WEBVTT

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Let's kick off.

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Hello, thanks to all three of you.

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David Hanson, Chris Moorcroft, I thought that was just...

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I'm sorry, I've been asked to ask you if you can stand

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so that camera gets a good shot of you.

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Really?

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Those people who desperately want to be on TV,

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that would be quite useful.

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I'm not that desperate.

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Right.

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But do it anyway, do it anyway.

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Thank you.

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What joy.

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I thought that was refreshing,

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and I think you asked all the right questions.

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and there's a connection between what you were saying

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and Ken's sports proposition,

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which is essentially you learn what you need to know

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when you're in the job you have.

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And if you take that further,

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then I think we can ask the question,

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how do we liberate education pre-14?

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We haven't talked about that really.

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What happens before 14?

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I believe profoundly that we should get back

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to an intrinsic understanding of education,

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that it's not there to train people for specific jobs

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we cannot predict.

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We shouldn't even try to do that.

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It demonstrably doesn't work.

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And that someone touched on earlier

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about the success of independent schools,

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saying they brought specialists in.

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I don't think that's their success.

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I think their success is that they develop confident

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and adaptable young people,

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some of whom have to be well qualified.

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But it in the confidence and adaptability that whatever they face they going to be successful So at some point in this debate I like all your views on what does it mean pre in terms of the education experience

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And at 14, if that's going to be the point of assessment and departure into other things,

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what assessment system would account for what, as Sir Ken Robinson once said, very ephemeral yet essential skills?

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Thank you.

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Thank you very much.

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from outside somebody has thrown in almost a very traditional approach.

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We've talked about employer responsibility.

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We've talked about curriculum issues.

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But what about parental responsibility?

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Educating parents on raising their awareness

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on the merits of vocational education.

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We did touch briefly on this.

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It's one to bear in mind.

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Lack of aspiration is not just about lack of aspiration going on to HE.

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it's lack of aspiration to go on to do a sound solid technical or vocational route.

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Now I saw a question there and then it'll be at the back there.

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If we take the two together.

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Hi there, Dale Bassett from Reform.

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I just wanted to talk briefly about this question of routes

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because from all the discussion that we had today there seems to be questions over should it be 14 should it be 16 should it be 19 should it be unified or should it be tracked in some way shape or form The consensus seems to be that there should be a core of general education

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Where the consensus breaks down is what should be in it, how much it should take up and at what age it should stop.

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I'd like to briefly mention the EBAC in this context because Matt, you sort of talked about your four roots.

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and I think that the EBAC is sort of viewed in a lot of cases

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as though it's something that is just for a minority.

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I think one of the really interesting things about it

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is actually when you look at the different ways

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that schools are responding to its introduction,

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some of them, including some schools

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in very, very challenging circumstances in urban areas

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with very deprived populations, aren't worried about it at all.

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There are some schools that got, say, 5% or 6% on the EBAC this year,

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and are planning within three years to get 50% or 60%

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with their incredibly deprived student populations.

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So I think there is sort of a related question of the aspirations.

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Why that matters is because of this issue of interchange between routes,

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which, again, everyone agrees on.

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Now, the problem is, as we all know,

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you can trade down from essentially an academic route to a vocational route Just to use the language earlier of vocational routes always being seen as second best whether you agree with that or not The problem is at the moment you cannot trade up from many vocational routes

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to an academic route. So for all this talk of interchange between routes, it doesn't

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really exist. And I presume many of us have been to schools, I know I have, where I've

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spoken to 17-year-olds and 16-year-olds who have had their choices limited in terms of what they

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can do post-16 because they weren't aware of that inability to trade up. Pupils, for example,

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who've done BTEC first diplomas in applied science with every intention of going on to do science A

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levels and then going to university to study medicine. Now, it may or may not have been a

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realistic aspiration, but the kids had no idea that they'd get to 16 and couldn't then go on to do

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science A levels so we do need to be very very careful about this issue of

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interchange and what the routes actually look like to to allow that thank you

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the gentleman at the back there Greg Brooks emeritus University of Sheffield

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we as the evening standard has been reminding us copiously last week have a

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problem with poor numerous to a literacy in this country what they're not saying

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is we have an even bigger problem with poor new

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numeracy and that has to underpin, well the need for better numeracy has to underpin everything

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that we're talking about today if maths and science too are to be part of every young

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person's education. But what I'd like somebody to tell me is where all these extra highly

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skilled teachers of maths are going to come from.

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a very fair question may I say actually somebody from higher education in the audience very clear

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from UUK that although virtually everybody takes A-levels goes to universities they're very proud

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of the fact that a number of you that more and more universities are taking more and more students

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with vocational qualifications which doesn't necessarily match with the inability to switch

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so there's clearly some switching going on somewhere.

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Another question from outside is quite spiky.

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Is when ready and informed,

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that's the idea of when people take their exams,

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the new forcing kids into boxes at specific ages?

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You might want to think about that one.

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I know you were talking about age not stage Stage not age Stage not age but other boxes pop out if that happens Anybody else Yes sir in the middle here

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Mark Dawood, Chief Executive of OCR. Just a few observations really. One is I think 14 and 18 of the new 16.

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in the sense you've got the RPA coming in

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and so you've got that range

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and interestingly Wolf then came in

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and created 16 as a break point again

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whereas there's a lot of talk about that four year phase.

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There seems to be an assumption often made

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that every 14 year old comes in

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with the same level of achievements and engagement as well

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and that's obviously just not the case.

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So we need the flexibility of a system

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that allows that sort of assessment of the individual,

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the right programme of learning for that individual,

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and the pathway, understanding what their aspirations are.

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And that conversation needs to happen at 14

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and be carried through for that four-year phase.

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And there's sort of this interchange between age equaling level all the time,

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and it just not the case and we got to get away from that I think people are happy to say 16 is level 2 18 is level 3 forgetting that it just not the case I do think we need to get away from learners getting a level 1 through failure of level 2

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You get your D to G at GCSE and that's a level 1, but actually wouldn't it be better if we had a level 1

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that was aspirational and was a stepping stone towards level 2 rather than the other way around?

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maths and English I think everyone should agree is vital and and the importance of that pathway

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and stepping stones through the levels very important thank you very much we had a little

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bit of a debate earlier on I'll come to this lady next a little bit of debate earlier on about the

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an employer's responsibility and communication was mentioned as one of the one of the

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things that we either should or shouldn't be teaching and from outside online we have somebody

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saying young people work in a global environment and acquire global language communication skills

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so is that not the responsibility of training providers and assessment providers to ensure

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that this is actually delivered before they arrive which is a sort of variant of the SME argument

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that we heard earlier on so again something else to think about Madam Thank you My name Erica Williamson I just am very interested to hear what the panel has to say

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about the sorts of qualifications that are needed

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to address the issue of those young people

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who aren't achieving Level 2 by 19.

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Because I think there's a debate going on at the moment

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about what will work for that group of young people.

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And we've had quite a transition from the programme called Entry to Employment,

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which seemed to equip young people with key skills, literacy and numeracy,

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and then try to get them into employment, not always successfully,

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and they hadn't gained sufficient qualifications to enable them to progress

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into further education, mainstream courses.

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and so they were in a sort of revolving door type of situation and now we've had

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that replaced with foundation learning which is also which is trying to get

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people into onto full-time qualifications level one as Mark was

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just saying and then allow them to progress and now that is coming under

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scrutiny by the the government so be very interested to hear your views on

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what will work for these young people