University Technical Colleges

David Harbourne

Description

The only book specifically about University Technical Colleges. Will interest researchers with a special interest in secondary and post-secondary education, university libraries and other research organisations in the UK and elsewhere.

Sujets

• Maths
• Science
• Technology
• Research
• Engineering
• Careers
• Department for Education
• Higher Learning (disambiguation)
• RE/Search
• Higher Learning
• Secondary school
• Career
• Apprenticeship
• School
• Mathematics
• Library
• Higher education
• Education reform
• College
• Mathématiques
• Fièvre à Columbus University
• Curriculum
• Technologie
• Stem

Informations

• Publié par: Legend Press
• Date de parution: 07 mars 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781915054777
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

UNIVERSITY TECHNICAL COLLEGES
THE FIRST TEN YEARS
David Harbourne
Published by University of Buckingham Press, an imprint of Legend Times Group
51 Gower Street
London WC1E 6HJ
[e-mail]
www.unibuckinghampress.com
David Harbourne 2022
The right of the above author and translator to be identified as the author and translator of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data available.
ISBN (paperback): 9781915054760
ISBN (ebook): 9781915054777
Cover design: Ditte L kkegaard
Printed by Lightning Source
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
Table of Contents
Author s Foreword
1. Lewis s story
2. Starting point 1: The JCB Academy
Preparing to open
The JCB Academy opens
One year on
3. Ella s story
4. Starting point 2: Lord Baker and Lord Dearing
The Labour Government after 1997
Lord Baker and Lord Dearing call for 14-19 schools throughout England
5. Towards the 2010 general election
Lord Dearing
The Baker Dearing Educational Trust
6. The Coalition Government
The Wolf Report on vocational education
Becoming a movement
Young Apprenticeships are abolished and the Wolf Report is accepted
7. Aston University Engineering Academy and Black Country University Technical College
Aston University Engineering Academy
Black Country University Technical College
A royal visit
8. The next wave of UTCs
9. Recognizing success
The Duke of York steps down
10. Liverpool Life Sciences UTC
Edge case study
Liverpool Life Sciences UTC in 2020
The Studio, Liverpool
11. UTC Reading
From start-up to maturity
12. Tensions and challenges
Weak recruitment leads to the closure of three UTCs
Hackney UTC
Central Bedfordshire UTC
Black Country UTC
Student recruitment proved challenging
Exam results and student destinations
13. Responding to the challenges
Looking for solutions
Recruitment
Running costs
Leadership and management
Ministerial interest
14. Sheffield s two UTCs
Sheffield s second UTC
What students think about Sheffield s UTCs
Group 1
Group 2
Former students
15. Jobs for the boys? Tackling gender stereotypes in UTCs
Case study: Leeds UTC
16. The movement grows
The Sainsbury Report
Summary of main recommendations
Making ends meet
A new Secretary of State
Measuring student progress
Another closure
Research
17. The JCB Academy, part 2
Student numbers, 2018-19
The curriculum
Ofsted
What students think about the JCB Academy
Group 1
Group 2
18. Employer engagement
Case studies
London Design and Engineering UTC
Ron Dearing UTC
What does good employer engagement look like?
19. Apprenticeships
First steps
AUEA
The JCB Academy
Broadening the scope
Expanding apprenticeships at the JCB Academy
Apprenticeship reforms
Leila s story
20. Looking to the long-term
The Baker clause
Ministerial decisions
Skewed recruitment
Operational and strategic support for UTCs
Marketing
Accountability measures
21. Engineering UTC Northern Lincolnshire
22. Approaching steady state
Reviews of government investment in UTCs
HM Treasury
National Audit Office and House of Commons Public Accounts Committee
Outstanding issues
Funding
Student recruitment
Age of transfer
Multi-Academy Trusts
Teacher recruitment
T-levels and progression to higher technical qualifications
Taking stock
New UTCs
Performance
Ofsted
The role of the Baker Dearing Educational Trust
Simon Connell
23. Afterword by Lord Baker of Dorking
UTCs: a century in the making?
A remarkable success story
Education is about more than memory
Skills needs, today and tomorrow
Coronavirus
UTCs: the next ten years
24. Jodie s story
Appendix
References
Index
AUTHOR S FOREWORD
I first met Lord Baker when I was a freelance advisor to the Edge Foundation. He and Lord Dearing asked the Foundation s trustees to help establish a new generation of schools called University Technical Colleges (UTCs).
Before long, I was advising the Baker Dearing Educational Trust as well as the Edge Foundation. I had the opportunity to visit the first UTCs very early on - the JCB Academy, Black Country UTC and Aston University Engineering Academy - and I have visited many others since then.
I recorded a long interview with Lord Baker in 2011. We talked about technical high schools set up in response to the 1944 Education Act; about City Technology Colleges, which he launched when he was Secretary of State for Education; and about his vision for a national network of UTCs.
