Collaborations

So right now I'm in the middle of co-writing our consortium's bid to deliver the Creative & Media Diploma for delivery in 2009. The application process is tediously complicated (I wish we could do it as a viva!) but it raises some interesting questions for media teachers involved in diploma delivery. In theory, one of the themes of the diploma is about a partnership (exchange, even) of resources, so a student would be able to access all the relevant parts of the diploma that they are interested in from within the consortium that they learn in. Say that you are a Level 2 student -GCSE equivalent, in old money - who wants to do options in audio, video, game design and graphics. In an ideal world your current institution would provide them all and you would stay exactly where you were, with industrial people coming to you to supplement the good work that your regular teachers were doing. About as likely as those CDs with all our child benefit info. turning up you probably think. And you'd be right, which is meant to be why the diplomas are being delivered in consortia, so that the student can go to the nearest possible institution to get the curriculum that they want. Except, except........ This second situation is also really unlikely to happen as well, because the prospect of 14-19 students being allowed to wander round your locality just "on their way" to their radio class is something that fills a lot of people with dread.
So what will happen? It seems that there are two likely outcomes, and both have a kind of "plus ça change" feel to them. For example, I was sat in a meeting about diplomas today in which I was effectively told that the students in our school would not be able to access the best facilities in the consortium because our institution was geographically too far away from the college they are . We are about 3 miles away, and schools that are closer will be able to form some kind of working partnership with those facilities because they are. We then, will probably be left to deliver the bits of the partnership that we can, and probably giving some students less choice in the process. The other outcome is that colleges of FE will do the bulk of what is loosely termed "Specialist" learning (as opposed to "principal" learning, which seems to be the boring stuff like functional skills -i.e. Maths and English). This is of course, exactly what happens already, and does nothing to give vocational education a real place in schools, which would convince parents and students of its value.
But lets be positive as well as negative.As a Media teacher , it seems that you have to think about what you can deliver and think about what you have available to you. You might not have great facilities, but do you have an existing partnership that could be put to good use; say with a HEI or an industry contact. Do you yourself have industrial experience in the creative sector. These kind of things seem to be important.
Looking on the bright side, if you don't have them, diploma delivery could be a good way of justifying that work shadow you wanted to do recruiting that extra member of staff. Whatever the case partnership and looking outside your own institution are going to be essential if the Creative and Media Diploma is to be any success at all.