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What has Manchester's experience been? We need to hear from MBacc schools

If for no other reason than that's where higher pay is. I can't believe that no one has thought through the consequences of explicitly saying 'we want schools to gear towards sending people into lower paid jobs in the regions.' Obviously highest paid trade > lowest paid accountant, but generally...

You need to start in primary school. Valuing and teaching more than a dull test based academic curriculum. Primary science is turgid beyond belief. D&T reduced to fun week in summer. Value practical skills alongside academic ones from the start.

Significant that the ‘academic’ pathway to 16 is the default? Not technical?

What it needs is doing properly, with a proper consultation, and buy in from everyone involved. It needs a long-term strategy and investment, but which in-built abilities to adapt to changing technologies and work practises. It needs to be credible and better than previous half-arse measures.

Not necessarily. That’s a risk if vocational education is seen as a dead end. One of the best features of the Swiss system is its permeability. My son is starting his third year of an EFZ apprenticeship and can still progress to a Fachhochschule. It doesn’t close doors in the way many people assume.

yes

The fact is that it is an issue that still needs addressing. The current model is pushing far too many out and creating the rise in pex and use of alternative provision. Maybe both sides (ed and business) need to work it out.

Also the reason we are not building more houses is not because a lack of tradespeople in hard hats - we’re not building houses. Same with manufacturing/ factories- it’s always the labour market.

You can do a combination of core subjects and specialist options. That's already a thing with BTechs

Academic selection exists Not 20% who went to grammar school But 20% who loathe academic subjects Don’t go to ‘good’ schools - put off by reputation, rules & those schools don’t encourage them to go Then disengaged families put off by expensive uniform (not Tesco) & difficult travel outside London

Yeah Germany basically do this and it leads to errrr a lot of issues!

Newish Labour have a very weird understanding of work , im not surprised though, both Timms and Burnham are commissioners of the very weird and rather malign "centre for social justice " set up by IDS with opaque funding

I wish the issue were sometimes framed the other way around: how are businesses adapting to the skills and knowledge of school leavers?

If it became a legal requirement for a child in state education to do 5 ‘technical” based quals then apart from going private, there’s not a lot they could do about it…

Agree with this entire thread and the stuff below. An example I used recently was the rise of influencers as journalists and tv presenters. So those kids who are in vocational media courses- what future for them? This is on society not schools

A whole range of connected issues. Part of our massive challenge is we no longer have pathways back. If you go vocational at 14, it’s hard to change direction further down the line. Adult ed grants are pretty much gone now.

This is a social pressure issue not a curriculum design one. As long as you still do the core GCSEs (English Maths and a Science) you really don't close off very many routes in terms of not having the skills to do the A levels of your choice - it's a mindset thing.

TBF, UTCs have become increasingly effective but as you say, there’s a micro to macro general equilibrium problem. There just wouldn’t be enough placements and it’s really hard to argue that the extra cost of technical training equipment wouldn’t be better used by schools in other ways.