This film features practitioners from a variety of consortia talking about their experiences of teaching the Diploma in Engineering. With the potential to open doors to the world of work or higher education, it shows how the qualification differs from other courses. It also highlights the support available to practitioners through Diploma Support.
Narrator: The Diploma is new qualification for 14 to 19 years olds. Its based on applied learning, so as well as theoretical study, learners experience engineering in a business and industry setting. They have a chance to work with employers and complete realistic projects to help them develop the skills to get a job or move on to higher education.
Female voice 1: The age that the students are at, they don't really know what their eventual career route may be and I think what we want to enable them to do is to make a very informed decision when that time actually comes.
Male voice 1: The opportunity to meet employers makes them feel like their education has a purpose. The fact that their learning crosses into English and Maths, Science and IT gives those of this a great sense of purpose to them as well.
>>Narrator: The Diploma in Engineering is different. Personal learning and thinking skills and project work, bring it closer to real industry practice so learners are more employable and better able to meet employer's expectations.
Male voice 2: Recently we had an example of a need within business to overcome a problem of balancing from a health and safety perspective of our forks on one of our telescopic handlers. We gave them this project to work on and they came up with an excellent solution.
Female voice 2: A lot of them didnt realise that there was so many aspects to engineering. Its going to give them the confidence to go into an engineering company and have some idea of how they work rather than going in blind.
Narrator: As a Diploma practitioner you'll work with employers to design programmes. So learners benefit from industry expertise and real experience of working in their chosen field.
Male voice 3: We found that some of our contacts, ones the contact to produce parts for the Rallying industry you know thats a fantastic wow factor to any curriculum, we're talking about World Rally cars, talking about speed, just talking about aerodynamics, you're talking about success and winning.
Female voice 3: It's about really getting the employers involved right from curriculum design and getting them to advise you on the kind of project you should be doing, briefs, and perhaps even get an employer to deliver parts of your programme.
Male voice 4: Well we had a business meeting with 30 different companies and their representatives about two weeks ago. I did a speech about what we're doing and then the Mecagni Plastics approached me about doing work experience with them.
>>Narrator: Many practitioners are already delivering or preparing their Diploma programme. Networks and online communities are an easy way for them to keep in touch, discuss what works and collaborate on teaching and learning.
Male voice 5: You can have the national communities. You can have the regional communities and it just shows how best practice can be shared amongst teachers and practitioners.
Female voice 4: I think networking is really important and its just the chance for teachers to share their ideas, good practice, what works for them, what doesnt work.
Female voice 5: We're involved in these regional networks which are a wealth of information, expertise. You have employers, universities, all the key stakeholders involved.
>>Narrator: There's a free support programme to help you deliver your Diploma with a dedicated website, www.Diploma-support.org. It has online training, materials for your line of learning and case studies where you can find out how other practitioners have worked with employers.
Male voice 6: Personalising the website enables you to keep up to date with your own to continual professional development. You're able to access all the training thats available and book directly online.
>>Narrator: You'll find teaching resources posted by other practitioners, details of events you can attend and online communities you can join.
Female voice 6: If I was to give one bit of advice to people starting on the Diploma I'd say get involved with other people whove already done it. Make links with other practitioners, make links with your local networks, your online communities and really get out there and start talking to people thats whats going to help you most.
Male voice 7: This is our opportunity as businesses to get involved in young peoples life and get more people of the kind that we want actually joining our businesses.
Male voice 8: It is a different way of working. It is a different way of learning. We have greater expectations for the way our students interact with the employers.
Male voice 9: We are trusted just find out our own information and then if we dont do that we realise what happens when you dont do that and its not "Oh I let you off, we can try that again". It's preparing me for the future and giving me a taste of what is going to be like.
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