Bill Watkin

Excellent article. 1. What will 150k students do without BTECs? 2. How will colleges afford pay rises without the funding schools get? Colleges close attainment gaps & deliver social mobility, plus the skills and professionals needed for economic recovery. theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

The detail tomorrow will reveal if young people will really have their education choices and career opportunities protected by a genuine pause of the conservative plans to defund BTECs. Today’s announcement suggests not and it leaves the future for 150k+ students looking bleak.

No pause of the defunding plans, and a review that will not even have the prospect of a middle pathway in its scope.

Today’s announcement leaves young people, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, in an even worse place than they were in yesterday:

Secondly, it was clear that huge numbers of 16 year olds were going to be left without a viable pathway and this would be catastrophic for social mobility, for the labour market and the economy.

…to change their curriculum offer, to be sure that young people understood what options were available to them, and teachers had the necessary skills.

Firstly, evidence showed that the pace of the defunding was too fast. T Levels were not yet established and still suffered from significant teething problems; and schools and colleges certainly needed a longer lead-in time…

When, over a year ago, a commitment was made to pause the conservatives’ plans to defund BTECs and review the Level 3 qualifications, I thought the two main reasons for doing so were clear and agreed.

They will already have held their Open Evenings, published their Prospectus, recruited their staff for the year ahead.

Schools and colleges will find out for certain by the end of December 2024 what they will be able to offer to incoming students at the start of September 2025: just over six months’ notice is simply not enough.

The very limited review will be carried out by the DfE and will conclude at the end of next term; it will only look at which AGQs are being defunded and if any might be retained.

in reality, there is no pause of the plans to defund AGQs; the original defunding dates remain more deeply than ever etched in stone.

Some thoughts about the deeply disappointing and disturbing volte face in today’s pause and review announcement:

@FEWeek Young people will have opportunities taken away from them and the economy will suffer dreadfully if his tired old arguments which have already been proven wrong were to be adopted. Come on Lord Sainsbury…Good food - and good qualifications - for all of us.

@FEWeek I understand why Sainsbury supports T Levels. But his zealous opposition to BTecs etc is simply inexplicable. Does he not understand that TL and AGQ are different and serve a different purpose for a different audience? 1

🆕 Former prime minister Gordon Brown and T Levels architect Lord David Sainsbury have urged the new Labour government to 'ignore' the party’s promise to pause and review the Conservatives’ controversial bonfire of BTECs feweek.co.uk/gordon-brown-u…

@FEWeek So disappointing to see Brown being persuaded to lend his name to a report which is a muddled rehash of mistakes and tropes from old conservative thinking. Full of misleading and already debunked lines and appallingly ignorant of the impact of proposed defunding on young people.

Great article by @kaleighnews on need to #RaisetheRate of sixth form funding. Principal Charles Bartholomew and students at the amazing @LIPASixthFormCo did the sector proud on BBC Politics North West this morning. Read article here: bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…

How would @dylanwiliam design sixth form education today if he had a magic wand available? ICYMI, he had a look at that question for us this spring... Perfect reading for the long weekend and recommended for everyone in education! sixthformcolleges.org/1412/blog-6/po… #sixthformmatters

So why is, at the risk of oversimplifying, Eton doing the pastoral load and Star doing the academic load?

Of course it doesn’t have deep experience of socio-economic disadvantage. Star can lay claim to having operated in EIAs, but its experience of sixth form education at scale is limited - data shows some excellent results but less impressive destinations. 2/