Collaborative
approaches

This website looks at some of the issues facing schools, the benefits of collaboration, partnership models, and hints and guidance on setting up a successful partnership.

It provides practical advice and examples of good practice drawn from a range of sources such as our science partners, Science Learning Centres (SLC), the Institute of Biology (IoB), the Institute of Physics (IoP), the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) and other national bodies, which include Association for Science Education (ASE) and Secondary National Strategies, as well as some examples of schools currently delivering Triple Science.

It also draws on the lessons learned from partnership and collaborative delivery models developed through programmes funded by the Department for Children, Schools and Family (DCSF, part-successor to the Department for Education and Skills, DfES), such as the Increased Flexibility for 14-16 Year Olds Programme (IFP) and 14-19 Pathfinders.

Further information

There are many excellent case studies highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of different partnership arrangements available on the websites of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), the DCSF, Teachernet, Innovation Unit and Vocational Learning Support Programme.

They explore some of the issues and barriers experienced by many of the partnerships, different geographical arrangements, different models of collaborative delivery, transport arrangements, information, advice and guidance, curriculum models, assessment arrangements and work-based learning.

The key common strand to all these initiatives is their recognition that successful 14-19 education and training can be offered through effective collaboration between schools, colleges and other partners planning and delivering learning opportunities, sharing resources, expertise and specialisms.

Who is this for?

This website is aimed at school managers and teachers of science who are investigating ways of providing the Triple Science entitlement by working in partnership with others. It focuses on the benefits of collaborative working and the management and operational arrangements needed to make it work. Although the main driver for collaboration is to expand the science curriculum to include the Triple Science GCSEs, this will involve changes to the delivery of the whole science curriculum.

Triple science GCSE's

To increase the supply of engineers and scientists, the Government has set out an ambitious plan to encourage more students to take science at A-level and in higher education.

An increase in the numbers of young people taking GCSEs in biology, chemistry and physics (Triple Science) has been identified as one of the ways to make this happen. It is part of a wider strategy based on the Science and Innovation Investment Framework 2004–2014.

Plans relating to Triple Science GCSEs for all schools include:

• a non-statutory entitlement to enable all young people with Key stage 3 science attainment of level 6 and above that would benefit, to study Triple Science GCSEs from September 2008 in all schools.

For specialist colleges:

• specialist science colleges will offer Triple Science to all those students with Key stage 3 science attainment of level 6 and above that would benefit, from 2008

• specialist engineering colleges will offer Triple Science to all those students with Key stage 3 science attainment of level 6 and above that would benefit, from 2009

• specialist technology colleges will offer Triple Science to all those students with Key stage 3 science attainment of level 6 and above that would benefit, from 2009

• and specialist mathematics and computing colleges will offer Triple Science to all those students with Key stage 3 science attainment of level 6 and above that would benefit, from 2010.

The intention is that specialist colleges will offer the entitlement at least from the beginning of the school’s next re-designation cycle.

Triple Science is a combination of three GCSEs in biology, chemistry and physics. It provides the fullest coverage of these three subjects at Key stage 4 and, taken together, the subjects cover the statutory programme of study for science. They are available within the suites of awarding body specifications introduced for first teaching in 2006. However, core and additional GCSEs in science will remain a meaningful route to A-level sciences for many young people in maintained schools.