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

14-19 PATHFINDERS: THE SECOND YEARwithin the federations. The institutional inclusivity of the pathfinder was also reflected in thestrong involvement of special schools and a college catering for the needs of young peoplewith disabilities in the federations.222. Inevitably schools varied somewhat in the extent to which they engaged withfederation initiatives and activities and there was a tendency for schools with larger sixthforms to engage less. However, at the time of our visit the south-east federation was in theprocess of strengthening through the greater involvement of two schools which hadpreviously been somewhat on the periphery of collaborative activities.223. The federations each had funded coordinator time, which was used in different ways.In one a full-time coordinator was employed, elsewhere the functions were split betweenseconded post-holders who took responsibility for different facets of the work. Largeproportions of the funding from Pathfinder and other initiatives were devolved to thefederations who could decide how to deploy the money within the broad parameters of thevarious initiatives and the Coventry strategic plan for 14-19.224. This devolution of funding and responsibility to the federations however, did notdetract from the very important leadership role exercised by the LEA, both strategically andin relation to specific development activities described below. Both the AWI and LEAinspection reports highlighted this leadership and we were impressed by the ability of theLEA officers to grasp the ‘big picture’ at 14-19 both nationally and locally and focus uponthe realistic ways in which Coventry could respond to, and shape, national imperatives andinitiatives.225. The second element of the inclusivity of 14-19 developments in Coventry concernedimportant curricular dimensions. This, in turn had several features: (i) development acrossthe 14-19 phase (in contrast to a focus upon 14-16 or 16-19); (ii) intention to impact across awide ability range from gifted and talented students to those with special educational needs;(iii) intention to impact at levels 1, 2 and 3; (iv) the development of provision and pedagogythrough e-learning. Some specific examples which illustrate the wide-ranging curricularfocus of Pathfinder (and other developments) follow.73