Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency

Last updated: 02 October 2007

This guidance describes how you can plan effective learning programmes for young people aged 14-25 with learning difficulties in a school, college or training environment.

This guidance supports the aims of the Foundation Learning Tier reforms, through providing guidance to practitioners on planning effective learning programmes for young people with learning difficulties. Effective learning involves the active ownership of the learning by the learners. Good practice identified in this guidance will also support the successful delivery of revised units and qualifications developed through the Foundation Learning Tier reforms between 2007 and 2010. The Foundation Learning Tier project involves the development of a range of units and qualifications at Entry and Level 1, many of which will be suitable for young people with learning difficulties.

These reforms will result in a higher-quality qualification offer for learners below level 2. Qualifications and units will sit within the new Qualification and Credit Framework. This will be a unit-based qualification framework underpinned by a system of credit accumulation and transfer. Designed to recognise a wider range of learner achievements than the National Qualifications Framework (NQF), it will be:

• more responsive to employer and learner needs
• demand- and market-led
• simple, flexible and with currency for learners
• underpinned by a credit system that recognises achievement of units and qualifications.

The flexibility provided by the QCF will allow learners to build up credits for units over time, and gain recognition for smaller steps of learning. The reforms include the development of units and qualifications at Entry 1 - the lowest level of the QCF. This level will incorporate achievements at 'Pre-Entry', allowing all learners to achieve nationally-recognised units with credit value.

It is important to remember that qualifications alone do not guarantee a high quality learning experience. This guidance addresses the other factors that will help to raise standards and offer a meaningful learning programme to each learner.

Who is this guidance for?

The content will benefit senior managers, teachers, tutors, trainers and other staff working with learners aged 14 to 25 who experience difficulties in learning that may arise from cognitive, physical or sensory impairments, behavioural, social and emotional difficulties, mental health problems or difficulties in communication and interaction.

What's in this guidance?

This guidance helps you to address four key questions:

• How do we achieve our aims?
• What do we need to consider?
• How do we organise for learning?
• How do we plan for the next steps and moving on?

The content is designed to be a practical tool for improvement. At the end of each section you will find review questions designed to help you reflect on your current practice and to plan and deliver improvements to your provision. Some sections also include links to PDF documents that offer more detailed questions to help your planning.

Why has QCA produced this guidance?

We are living in a period of rapid socio-economic, technological and social change with profound consequences for social justice and quality of life. We need to consider how young people can best be equipped to take their place in this changing society, including those with learning difficulties.

Young people with learning difficulties have needs and experiences that are both the same and different as those of their non-disabled peers. Effective support for their learning needs to recognise their unique perspectives as learners.

The transition from childhood to adolescence and into adulthood can be messy and complex, both for learners and their families. As you manage this transition process it is helpful to aim to keep the learner at the centre, so that the curriculum and the services they require are tailored to meet their individual needs, interests and aptitudes. Only then will learners be enabled to realise their personal aims and aspirations.

This is sometimes referred to as a person-centred or personalised approach. It means helping young people to work out what they want, the support they require and how they are going to achieve their ambitions. It means listening to learners in ways that genuinely respect their ideas and opinions, building on the strengths and interests of the whole person and using their choices as the basis for planning programmes. But it also recognises that your approach to education should prompt change in people's lives, broadening their horizons and opening up new opportunities through being creative and flexible in your thinking and planning. Above all, the curriculum or programme that learners experience and the services that support them, should enable rather than constrain their transition to adulthood.

We hope that this guidance will help you to deliver such an approach.