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

14-19 PATHFINDERS: THE SECOND YEARfrom the Lewisham pathfinder where an independent school was taking the lead in one of thepathfinder’s ICT initiatives (see case study).82. The pathfinder prospectuses stated that “Partnerships will be expected to show howthey propose to take account of the views of young people in developing and implementingthe pathfinder”. It was further suggested that young people and parents 6 should be involvedin the oversight of pathfinders. These aspects of involvement, however, were rather weaklydeveloped in most pathfinders. It was argued by some coordinators that the short timescalesfor developing pathfinder submissions made the involvement of young people at that stagedifficult and there was some evidence that involvement was increasing, usually as part ofwider consultation on the development of the 14-19 phase, as pathfinders became moreestablished. Strong examples of student involvement were evident in Cumbria (see casestudy and http://www.dfes.gov.uk/14-19/index.cfm?sid=8) and Lewisham (see case study)83. When considering the institutional inclusivity of pathfinder collaborative activity it isalso important to analyse the extent to which individual pathfinders involved each of the sixpotential collaborator groups described above (Special Schools, Independent Schools,Employers, Training Providers, Higher Education Institutions, Young People). In order to dothis we combined the ‘None’ & ‘Limited’ categories and the ‘Extensive’ & ‘Very Extensive’categories. We then labelled these combined categories ‘Weak’ and ‘Strong’. For each ofthe pathfinders we then calculated their responses which are represented on the followingtable:Weak/StrongcollaborationwithidentifiedgroupsNumber ofpathfinders6weak/0strong 5weak/1strong 4weak/2strong 3weak/3strong 2weak/4strong 1weak/5strong 0weak/6strong5 7 4 12 4 1 084. Those case study pathfinders which reported none or weak collaboration with all orfive of the six groups were strongly school and college focused and less concerned, or able, topromote collaboration with a wider range of partners. The analysis also suggests that it maybe difficult to promote strong collaboration with more than three of the identified groups,6 We did not ask about the involvement of parents in the questionnaire survey but we came across no examplesin the case studies of parents or their representatives being involved specifically in the oversight of pathfinders.28