Dealing with post-16 changes <HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS> Overview and suggestions for further
reading


Dear Colleagues

This Sunday I finally finished sorting out copies of the papers and
notes from the seminar organised here on the 17th October on
"Dealing with Post-16 changes" to send out to a few people who
couldn't attend. It took me so long because I felt obliged to do a
little extra research. Several participants of the conference
suggested in their feedback that they would have liked more
specific information about the changes between the old A levels and
the new arrangements, suggestions about specific new resource and
more information about key skills and what implications this last
might have for the Library. I have done a little reading around and
talking with people and came up with the following additional
information. If anyone else would like to correct or add anything
or make any comments to the list I should be grateful.

If anyone would like copies of the papers and notes from the
original seminar please contact me - I should need a SAE.


Some characteristics of the new arrangements as they might affect
resources
1. There have been little fundamental changes in the A
level syllabuses - except that as there are now fewer boards - 3 now
- the publishers will be able to write textbooks for specific exam
syllabuses. Our history tutor here warned me against buying too
much too soon - she said publishers have a tendency to just change
the cover so it says "Suitable for the new syllabus" without really
changing the content. In time however this should make the link
between resources and courses easier.

2. Schools are trying to timetable a wider choice of subjects -
something Chris Talbot talked about as Head of Sixth Form Studies
during the seminar. The impact on the Library will be a need to
cater for a wider range of subjects some new to the school. It
might be appropriate to allow students to borrow more resources but
for shorter times. Short loan collections might help - and
collections of photocopied articles (within copyright of course).
Some librarians noted that there was a lack of resources in some of
these new areas eg health and social care, hospitality, catering and
tourism, psychology and sociology, especially at a suitable level
for school students rather than health professionals.

3. The new AS levels are not just half A levels - they do not expect
students to have reached the understanding usual at the end of a 2
year course - and they will require resources at an appropriate level.
In fact a high rate of drop-out with the old A level which might be
partly due to students experiencing difficulty could be reduced with
more students accumulating AS level credits. Librarians in
the discussion time described how they often spent time helping
students with material that was too difficult for them - and said
there was a lack of material at a suitable level.

4. From reading the key texts about the post-16 changes
(listed below) it seems there is nothing particularly new about
the ways resources are used in the new post-16 courses. It is still
up to the teacher to devise the best ways to use resources, the extent
to which new technology might be used and the extent to which
independent learning tasks are set. This makes it just as important
as ever that librarians in schools and colleges establish effective
working relationships with the teachers.

5. I did a search on the British Education Index to find journal
articles on resourcing the new curriculum and found nothing
specific. I think given time more information will emerge - recent
issues of Teaching history and Teaching geography have included
discussions about new appropriate resources. There has been a
lot of general discussion at a subject level about the changes - for
example - The English & media Magazine No. 41 Spring 2000 has an
article called "Changes at Alevel" and they refer to an earlier
article in Issue 36 of the same magazine.

The key texts for the post-16 changes are:
Review of Qualifications for 16-19 year olds : full report /
Ron Dearing - SCAA, 1996 1858381037 Ref COM/96/460 £5

Aiming higher : Labours plans for reform of the 14-19 curriculum
March 1996 - Labour Party

Learning to succeed : a new framework for post-16 learning /
DfEE - Stationery Office, June 1999 - 0101439229 Cm 4392 £9.70

Qualifying for Success : a consultation paper on the future of Post-16
Qualifications / DfEE, 1997 PP93/30586/1097/223
[Accompanied by questionnaire]

Qualifications 16-19 - QCA, 1999

Curriculum guidance for 2000 : implementing the changes to 16-19
qualifications / QCA - QCA,1999 - 1858383781 tel. 01787 884444 £5
QCA/99/424

Key skills

Several participants said they felt that more information about key
skills would have been useful during the seminar. It is possible to
trace the discussion on key skills through-out the above documents.

In "Curriculum guidance for 2000" pages p. 20-23 there is a useful
summary of how key skills qualifications are being introduced.
There is also a lot of information on the web - see QCA, DfEE and
FEDA sites
for example:
www.qca.org.uk/keyskills/
http://www.keyskillssupport.net/ [DfEE]
http://www.q2000.feda.ac.uk/html/overview.htm

Finally
Could the lis-educ list be used to share information about useful
resources? Could we volunteer to take different areas and collect
reviews from teachers? Publishers might be happy to provide review
copies for such a project - if there was sufficient interest perhaps
the LA could be approached for help.

I hope this is helpful and look forward to your comments

Judy Reading
Librarian
Department of Educational Studies Library
15 Norham Gardens
Oxford
OX2 6PY