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

14-19 PATHFINDERS: THE SECOND YEAR3. Focus: topic areas or elements of the pathfinder agenda which are addressed4. Scope: numbers of institutions, staff and students involved and the size of thegeographical area covered.76. While for analytical purposes these dimensions are addressed separately in whatfollows, in practice in the pathfinders, the four dimensions interacted to give each pathfinderits distinctive character. Within this report the case studies are designed to provide moreholistic descriptions of pathfinders in action to complement the more analytical and thematicaccounts in this and the two following sections. We now address each of the dimensions inturn.Inclusivity77. In the questionnaire survey coordinators were asked to assess the extent ofinvolvement of a range of potential partners 4 (they were not asked about schools and collegessince it was assumed that they would be extensively involved in all pathfinders). The resultsare shown in the table below:SpecialSchoolsIndependentSchoolsEmployersTrainingProvidersHigherEducationInstitutionsYoungPeople 5None 6 25 0 2 5 5Limited 18 8 15 13 15 18Extensive 5 0 15 14 12 5Very extensive 3 0 3 4 1 378. The table shows extensive or very extensive involvement by employers and trainingproviders in over half of the pathfinders. In both cases there was a slight tendency forinvolvement to be less in rural pathfinders but this was by no means clear-cut. There wererural pathfinders which reported extensive or very extensive involvement of employers ortraining providers and urban pathfinders which reported none or limited involvement.Explanations for these varying levels of involvement are highly complex and depended both4 The assessments made by coordinators in response to this and other questions inevitably included a subjectiveelement as each would have applied somewhat different criteria in reaching their judgements. Despite this webelieve that the data does reveal some broad general trends in the inclusivity of collaboration in the pathfinders.5 This refers to the involvement of young people in planning and shaping the pathfinders.26