Secret Teacher: Issue 95

It makes no sense to me why the Government would consider scrapping BTEC qualifications. Why do this? Who is going to benefit from that decision? Not learners and not future employers. The teachers I know value the BTEC and have seen young people achieve in many ways through this way of learning.

I have experience of being a young person who, without this model of learning and assessment, may have never believed I had anything to offer the creative industries and would have been very stuck for choices after leaving school at 16 with only a handful of GCSEs above grade C. To start the entry level BTEC course I wanted to do, it was required that I re-sat my GCSE English and Maths. It seemed I could not get away from everyone telling me I needed those core GCSE subjects, so I reluctantly agreed, but only because I was excited at the prospect of studying Performing Arts every day of the week in a cool college with amazing facilities.