National Evaluation of 14-19 Pathfinders
February 2003 - May 2006(Contact: Professor Jeremy Higham or Dr David Yeomans)
Funded By: DfES
14-19 Pathfinders were announced in the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) green paper 14-19: extending opportunities, raising standards and then developed by the government in its response to the consultation: 14-19: opportunity and excellence.
This £46m initiative, funded jointly by DfES and the Learning and Skills Council (LSC), is designed to develop collaborative approaches to 14-19 education and training and inform national policy from 2005/06. 25 partnerships began operating from January 2003 and were joined by a further 14 partnerships in September 2003.
The principal objectives for the 39 partnerships were the development of collaboration within existing structures to: widen provision and increase choice; increase participation; raise achievement; improve progression to employment and higher education.
The national evaluation (undertaken with colleagues from the University of Exeter in the first year) has had the following main aims:
1. to assess the extent to which the 14-19 Pathfinders and unfunded 14-19 partnerships continue to develop and take forward best practice in creating a more coherent 14-19 phase at LEA, consortia, institutional and individual levels;
2. to relate the findings to the academic and official literature and to models of provision and practice developed for 14-19 provision;
3. to explore and analyse the opportunities for, and constraints on, the development of the 14-19 phase in the 14-19 Pathfinders;
4. to examine the potential value-added effects of the 14-19 Pathfinders and associated funding arrangements.
The methodology has four main elements:
1. Documentary analysis of Pathfinder proposals, termly and annual progress reports, exit strategies and additional pathfinder and institutional-level documents.
2. Selective literature reviews of academic and official literature addressing concepts such as curricular coherence and progression; institutional collaboration; curriculum change approaches as well as specific aspects of the 14-19 reform agenda.
3. Annual surveys of all pathfinder coordinators
4. In depth case studies of 14 Pathfinders and two further case studies of partnerships which had not been funded through the pathfinders programme but where there was evidence of collaborative work in the 14-19 phase.
There are three published evaluation reports which can be accessed at the DfES 14-19 gateway . Conference and seminar papers have been given at the Nuffield 14-19 Review (see Nuffield Review website), AERA, BERA, London Post-16 Network, DfES Research Conference and Service Children’s Education Conference.
This project last updated by David Yeomans on 4th July 2006.