Implementing the United Kingdom's ten-year teenage pregnancy strategy for England (1999-2010): how was this done and what did it achieve?

In 1999, the UK Labour Government launched a 10-year Teenage Pregnancy Strategy for England to address the country's historically high rates and reduce social exclusion. The goal was to halve the under-18 conception rate. This study explores how the strategy was designed and implemented, and the features that contributed to its success. This study was informed by examination of the detailed documentation of the strategy, published throughout its 10-year implementation. The strategy involved a comprehensive programme of action across four themes: joined up action at national and local level; better prevention through improved sex and relationships education and access to effective contraception; a communications campaign to reach young people and parents; and coordinated support for young parents (The support programme for young parents was an important contribution to the strategy. In the short term by helping young parents prevent further unplanned pregnancies and, in the long term, by breaking intergenerational cycles of disadvantage and lowering the risk of teenage pregnancy.). It was implemented through national, regional and local structures with dedicated funding for the 10-year duration. The under-18 conception rate reduced steadily over the strategy's lifespan. The 2014 under-18 conception rate was 51% lower than the 1998 baseline and there have been significant reductions in areas of high deprivation. One leading social commentator described the strategy as 'The success story of our time' (Toynbee, The drop in teenage pregnancies is the success story of our time, 2013). As rates of teenage pregnancy are influenced by a web of inter-connected factors, the strategy was necessarily multi-faceted in its approach. As such, it is not possible to identify causative pathways or estimate the relative contributions of each constituent part. However, we conclude that six key features contributed to the success: creating an opportunity for action; developing an evidence based strategy; effective implementation; regularly reviewing progress; embedding the strategy in wider government programmes; and providing leadership throughout the programme. The learning remains relevant for the UK as England's teenage birth rate remains higher than in other Western European countries. It also provides important lessons for governments and policy makers in other countries seeking to reduce teenage pregnancy rates. BACKGROUND METHODS RESULTS CONCLUSION

Teacher knowledge and initial teacher education in the English learning and skills sector

Recent reforms of initial teacher education (ITE) in the learning and skills sector(LSS) in England are standards based and emphasise subject specialism. The reforms are underpinned by objectivist epistemological assumptions which are incompatible with socio-cultural theories of professional knowledge, and ignore the diverse teaching roles and contexts in the sector and wider systemic issues. A qualitative scoping study found that LSS in-service trainee teachers drew on three types of knowledge resources, or clusters of ‘rules’ for practice, in their teaching: these were related to their subject/vocational area, generic teaching and learning processes and specific learners and groups. Trainees generated knowledge resources through participation in their workplace, ITE course and other social contexts, and from embedded and encoded workplace knowledge. Trainees’ beliefs, values and prior experiences were both a knowledge resource and influenced their engagement with knowledge generation activities. It is argued that using a knowledge resources perspective, which recognises how trainees generate knowledge and seeks to bridge gaps in their access to knowledge resources, would be more effective in supporting trainees’ development than the current reforms

Evaluating the impact of career management skills module and internship programme within a university business school

This study evaluates the impact of an intervention on business school graduates’ employability comprising of a curriculum-based career management skills (CMS) module and an industrial placement year. The study uses data from the destinations of leavers of higher education survey to examine the employability of different groups within the cohort (no intervention, CMS module only and CMS module plus structured work experience). It finds that structured work experience has clear, positive effects on the ability of graduates to secure employment in ‘graduate level’ jobs within six months of graduation. Furthermore, participation in the CMS module also has a clear, positive effect upon the ability of participants to secure employment

Mentoring and Individual Learning Plans: Issues of practice in a period of transition.

publication-status: Acceptedtypes: ArticleThis article draws upon research undertaken with 28 teacher education mentors, managers and trainee teachers within the SW Centre for Excellence in Teacher Training (CETT) in 2008, following the introduction of the new revised Lifelong Learning UK (LLUK) standards. The first part of the article locates and contextualises the policy context in relation to the school and further education (FE) sectors. Two separate and distinctive models of mentoring practice are delineated, the first model as a source of formative support for trainee teachers, and the second model as a tool for the assessment of competence. The article concludes by suggesting that the danger and indeed unintended consequence of separating out these functions of mentoring is that an unnecessary dichotomy is created that dislocates coherent teacher practices from one another. It argues that what is needed is a sustained period of stability in the sector. This would leave a space for CETT professionals and others to promote those practices that will make a difference not only to the work of teacher educators but to the work of staff and students

