System

Introduction

Schooling is compulsory in England for all children between 5 and 16 years of age. Children enter school the September after their fourth birthday. Many children from age 2 ½ to four years of age attend pre-‐school. There is no curriculum at this level, although there are a set of desirable learning objectives. Some pre-‐schools offer a limited number of free sessions while others are fee-‐based.

The Secretary of State for Education and Skills runs the Department for Education (DfE). This has traditionally overseen the work of a series of Local Education Authorities, responsible for education in their parts of the country and part of the local government structure at county and large city level.

However, this is rapidly being unpicked by the growth of academies and free schools at pre-‐16 level (see below page 4). Post-‐16 education has long been self-‐governing and responsible direct to the DfE. Heads of educational institutions have considerable and growing autonomy, but work within a competitive context and with a requirement to meet targets or face dismissal. They are assisted by Governing Bodies, made up of a range of local volunteers. These bodies have a considerable range of responsibilities in law for the governance of schools and colleges. Universities have always been more independent of government control than schools and colleges.

The School year

The school year runs from September to July and is divided into three terms . The Autumn term runs from September to Christmas, the Spring term runs from January to Easter and the Summer term runs from April to July. Each term lasts approximately 12 weeks, and a half term holiday is given in the middle of each term, usually a weeks’ duration. Half term holidays are usually held in October, February and May. The Christmas and Easter holidays are usually two weeks duration and the summer holiday is of around 6 weeks in length (typically, from last week in July to first week in September).

Primary schools

Primary schools are for children aged 4 to 11 years. This may also be referred to as Key Stage 1 (ages 4 to 7) and Key Stage 2 (ages 7 to 11). The first class in primary school is usually called the Reception class and each child automatically moves to the next higher class at the end of the school year. The subjects to be taught at primary schools are specified by the National Curriculum, which also sets out Standard Attainment Targets (SATs) to be reached. Pupils are tested on SATs at 7 and 11 years old, at the end of Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2, in the compulsory core subjects of English, Mathematics and Science. Other subjects, including History, Geography, Technology, Music, Art and Physical Education (PE) are


also taught . All schools are required to give religious education, but any child may be withdrawn from religious activities at their parents’ request.

Secondary schools

Between the ages of 11 and 16, children attend Secondary school, usually comprehensive schools where all abilities are taught. State secondary schools must follow the National Curriculum and assessment of the children takes place at Key Stage 3 (age 14) and Key Stage 4 (age 16). The General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) is the principal means of assessment for 16 year olds. Many subjects include course work in addition to examinations in each individual subject.

Some parts of the country still retain a mix of Grammar and Comprehensive schools, with the Grammar schools offering a more stretching academic programme for students who are able to pass an entry test at age 11.

Up to the end of Key Stage 3 (age 14), all students follow the same curriculum, which includes English, Mathematics, Science (Physics, Chemistry and Biology -‐ commonly taught together as an integrated programme), History, Geography, Languages, ICT (Information and Computer Technology), Religious Education, Physical Education, Music, Drama, Art, Design & Technology (covering such topics as woodwork, metalwork, cookery, textiles etc.) and PHSE (Personal, Social and Health Education).

Towards the end of Year 9 (age 13-‐14), all students select usually around 10 subjects to study in more detail, and drop all other subjects. Some of these subjects are compulsory, such as English, Mathematics and Science and others are selected by the student. These subjects are studied for the next two years (years 10 and 11), culminating in the GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education) exams at the end of Year 11. All GCSE subjects are a two-‐year course, and many of them involve course work throughout the two years as well as written exams at the end of the two years. As well as the traditional subjects studied to date, students may also be able to choose other GCSE subject options such as Engineering or Business Studies.

Private / Independent Schools

Private or Independent schools are schools that sit outside the state funded education system described above. Fees paid by parents privately maintain them. Confusingly in Britain these private schools are sometimes known as “public schools”. Often these schools offer boarding facilities for students as well as day school. This means that the school day is longer, and often includes Saturday school particularly for sports, but the school holidays are longer. These independent schools do not have to follow the National Curriculum and Standard Attainment Targets although most will follow the GCSE curriculum, as this is a nationally recognised set of qualifications.

Post-‐16 education and training.