Shortly afterwards, I read Reese Edwards book, The Secondary Technical School (Edwards, 1960). Edwards was an enthusiastic supporter of post-war technical schools: as Wigan s chief education officer, he founded one of the best in the country, Thomas Linacre School, and he visited around 200 other technical schools before writing his book. It occurred to me then that someone ought to record the early history of UTCs.
Reese Edwards was in favour of technical schools. I am very much in favour of UTCs which engage and excite young people and offer multiple routes to apprenticeships, further and higher education and rewarding careers. On the other hand, Edwards was not blind to the challenges faced by technical schools and following his lead, I have tried to capture at least some of the lessons learned in the first ten years of the UTC movement.
I am immensely grateful to all the UTC students, staff and supporters who spared the time to talk to me. More than that, they inspired me with their enthusiasm, insights, ambition and sheer passion. I am indebted to Lord Baker for sharing personal papers and diary entries, as well as for all his support and encouragement - thank you! Thanks, too, go to colleagues at the Baker Dearing Educational Trust for providing access to their archives; and to the Edge Foundation and the National Foundation for Educational Research for permitting me to quote from their research and other publications.
DH
July 2020
1
LEWIS S STORY
Lewis Clarke enrolled at the JCB Academy in Rocester, Staffordshire, when it opened in September 2010. He was 14 years old. Nine years later, he told the author about his time at the JCB Academy. Note: all interviews in this book have been edited for grammar and sense.
I moved to the JCB Academy for a few reasons. For one, I was interested in engineering and design from quite early on. I felt that at my previous school , the opportunities for someone with that interest were limited. Secondly, I have an uncle who was working at JCB and he told me about this school that was opening specifically for engineering students, and that it was working with other businesses as well. I thought, to be honest, it would be more fun than normal school!
I was part of the first cohort so when I applied, the school hadn t been finished - there was a lot of renovation going on - but I went and met the principal Jim Wade and he talked us through plans for the Academy and what the aspirations were.
The curriculum wasn t exactly what I expected it to be. They told us there would be all these employer projects and that you would do your GCSEs and other essential subjects alongside that. In practice it was striking how well the subjects fitted together. I thought there would be extra-curricular projects, separate from the qualifications you came out with, but the projects were actually integrated into the curriculum. They weren t just for your own interest - they were worth something. That helped me drive to get a good outcome and to do my best on all the projects because at the end of it, I was getting a qualification, a Diploma.
A lot of learning is hands-on. You work with equipment and machinery, you do presentations and for me that was how I learnt best, whereas at my previous school you re in a classroom full of 30 or 40 people and there s someone at the front talking out of a textbook, which didn t suit my learning style.
There was a big difference in the hours, though. It was a big leap, going from a nine-till-three school day to eight-till-five. It was a bit of a shock at first! But on the one hand it gets you used to working hours in industry, and on the other there isn t any homework - you do it all during school hours. It was definitely good preparation for the future.
We met a lot of people from outside the Academy in key stage 4. JCB - the company - was involved in one of the projects, but I don t think that was until the end of the second year. But I emphasize to people that you don t go to the Academy simply because you want to work at JCB - it s a completely separate entity, and JCB is less involved in the Academy than you would expect. The curriculum touches on all sorts of aspects of engineering and manufacturing, not just agricultural or construction machinery. If I remember correctly, after the induction week at Harper Adams University, working with them on model 4x4s, we had projects with Network Rail, National Grid, Bosch and Rolls-Royce. We went out to those companies, did a bit of a tour, met people, then some of their staff would come on site. You got to know them and could ask questions.
We had to work in teams a lot, which I don t remember doing at my previous school. As a team, you ve all got to deliver something. You start by deciding responsibilities, so one person will be a project manager who delegates tasks, sets the timing, works out who s going to do tasks together - essentially it ex