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

14-19 PATHFINDERS: THE SECOND YEARSECTION FIVE: STUDENT EXPERIENCE AND SUPPORTKey points‣ A wide range of young people are engaged in pathfinder activities although manycontinue to be drawn from the lower achieving groups and students who aredisaffected and disengaged‣ A minority of pathfinders are involving higher achieving students through theprovision of accelerated learning‣ There is some evidence that pathfinders activities are impacting positively on studentattendance and behaviour but this has not been systematically tested‣ There has been innovative curricular and pedagogical development, especially inPhase Two Pathfinders‣ The importance of enhanced information, advice and guidance is widely recognisedand there has been substantial development work taking place‣ Partnerships between individual institutions and the Connexions service have becomegrounded in increased understanding of respective roles‣ Provision of information, guidance and advice at institutional levels appears tocontinue to vary in quality and quantity‣ The development of ILPs continues to be variable although considerable developmentwork has been undertaken169. Having analysed and described in the previous sections the ways in which thepathfinders are collaborating and the sorts of curriculum provision they are putting in place,we turn in this section to the nature of the student experience and the ways in which they arebeing supported as they enter and progress through the 14-19 phase.170. There are limitations on the extent of findings in this section as they relate to studentexperiences springing partly from the current stage of development of pathfinders and partlyfrom the nature of this evaluation. As noted at paragraph 4 Phase Two Pathfinders were stillat a largely developmental phase at the time of our case study visits and full-scale activitieswith students were still to get underway. Such activities were underway in the Phase OnePathfinders and we were able to see some learning activities and talk to small groups ofstudents. We draw upon such data, where appropriate, in what follows in this section and in56