Many pupils remain at school after the minimum leaving age of 16, with 97.1% remaining in education or accessing work based training in 2010 (Source: House of Commons Education Committee). Academic education in schools for 16 to 18 year olds is usually referred to as Sixth Form, with the Lower Sixth and Upper Sixth. In the Lower Sixth, students study for AS level exams, usually in 3 or 4 subjects, leading on through the A level system, depending on the grades attained in these examinations. It is also possible


to enter university through a vocational pathway. Students may also leave their secondary school at 16 and continue their studies in a Sixth Form college whose core business remains the delivery of AS and A levels as above, though they will typically also offer some vocational pathways. They might also study in a General FE college (GFE) specializing in vocational education, designed to lead to a particular career path often not requiring Higher Education (university level study) eg vehicle mechanics, catering, sport and leisure, hair and beauty etc. Lastly they may study through a Work Based Learning Provider, enabling 16 – 18 year olds in to be in work but still gain further qualifications, often through an apprenticeship pathway, which will include relevant vocational study as well as English and maths. However, there is ever increasing diversity post-‐16 and an ever increasing competition for learners and financial resources. This has forced post-‐16 providers to diversify income streams by offering an ever wider range of learning programmes, blurring the distinctions between providers described above.

The precise breakdown of where 16-‐18 year olds are studying, as of 2010, is shown below:

% of all 16 year olds

% of all 17 year olds

% of 18 year olds

Comprehensives/Grammars (local authority control)

31.6 24.8 3.4

Academies 4.5 3.4 0.4 Independent Schools 6.5 5.9 1.0 Sixth form colleges 11.9 9.7 1.6 GFE Colleges 33.7 31.5 18.1 HE institutions 0.2 0.8 24.3

Source: DfE Statistical First Release SFR 15/2011: Participation in education, training and employment by 16-‐18 year olds in England. Figures are provisional.

Higher Education

This is still, typically, offered by universities running 3 or 4 year degree programmes and post-‐graduate qualifications. However it is now possible for 16-‐18 providers to offer some degree programmes.

Entry to higher education is dependent on the range of qualifications gained at 18 and the grades achieved for them. It is an increasingly competitive process with more prestigious universities (known as the Russell Group and similar to the US Ivy League) able to demand very high entry requirements. Almost all universities charge the maximum tuition fee of 9,000 pounds per year, although a small number charge between 6 and 9,000. The advent of tuition fees since 2011 has seen numbers in higher education fall by 8.7% (2012 compared to 2011; source Universities and Colleges Admissions Service).

Recent and Current Reform

The entire education system is undergoing considerable reform at present. The most significant changes currently working their way through the system are outlined below:


(a) Raising the participation age (RPA) – this requires that all 17 year olds have to now be in some form of education or training by law, for the first time this academic year. This will include all 18 year olds from next academic year.

(b) The growth in academies – more and more primary and secondary schools are being ‘strongly encouraged’ to take up academy status, making them directly responsible to the DfE rather than local government. This gives them more autonomy but also helps the government drive its school improvement programme directly from London.

(c) The advent of ‘free schools’ – the current government is keen for local communities to set up their own schools, where there is a perceived need for this, receiving funding directly from the DfE.

(d) Curriculum reform – new versions of GCSEs, A levels and Vocational qualifications are all due to be launched in 2015 and 2016. In general terms these place more emphasis on terminal examination rather than coursework and are designed to give students a stronger basis for progression to their next level of education.


2. Staying on and drop-‐out rates

National figures and trends

A recent report by the House of Commons Education Committee on participation by post-‐16 year olds revealed the following 10 year trend:

% of 16 year olds 1999 2009 2010

% of 17 year olds 1999 2009 2010

% of 18 year olds 1999 2009 2010

In education or training

87.1 95.2 97.1 81.1 88.1 89.9 62.1 65.3 67.5

In employment without training

6.2 1.0 0.7 11.7 4.7 3.4 27.4 18.0 20.0

Not in education, employment or training (NEET)

6.8 3.8 2.3 7.2 7.2 6.8 10.4 16.7 12.4

Source: DfE Statistical First Release SFR 15/2011: Participation in education, training and employment by 16-‐18 year olds in England. Figures for 2010 are provisional.

The trends in this are all generally positive and can be attributed to a range of factors and policies. Principal amongst these are:

(a) The diversification of pathway options in Year 9 (aged 14) allowing students to mix core academic subjects with vocational options, which some are more successful on and are so encouraged to continue with these post-‐16.

(b) A generally improving picture of GCSE pass rates, allowing more students to progress to post-‐16 education.

(c) Improved primary school provision. (d) The proliferation of work based learning providers, giving training to young people in the

workplace. (e) The growth in funding for and consequently places available on apprenticeship schemes. (f) The economic downturn from 2008/09

However, there are still worrying statistics within these trends, particularly for students aged 17 and especially 18. Although some of these statistics can be attributed to students successfully completing one year (or less) training programmes at 16 and staying in work, or 17 year olds finishing 1 year programmes and going into careers, clearly too many students are still starting learning programmes at 16 (which are often 2 years in duration) and not completing them. Or they are staying on for 2 years but still not finding work. The 12.4% NEET figure at 18 is a particular concern in the context of this report.

