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A REVIEW OF COLLABORATION BETWEEN SCHOOLS AND FURTHER EDUCATION COLLEGES IN SCOTLAND: Partner Document to the Interim Report
SECTION 2 INTRODUCTION
2.1 In Ambitious, Excellent Schools1 we set out our agenda for action built on our belief in the potential of all young people and our commitment to help each of them realise that potential. We also gave a clear statement in A Curriculum for Excellence2 of the purpose of school education from 3 to 18 along with principles for the design of the curriculum for Scotland in the 21st Century.
2.2 Our young people have a very wide range of individual skills, talents, aspirations and enthusiasms and their success comes through realising their individual potential. Our agenda for action is focussed on giving them the opportunity to gain essential skills, such as literacy and numeracy, and to choose and devlop the other personal skills and talents most important to them.
2.3 We want to give young people the opportunity to benefit from a wide range of educational opportunities and equip them with a variety of skills that prepare them for life, the workplace and the community. The principal locus for the education of school pupils is, and will remain, the school. However, we want to broaden opportunities. This means that schools 3 will work increasingly in partnership with other bodies to meet pupils' educational needs. For some pupils, accessing the more specialised learning opportunities available through our further education colleges may be the most suitable way to help them fulfil their potential.
2.4 Increasing the range of flexible learning opportunities will also contribute to the delivery of our Closing the Opportunity Gap objectives, which were announced on 12 July, to improve the confidence and skills of the most disadvantaged children and young people and to increase the chances of sustained employment for disadvantaged groups. 4
2.5 In our lifelong learning strategy Life Through Learning; Learning Through Life5 published in February 2003 we said that we would:
"develop a joint schools/FE strategy and implementation plan, including review of funding mechanisms to ensure flexibility of delivery, so as to encourage locally relevant links between schools, FE colleges and local employers to ease school leavers' transitions into further learning, training or employment."
2.6 We launched our review of collaboration between schools and further education colleges in October 2003 to provide a clear framework that facilitates local discussion about the development of partnership working. The inter-departmental group within the Scottish Executive, which is co-ordinating the review, also considered how best to deliver our Partnership Agreement 6 commitment to:
"enable 14-16 year olds to develop vocational skills and improve their employment prospects by allowing them to undertake courses in further education colleges as part of the school-based curriculum."
2.7 Our interim report and partner document mark the completion of phase I of the review. In this document we explain how we will progress to the final stage of the review - the publication in April 2005 of a partnership strategy for schools and further education colleges for implementation from academic year 2005/06 onwards matching the resources available.
2.8 Funding allocations, which clearly impact on, among other things, the number of school pupils undertaking courses through further education colleges, will be considered during phase II of the review in the light of the Executive's recent Spending Review, which allocated resources for programmes for 2006/07 and 2007/08.
2.9 We want to enable effective local decision-making, and remove barriers to collaboration, commensurate with the need to ensure quality, positive outcomes and pupil safety and welfare. Its success will be measured by the success of the pupils undertaking collaborative activity - by their attendance, by their attainments and achievements, and by the success of their transitions into further learning, training or employment.
2.10 In several of the responses to the earlier consultation paper we were asked to produce national guidelines on 'best practice' on a number of important matters, including issues about the application of colleges' duty of care to pupils. We have established a sub-group of the school/college review group and invited staff from the school and further education sectors, Careers Scotland, Trade Unions, NUS Scotland as well as the sectors' representative organisations, to join the group and prepare such guidelines. That said, it would be remiss of us not to communicate in this partner document our initial views on certain matters of best practice in respect of pupil welfare and support.
Curricular Flexibility
2.11 Further education colleges have a significant role to play in delivering flexibility to ensure that learning opportunities are tailored to the needs of individual pupils, but school/college partnerships are not the only way of achieving this flexibility 7. Work-based learning has, for example, an important role to play, as too do school partnerships with community and voluntary organisations.
2.12 In this partner document we concentrate specifically on collaboration between schools and further education colleges. Such partnerships are already well-developed for many schools and colleges, but there are clear issues that need to be addressed nationally at this stage, including funding arrangements and the qualifications of further education college lecturers to teach school pupils. By focussing on a strategy for schools and colleges, we aim to provide a framework in which opportunities can be developed to suit the needs of pupils and to fit local circumstances. At the same time we do not lose sight of the important roles played by other school partnerships. For example, work-based vocational learning is an integral part of our national strategy place for enterprise in education, Determined to Succeed8. In Working and Learning Together to Build Stronger Communities9 the Scottish Executive set out how local Community Learning and Development Partnerships (which generally include local schools and further education colleges) should take a strategic approach to the provision for non-formal, community-based learning opportunities.
