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L4L leaflet

Learning for Life - a new approach to 14-19 education and training

Why do we need Learning for Life?

Learning for Life is Sheffield's response to two challenges laid down by the government:

• to develop a 14-19 curriculum which all young people find relevant and motivating, whichstretches them to achieve
their full potential, which makes staying on at 16 an expectation rather than an option and which prepares them for adult life and the world of work

• to shape the 14-19 curriculum to better meet the needs of a rapidly changing, knowledge-based economy where success in global markets will require a workforce with a higher level and a wider range of skills and knowledge and where young people must be equipped to meet the new demands of the workplace if they are to maximise their life
chances.

Who is involved in Learning for Life?

Learning for Life is attracting national attention not only because of the scale of its ambition and the scope of its plans it but also because of the partnership approach that it has adopted.

Learning for Life cannot be delivered by any single institution or agency in isolation. It requires a partnership approach that brings together all those stakeholders in the city responsible for organising 14-19 learning. It is for this reason that a team of experienced managers from the LEA, the Learning and Skills Council, the Sheffield College, Sheffield Futures and Sheffield First for Learning and Work (the city's Learning Partnership) has been assembled and co-located in the LSC building to plan and implement Learning for Life. They, in turn, are building the essential links with the
wider range of institutions and support agencies responsible for delivering the 14-19 curriculum. These include all of the city's secondary and secondary special schools, its colleges, Work Based Learning providers and Business and Education, South Yorkshire.

The Learning for Life team interacts with its wider group of stakeholders through:

* the Leadership team, comprised of associate senior managers and led by and experienced head teacher, that interfaces with schools
* the Curriculum Managers Group that brings together representatives from the senior management teams of the city's schools and colleges to develop and deliver new, sustainable learning pathways
* Curriculum Support Groups that bring together teachers in targeted curriculum areas to share best practice and to develop new, subject specific programmes
* Sector Support Groups that bring together teachers, employers and strategic agencies to ensure that new learning pathways are developed in ways that meet the needs of the local economy
* a strategy to communicate and consult with students,parents, head teachers and employers.

What is Learning for Life?

Learning for Life is designed to meet the dual challenges of addressing the skills needs of the local economy and of developing a broader, more flexible 14-19 curriculum in the following ways:

1. Addressing the skills needs of the local economy

Sheffield's economy is in a state of transition as the city strives to achieve a balance in the skills and businesses that it requires to secure prosperity in the 21st century.

Skills are the keystone for economic success. It is essential that Sheffield's workforce is furnished with the knowledge and higher level skills that indigenous businesses will need to survive in a global market place where knowledge and technology provide a competitive edge. This is also crucial if the city is to attract high growth, high value inward
investors who place a premium on a strong, local skills base.

What is required is nothing short of a skills revolution and, in many cases, those who will are best placed to meet these new demands are still at school or in further education. Learning for Life is the city's response to the
skills challenge. It aims to ensue that our young people are prepared for and well placed to benefit from the opportunities offered by a transformed economy.

In part, this means furnishing our young people and the city's prospective employees with the knowledge, skills and attitudes that will help them to secure work in sectors that are predicted to grow in the remainder of this decade including:
* care
* catering and hospitality
* communications
* construction
* retail

As well as this, the transformation of the local economy is predicated on the cultivation of five economic growth clusters:
* advanced manufacturing and metals
* bioscience
* business and professional services,
* creative and digital industries
* environmental & energy technologies

and it is here, where there is a need to equip local people with the higher level skills that these clusters require, that the transformation is particularly challenging.

The city is, to a certain extent, already addressing the skills agenda in schools and further education: GCSE performance has risen steadily in recent years and it has risen most quickly in some of those schools facing the
greatest challenges. This pattern of improving achievement is mirrored in Further Education. However, improving performance is, in itself, not enough to ensure that all students are best placed to maximise the opportunities
that are likely to arise within the 'new economy'. It also requires a reconfiguration of the curriculum to reflect the diversity of individual student and collective business need.

Through their own initiatives and as a result of development work funded by Objective 1 schools and colleges have already laid the foundation of the new 14-19 learning pathways that are capable of addressing the needs of a
transformed local economy. These pathways are making a contribution to the improvement of attainment, they maintain the engagement of young people and they encourage progression at 16. In addition, Sheffield has announced its intention of being a 'specialist city' with all of its secondary schools aspiring to achieve specialist status in at least one curriculum area before the end of the decade and with the Sheffield College engaged in the development of a Centre of Vocational Excellence. Learning for Life will make best use of the expertise that is developing in our specialist schools and the college to ensure that all institutions benefit from the sharing of
best practice and learning resources.

