ASDAN

Ask a teacher what ASDAN changes for a learner and you won’t get an answer about courses and qualifications.

We put that question to three teachers who deliver ASDAN. They were interviewed separately at a moderation day and hadn’t compared notes beforehand.

What came back was learner voice, and how much difference it makes when a young person picks work around something they’re interested in. The friendships that form on a trip and never quite form in a classroom. Pupils who’ll now try something they’d have flatly refused a year ago.

Those things are hard to evidence on paper and easy to see in a young person.

Swipe through for what they said.

Save this if you’re weighing up what ASDAN could look like in your school or centre.

Moving into your first home on your own is a big deal for anyone. Doing it with the budgeting, the bills and the credit know-how already sorted? That’s what Moving On is for 👏

Daisy, our July ASDAN Champion, didn’t just tick off five journals. She used them to get ready for the real thing, right down to researching the support services she might need before she needed them.

In her words: ‘I found them really helpful in preparing me for my move’.

New home, new skills, and every bit of confidence for what comes next. Congratulations Daisy, we’re so proud of you 💛

Ask ten people what they mean by ‘skills’ and you will get ten different answers, which is not ideal.

In our latest Cross-sector Lab podcast episode, John Yarham of The Careers & Enterprise Company makes the case for essential skills: the ones sitting underneath every job, every course and every next step a young person takes.

It is a phrase we use a lot at ASDAN, because our whole curriculum is built around it: communicating, teamworking, decision making, thinking, self-awareness and learning. They sit alongside qualifications, and they are what makes qualifications count.

Worth a listen whether you are planning careers provision for the year ahead or curious about what the evidence says.

Full episode out now. Link in bio.

Independent project work is coming to Key Stage 4. The Higher Project Qualification (HPQ) lands this September.

From September 2026, the HPQ gives Level 2 learners a way to choose a topic, plan their own project, research it and present what they’ve found.

Same engine as the Extended Project Qualification (EPQ), pitched a level down. Learners pick the subject, set the scope, manage the deadline. By the end they’ve evidenced thinking, decision making, self-awareness and communication. Four of our six core skills, in one piece of work.

Swipe through to see how the HPQ works. Link in bio to find out more ahead of the September launch.

What if the problem was never the young people?

That question runs under nearly every conversation we have had on the Cross-sector Lab Podcast this year. We sat down with some of education’s sharpest minds and these are the ideas we cannot stop thinking about.

That the system has barely changed in decades. That opportunity, not talent, is what is shared unevenly. That teaching to the test leaves young people short of what the future asks of them. That every child deserves to see themselves as successful somewhere. And that when you truly listen to young people, their insight will blow your socks off.

All of it is worth sitting with, whether your learners take a traditional route or a different one.

Swipe through the reflections. Save the one you want to come back to.