The same House of Commons report gives some interesting further detail on the nature of this NEET 16 – 18 group and hence the nature of the problem itself:

• A higher proportion of white young people are NEET than is seen among most ethnic minority groups;

• Young people who are NEET are more likely than their peers to have a disability or longer term health problem;

• Children in local authority care are much more likely than their peers to be NEET;


• 16/17 year olds who are NEET are more likely to have engaged in risky behaviours (smoking or vandalism, for example) by age of 13/14;

• Disadvantage in its many forms is a more common feature of early life for 16/17 year olds who are NEET.

Memorandum from the National Audit Office to the Children, Schools and Families Committee, available at: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmselect/cmchilsch/memo/young%20people/m0101.pdf

The question of how to tackle this NEET issue and to reduce the size of this group of young people has attracted more and more attention and government time and energy in the past few years and in particular since the economic downturn of 2008/09. This is not surprising given the size and variety of the social problems this group both experience and might potentially cause:

“Being NEET between the ages of 16 and 18 years is associated with later negative outcomes, such as unemployment, lower pay, having a criminal record, poor health, teenage parenthood and negative psychological outcomes”.

A New Approach to Child Poverty: Tackling the Causes of Disadvantage and Transforming Families’ Lives, HM Government, Cm 8061, April 2011

Reducing the figure is far from easy however, particularly given the very negative perceptions this group often have of participation in education or training, as shown by the National Foundation for Educational Research who have a figure of 6% of young people as not interested in any further participation beyond 16. There is a growing body of evidence to show that tackling the NEET issue needs to happen far earlier than 16, since “the strongest predictor that can be identified of whether someone will drop out of school is the grades achieved at the end of primary school.” (D. Roseveare, Director of Education and Training at the OECD, quoted in Participation by 16-‐19 year olds in education and training, House of Commons Education Committee, July 2011).

From a government policy and legislative perspective the key intervention designed to tackle the NEET issue has been the Education and Skills Act of 2008 which includes the Raising the Participation Age (RPA) clauses. These state that all 17 year olds (2013/14) and all 18 year olds (2014/15) will have to be in education or training. It is too early to say how successful this legislation will be, but it marks a significant step in encouraging more 17 and 18 year olds to stay in education or training and is potentially the start of a cultural shift on this issue.


Proportion of 16-‐17 year olds recorded in education and training, June 2013

Table 1: By type of activity

Number of 16/17

year olds known

to the LA

Proportion of 16 and 17 year olds recorded as participating in:

Full time education

and training Apprenticeship

Work based learning

Part time education

Employment combined

with training Other Total

ENGLAND 1,162,170 81.1% 4.1% 1.8% 0.2% 0.9% 0.4% 88.4%

SOUTH EAST 176,260 82.1% 3.1% 1.1% 0.2% 0.7% 0.3% 87.4%

Bracknell Forest

2,340 80.7% 3.9% 0.4% 0.2% 1.7% 0.3% 87.2%

Brighton & Hove

4,440

83.7%

3.0%

2.1%

0.1%

0.4%

0.4%

89.7%

Buckinghamshire 11,030 88.7% 1.4% 0.7% 0.1% 2.7% 0.0% 93.5%

East Sussex

10,350 81.7% 3.9% 1.0% 0.1% 0.6% 0.6% 88.0%

Hampshire

27,110 83.1% 2.8% 1.2% 0.4% 0.2% 0.1% 87.9%

Isle of Wight

3,150 78.9% 5.0% 3.2% 0.1% 0.1% 1.5% 88.8%

Kent

34,150 82.1% 3.0% 1.9% 0.3% 0.1% 0.1% 87.5%

Medway

6,790 80.3% 1.9% 2.5% 0.0% 0.2% 0.6% 85.6%

Milton Keynes

5,990 86.5% 2.7% 1.0% 0.0% 0.4% 0.6% 91.1%

Oxfordshire

12,050 63.4% 4.5% 0.9% 0.0% 1.0% 0.9% 70.6%

Portsmouth

3,980 82.6% 2.1% 1.0% 0.6% 0.3% 0.1% 86.6%

Reading

2,780 79.8% 3.1% 1.4% 0.3% 1.2% 0.5% 86.4%


Source: The Department for Education October 2013

Regional and Local Statistics

The table above shows the latest statistics for 16 and 17 year olds who are in some form of education and training, in the South-‐East of England. Hampshire and Southampton are highlighted (yellow) as regional to Portsmouth and both are ‘middling’ in terms of their performance. They are also both below the national figure (in green). Also of interest is the fact that employment combined with training is low locally, especially if you also include our neighbouring authorities of the Isle of Wight and West Sussex. Interestingly, the regional figures for the country as a whole don’t show a great deal of variation, although London does perform well.

