Video Transcript: The T Level Transition Programme at Cirencester Sixth Form College

Matt Reynolds, V P Teaching, Learning and Development

With Transition, we saw this as an opportunity to create a course, which is like a wrapper.

It's like a whole student experience rather than a learner doing a kind of cluster of GCES or whatever. This gave us the opportunity to design the perfect vehicle to take somebody from leaving school to being perfectly set to do a T Level, and it enables us to design A complete course which tackled things like confidence in young learners, being able to present things, being able to interview people, ask questions when you don’t know how to do something, how to behave in the workplace. There are a whole number of elements we could incorporate, right into the design of the course. So when the idea of Transition came along for us, this was like the answer. This is everything we were looking for but designing the perfect level 2 experience.

What we've done is we've used a whole college approach and this has covered everything from training governors about what T Levels are and what Transition Programme is right the way through to all the technician support staff as well. So we've involved everybody, even teachers that are not involved in Transition and T Level, have been kept up to date with all the developments as they've gone through staff meetings and that sort of thing.

Sam Marion, T Level Transition Programme Lead

So a lot of students that come onto the programme will need to be re sitting their GCSE maths or their GCSE English or maybe both. Alongside that, within the programme we also do contextual maths and English where we try and align our delivery with what they're learning at the time within their GCSE lesson, so we've put it into context within their technical element.

It strengthens what they're learning within their GCSE. At the very beginning of designing the programme we identified that within their GCSE lessons they were being asked or instructed to do certain elements which we were telling them in the technical element, but we were using very different language. So now it's about getting that language correct so that they understand what they've learned that week, this is how it works in context so they can put it into real situations, this is the first cohort so we're hoping that we will be seeing definitely increase numbers with their success in GCSE. We've definitely seen that within their mock exams.

Matt Reynolds, V P Teaching, Learning and Development

Employers are absolutely key to successful T Level and Transition, I think and what we do is we haven't just cold called them when we're looking for a work placement, so it's not the first time they hear from us isn't just saying can you give us a work placement? What we've done is we've done a lot of engagement employees right the way through from our planning stages through to delivery.

So we have employer boards, so each subject area sector that we have has an employer board associated where we have, 12, 15, 20 employers sit on our board.

We show them all our secrets. We say, here's the scheme of work, here's the specification. This is how we're planning on delivering this. Is there anything you think we should include or with what we're going to teach, is there anything you'd like to help on?

We have employers that judge student presentations. They enter the classroom via zoom to be interrogated by the students. They also can give presentations or be part of a judging panel, perhaps on the competition that students have been working on. So the connexion with employers is kind of embedded into the course.

Daniel Vaughan, Curriculum Manager Health

They'd always ask me things like do I need to do this to pass? Is a very, very common question, but with this programme I haven't been asked that, they just engage with every component because the language that we're using, this is a programme that this is a sort of holistic Transition Programme. This means that they stop seeing things through the lense of I need to do this to pass or do this to get this grade. They just developed this series of behaviours for the sake of it. Not just to get a score or a letter at the end of their CV.

Matt Reynolds, V P Teaching, Learning and Development

We've got more students going through to Level 3 than we've ever had before and I think one of the brilliant things with the course is it teaches so many other skills about confidence building in young people it makes them so much more employable that even those that don't go onto a T Level are finding that they're going into work because they've already got the skill set employers are looking for so I think it's a vehicle to prepare young people for the workplace. It's just been absolutely fantastic.

Richard Stonebridge, Head of Faculty for Humanities and Earth Sciences

I think it's given us a real USP. We're at the forefront of every new wave of T Level we put our hands up for everything, any CPD, any national events, everything that we can possibly put ourselves forward for we have, because we really believe in the programme.

We really believe that this is the next sort of stage in terms of technical qualifications and it's the right thing for our learners.

I would say make sure that you've got everybody on board, so think about like change management. That's incredibly important and making sure that you bring the team along with, you know, you can come up with these ideas, but it's important that you've got a team that believes in what you're going to be doing to make it successful.

And also, don't be afraid to change things through the year, that’s eally important. And if something is not working, then, you know, don't be afraid to move it as you are going along.

Matt Reynolds, V P Teaching, Learning and Development

We've jumped in feet first with every T Level and the Transition Programme and every time a new T Level comes out we go for it and we've got them coming on in the next couple of years as well.

We're going to be doing things like creative design and broadcast media and so on. So this as T Levels have grown and rolled out, we've taken every opportunity along the way to take them on. And what we've also done is as we've sort of engaged those new T Levels, we've sort of switched off the old qualifications we used to do as a result. So we're very much seeing ourselves as a T Level and A Level college really and long may it continue, we think that absolutely fantastic up-to-the-minute gold standard qualifications.

Make sure you take full advantage of all the help on offer. There's a whole host of colleges now, they've got a few years under their belt of doing T Levels and Transition Programme, there are employers that know how to work with T Levels. There's a whole bunch of associations that have got networks there to help you and organisations like the AOC and the ETF training that's available and the Department for Education contacts, there's a whole bunch of people waiting on the end of the phone to help you out. So take full advantage of it because it's really worth it.