14-19 Agenda

Engaging, motivating and educating students. The aims of the 14-19 Diploma are straightforward. The practice...? Far from it

The issues

Pilot schemes highlighted many issues that Partnerships will have to answer, in particular:

• The implications of duty of care. When ‘your’ student leaves your school gate you lose control, but retain responsibility.
• Heightened parental concerns regarding safety, performance and being able to contact their children.
• The implications of monitoring and reporting attendance, behaviour and attainment across a number of learning places with different communications cultures and infrastructure.

These examples illustrate some of the challenges best addressed in the planning stage, not post-launch.

The challenges and opportunities

Ideally, despite its multi-site make-up, managing student welfare, behaviour, performance and attendance will be no more taxing, and involve no more risk, than if they were at your own campus.

Given the fact that, in reality it can’t be like this it’s worth defining success differently. For example, success may be how well, and quickly, your team will be able to answer any question on any individual student at any time, by anyone likely to ask it. “Where are they now? Are they allergic to anything? How are they performing?”

From routine questions, to those more substantial questions posed by our regulatory authorities and, worst of all, those questions that happen after accidents and errors. All highlight the critical importance of sharing information efficiently and comprehensively.

The SIMS answer

Successful partnerships will be characterised by data sharing, systematic monitoring and
evaluation of collaborative provision, and clear action planning for improvement.

SIMS Partnership Xchange has been developed in close collaboration with key pilot schemes –
a real-world, comprehensive solution to the challenges they experienced, and a significant
contributor to the success they achieved.

• Sharing data in real time on key student information such as attendance, behaviour and medical needs.
• Providing parents and students with high quality information on the learning options available to them.
• Helping discharge your duty-of-care responsibilities through robust attendance and performance monitoring systems.
• Smoothing administrative processes and communication between different sites, encouraging a more integrated approach to such issues as common timetabling, transport, planning, evaluation and finance.

The 14-19 Agenda promises a revolution in teaching and learning. It in turn demands a revolutionary approach to ensuring your management systems and processes can take the new challenges and
pressures away from you and your teams.