This paper draws on an empirical study conducted in the UK to explore some of the issues surrounding young people on the lowest level VET programmes and make suggestions about ways in which the learner experience at this level might be enhanced. UK policy perception of young people undertaking low level VET programmes in Further Education (FE) colleges tends to characterise them within a deficit model of social exclusion, disaffectionand disengagement(Colley, 2003:169). Many have special educational needs (Atkins, 2013a). They have been the focus of multiple initiatives in both the context of the New Labour 14-19 agenda, and more recently in the Coalition governments response to the Wolf Review of Vocational Education (2011). These initiatives have largely consisted of the provision of routes through a range of VET opportunities, allegedly to enable young people to engage with the knowledgesociety (Bathmaker, 2005). This paper problematises these notions of opportunity, drawing on the little storiesof four young people to argue that the rhetoric which permeates Government documents fails to consider the significance of young peoples social and educational positioning. Finally, the paper considers the implications of these issues in terms of future practice, policy and research in the UK context.

This paper draws on an empirical study conducted in the UK to explore some of the issues surrounding young people on the lowest level VET programmes and make suggestions about ways in which the learner experience at this level might be enhanced. UK policy perception of young people undertaking low level VET programmes in Further Education (FE) colleges tends to characterise them within a deficit model of social exclusion, disaffectionand disengagement(Colley, 2003:169). Many have special educational needs (Atkins, 2013a). They have been the focus of multiple initiatives in both the context of the New Labour 14-19 agenda, and more recently in the Coalition governments response to the Wolf Review of Vocational Education (2011). These initiatives have largely consisted of the provision of routes through a range of VET opportunities, allegedly to enable young people to engage with the knowledgesociety (Bathmaker, 2005). This paper problematises these notions of opportunity, drawing on the little storiesof four young people to argue that the rhetoric which permeates Government documents fails to consider the significance of young peoples social and educational positioning. Finally, the paper considers the implications of these issues in terms of future practice, policy and research in the UK context

This paper discusses the findings of a study exploring the aspirations and learning identities of 3 groups of level 1 students in 2 English Further Education (FE) colleges. It gives a brief description of the methodology employed and an overview of each of the three groups. It then summarises the findings from the data, to provide a context for the discussion which considers the key themes arising from the study. Drawing on the data and on relevant literature, the paper goes on to explore the positioning of these young people in the context of class and gender stereotypes, their aspirations and developing identities.

The policy discourse around those young people who are the focus of the 14-19 agenda is one of negativity which, in its use of language such as non-academic, disaffected, disadvantaged places young people firmly within a deficit model. This model frames these young people as low achievers with low aspirations, routinely dismisses them as non-academic yet claims to offer opportunities in the form of a vocational education which, according to the rhetoric, will lead to a lifelong (nirvana?) of high skill, high paid work, personal satisfaction and opportunity (providing they continue to engage in lifelong learning), something which many young people take on trust. Drawing on original empirical research, and working within a framework informed by Marxist and social justice concepts, this paper contests the assumption that these young people have low aspirations, arguing that falling within a deficit model, constrained by discourses of negativity, powerless to change a system which militates against them and lacking the agency for change their chances of achieving those aspirations are almost non-existent. The paper poses a number of questions: What are 'high' and 'low' aspirations? What is 'non academic'? Why, every year, are nearly half of all young people characterized in this way? What is, or is not, an 'opportunity'? It argues that notions of opportunity are, in fact, smoke and mirrors, a massive deception which enables the channelling of these young people into the low pay, low skill work market in readiness to fulfil government demands for cheap labour as and when it is needed. Finally, it concludes with proposals for change in the 14-19 and PCET systems which could provide a more equitable and effective framework for young people to achieve their hopes and dreams.

This paper explores notions of employabilityin further education, a concept which is at the basis of much government policy associated with marginalised learners. Drawing on earlier empirical work by Atkins (2009) Atkins et al (2010) and Simmons and Thompson (2011) and working within a framework informed by Marxist concepts of Power and control, the paper problematises the term employability, arguing that in policy terms the term is ill-defined yet associated with a positive rhetoric about high pay, skill work which is in tension with the prospects of the marginalised group of students at whom it is directed. Despite the rhetoric, most employability programmes are far removed from the genuine work experienceadvocated by Wolf (2011:130). They offer little in the way of conceptual knowledge or exchange value, but are resonant with earlier concerns about the structure of vocational PCET programmes as producing users who are socialised to work, rather than as citizens (Tarrant, 2001). The paper argues that employability prgrammes are little more than an exercise in social control which are productive of false hope that engagement with them will offer a route into high pay, high skill employment with the prospect of financial and career security. The paper concludes that this hope obscures the reality that such programmes at best may lead to low pay, low skill work and, at worst, form another stage in the churnof young people who are NEET (not in education, employment or training). The impact of such programmes is unlikely, therefore, to be one of progression to high pay, high skill careers, but rather to be one of class and labour (re) production as students are socialised into particular forms of casual and low pay, low skill employment.

This paper explores the ways in which subject specialist mentors perceive their role and thereby their professional development needs - in terms of their responsibility for the observation of teaching practice in post-compulsory education settings. It suggests that their role as the mentors perceive it is not consistent with, or limited to, that which is implied in the emerging model of post-compulsory teacher training. Its findings further suggest that the training available for professionals undertaking this largely unpaid role is both limited and variable and that there is minimal engagement with the support which is available. The paper argues that a lack of coherence has led to an inequitable situation where students on post-compulsory Initial Teacher Training (ITT) courses receive variable support which impacts on their student experience and professional development. The investigation, based on a range of initiatives, resources and approaches developed during 2005/2006 as part of a DfES pilot study involving Nottingham Trent University (NTU), Lincoln College and Stamford College, makes recommendations for developments in local and national practice, and in government policy.

