The Increased Flexibility for 14-16 year olds programme has led to a growth in provision of vocational courses in colleges of further education for this age group.  Lecturers have found themselves facing unfamiliar challenges, not least the dilemma of working in an environment which promotes independent learning and endeavouring to relate this to schoolchildren.  Action research was used to research classroom practice with 14 year olds.
Focus groups and interviews, staff development sessions and review led to qualitative findings which shed light on the issues in relation to teaching 14 year olds in an FE environment, on how to develop strategies for classroom management and on staff development needs.
As the project took shape it also became clear that the provision of customised staff development was an important objective in order to create staff development opportunities based on the needs identified within this project.

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