Video Transcript: Case study - planning the student journey with City of Stoke-on-Trent 6th Form College
Phil McPherson – Assistant Principal
Welcome to the city, Stoke-on-Trent Sixth Form College. We've been delivering education in this area for over 50 years and we've been on board with T Levels since wave one in September 2020 so we saw T Levels as a brilliant opportunity for the college. For us, strategically, it was important to make sure that we chose the right courses for our students. The right courses that met the needs of the local area. So from wave one in September 2020, we decided to offer the digital production design T Level. And then from September 21, this academic year, we've expanded that to incorporate health and science, which again meets the needs of our local students and the economy, and also another digital course as well. And then from September 22, we're then going to expand that to incorporate and include business management, finance and.
Rachel Basnett – External Partnerships and Events Manager
Our overall marketing strategy has a huge emphasis on widening participation and offering a broad range of curriculum to our students, as well as a holistic education, developing qualifications and skills as well. So we found that actually marketing of a T Level fits really well with our existing marketing strategy.
Over the last couple of years, we spent a lot of time raising the awareness of T Levels across the region and across the local area. We've done this by running several events including T Level takeovers, transition events. We've recently done a ‘get informed’ event where we invited all students who have applied to the College in to get a real life experience of what to expect when they start with a T Level here with us in September. We've also utilised digital within our marketing strategy to raise awareness of T Levels. We've achieved this by delivering webinars both to students and careers advisors locally across the city. We've also spent a lot of time in schools promoting T Levels, face to face with both students and school staff, explaining the difference about what a T Level is and what it can offer students which might be different to our existing curriculum offer.
In terms of T Level members, we started off with ten students in September 20 on our digital T Level. This academic year that number has grown to approximately 70 students and based on current applications which are in excess of 250 for the qualifications next year, we're projecting that we'll have between 150 and 200 T Level students with us from September 2022.
Phil McPherson – Assistant Principal
So we're working closely with a lot of partners in the local area like key stakeholders, employers, Chamber of Commerce, Local Enterprise partnership because we think it's really, really important that our T Level offer and our T Level experience of the students very much matches those needs and requirements of the local area. To give you some examples, Stoke is a big area for digital at the moment, there's a big agenda called Silicon Stoke. Obviously we're really excited that the fact that we're delivering 2 T Level qualifications in digital which will support that pipeline of talent coming through and I suppose that's almost the new and the evolution of that.
But also one of the things that we're really proud of in Stoke-on-Trent is our heritage is the for for pottery, that the area is actually known as the Potteries, so from September 23, we're actually planning a T Level in craft and design with the ceramic specialism so that we can really embrace that and give students opportunities to have careers in those areas.
Sally Spencer - Futures Coordinator
The greatest challenges have firstly been making sure that students really understand the qualification before they start, so ensuring that they understand the academic requirements, but also the requirements of the workplace. And secondly, it's really important that students are given the very best information, advice and guidance before they start the course so that they understand the pathway that they're going down and what that means for them in terms of future progression.
And finally, it's also really important that you secure, high quality placements with supportive employers. And that has been a challenge, but it is something that we worked really hard to achieve this year.
Amy White – Key Account Manager: VX Fibre
I think we worked really well in planning the industry placements with the Sixth Form College. We started and what was really crucial and beneficial was that we got an understanding early on of the type of students we were getting and that was really useful so that we could go back and plan tasks and projects that were really relevant to the curriculum and what the students were learning and needed.
Ben: T Level student Digital Design and Development
I chose the T Level because at the time I didn't know exactly what to do and I was told by my careers advisor that the T Levels was brand new and it was a good opportunity for me to do with the studies that I've already done. And I was very interested in the industry placement aspect of the course, because it was interesting going out with multiple employers and working on actual stuff with real people instead of sat in a classroom.
Amy White – Key Account Manager: VX Fibre
The induction process for the industry placement students involved within the first couple of days having the standard health and safety HR inductions. But we were very keen to have all of the heads of the different departments of the business come and sit with them to give their view what we're here to do, what the business looks like. So they got within the first couple of days a really good understanding of the different facets of our business. So in terms of supporting the students during their placement, there was obviously regular checkins. I mean actually daily contact. But what was particularly nice is probably the midterm reviews, so that gave us an opportunity to sit down one-on-one and have a more in depth conversation about what they were learning and how they were finding the placement and what else they wanted to get out of it.
Phil McPherson – Assistant Principal
What we've realised with staff delivering the Level curriculum is that there's a lot of the kind of core knowledge and understanding and skills that staff have actually already got in place and we're able to actually do really, really well on the T Level qualifications. Equally, to teach some of the more specific industry related content on the occupational specialism can be a challenge and as a result of that, we've aimed to provide some CPD and upskilling of our existing staff, but we also looked to change our or slightly modify our staff recruitment policy and approach as well. And what we've actually now done with the T Levels is actually put much more emphasis on recruiting high quality staff with an industry background because we think it's just vitally important that they can bring that into the delivery of the T Level curriculum. And if that means that they then need some support and development with the teaching element, then that's something that we are doing and we will look to do further in the future.
Rachel Basnett – External Partnerships and Events Manager
Our mapping document is proving really successful and being able to show students, their parents and teachers a clear route from GCSE right through to university and beyond. It's also really good at ensuring that we get the right students on the right courses, whatever they choose to do career wise.
Sally Spencer - Futures Coordinator
So as a college, the way that we support T Level students to progress onto positive destinations is to ensure that we are talking to local higher education providers, making sure that they understand the qualification and mapping the course of the T Level courses through to relevant degrees, degree apprenticeships. It's an ongoing process. And we are talking to universities across the country as and when we have a student who's interested in a particular destination, just to ensure that we're giving them the right advice and guidance, making sure that the universities they're interested in actually do accept the T Level at the moment.
So for example, we've got a progression agreement in place with local universities, Staffordshire University and King University whereby the courses have been mapped through to their degree courses and we can definitely say to our students, yes, you can go on to this course locally with this T Level.
Ben: T Level student Digital Design and Development
My next steps after completing T Level are university. I'm looking to attend Staffordshire University and their cyber security course because cyber security has been an interest of mine for many years and the T Level course that I did my self, happened to have aspects of cyber security built in and that helped me push me even further and encouraged me to pursue what I really wanted to do.
Phil McPherson – Assistant Principal
So my advice to new six form providers who’re contemplating delivering T Levels would be, I would say access the support that's there for you. There's some brilliant support available from a range of organisations, AOC, ETF - so really tap into that, but also engage with the networks with the other providers and actually really sort of pick their brains about the lessons that they've learned during T Level implementation.
Be quite strategic and be careful and and actually be thoughtful about what courses you're looking to deliver. So obviously go for what you know you can deliver well and you've got some background in, but also think carefully about what courses are going to benefit your local area and provide that pipeline of talent coming through.
Be brave and be positive. See this as an opportunity to expand your provision and actually add on to what you're currently delivering. T Levels are amazing that will support students moving forward.
Ben: T Level student Digital Design and Development
The advice I would give to people thinking about going for a T Level is that it's a great course: it allows you to work in the classroom as you normally would, however, you get to take the knowledge you've learned from the classroom and apply it into the real workplace, working on real problems with real people.
Last updated: