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In honour of colleges starting to receive their provisional 16-18 allocations for 2011/12 funding, this update from Lsect is dedicated to 16-18 funding and performance.

YPLA Explanatory Note for 2011/12 provisional allocations
The YPLA have sent provisional allocations with an explanatory note. This can be downloaded as a PDF by clicking on this link: http://tinyurl.com/6y3ne8h

Spreadsheet to help you make sense of the provisional allocation
Unfortunately the YPLA have done a particularly good job of making it impossible to know if an allocation is going up or down, or even if transitional protection will be applied. In fact, the only number with a pound sign relates to the 2010/11 funding per learner! However, I have produced a spreadsheet which should help you determine what is going up or down, whether transitional protection is being applied and what the 2011/12 cash allocation is likely to be when finalised in March. You can download the spreadsheet and input your own numbers here: http://tinyurl.com/6hlzs2c

Free 16-18 funding reports in Lsect ILR Utility v2.02
A few glitches were identified in version 2.02 (such as it not working if you have no ESOL provision), which have now been ironed out. Visit http://www.lsect.co.uk/ilrutility.asp to download version 2.02

16-18 Funding Summit ~ book your place now
All of this and more will be explained and discussed at the Lsect 16-18 Funding Summit. The full agenda is now online, and there are still places available. If you deliver provision to a lot of full time 16-18 year-olds then this is a Summit you won’t want to miss. Find out more here: http://tinyurl.com/16-18-Programme

And finally…my interval of confidence is far less than 95%
The YPLA have just published their latest guide to the Learner Achievement Tracker, which providers are expected to use as “for 16-18 learners it aims to show the progress of individual learners relative to the average progress made by similar learners nationally for the same qualification and subject, taking prior attainment into account”. Download the document from: http://tinyurl.com/6bz7ea6

Even after writing a whole chapter on the LAT for The hands-on guide to post-16 performance and data (www.dataguide.co.uk) I still get totally lost in the mathematical wizardry that is Value Added (VA).

My favourite paragraph is 4.13: “If the VA score is positive but the confidence interval includes a positive and a negative number, we cannot be certain that the school or college’s VA score for the indicated qualification is significantly positive. If the VA score is negative but the confidence interval includes a positive and negative number, we cannot be certain that the school or college’s VA score for the indicated qualification is significantly negative. In both these cases, we need to exercise caution when interpreting the VA score, and it may not be possible to make a conclusive judgment about performance in the indicated qualification.”

Make sense of that and I’d say it’s time to ask for that pay rise!

Kind regards,

Nick
www.twitter.com/nicklinford