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

14-19 PATHFINDERS: THE SECOND YEARthe local college and training providers and the ways in which young people could besupported in making their choices 14-19.254. At the end of the week their findings were presented to an invited audiencesome of whom were headteachers. Some of the recommendations have been incorporatedinto action plans.255. We met eight of the young people involved in the summer project and sixmonths later they remained enthusiastic about what they had done and clear about theirfindings. Cumbria plans to continue to involve groups of young people in quality reviewsof 14-19 provision.256. There was a strong collaborative culture in West Cumbria organised aroundthree learning entitlement and curriculum clusters based upon travel-to-learn areas. Thiscollaborative culture grew out of common problems caused by post-industrial deprivationalong the coastal strip. More specifically change had been driven by the AWI ActionPlan, which is closely aligned to Pathfinder objectives. The West Cumbria AchievementZone is providing vocational opportunities, work experience and basic skills for 14-16year olds through the involvement of the college and training providers. There is alsoshared delivery of some post-16 courses with some common timetabling, thedevelopment of Modern Apprenticeships and some accelerated learning in Maths andFrench.257. School links with employers in West Cumbria are particularly strong. All ofthe secondary schools have specialist status and BAe and BNFL have provided funds tosupport all schools’ specialist bids. Links with BNFL are particularly strong. Forexample, a specialist engineering school has a BNFL project worker on site. WestCumbria has sponsored the development of the Learning in Future Technologies (LIFT)project with the aim of raising students and parents’ awareness of the skills needed forwork with large technological employers. In July 2003 a LIFT week took place duringwhich students were able to visit employers and take part in a range of activities, withfurther technological activities available in the schools82