FAQ's| FAQ's |
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1. Who is the audience for the 14-19 prospectus and what does this mean for the content of the prospectus? Young people are the primary audience for the 14-19 prospectus and as such, the content of the prospectus should be tailored to meet their needs and to appeal to them. The 14-19 prospectus should be an impartial source of information about 14-19 options from entry level to level 3. Learning providers should ensure that they provide up to date information about courses which will be easily understood by young people. The Action Plan for the 14-19 Prospectus and Common Application Process sets out the minimum standards of service that we expect all 14-19 Prospectuses to meet.
All young people need to be able to plan their learning journey, to know what is on offer at each stage and how to access it, and this is probably even more necessary for learners with special educational needs/learning difficulties and/or disabilities. These learners will though need additional support to navigate the prospectus and the role of Connexions PAs and other guidance professionals will be important here. All 14-19 Prospectuses should comply with accessibility standards and areas are ensuring that their 14-19 Prospectus is accessible to learners with LDD. It is important therefore that learners with a learning difficulty and/or disability are included in the design and evaluation of 14-19 Prospectus websites and know who they should contact to help them navigate the site. Some areas have chosen to develop a specific solution to meet the needs of learners with a learning difficulty and/or disability and an example – Norfolk – is described in the Action Plan. It is important to note also that whilst the education and training for the majority of young people with a learning difficulty and/or disability will be available in the local area, there will still be a number of learners who will need to access provision across a wider area including national providers. Links will need to be made to neighbouring and other prospectuses.
Specific additional funding - £1.7 million - has been made available in each of three years 2008-09, 2009-10, 2010-11 to develop the 14-19 Prospectus and CAP. This may be pooled to take forward developments over a wider geographical area. Local areas should also continue to draw on their mainstream funding to support development of the 14-19 Prospectus and CAP. A good example is the Flexible 14-19 Funding which is delivered through the Area Based Grant. This is provided to local authorities to plan, build and sustain the administrative and logistical capacity needed to support 14-19 reform including of course the 14-19 Prospectus. Connexions funding, also allocated through the Area Based Grant, amounts to in excess of £400 million each year for the next 3 years and may be drawn on to support development of the 14-19 Prospectus and CAP. The Area Based Grant is not ring-fenced and decisions must be taken locally about how it will meet Government priorities. It would be helpful also to consider what funds could be contributed by schools and colleges themselves. There are good examples of Diploma consortia achieving success through small pooled contributions to support collaborative management, administration and delivery.
4 What are DCSF’s expectations of 14-19 Partnerships in relation to the implementation of the CAP? Our aspiration is that a Common Application Process will be in place across every area for year 11 learners by September 2010. However, we want CAP to be implemented collaboratively and most areas will wish to pilot first. Therefore, our expectation is that the latest CAP will be in place for year 11 learners is September 2011.
5 What are DCSF’s expectations for the 14-16 element of the CAP? Eventually, we would like all 14-19 year olds to be able to apply for courses through the CAP but our initial priority is that CAP should be in place for the year 11 cohort by September 2011 at the latest. The Action Plan for the 14-19 Prospectus and Common Application Process sets out that areas should pilot CAP for 14-19 year olds from September 2012 and roll out across the 14-19 age range from September 2013.
Both DCSF and the National Apprenticeship Service (NAS) have committed to ensuring alignment between the Vacancy Matching Service (VMS) and the 14-19 Prospectus and CAP. In the short term, we expect all local 14-19 Prospectuses to signpost young people to the www.apprenticeships.org.uk website through which young people can access the VMS. The National Apprenticeships website will signpost young people to the national portal for 14-19 Prospectuses on DirectGov from May 2009. Achieving full alignment will require detailed work between the software suppliers of the Vacancy Matching System and the software suppliers of the 14-19 Prospectus and CAP. NAS and DCSF are currently developing with software suppliers and prospectus leads a pathfinder in two areas to explore how to: The pathfinder will also look at how to integrate management information between the CAP and the Apprenticeship Vacancy Matching System to support the targeting of IAG to young people. The results of this pathfinder will be shared with all suppliers and local authorities. A workshop will determine options n May and the pathfinder will conclude by September 2009.
In the Action Plan we support the development of Individual Learning Plans (ILPs) for young people. ILPs enable young people to record their learning goals, achievements and aspirations in a living record and are successfully linked to the 14-19 Prospectus. Any developments should take account of the ILPs already in use in institutions or being developed through existing learning platforms. The case studies on the on-line forum– West of England, Wolverhampton - provide examples of useful emerging practice. Further details of our expectations on ILPs will be set out in the IAG Strategy which will be published later in 2009.
8 How is the 14-19 Prospectus intended to be built into a careers education programme in Key Stage 3 and 4? The 14-19 Prospectus should be introduced to young people in year 9 as an integral part of a Careers Education and Guidance Programme. Many areas though introduce young people to the 14-19 Prospectus much earlier than year 9, as a resource for researching the options that will be available to them. The case studies on the on-line forum – Leicestershire, County Durham - provide examples of useful emerging practice. The IAG Strategy seeks to provide further clarification on careers education and guidance in schools with a coherent ‘whole school’ approach to IAG, clear roles and responsibilities for IAG and firm links to the 14-19 Prospectus. This is due to be published later in 2009.
We do not want young people’s choice to be restricted simply by administrative convenience. This means that it is essential that young people can see learning opportunities across an area that makes sense to them, not restricted to the 14-19 Prospectus area they live in. To achieve this, we will need interoperability between 14-19 Prospectuses and across boundaries. In the short-term, we expect 14-19 prospectuses to provide links to neighbouring 14-19 prospectuses. We would also expect areas to consider working together to produce a 14-19 prospectus covering a wider geographical area where travel to learn patterns make it sensible to do so, as the proposed sub-regional groupings propose to do. In the longer-term, we intend to set data standards for the 14-19 prospectus and define core fields for the CAP. Adoption of data standards across all 14-19 prospectuses should enable interoperability between areas. The Action Plan commits us to ‘work at a national level with stakeholders, including 14-19 Prospectus software suppliers, local areas and learning providers, to define XCRI vocabularies for the 14-19 Prospectus. We will publish the results of this work [along with the CAP core fields] by the end of August 2009 and would like all local areas to adopt these data standards by 2010.’
10 How do we win the hearts and minds of learning providers to ensure that they keep their data up to date? We would expect the introduction of the Common Application Process for the year 11 cohort to act as an incentive for post-16 learning providers to keep their data up to date. It will be in their interest to ensure that only the courses that are on offer are represented on the 14-19 prospectus and that adequate information is provided about these courses to enable young people to apply. As young people aged 14-16 start to apply for their options through the CAP from 2012, we would expect similar incentives to apply to schools pre-16. Between now and 2012, schools will be able to demonstrate to Ofsted that they provide impartial IAG by ensuring that they introduce the 14-19 prospectus to their students as part of a careers education programme in year 9 (or before). In addition, as they increasingly deliver Diplomas in consortia, they will want to make information available to students about what is available in their area. 14-19 Partnerships should monitor and report how up to date learning provider data is as part of their self-assessment of the 14-19 Prospectus and Common Application Process. This self-assessment will feed into 14-19 progress checks.
The Action Plan commits us to: |
