Planning Document

Planning Document

1. Background and Wider Context

   • UK lags in PISA test results (Coughlan, 2016)
   • The Conservative Party won the majority in 2015 and made significant changes to the educational landscape, implementing more rigorous regimes including a move to linear A Levels, harder GCSEs (with more differentiated grades) and the move to require students to re-sit their GCSE Maths and English whilst still in full time education in order to achieve a 4 (Gullis, 2017).
   • Technological context: With more and more jobs being in the technology industry or requiring technological awareness, mathematical skills are increasingly in demand for all jobs.

2. Policy

   • In August 2015, it became a condition of FE funding that students be enrolled in GCSE Maths and English if they are yet to achieve a grade C (or 4) (Education&SkillsFundingAgency, 2014).
     • There has been criticism on the government's decision to force GCSE re-sits for all students, rather than giving the option of sitting functional skills exams (Burke, 2017).

3. Political, Social, Economic and TechnologicalContext

   • A BIS study found that students who achieve a GCSE, or equivalent Level 2 qualification, in English and Maths achieve higher earning potential (Cerqua and Urwin, 2016)
   • Jobs of all levels increasingly require employees to have a GCSE grade C (4) or higher in Maths and English
   • Aside from helping with employability, the intentions of this policy are to increase average maths skills of school/college leavers, and to increase the time that a student who struggles with the subject studies maths.
     • Limiting factors in achieving this improvement in average skills include teacher availability, class sizes and the range in ability of students in these classes (The Secret College Tutor, 2014).
       • Consequently, teachers find themselves teaching classes of up to 30 students, where only one or two have a realistic chance of achieving a grade 4. Being in these large classes is not helpful for these students, and the other students may benefit more from more tailored classes aimed at improving their 'maths for life' skills whilst perhaps aiming for another qualification.
         • An alternative policy initiative might be for the government develop a post-16 maths course
   • Maths skills are required for many jobs linked to technology, increasing the need for all students to have a basic level of maths mastery prior to leaving college. Conversely, the expansion of technology within teaching has impacted maths lessons, with revision websites, videos of worked solutions and interactive maths apps bringing the wider technological context into classrooms.

4. Curriculum Changes

   • Providers such as Aquinas have looked to provide additional level 2 courses, so that students can be enrolled at Aquinas as level 2 students studying GCSE maths and English and an additional course (such as level 2 finance).
   • Courses provided for GCSE re-sit must explore new ways to teach maths to engage students

5. Impact

   • Planning for experiential learning in order to engage previously detached learners
     • Idenifying topics that students can achieve in to get their grade
   • Teachers must identify areas of the subject where students are more likely to achieve, and design schemes of work to focus on these areas.
   • FE and sixth form colleges require more Maths and English teachers, therefore necessitating the training of more Maths and English subject specialist teachers.
     • Government provides bursaries to trainee teachers in Maths and English in order to incentivise teachers into the profession. Bursaries are stepped to account for previous qualifications (i.e. trainees with 2.1 or 1st degrees receive a higher bursary) and demand (with Maths bursaries being greater than English). (DfE, 2017)

6. Models

   • Curriculum as Praxis and Process
     • One of the impacts of this policy change is personal reflection from teachers of how they teach the course content (Praxis). For example, GCSE maths re-sit teachers look to identify new and unusual ways to teach including planning for experiential learning and the teacher facilitating student learning and problem solving (Process). However, the focus on getting a set grade undermines this, meaning that students may find themselves in the same kind of lessons they had at lower school, with teachers using techniques such as repetition to get students to pass.
   • Curriculum as product
     • The policy initiative is routed in the curriculum as product model. With a focus on the grade achieved by a student rather than their practical ability. Whilst grades can be a good indicator of ability, a certain grade at GCSE does not guarantee basic mastery of a subject. Indeed, business people have been known to use their own devised tests to assess potential employees abilities to perform the maths required for a job (Shop Owner, personal communication, 2018).
   • Curriculum as Praxis
     • The decision to require all students to be studying towards this level links to the idea of emancipation. It could be argued that this is due to the government wanting all citizens to be educated to the level that they are able to understand societal power relations (e.g. being able to understand statistics quoted in newspaper articles about government and corporations) and make their own judgements and decisions, facilicating action and change where necessary. (Ford and Profetto-McGrath, 1994)
   • Curriculum as Content
     • Around about the same time as this change, the government introduced a change in the content of GCSE Maths exams, with A Level maths topics moving down to GCSE and therefore the GCSE itself becoming harder (foundation exam questions delivered as problem solving questions). This development is linked to curriculum as content, as it is derived from the idea of expanding the content of the GCSE curriculum.
       • However, a focus on curriculum as content in this way, may undermine or overlook the problem solving skills that are developed through the study of maths (curriculum as process).