1B:What is 'success' in learner achievement?

One college works in an area with high levels of disadvantage and where school leaver attainment is almost 20 per cent below the national average. Many learners arrive at the college with a history of exam failure, but the Skills for Life teams see this as a spur to ensuring that learners achieve this time around. This provider believes that they have an additional responsibility to qualify these learners. As the senior manager says, ‘We don’t do non-accredited’. Entry competence and initial progress are carefully assessed and then every learner signs a Curriculum Entitlement Agreement that sets out their target qualifications. Each agreement is based on the individual and there is flexibility about the choice of Skills for Life or key skill qualification and the target level. The agreement is also signed by the personal tutor and the relevant Skills for Life teachers. Progress and outcomes are carefully tracked and there is a clear focus on these targets throughout the learning programme. This provider’s success rates are consistently above relevant benchmarks, and there is improvement each year.

A very large college has made significant improvements in the success achieved by all its Skills for Life learners, including a dramatic increase in key skill achievement. Key skills provision is led by a specialist team in each school, who are also responsible for additional learning support and any discrete literacy and numeracy learning. Every single learner portfolio is moderated within the school and a sample moderation is also led by the Cross-College Key Skills Manager. An in-year audit reports on key skill developments within each school and ensures that any issues of concern are quickly addressed. This means that there is a clear and accurate picture of team performance and of the progress of individual learners. As well as providing for a good learning experience, this means that decisions about the target qualifications of learners are well-informed and matched to each individual.

One college has developed an added value system that learners find motivating and easy to grasp. This system calculates a numerical value for the progress made in skill development that is matched to movement through the levels of the core curricula. It also attaches a numerical value to the attitude taken to learning and to the associated learning behaviours, such as attendance. The system manages to combine these hard and soft outcomes in a simple way that helps learners to see their progress holistically. This is reviewed regularly and recorded on their ILPs.

Effective personal learning targets must be clear and relevant to the learner. Many learners find the business of target-setting challenging and need to be supported to develop targets that are meaningful. It may be important to narrow the targets as learners approach their long-term goals, as the following example shows.

Amir is a 17-year-old ESOL learner who started with a broad learning goal to ‘work with children’. As the programme progressed, he agreed targets for understanding the National Qualifications Framework and researching the opportunities for vocational learning. By the time he was approaching the end of the programme, Amir had agreed a specific target to ‘apply for the GNVQ Foundation course in Health and Social Care’ and to ‘prepare for an interview in July.’ These targets require particular writing, speaking and listening skills that were mapped to the ESOL curriculum. The targets and the required skills are clearly logged in Amir’s ILP.

For all learners, achievement is supported by accurate self-assessment. In one college, practice in assessing their classmates is a motivating factor that also helps learners to assess their own progress accurately.

On one course, peer assessment during a spoken presentation requires learners to complete an observer checklist. They report on performance against criteria such as ‘uses too many fillers’ or ‘sums up’. The observer reports are collated to give a group assessment of current performance.

Number and language skills are both critical to success on Craft and other vocational courses.

This is then used to set individual improvement targets. The observer checklist can also be used to support learners working at different levels.

For example, learners working at earlier levels of the Listening curriculum are asked to concentrate on one or two straightforward areas of reporting such as ‘asks questions’ or ‘interrupts others’.

Achievement is likely to rise when learners take greater control of the learning process. One provider has found that learners may be helped to succeed by tools that aid critical and reflective learning.

Each member of a group of ESOL learners keeps a learning diary, which they complete each week and share with their tutors. In the diary, they reflect on recent learning experiences and tasks and explore their own learning preferences, things they need to work on and areas where they need help. The diary is also part of a learning conversation with the tutor that doesn’t always arrive at neat conclusions but can draw out issues that wouldn’t otherwise surface.