2B: What is ‘success’ in teaching, training and learning?

Rachel is a 16-year-old school leaver who enrolled at her local FE college to do an NVQ in Hairdressing at Level 1.

She came to college with two GCSEs in Art and Design Technology. She had had a history of receiving support for English and maths at school, and the college’s initial assessment revealed that she was functioning at Entry 3 in literacy and numeracy. Rachel would need support if she was to complete her NVQ successfully. Rachel took both literacy and vocational assessments to establish the resources that would be needed to support her.

First, Rachel was referred to the basic skills tutors who carried out literacy and numeracy diagnostic assessments. Rachel’s identified weaknesses that were felt to impact the most on her vocational subject were:

• obtaining specific information from detailed reading (Rt/E3.8)
• understanding and using organisational features to locate information – contents, indexes (Rt/E3.5)
• writing in complete sentences with correct punctuation and spelling (Ws/E3.1, Ws/E3.2, Ws/E3.3 and Ww/E3.1)
• measuring and comparing capacity using non-standard and standard units (MSS1/E3.7)
• extracting numerical information from tables and charts (HD1/E3.1).

For the vocational assessment, the hairdressing tutors assessed Rachel’s critical skills for the job, such as telephone skills, taking messages, reading labels and Rachel’s ‘aptitude’ for the job, including her interest in working with people, attitude to working indoors, her liking and interest in fashion and so on. Vocationally, Rachel's main weaknesses were identified as:

• taking telephone calls (G2.2, G2.3, SLlr/L1.1, SLlr/L1.3, SLlr/L1.4, SLlr/L1.5, SLlr/L1.6, SLc/E3.1, SLc/E3.3 and SLc/E3.4)
• writing notes and memos (G2.2)
• reading product labels for specific information (G1.2)
• following written instructions (G1.2).

Following these assessments, the college provided resources as follows.

• Embedded course materials were differentiated for Rachel, together with appropriate teaching strategies and access to specialist in-class support.
• Role-play exercises were devised to teach customer care skills in relation to telephone calls.
• Tutors also arranged for external telephone calls to be made for Rachel to take and ‘book’ appointments.
• Taped messages and copies of appointments books, notepads and memos were used for recording purposes.
• Rachel also had access to taped versions of written instructions to support written tasks.
• Rachel set up and used a database for the names of customers, product information etc.
• A personal card index box was kept in reception for instant product information, customers names for spelling etc.
• Literacy tutors also arranged for Rachel to have additional support within a college group that was doing an English Speaking Board (ESB) qualification.

Rachel achieved the ESB qualification at Level 1 after six months.

Jamie left school with no formal qualifications. He had become interested in construction trades during a school link programme. He had particularly enjoyed the painting and decorating aspect of the course. He enrolled on a Foundation Construction Award for Painting and Decorating, hoping to work towards a full NVQ in the future.

Jamie’s initial assessment showed that he had Entry Level 3 skills in both literacy and numeracy. A diagnostic assessment was then completed to identify his strengths and areas of need. The results of the diagnostic assessment showed a ‘spiky profile’ – Jamie had confidence and strength in many numeracy skills including handling money, addition, subtraction and multiplication and some areas of measuring shape and space.

Jamie’s literacy skills were more uniformly weak, showing a lack of confidence in reading and comprehension and poor writing skills. Jamie’s speaking and listening skills, which are important for painting and decorating, were judged by the literacy teacher and vocational teacher as being generally good.

The provider matched Jamie’s profile to the demands of his chosen course to anticipate areas where he might need additional support. Key areas of concern for the course related to Health and Safety, particularly general Health and Safety requirements, product labels and product use, measurement and area and also portfolio building for Jamie, who was a reluctant writer.

As the result of collaboration between the literacy teacher, the vocational teacher and discussions with Jamie, it was agreed that separate literacy skills provision would not be appropriate, especially as Jamie was very reluctant to be ‘taken out’. He would instead receive embedded support within the group from the vocational teacher and also from a Skills for Life classroom support worker whose role is to support the entire group during theory sessions. This support was recorded in Jamie’s individual learning plan.

Jamie’s progress was reviewed at the end of the induction period. He had been quick to respond to the support he received in the class. He was finding it easy to retain information, although he still needed to work on independent reading and strategies for understanding more difficult texts such as organisational procedures. He would clearly still need support for all units where reading was required, for example: Prepare surfaces (FCA 208) and Apply decorative materials (FCA 209).

Jamie had made little progress on key words for work. The teacher decided that a more precise approach might be more effective, for instance a target of identifying 10 key words that he must be able to read and interpret. This strategy could be used with the whole group, with words flagged up in each session. The whole group benefited from this approach.

Following his review, Jamie continued to receive embedded support. By supporting Jamie’s access to, and use of, a wide range of materials in different formats, teachers helped his confidence in reading to increase. A system of review and target-amending took place for the duration of the course.

In assessment situations, Jamie’s underpinning knowledge was assessed through direct questioning. He would be asked to refer to product labels or to Health and Safety information to ensure that his improving skills could be transferred to a range of settings.