2.13 The interim report and its partner document have been informed by advice from HMIE deriving from their inspections and review programmes and on-going review for cross-sectional provision for young people. The recommendations of HMIE will be considered during phase II of our school/college review.
Review Publications
2.14 This partner document and other review publications can be found on the Scottish Executive's website at www.scotland.gov.uk/publications. You can telephone Freephone 0800 77 1234 to find out where your nearest public Internet access point is. The interim report is also available on request in alternative formats.
2.15 A consultation analysis report, which includes a summary of the responses to the consultation paper issued in February 2004 has been published to accompany the interim report and partner document.
2.16 In October 2004 the Executive published the following reports of research commissioned as part of its review:
- School Pupils' Attitudes to Further Education10;
- Management of School/College Partnerships and the Main Operational Issues Involved11; and
- Collaboration Between Schools and Colleges in Scotland - Literature Review12.
2.17 The earlier consultation paper13, and the papers that accompanied it - a summary of the paper14, a r eport of the school/college conference15 held to launch the review, a leaflet16 seeking specifically the views of school pupils, and Building the Foundations of a Lifelong Learning Society: The Experience of Motherwell College and Local Schools17 (which reproduces articles that first appeared in the spring 2003 edition of 'Broadcast', the journal of the Scottish Further Education Unit) - are also still available.
2.18 All review publications are also available from the contact points mentioned below.
Consultation
2.19 Views are invited on the interim report and/or the partner document, which have been issued as part of the Executive's review of collaboration between schools and further education colleges in Scotland. Annex A lists the consultees.
How to respond:
By post to:
School/College Review
Scottish Executive
2nd Floor, Europa Building
450 Argyle Street
Glasgow G2 8LG
0141 242 0102
By email to: scrt@scotland.gsi.gov.uk
By fax to: 0141 242 0251.
When by:
Responses to this paper are required by 28 February 2005.
Please remember to enclose the Respondee Information Form when sending your response.
2.20 Responses will be made available to the public on the Scottish Executive website and in the Scottish Executive Library unless confidentiality is requested. Any confidentiality disclaimer generated by your computer system in an email will not be treated as such a request. Confidential responses will be included in any statistical summary of numbers or comments received or views expressed. All responses not marked confidential will be checked for any potentially defamatory material before being logged in the library or placed on the website.
2.21 A new email alert system for Scottish Executive consultations (SEconsult) has been launched 18. This system will allow stakeholder individuals and organisations to register and receive a weekly email containing details of all new Scottish Executive consultations (including web links). SEconsult will complement, but in no way replace, Scottish Executive distribution lists, and is designed to allow stakeholders 'keep an eye' on all Scottish Executive consultation activity, and therefore be alerted at the earliest opportunity to those of most interest. We encourage you to register as soon as possible.
Scottish Executive Consultation Process
2.22 Consultation is an essential and important aspect of Scottish Executive working methods. Given the wide-ranging areas of work of the Scottish Executive, there are many varied types of consultation. However, in general, Scottish Executive consultation exercises aim to provide opportunities for all those who wish to express their opinions on a proposed area of work to do so in ways which will inform and enhance that work.
2.23 While details of particular circumstances described in a response to a consultation exercise may usefully inform the policy process, consultation exercises cannot address individual concerns and comments, which should be directed to the relevant public body. Consultation exercises may involve seeking views in a number of different ways, such as public meetings, focus groups or questionnaire exercises.
2.24 Typically, Scottish Executive consultations involve a written paper inviting answers to specific questions or more general views about the material presented. Written papers are distributed to organisations and individuals with an interest in the area of consultation, and they are also placed on the Scottish Executive website enabling a wider audience to access the paper and submit their responses. Copies of all the responses received to consultation exercises (except those where the individual or organisation requested confidentiality) are placed in the Scottish Executive library at Saughton House, Edinburgh (K Spur, Saughton House, Broomhouse Drive, Edinburgh EH11 3XD, telephone 0131 244 4552).
2.25 The views and suggestions detailed in consultation responses are analysed and used as part of the decision-making process. Depending on the nature of the consultation exercise the responses received may: indicate the need for policy development or review; inform the development of a particular policy; help decisions to be made between alternative policy proposals; and be used to finalise legislation before it is implemented.
2.26 If you have any comments about how this consultation exercise has been conducted, please send them
By post to:
Colin Baird
Scottish Executive
School/College Review
2nd Floor, Europa Building
450 Argyle Street
Glasgow G2 8LG
By email to: colin.baird@scotland.gsi.gov.uk
By fax to: 0141 242 0251.
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