North Somerset

Marie Horton, 14-19 Partnership Manager, North Somerset
Julian Cox, Information Technology Line Lead, Weston College
Mark Curtis, Creative and Media Line Lead, Backwell School
Learner 1
Learner 2
Corinne Mitchell, Information Technology Line Lead, Broadoak School
Graham Manson, Information Technology Line Lead, Gordano School
Nicola Burcham, Executive Manager, Connexions, West of England
Learner 3

Marie Horton, 14-19 Partnership Manager, North Somerset: North Somerset is the 40th most rural local authority in Great Britain. We border the coast and North Somerset is centred administratively on Weston-super-Mare. We have three small towns; Portishead, Clevedon and Nailsea, and we have lots of villages. Lots of people in North Somerset commute to work, so that's quite a norm. Our biggest employer is the local authority, which is centred in Weston.

Julian Cox, Information Technology Line Lead, Weston College: What I want to look at now is an activity, which brings together the whole point of teamwork and trying to achieve a certain task.

Marie Horton: We believe we have a really strong 14-19 Partnership in North Somerset. Currently, we are running Diplomas in Creative and Media and Information Communication Technology (ICT).

Mark Curtis, Creative and Media Line Lead, Backwell School: We had to have a lot of joined-up understanding of what we were going to deliver for the programme; that it was going to be applied, it was going to be real, it was going to be tested on industry professionals, rather than pure academic teaching staff.

Learner 1: We all got given a job role, so we knew how hard it was.

Learner 2: We found out what, like, a copywriter was and a copywriter from newspapers actually came in and spoke to us.

Learner 1: And got given an insight, really, into... If we wanted to work for a magazine, how it would be.

Learner 2: And it makes it a lot easier to, like, understand because she told us about her, like, experiences.

Corinne Mitchell, Information Technology Line Lead, Broadoak School: Here, at Broadoak, we have two classes; we have Year 9s and Year 10s. Year 10s are doing a two-year model and Year 9s are doing a three-year model, which will be the norm, here, from September. At Weston College, they're doing it in one year with post-16 students and at Gordano, they are doing it in two years.

Julian Cox: We worked together for 18 months developing the materials, the resources, assignment work and methods of teaching.

Graham Manson, Information Technology Line Lead, Gordano School: On a practical level, the ability to actually just talk to somebody else and refer ideas and answers back to them for further development has been really central.

Marie Horton: Weston College, which is our only college, is a key stakeholder in the partnership and we work closely with Connexions and the Learning and Skills Council.

Nicola Burcham, Executive Manager, Connexions, West of England: This is really a big step change in the learning experience for young people. They take the responsibility much more for how they learn and how they want to learn, and very much how they interact with both their teachers and also, people like employers that are key... to the delivery of Diplomas.

Learner 3: Employers are looking for people who know how to use the new technology. I like to work in a project because you get to choose a different aspect of what you enjoy, like. And you know what you're working towards, so you know what you want to achieve by the end of it.

Mark Curtis: We get into this... business because we want to make a difference to young people's lives and this is a real opportunity to do so. So... do something different.

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