Promoting the economic wellbeing of learners

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Promoting the economic well-being of learners

• The challenge to teachers of CEG, WRL and
  enterprise ACEG - 2009
• johnallen23_at_aol.com

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Education for life in the 21st century

• The challenge - How to promote well-being in the
• context of changing
• economies?
• environments?
• health conditions ?
• personal relationships?
• life patterns?
• roles for citizens?
• technologies?
• financial services?
• world of work?

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Predicting the future Technology 1

• I said to my brother Orville that man would not
  be able to fly for fifty years - Wilbur Wright in
  1908
• There is not the slightest indication that
  nuclear energy will ever be obtainable Albert
  Einstein, 1932
• There is no reason anyone would want a computer
  in their home. Ken Oulsen Founder of the
  Digital Equipment Corp. 1977
• Landing and moving around on the moon may take
  another 200 years to achieve Science Digest 1948

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Predicting the future - Technology 2

• Aeroplanes are interesting toys but of no
  military value Marshall Foch 1911
• Radio has no future Lord Kelvin of the Royal
  Society 1897
• Television wont be able to hold on to any
  market. People will soon get tired of staring at
  a plywood box every night. Darryl Zanuck Film
  Producer 1946

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Predicting the future - Society

• By the turn of this century, we will be living in
  a paperless society Chairman of General Motors,
  1986
• It will be years not in my time before a
  woman becomes Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher,
  1974
• By 1990, most people will be retiring at the age
  of 40, or thereabouts. Dr. C . Evens, Science
  Fact 1978

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Predicting the future oh dear!

• We dont like their sound. Guitar groups are on
  the way out A Decca Records official
  rejecting the Beatles, in 1960
• Elvis Presley I tell you my son, in a few years
  time everyone will have forgotten who he is.
  Frank Allen 1955

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The changing world of work in the 21st century

• Year 9s aged 30 in 2026 aged 45 in 2041
• Number job changes per person today 10
  (probably 20 by then)
• Growth in temporary contracts portfolio careers
• Growth in self-employment (c.25 of workers by
  2015)
• Occupations not yet invented
• Later retirement age (pensions at 70 or 75?)
• __________________________________________________
  __________________________________________________
  _______
• How do we prepare young people for such a
  future?

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Current dissatisfaction with the system

• The students
• 85 of 18-35 year olds say their education did
  not prepare them for working life (Edge YouGov)
• 66 of undergraduates say they did not receive
  enough career guidance in school (AoC survey)
• 41of undergraduates think their A levels did not
  prepare them for university life (AoC)
• 66 of 20-30 year olds told Ofsted that school,
  college and university had failed to prepare them
  for their first job
• Young people want more education about money, sex
  and job opportunities (Mori 2000 2004)

• The employers
• A survey for the Guardian and BiTC found that 72
  of employers were dissatisfied with school
  leavers business awareness
• The same survey found that 66 of employers were
  dissatisfied by school leavers self-management
  abilities
• A survey of SMEs found that 25 were unable to
  fill their job vacancies with people with the
  right attributes.
• Many employers would prefer to recruit foreign
  workers

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Some more opinions

• Too much focus on academic achievement can
  inhibit personal and social development of young
  people. Institute for Public Policy Research
• The system is anxiety driven. Its pressure is
  for accountability. Teenagers have little freedom
  from major public testing. Archbishop Rowan
  Williams
• We have put children into an academic
  straightjacket from a very early age
  restricting their creativity and their childhood
  Michael Murpugo
• GCSEs are a turn off and achieving high grades
  has become anti-educational A teacher

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Some more opinions - 2

• For too long young people have had vested
  interests in boring them to tears Simon Jenkins -
  journalist
• League tables are turning pupils into exam
  junkies as teachers drill them to inflate the
  schools position. Martin Stephen, High master
  of St. Pauls private school
• The school curriculum is still experienced by
  many students as a disjointed series of topics
  that lack internal coherence within a subject and
  with few explicit links between subjects David
  Hargreaves (formerly of QCA and SSAT)

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A curriculum for the 21st century

• Death of the sabre toothed curriculum
• No more the one size fits all or the same diet
  for all curriculum
• Every child matters and personalised learning
• An end to the tyranny of tradition and the
  tyranny of subjects in silos
• Stop thinking outside the box throw away the
  box

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Hopeful signs for a better future

• The revised National Curriculum for 2008
• The revised Qualifications and Credit Framework
  for 2010
• The Foundation Learning Tier
• Personal development in the curriculum ?
• The future of PSHE education ?
• PLTS Functional Skills ?

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Two approaches to the curriculum
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Preparation for working life today

• CEG/IAG
• WRL
• Enterprise
• Work Experience
• Economic well-being (PSHEe)
• Contexts to general subjects
• PLTS employability as a context
• Functional skills
• Diplomas and vocational/occupational courses

• How to make coherent sense of so many learning
  activities?
• Who knows what is going on in the school?
• How can the learner understand the totality of
  the provision?

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Some questions for us here today

• Does CEG/IAG have a reality outside of
  preparation for work?
• Does WRL/EE have any point beyond the learners
  career development?
• Are CEG, WRL/EE subjects?
• Are Personal and Economic well-being subjects?
• Should PSHE education be a subject?
• Are they specialisms?
• Do they need an identity of their own in the
  curriculum?