Assessment innovation and student experience: a new assessment challenge and call for a multi-perspective approach to assessment research

The impact of innovative assessment on student experience in higher education is a neglected research topic. This represents an important gap in the literature given debate around the marketization of higher education, international focus on student satisfaction measurement tools and political calls to put students at the heart of higher education in the UK. This paper reports on qualitative findings from a research project examining the impact of assessment preferences and familiarity on student attainment and experience. It argues that innovation is defined by the student, shaped by diverse assessment experiences and preferences and therefore its impact is difficult to predict. It proposes that future innovations must explore assessment choice mechanisms which allow students to shape their own assessments. Cultural change and staff development will be required to achieve this. To be accepted, assessment for student experience must be viewed as a complementary layer within a complex multi perspective model of assessment which also embraces assessment of learning, assessment for learning and assessment for life long learning. Further research is required to build a meta theory of assessment to enhance the synergies between these alternative approaches and to minimise tensions between them

Higher education, graduate skills and the skills of graduates: the case of graduates as residential sales estate agents

The UK labour market is subject to significant graduatisation. Yet in the context of an over-supply of graduates, little is known about the demand for and deployment of graduate skills in previously non-graduate jobs. Moreover, there is little examination of where these skills are developed, save an assumption in higher education. Using interviews and questionnaire data from a study of British residential sales estate agents, this article explores the demand, deployment and development of graduate skills in an occupation that is becoming graduatised. These data provide no evidence to support the view that the skills demanded and deployed are those solely developed within higher education. Instead what employers require is a wide array of predominantly soft skills developed in many different situs. These findings suggest that, in the case of estate agents, what matters are the ‘skills of graduates’ rather than putative ‘graduate skills’

Surveillance, performativity and normalised practice: the use and impact of graded lesson observations in Further Education colleges

In little over a decade, the observation of teaching and learning (OTL) has become the cornerstone of Further Education (FE) colleges’ quality systems for assuring and improving the professional skills and knowledge base of tutors. Yet OTL remains an under-researched area of inquiry with little known about the impact of its use on the professional identity, learning and development of FE tutors. This paper examines the specific practice of graded OTL and in so doing discusses findings from a mixed-methods study conducted in 10 colleges situated across the West Midlands region of England. Data from a questionnaire survey and semi-structured interviews were analysed within a theoretical framework that drew largely on aspects of Foucauldian theory as well as the twin phenomena of new managerialism and performativity. This analysis revealed how OTL has become normalised as a performative tool of managerialist systems designed to assure and improve standards, performance and accountability in teaching and learning. It is argued that FE has now outgrown graded OTL and it is time for a moratorium on its use. Colleges and tutors need to be given greater professional autonomy with regard to OTL and be allowed to develop their own systems that place professional learning and development at the forefront, rather than the requirements of performance management systems

Employers and schools: how Mansfield is building a world of work approach

There is a keen interest in encouraging employers to engage with schools so that young people can learn more about careers, understand the skills that employers are interested in, broaden their aspirations and be motivated to succeed. Employer engagement in schools in England however is increasingly fragmented because of a loss of brokering infrastructure. This article describes a partnership approach developed in Mansfield where a consortium of local schools has worked with their business community and public sector organisations. Together they have listened to what young people say they both want and need to know about careers and then responded by providing a strategic careers learning programme. The particular contribution of the Mansfield Learning Partnership which is wholly funded by the town’s secondary schools is detailed in the article alongside elaboration of the Mansfield Framework for Career Learning which provides a work experience programme and several imaginative opportunities for young people to engage in meaningful encounters with employers

Constructing a national higher education brand for the UK: positional competition and promised capitals

This article examines national branding of UK higher education, a strategic intent and action to collectively brand UK higher education with the aim to attract prospective international students, using a Bourdieusian approach to understanding promises of capitals. We trace its development between 1999 and 2014 through a sociological study, one of the first of its kind, from the 'Education UK' and subsumed under the broader 'Britain is GREAT' campaign of the Coalition Government. The findings reveal how a national higher education brand is construed by connecting particular representations of the nation with those of prospective international students and the higher education sector, which combine in the brand with promises of capitals to convert into positional advantage in a competitive environment. The conceptual framework proposed here seeks to connect national higher education branding to the concept of the competitive state, branded as a nation and committed to the knowledge economy