UK policy perception of young people undertaking low level (1 and 2) vocational programmes in Colleges of Further Education tends to characterise them within a deficit model of social exclusion, disaffectionand disengagement(Colley, 2003:169). They are the focus of multiple initiatives in the context of the 14-19 agenda as attempts are made to solve a perceived problem by providing routes through a range of vocational opportunitieswhich will allegedly enable them to engage with the knowledgesociety (Bathmaker, 2005). This paper attempts to problematise the notion of opportunity, arguing that the rhetoric of opportunity which permeates Government documents is merely a deception perpetrated on those young people whose positioning in education and society prevents them from questioning it. The paper discusses the little stories(Griffiths, 2003:81) of Emma, Leonardo, Paris, Rea and Amir, five young people who participated in a recent empirical study exploring the lives and transitions of level 1 students. Whilst acknowledging that the young people discussed in this paper are a small sample, their stories are typical of the 31 young people who participated in the study, and are also reflective of both the exclusionary characteristics experienced by the wider group and of their hopes, dreams and aspirations for the future. The paper uses their stories to illustrate the significant limitations of the opportunitiesoffered to young people, arguing that in many cases these are limited to an extended transition, moving from one low level vocational programme to the next. It finds that, whilst apparently buying into lifelong learning and notions of a knowledge society, the young people are rejecting such opportunities,together with their perceived civic responsibility of engaging in lifelong learning, as they draw on whatever capital they have available to them in an attempt to make the transition from education to the world of work. Four of the young people in this study were, or had been, engaged in employment concurrent with their level 1 programme. Whilst this could all be described as low pay, low skill employment some, such as working with children, carried significant responsibility. Three of these young people made a decision to move from education into the world of work at or before the end of their level 1 programme. The paper argues that in context of a low level vocational programme a decision to move into low pay, low skill employment might be regarded as a rational choice since it exchanges immediate financial capital, albeit at a low level, for a vague, insubstantial promise of something better at the end of a much extended transition. The paper goes on to conclude that these young people, despite the high aspirations reflected in their stories, are structurally positioned, partly inevitably, to make choices that are not their own, and to be denied the kind of opportunity which might enable them to achieve their aspirations. Instead, they are predestined to be engaged in low level, busyactivities rather than learning in preparation for low pay, low skill employment. Finally, the paper raises questions about the morality of a Government education policy which creates and perpetuates institutional and societal structures and barriers which effectively deny opportunity to so many young people.

This paper provides a critique of the competence based approach to teacher education in the Learning and Skills Sector. This critique is made at a time of consultation of proposed developments to the current standards, which are due for implementation from 2012 and which will involve only minor changes. The existing, Lifelong Learning UK (LLUK) standards were introduced in September 2006 following withdrawal of the old FENTO standards (FENTO, 1999) which had been subject to criticism that they did not meet the needs of trainee teachers and did not adequately reflect the developmental nature of Initial Teacher Education (ITE). The revised standards were intended to reflect this developmental process, and to contribute raising standards and the professionalisationof the sector (DfES/Standards Unit 2004); however, even before their introduction concerns were raised about over-regulation (Lucas, 2004:49). Despite a significant level of investment in the new standards, what eventually emerged has been subject to even greater criticism than the FENTO standards (e.g. see Lucas, 2007; Finlay et al 2007; Gleeson and James, 2007 and Simmons and Thompson 2007). Key features in this criticism have been the narrow concept of learning and skills, and the lack of recognition of both the wider dimensions of professional practice and the importance of knowledge. Contextualised within this literature, this paper argues that the detailed and prescriptive competency based structure of contemporary teacher training in the FE sector, together with wider regulation such as Ofsted and LLUK endorsement requirements, is productive of teachers who are instrumental and conformist but who lack the knowledge to engage with the concerns for social justice which are fundamental to working in the FE sector. In turn, these teachers deliver an instrumental and competency based vocational curriculum which, the paper argues, is complicit with other systems and structures in education in the reproduction of labour and of social class. The paper also draws on literature addressing issues around assessment (Ecclestone, 2010) and professionalism (e.g. Gleeson and James, 2007; Bathmaker, 2006) as well as class based critiques of the FE system which draw on work by, amongst others, Avis, (2007), Atkins (2009) and Colley (2006). The arguments in this paper are also supported by a deconstruction of the current standards. This deconstruction has been used to identify what is and is not supported or promoted by the standards in the context of education and wider notions of professionalism and to problematise them in the context of contemporary literature.

Vocational programmes at the lowest levels have been subject to significant criticism, not least from Government sponsored reports both before and after the last election (eg. Working Group on 14-19 reform, 2004; Wolf 2011). The Coalition government has, in common with earlier administrations, focussed policy initiatives on higher level and higher status vocational education. This paper explores the tension between this reality and the rhetoric of inclusion which forms much of the narrative of education policy. It considers this in the context of the implications of vocational education policy for the most marginalised young people: those with special educational needs and the poorest post- 16 outcomes, who are engaged with vocational education at its lowest levels and who are ambivalently positioned between mainstream education and special educational provision. The paper suggests that whilst some recent policy initiatives, such as the introduction of University Technical Colleges and the proposed Technical Baccalaureatemay be successful in raising the esteem of some types of specialised vocational education, they will also reinforce different degrees of exclusion and in/equalities within vocational education. It concludes that broad vocational courses at lower levels, held in low esteem and conferring little or no educational advantage, are likely to persist in the absence of any proposals for a meaningful alternative. Finally, it calls for concerted action in terms of both research and curriculum development to which could lead to more meaningful education at this level.