The next stage of development therefore requires the nascent partnership of schools, learning providers and employers to be developed more fully so that they are well prepared to meet the challenges of a more diverse and
dispersed curriculum. This poses particular challenges:

* the challenge for schools will be to adopt timetable arrangements and working practices that allow students to mix learning in school with training and experience of work off-site
* the challenge for colleges and training providers requires them to be sufficiently flexible and imaginative to both help
deliver high quality applied learning to a 14-16 age group and to help develop clear progression routes at 16 into Apprenticeships and other vocational programmes that young people can see as relevant and attractive
* the challenge for employers will be to engage fully in the process of shaping course content and developing more workplace learning for the 14-19 cohort.

Learning for Life will have been successful in meeting the emerging skills needs of the local economy if, by the end of the decade, it has:

* achieved, in a way that the 14-19 current curriculum offer has failed to do, the ambitious targets for participation and attainment at 16 and 19 that the city has set itself
* allowed young people better access to well-paid, more sustainable employment, further training and career progression in growth sectors and business clusters within the local economy
* encouraged employers to invest in vocational training, workforce development and business growth in the confidence that the skills compacts being offered by schools, colleges and training providers represent
a coherent, coordinated and cost-effective response to their business needs.

A broader, more flexible 14-19 curriculum

Learning for Life is more than another initiative. It has been designed in response to Success for All, the government's blueprint for a high quality Further Education system more responsive to the needs learners and employers and in anticipation of the likely outcomes of the Working Group on 14-19 Reform chaired by Mike Tomlinson, the former Chief Inspector of Schools. Tomlinson's recommendations look set to transform the shape of 14-19 learning by the end of the decade through the introduction of a 'personalised' curriculum where students are able to choose from a multiplicity of learning pathways that best suit their interests, aspirations and aptitudes.

Sheffield's schools, colleges and other providers are already setting in place many of the key components heralded by the Tomlinson reforms. Learning for Life is developing a wide range of new learning pathways for students of
all abilities designed to enhance the existing curriculum. This new 14-19 framework offers young people opportunities to pursue new programmes and qualifications that will furnish them with the skills, knowledge and experience of work needed to enhance their chances of success in the growth sectors of the economy.

At the age of 14 school students will be able to choose from a wider range of applied learning pathways as part of their option choices. For some this might mean choosing to pursue a new Applied GCSE in, for instance, Business
or Manufacturing. For others it might mean pursuing a totally new qualification that is valued by employers such as NVQ Construction. A student's new learning pathway might involve using specialist facilities on a school site to pursue NVQs in Catering or Engineering; or at a City Learning Centre to study for OCR ICT Systems Support. It might involve
spending part of the week at college engaged, for instance, on a BTEC Performing Arts or with an employer in a purpose built training facility such as The Source at Meadowhall in training related to BTEC Retail and Distribution. By the age of 16 it is intended that students will be well placed to move on to further, higher level training in the college, with a training provider or employer in pursuit of a wide range of pathways Apprenticeships to AVCEs and
A levels.

Whatever the learning pathway chosen, the design principles for Learning for Life and the guarantee to students remains the same:
* access to a wide range of flexible 14-19 options for all students who choose to pursue applied courses closely associated with the world of work
* the offer of taster experiences and the opportunity to transfer between learning pathways
* a support programme that helps students to negotiate their learning pathways, regularly review their progress and receive independent information, advice and guidance about their next steps
* experience of the world of work and the knowledge, skills and values associated with it
* work with employers to maximise the opportunities for workplace training, and formal agreements leading, in some cases, to interview and job guarantees for those who successfully complete their programmes of study
* a learning programme underpinned with transferable skills, such as good communications, experience of working as part of a team and the ability to show initiative and solve problems, which employers regard as crucial to success at work
* the opportunity to undertake structured learning from the age of 14 in the workplace, in further education and with specialist training providers; in addition to classroom study
* the accreditation of new learning programmes through nationally recognised and employer-endorsed qualifications
* the promotion of qualifications at 16 as only a mid-point progress check along a 14-19 learning pathway and make progression to further education and training at 16 the norm rather than the exception.

Learning for Life will have been successful in developing a broader, more relevant and more effective 14-19 curriculum if:
* schools and their students subscribe to the new learning pathways - our target is that 80% of 14-16 year olds will pursue at least one vocational qualification by September 2005
* it meets the needs of the more able students by offering vocational courses that offer opportunities for access to the high skill, high value sectors of the local economy
* it meets the needs of all young people and not only those who have responded well to the academic confines of the national curriculum and in so doing reduces the number of young people who disengage before the age of 16
* it contributes to an improvement in attainment at 16 both in individual secondary schools and in the city as a whole
* it encourages a greater proportion of young people to stay on into education and training beyond the age of 16
* a greater proportion of young people are retained in education and training beyond the age of 17
* it contributes to an improvement in achievement at 19.

This is an ambitious programme. We hope that you will join us in contributing to the transformation of both 14-19 learning and the capacity of the local economy.