‘Are we ready for the Green Economy’

Edexcel Perspective

John Fincham

Slide 1

Training from Edexcel

History – 2005/2006 – Awareness raising

• London Sustainability Exchange – an audit of colleges around London

• Interview principals/heads of curriculum about sustainability in the curriculum and their college sustainability plans

• Results were that there were few units in courses with the title of sustainability eg construction; no sustainability qualifications and not many principals/facility managers implementing sustainability measures or aware that they were doing so

• No real progress at Edexcel at this time on sustainability courses – started to raise awareness

Need for Sustainability in the curriculum• Integration into all courses

• Sector Skills Councils approval (government pressure –vocational courses)– work with Cogent, SEMTA, Construction Skills etc

• Need for vocationally related sustainability courses – to meet the needs of employers

FE colleges/schools started to contact Edexcel about four/five years ago – for courses that concentrated on different aspects of sustainability and jobs in sustainability for example - Sussex had a consortium of schools, South Stafford FE College, Cambridge FE College, City and Islington College etc

Developments – Sustainability Courses

BTEC Sustainability Skills suites of qualifications at Entry Level, Level 1 and Level 2 – 42 units

BTEC National Suite of qualifications in Environmental Sustainability – 27 units

Worked with Cogent on their Sustainability Skills suite of qualifications – QCF readiness

GCE Chemistry – section on Green Chemistry – insistence by the RSC to include – otherwise no support

Sustainability units in a large number of vocationally related qualifications

Slide 4

Training from Edexcel

Delivery and Assessment

•100% internal assessment – vocationally related assignment/ project driven – criterion referenced – learners provide evidence – BTEC approach to enable learners to gain ownership and develop as independent learners

Support Materials

•Edexcel website – large number of assignments – working with British Gas, Woodland Trust, Water Aid etc

•GCE AS equivalent materials available soon based on project within the BTEC National in Environmental Sustainability

Slide 6

Training from Edexcel

Edexcel Curriculum

•Good Awareness in Qualification Development and many Business Managers

•Sustainability courses one of the fastest growing suites – dedicated staff

•Still require a rationale for each new qualification projected number of learners

•Edexcel/Pearson Stand

Slide 7

Training from Edexcel