Last week, the National Baccalaureate Trust board gathered at the Edge Foundation offices to push forward with our mission.  We’re due to update our website very soon but already natbacctrust.org provides lots of useful information.  In particular, this is useful background http://www.natbacctrust.org/about-the-nbfe/  Scroll down to read our FAQs and follow some of the links for further information.

At the March meeting we agreed a draft document that sets out the core principles for the National Baccalaureate for England.  The document also provides further details of the key elements of the NBfE with some exemplification in different contexts:

This document will be presented for ratification by all stakeholders at our NBT Convention in June – watch out for details.  Meanwhile, let me know your thoughts or questions.

To bring it alive still further, with thanks to Senior Leader Steve Willshaw, let me share a superb leaflet produced by the Priory Federation of Academies Trust – one of the groups in the first wave pilot of the NBfE.  It looks like this on the front:

Open it up and here you have the whole concept brought to life.  Each provider takes the framework to create their own bespoke Bacc model.

Here we have The Priory Baccalaureate  explained beautifully, with the personal development programme at the centre and a simple example of the final transcript.

Our goal is to support all schools and colleges to offer a Baccalaureate curriculum model like this, leading to an overall completion certificate and transcript.  The accreditation process will be developed in partnership with our pilot institutions; flexibility and diversity are really important to us but it’s not a case of anything goes.  However, we need to make sure that the framework is affordable as well as providing a badge of real quality for each overall programme.

Lots of schools and colleges will be providing a curriculum like this.  In some cases it will be available but not delivered as an entitlement for every student; in other cases it will be partially in place but not with every element.  Does everyone engage in an extended personal project or depth study for example? Does everyone engage in a personal development programme that has multiple elements, truly stretching students and giving them opportunities to develop a wide range of skills and attributes alongside their core academic or technical learning?

If you are interested in joining the next pilot phase let me know – leave a comment.  I will get you signed up on the NBT system as soon as we get the website up and running again in May. The SSAT is providing the back-end support for this and we’ll be in business very soon to take your enquiries and get you signed up.

Update:  I’ve just had the joy of visiting three schools in the Priory Federation in Lincolnshire – Prior Ruskin, Priory Witham and Priory LSST.  I will write more about the visit in due course but here is a tweet with images from my visit.  At these schools, the National Baccalaureate is providing students with a curriculum framework that is motivating them to explore a very wide curriculum beyond their taught subjects; it’s genuinely inspiring.