Collaborative Approaches to 14-19 Provision - Communities and ...

14-19 PATHFINDERS: THE SECOND YEAR332. This early building of collaboration was achieved through a series of workshopsbringing together health and education professionals. These workshops were funded andfacilitated jointly by the pathfinder and the NHSU and a major outcome was the identificationof a series of Progression-Readiness-Skills and Qualities (PRSQs). Seven of these skills andqualities were identified and then specified in somewhat greater detail. They bear somesimilarities to the national wider key skills and both education and health professionalsagreed that they were central to progression in both learning (at KS4 and in further and highereducation) and employment. They have subsequently undergone further development andexamples of the ways in which they might be built into learning activities have beenproduced. They are also seen as being central to career development planning.333. While the identification of the PRSQs represents an important conceptualachievement for the pathfinder their further elaboration and incorporation into learningprogrammes is recognised as a longer-term endeavour.334. A key mechanism through which this was to be achieved and collaboration furtherstrengthened was the proposed establishment of four Curriculum/Occupational Groupingscomprised of school and college staff, NHS and social services practitioners and highereducation staff. The four groupings are: (i) Facilities & Premises, ICT, HR and BusinessSupport; (ii) Health Sciences & Medicine; (iii) Social Care, Community, Mental Care; (iv)Nursing & Midwifery, Allied Health Care. Each group is expected to contain around 15-18members and is led by a Product Champion from the pathfinder or the NHSU. Their rolewill be to promote partnerships and curriculum development and enhancement related to theirspecialised fields.335. Alongside this work some specific partnerships have been developed between schoolsand individual NHS partners.336. One school, for example, has worked with a local hospital to introduce a studentgroup to the work the Estates department. A major concern of NHS staff had been tochallenge what one interviewee called the Holby City/Casualty syndrome through whichstudents believed that the only careers in the NHS are as doctors, nurses and para-medics –103