Upton and Malvern Consortium: leading the way in IAG

14 November 2008

Stephen Cooke, consortium lead for Upton and Malvern Consortium, reports on his consortium’s innovative IAG programme for Year 9 learners.

In the early part of 2009, Year 9 learners from schools in our consortium will be able to choose one of the five Diploma lines we are delivering from September 2009:

• Construction and the Built Environment
• Engineering
• Hospitality
• Hair and Beauty Studies
• Environmental and Land-based Studies.

To ensure that learners are able to make the right decision regarding whether to take the Diploma, we agreed the following programme. By the end of October, all our schools had:

• held a year group assembly to introduce the Diploma
• sent the DCSF Bringing Learning to Life leaflets and a letter to parents explaining the consortium’s offer and inviting them to attend an open evening
• held a Diploma open evening for students and parents
• asked students to apply for the Diploma pathway and choose a one-to-one or group session with the school’s IAG co-ordinator and/or Connexions Personal Adviser.

This programme can be modified to the circumstances of individual schools.

Schools will now go on to arrange:

• full-day taster events for each Diploma line before the winter holidays
• individual interviews and assessments in January with each applicant
• school options events to enable those who have been offered the chance to take the Diploma to look at mainstream options and make a final decision.

In addition to the programme above, the consortium's line leads have produced a series of leaflets for each line of learning. These leaflets were given out to parents at the open evening.

A new programme of IAG will be put in place for Year 7 learners, structured to cover the full curriculum throughout the whole of Key stage 3. Learners in Year 8 will receive a similar programme to that above, but spread over a longer timescale.

Stephen is happy to share his consortium's IAG model. For more information, please contact Stephen by email at eduserve@blueyonder.co.uk