AoC has developed a Project Excellence Award in partnership with education charity AQA to showcase some of the excellent project work coming from college students and to promote the educational benefits of project qualifications.
Student projects are a great way to enhance the learning of all students, not just to accredit the skills of those who are already high performing. We think there is a lot more potential for project work across the full range of general and vocational programmes and at all levels, and there are at least ten reasons for offering project qualifications to more students.
Project qualification entries have been rising steadily although they are still only offered to a small proportion of college students, the vast majority at Level 3. This great blog from AQi describes how working on an Extended Project Qualification can support the development of metacognition and improve student achievement across their studies.
For the full educational potential of this approach to be realised, colleges would need dedicated funding over and above the basic study programme. There would also need to be more training for staff to support students with projects.