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Ofsteds national evaluations of PSHE

• 2005 2006
• Too much knowledge and understanding and not
  enough personal development
• Not enough reflection and analysis
• The need for better assessment and evaluation
• Committed specialist teams of teachers are better
  than form tutors

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Some more important questions

• How do young people perceive the learning
  experiences?
• Do they care how they learn and progress?
• How do subject teachers and tutors perceive the
  activities?
• How will employers perceive the outcomes?

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CEG WRL Common learning

• Issues
• Self awareness
• Opportunity awareness
• Decision making and planning skills
• Transition skills or employability

• Activities
• Researching occupations/organisations
• Meeting employers
• Visits to business premises
• Work experience
• Industry days
• Contexts to general subjects
• Recording achievement e. profiles/ILPs etc

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Common outcomes and concerns

• Learning outcomes
• Make realistic choices for progression
• Demonstrate the skills to enter employment
• Understanding of the main changes
• The concept of the labour market
• Understand career motivations and pathways
• etc. etc.

• Concerns
• Gender stereotypes
• Cultural issues
• Progression
• Recording
• Assessment
• Effective business links

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Common management issues

• SMT commitment
• Coordination
• Policy
• Outcomes audit regular evaluation
• Staff development PD placements
• Based on effective business links
• Influenced by inspection frameworks

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A possible way forward for well-being

• Clear management structures for P EWB
• Strong, effective coordination of all preparation
  for adult life
• A team/faculty approach
• Overall policy and planning
• Identified learning outcomes
• Clear links between all the relevant areas of
  learning in the curriculum
• A one-to-one element to learning
• Recording of learning outcomes across all areas
  of the curriculum
• On-going evaluation of effectiveness and progress
  of learners

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A clear focus to promote well-being

• Focus on the learner
• Focus on the world of work
• Focus on the learning outcomes
• Focus on the quality of learning
• Focus on the future
• Always Looking forward

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Meeting the needs of learners

• Personalised/individualised learning
• Recognising diversity, providing choice
• Understanding relevance of learning
• Motivation to learn
• Developing skills, enabling progression,
  improving employability

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Creating tomorrows workforce

• A meaningful motivating education
• Improved inclusion, retention and progression
• Skills for enterprise and employability
• Effective decision making skills
• Meaningful experience of work
• Sound understanding of the world of work
• A desire to work and to progress

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Economic well-being of girls

• Women at Work Commission report
• Aspirations of working class girls low pay
• High achieving girls under-achieving at work
• __________________________________________________
  _____
• Early education to tackle stereotypes
• Greater focus on qualities needed at work
• Assertiveness to tackle discrimination and
  prejudice

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Are there dangers to be avoided?

• The loss of specialist experience and
  understanding
• No clear identity in the curriculum
• All our eggs in one basket

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Avoiding the deadly syndromes

• You in your small corner I in mine
• Lone rangers supermen and wonder-women
• Its a good thing! (1066 and all that)

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The traditionalists view

• Whats the point of having a teacher - if not to
  tell you what the facts are? David Starkey
• The new approach encourages debate, but this is
  more suitable for the pub than the classroom.
  Mary Warnock
• Stick to tried and tested methods. The new
  skills-based approach lacks academic rigour and
  leaves children without subject knowledge. The
  Conservative Party
• DUMBING DOWN Daily Mail Daily Telegraph
  London Evening Standard - etc.

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Resistance to change - 1

• Clinging on to subject identity and traditions
• Fear that academic excellence and rigour will be
  undermined
• Fear that all of the work of the past decades
  will be for nothing CRAC. ACEG, AICE, etc

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Resistance to change - 2

• We have seen it all before it did not work when
  we tried it before TVEI, cross-curricular
  themes etc
• The magic roundabout of education policy
• How long will the changes last?
• Will a new government abolish the changes and
  introduce their own changes?

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Resistance to change - 3

• Maintaining the conventional view serves to
  protect us from the painful job of thinking
• Most people believe it is a far, far better
  thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to
  put out on the troubled see of thought
• Faced with the choice between changing ones
  mind and proving there is no need to, almost
  everybody gets busy finding the proof
• conservative minded people are engaged in one
  of mans oldest exercises in moral philosophy
  the search for a moral justification of
  selfishness.
• People will always risk their complete
  destruction rather than surrender any material
  advantage
• 
  J.K. Galbraith

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The cant be done syndrome

• I havent got enough time
• My colleagues arent interested
• There is too much paper-work
• I am too busy trying to meet a range of needs
• There arent enough resources
• I do not have any senior management support
• How can I keep on thinking up endless new ideas?
• I can not keep up with all the new initiatives
  and changes
• I am too disheartened coping with badly behaved
  children
• I can not keep up with the expectations that
  people have of me as it is
• No body is going to care if I do this or not no
  one values what I do at the best of times.
• Until I changed myself I could not change
  others Nelson Mandela

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Key questions

• Is education primarily about
• preserving the past
• teaching subjects
• preparation for university
• success in examinations
• improving results
• preserving credibility of the system (the gold
  standard)

• or preparing for the future?
• or teaching children?
• or preparation for life?
• or success in life?
• or raising standards?
• or increasing inclusion and
• progression?