For many of us, the phrase ‘school partnerships’ has been indelibly linked with the Diploma qualification. For three years it felt as though we were constantly being driven into forced partnerships to deliver a qualification that most agreed was not fit for the purpose intended, that of a high-quality vocational course which would be accessible by many of our young people and provide excellent pathways to post-16 education.

For three years it felt as though we were constantly being driven into forced partnerships to deliver a qualification that most agreed was not fit for the purpose intended

Many of us spent hours shoe-horning our timetable into strange contortions that would allow a small proportion of our students to study for two days at different institutions while being able to take a full part in the core curriculum on the other three days of the week. This was a process that many found frustrating and possibly detrimental to the studies of our other learners.

Then, as quickly as it appeared the Diploma has disappeared almost without trace. There are still Year 11 students completing their qualification but I would be fascinated to know how many schools offered the Diploma to current Year 10 students and if any are still including it among the options for Year 9 students.

So what did we gain from the Diploma adventure?

Collaboration between schools

Probably one major learning point was that of senior leaders working in collaboration with senior leaders of other schools that could also be considered the competition whether for students in a challenging demographic or in terms of attainment for league tables. This dynamic meant new leadership styles were required. Senior leaders had to develop genuine collaborative leadership traits. In many areas this led to a greater understanding between headteachers of a number of schools and the challenges that they faced. Hopefully the demise of the Diploma will not also lead to the end of such relations.

A greater range of qualifications meant that independent advice and guidance had to be developed, and many schools spent considerable time working on improving work-related learning, often in partnership with a local Connexions adviser. As the government has seemingly pulled the plug on the Connexions service, there is an even greater pressure on schools to work creatively and hopefully build new relations with careers officers so that our young people make the best choices for their future studies.

Best practice

The Diploma often meant that a school could have a cohort of students from a range of schools in the one class. The parents of these children were still expecting to receive reports on their progress and different schools were expecting tracking data. This encouraged schools to work together to share their assessment and reporting procedures and see if a common fit could be developed which incorporated the best practice of each institution. Individual schools could only benefit from this cross-pollenisation of ideas.

At the same time schools developed options processes and parents’ evenings that worked in parallel. Some groups of schools reached a consensus as to the best time to place such events, which forced individual schools to look at their systems and see if they could be improved.

Many groups of schools recognised that if they developed collaborative learning models for the unwieldy Diploma then it was probably much easier to facilitate a model which allowed students to study a GCSE or an A-level at a different school. In the current economic climate when we are constantly studying the viability of our courses, continuing to work in this collaborative fashion could keep less popular subjects alive.

Continuing professional development

In the current economic climate when we are constantly studying the viability of our courses, continuing to work in this collaborative fashion could keep less popular subjects alive

In some partnerships students would study the Diploma across different sites, which led to subject teachers developing networks across the schools. Such collaboration led to excellent continuing professional development opportunities as teachers and instructors shared ideas about the best way to deliver some of the course. It would be regrettable if these opportunities were lost.

It is likely that very soon the Diploma will become an educational footnote alongside other courses such as the Certificate of Secondary Education (CSE), the 16+ or initiatives like the Technical and Vocational Education Initiative (TVEI). It must be hoped that some of the lessons that we learned in its original implementation will continue to benefit our schools, our students and our leadership styles. It is also true that while the Diploma may be a dead parrot, school partnerships have certainly not run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible as we look to a future of teaching alliances, behavioural partnerships and umbrella trusts of academies.