Liam Edgeley, Head of Computing at Calderstones School shares his experience of T Levels and how the Education Training Foundation's (ETF) T Level Professional Development (TLPD) offer.

What is your role at Calderstones School?

I’m head of the Computing Department, responsible for overseeing our qualifications in Computer a science and Digital Media

How long have you been involved with T Levels?

We first started seriously looking into them as a post-16 option in 2020. We registered to teach T Level Media, Broadcast and Production in March 2021.

When did Calderstones School start delivering T Levels?

We were initially intending to start delivery in September 2023, but the T Level in Media, Broadcast and production ended up delayed by 12 months so our first cohort started in September 2024. They’re due to complete the course this summer.

How did ETF's TLPD offer support you in preparing and deliving T levels?

The T Level Professional Development offered by ETF has been a huge help in getting to grips with the demands of T Level delivery. We’re a bit of an unusual centre in terms of delivery - we’re an 11-18 school rather than a Sixth-Form college, and we currently offer only a single T Level. That means a lot of the administration of the course necessarily falls on the classroom teachers delivering the course. I don’t think we’d have anywhere near as solid an understanding of, for example, the requirements of the Industrial Placement without ETF’s support.

What elements of ETF's TLPD offer have you engaged with?

Primarily with your online CPD that can be viewed asynchronously. This fits well around the other demands of our roles and means we can up skill at a time that’s convenient for us rather than having to negotiate for time out of school to attend. A specific course. That said, my Vocational Qualification Coordinator has attended several ETF face-to-face networking events and found them invaluable for building connections with other centres delivering our course and sharing best practice.

How did ETF support you in scaling up your T Level offer?

One of the biggest challenges to growing your course is ensuring that you have an appropriate industrial placement for each student. The ETF's program of industry insights has been very helpful in getting us to expand our horizons - not all companies that can offer a Media placement work in the Media sector. Our Relationship and Development Lead, Punam, has been really helpful in linking us with potential leads in this area.

Have you seen T Levels become more popular with students?

Definitely. Our cohort  has more than tripled in size since we started delivery. We’re on course to hit our steady-state number with next year's cohort.

Do you have any strategies that have worked in recruiting more students to enrol onto t levels?

Internally we’ve found it’s really important to start engaging with pupils for whom the T Level course may be a good fit at an early stage. We ensure pupils lower down the school are exposed to the T Level course, and have individual conversations with pupils who might be interested further down the line. We offer a T Level experience day as part of our guidance offer where Year 10 pupils can come into our media room and get some hands-on experience of what following the T level course is like. The feedback from that has been really positive.

What aspects of the industry insights workshops 

The Media, Broadcast and Production T Level - Learning path is an excellent place to start. I'd recommend it to anyone thinking about launching a T Level in this area. My colleagues have also been singing the praises of the "Creative and Design - Careers in Film and High-End TV with Sky Studios, Elstree" workshop. They've shared elements of it with our learners and it's inspired a few of them to look at a career in film in the future.

Have you used any of the TRIP resources?

It's relatively early days for this T-Level so there's not a huge amount of TRIPs resources yet, but we've used the Abingdon & Witney College resources on the Creative Economy. They've proved a useful sanity check on our own resources. I'm sure we'll be drawing on this resource again in the future.

Access the T Level Professional Development offer.