London: 91.3%

East of England: 87.9%

South West: 88.3%

West Midlands: 87.4%

East Midlands: 87.3%

Yorks and the Humber: 88.4%

North West: 88.8%

North East: 88%

Slough 3,100 87.7% 1.5% 0.0% 0.2% 0.5% 0.0% 89.9%

Southampton

4,530

81.0%

3.7%

1.2%

0.3%

0.4%

0.3%

86.9%

Surrey

19,390 86.1% 2.6% 0.6% 0.5% 1.6% 0.0% 91.6%

West Berkshire

3,210 81.9% 4.5% 0.8% 0.1% 1.6% 2.0% 90.7%

West Sussex

16,290 82.0% 3.9% 0.1% 0.0% 0.1% 0.1% 86.2%

Windsor & Maidenhead

2,330 87.2% 1.5% 0.0% 0.1% 0.6% 0.3% 89.7%

Wokingham 3,260 87.4% 3.8% 0.5% 0.1% 1.0% 0.4% 93.2%


However, these statistics don’t show the whole picture, as they don’t include 16-‐18 year olds who are in work without training and so we can’t work out an accurate NEET figure from them. The screen-‐grab below gives the actual NEET figures themselves by region and does show that regional variations are greater than appears from the data above, due to the varying levels of unemployment suffered by young people in different parts of the country. (Taken from the DfE publication Dec 2013 “Statistics for young people not in education, employment, or training quarterly brief July-‐Sept 2013”)


The Local Picture in More Detail

The screen grab below shows that although Portsmouth compares favourably with Hampshire and the South East Region in terms of 16-‐17 year olds in some form of education and training, unfortunately its unemployment rate amongst young people is high and this pushes up its NEET figure (Source: Young Peoples Learning Agency NEET Statistical Neighbour Report March 2010):

In fact this not surprisingly shows that the 3 big urban areas on this part of the South Coast (Brighton, Portsmouth and Southampton) are the ones struggling with the biggest NEET figures, which are well above the figures for their closest statistical neighbours.


The key conclusions drawn from this are below:

• 12 local authorities (LAs) in the region have NEET proportions above the mean for their top ten statistical neighbours. It should be noted that some of the statistical neighbours are also within the South East so comparisons are within region as well as cross regional.

• Portsmouth compares the least favourably in the region with its proportion of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET). The NEET proportion is 2.8 percentage points (ppts) higher than the average at 10.6 per cent.

The NEET population is clearly a key concern for the city and is compounded by the statistic below on young people in learning from the same report

Portsmouth again compares the least favourably with a percentage ‘in learning’ figure that is 13 points below the average at just 69.5 per cent.


3. Key Conclusions

• There have been successes in reducing the proportion of 16 – 18 year olds who are NEET at a national level in the last 10 years.

• These successes reflect improvements in educational provision and attainment over that period, combined with more breadth and variety within the curriculum, leading to a better staying on rate for 16 year olds.

• However, these figures mask a continuing problem with 17 and 18 year olds, a proportion of

whom drop out from post 16 education and training (or from mainstream education at an earlier age) and are difficult to re-‐engage.

• A variety of adverse socio-‐economic consequences then befall this group, which has an impact on

the wider community in which they live.

• Government research and policy making has had an increasing focus on this issue, particularly post 2008/09 where recession has compounded the problem through higher unemployment figures amongst young people.

• This has lead initially to the Raising of the Participation Age legislation within the 2008 Education

and Skills Act.

• This alone is unlikely to solve the problem long-‐term however, as repeated studies are showing high levels of disengagement with education amongst a core of young people, which is difficult to reverse and needs tackling with preventative measures from primary school onwards.

• The issue of NEETs amongst the 16-‐18 (or even 14-‐18) year old population is a serious one for

Portsmouth which performs badly on the issue in comparison to statistically similar authorities both locally and nationally.

The Portsmouth College John Pounds programme is already making a contribution to tackling this problem and will be the subject of our case study report.

Bibliography


Participation by 16-‐19 year olds in Education and Training, The House of Commons education Committee, July 2011 Number of UK university applicants drops 8.7%, UCAS figures show, The Guardian, January 30th 2012 Participation in Education and Training by Local Authority, The Department for Education, October 2013 Data on 16 – 18 year olds Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET), Department for Education, November 2013 NEET Statistics Quarterly Brief: July to September 2013, Department for Education, December 2013 Young People Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET) Statistical Neighbour Report, The Young Peoples Learning Agency, March 2010 Prepared by: Simon Barrable, Portsmouth, England, January 2014

state of the art report - england · 2019-11-17 ·...

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