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Teaching, learning and assessment guidance
Last updated: 07 Apr 2009
QCA produces information and guidance to help schools, colleges and consortia to deliver the Diploma. It includes curriculum guidance for Diploma practitioners and curriculum managers and information for exams officers.
Diploma curriculum guidance
This case study booklet includes an overview of applied learning and 15 case studies illustrating good practice in applied learning, at all three levels of the Diplomas in engineering, construction and the built environment, creative and media, society, health and development, and information technology.
To accompany the applied learning case studies, QCA has produced short video clips that illustrate applied learning in action. The first three show the Diplomas in creative and media, construction and the built environment and IT. Engineering and society, health and development videos will follow shortly.
Delivering the Higher Diploma to post-16 learners
This web-based guidance communicates key messages to centres planning to deliver the Higher Diploma for post-16 learners over one year from September 2009.
Delivering the Foundation Diploma guidance
This web-based guidance introduces the Foundation Diploma. It draws on the experience of consortia to consider successful learning models and analyses what engages students in these examples of innovative curriculum design and delivery. The guidance supports members of local 14–19 consortia responsible for the planning and teaching of Foundation Diploma courses.
Diploma principal learning: controlled assessment guidelines for CABs
Controlled assessment is the approach to internal assessment adopted for Diploma principal learning qualifications. This document sets out the revised guidelines for controlled assessment planned for all Diploma principal learning (PL) qualifications due for first teaching from September 2009.
Additional and specialist learning guidance
This guidance explains the role of additional and specialist learning within the overall Diploma qualification and illustrates how additional and specialist learning can be utilised to personalise learning.
Design for Success: Consortia planning
This is the fourth and last illustration for the Design for Success publication, which looks in detail at a number of whole consortia models for Diploma delivery.
Personalising Diplomas: understanding additional and specialist learning
QCA has published a new leaflet for schools and colleges on the additional and specialist learning (ASL) component of the Diploma.
ASL allows learners to select qualifications to include as part of their Diploma, according to their interests or ambitions. This new leaflet covers the purpose of ASL, how to select ASL using the Diploma catalogues, and how ASL can support learners to progress.
Curriculum guidance for delivering principal learning in the Diploma
This web-based guidance for teachers and curriculum planners is designed to underpin all awarding body specifications and to fully articulate Diploma development partnership line of learning statements in a way that supports teaching and learning in centres. It is organised in a similar way to the statutory key stage 3 and key stage 4 programmes of study and covers the following areas: curriculum aims, the importance of the Diploma, the structure of the Diploma, the importance statement, key themes/concepts, key processes, range and content, curriculum opportunities, and unique Diploma features.
Generic skills in Diploma learning
Generic, transferable skills are at the heart of the Diploma learning for transforming the curriculum and maximising learner motivation, individual development and employability. This guidance covers functional skills, personal, learning and thinking skills, and the skills involved with the project to achieve a unified skills curriculum across all the different components of the Diploma.
Opportunities for co-learning: Foundation and Higher Diploma
This guidance explains the importance of recognising the foundation Diploma as a qualification in its own right but recognises the need for co-learning for the foundation and higher Diplomas in some contexts. Emphasising the importance of personalising learning, it gives one example from each phase 1 line of learning to show how co-learning might be achieved.
Guidelines on recording personal, learning and thinking skills in the Diploma
QCA has produced guidelines for recording personal, learning and thinking skills (PLTS) in the Diploma. These guidelines will help people involved in planning and delivering Diploma programmes to record PLTS in teaching and learning, enabling learners to identify their strengths and weaknesses and to develop their skills.
Progression illustrations provide examples of possible progression routes from phase 1 lines of learning into higher education, apprenticeships and employment. They use examples of student profiles to show curriculum planners and those advising young people how the Diploma package can be tailored to meet individual progression needs. They can therefore be incorporated into information, advice and guidance packages.
English, mathematics and science content in principal learning
Guidance on the delivery of English, mathematics and science content in principal learning for the first 10 Diploma lines of learning will support curriculum planners and practitioners in understanding the English, maths and science content, its relationship with the key stage 4 programme of study, GCSEs and A levels and the prior learning needed to access the content.
Design for success: shaping your curriculum to incorporate the Diploma
This guidance provides useful suggestions for the successful implementation of the Diploma. It consists of a generic booklet on curriculum planning and three inserts: the Diploma within the key stage 4 curriculum, progression through the Diploma (14-19) and whole-school examples.
Building on the success of the original publication, three new inserts are available on creative approaches to key stage 4 curriculum planning, functional skills delivery and post-16 Diploma delivery.
Guidance for managing foundation, higher and extended project delivery
This guidance provides background information for delivering the project component of the Diploma for management teams and curriculum planners in schools and colleges. It provides detail on the differences between the foundation, higher and extended project and the resources required for the delivery of each in terms of teaching time and additional materials.
