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

One college has a particularly strong record of developing its own literacy and numeracy learners to become Skills for Life professionals. The current Skills for Life Section Head is a former numeracy learner who returned to college when her son was starting school. Having left school herself with no qualifications, she worked up to an Access course, left for HE, rejoined the college as an outreach worker and then trained to teach. Several members of her team have taken the same or similar routes.

Most colleges that recruit people without any teaching background start them out in support roles. This might mean new recruits working as a learning assistant or learning facilitator. They develop in post, test their aptitude and interest through their experience and are trained and qualified to take on teaching roles.

One college has been able to develop teachers from a pool of volunteers. Another advertises learning support posts in the courses section of the local paper and recruits people who are looking to retrain. Another third college has developed strong links with local universities offering PGCEs. It has been able to interest graduates who had not considered a career in Skills for Life.

Within successful provision, managers ensure that every member of the team is well briefed and supported. Meetings are not always the best way to do this when everyone is working to a different timetable. An example of an innovative way of keeping staff informed is given below.

Each person joining the Key Skill delivery team receives induction training and a CD entitled ‘Teaching Key Skills’. The CD offers a good practice guide to:

• teaching and learning strategies for key skills
• integrating and embedding key skills
• evaluation of key skill resources
• assignment development
• initial, portfolio and external assessment
• internal verification and moderation arrangements.

• external guidance and support material relating to basic and key skills
• college-based support
• staff development opportunities
• a guide to resources and an assignment bank
• progress-tracking documents.

This reinforces the regular staff development programme for the Key Skills team which has recently included Portfolio Building and Action Planning, Designing Assessment Material, Assessing and Feedback and Test Preparation Training. There are also curriculum-specific training sessions which focus on integration and vocational relevance. A second CD on ‘Teaching Basic Skills’ is in development.

One college has appointed a manager to lead the development of embedded Skills for Life learning. She has held regular training sessions with groups of vocational staff, especially those working in Construction and Hospitality. This has supported Skills for Life and Hospitality staff in looking at the literacy, numeracy and language skills needed for Food Service NVQs. These skills include:

• speaking and listening skills needed for different types of customer interaction, managing the restaurant, effective teamwork etc
• reading and writing skills needed for menu planning and promotion, stock audits, compliance with health and safety requirements etc
• number skills needed for portion control, pricing, cash-taking etc.

They have worked together to redesign lesson plans, teaching strategies and learning resources to enable learners to acquire new language and number skills while working on vocational tasks.

One college uses the following simple form to carry out a language and number skills audit of vocational programmes.

Download language and skills audit programme - PDF (764Kb)

One college has reorganised full-time vocational programmes at Level 1 to deal with the high level of literacy, numeracy and language needs of local young people. The Ladders programme offers an integrated package of vocational skills, language and number development and work placement. This fundamental redesign required joint training of vocational and Skills for Life staff, joint planning and some team teaching. Additional hours were attached to old vocational courses and all vocational staff were trained to use the core curricula to review schemes of work and learning materials. Several vocational lecturers are now completing the Level 3 Skills for Life qualification to support embedded skills development. Most learners sit their national tests at Easter, although some have qualification targets at Entry 3. This leaves the summer term to focus on preparation for Level 2 vocational study. Ladders has both grown significantly and improved learner success as is demonstrated in Table 1. An Entry-level programme allowing learners to sample a range of vocational options is now being developed.

Table 1: Retention and achievement on the Ladders programme

Assessment as part of a relevant context can be effective and very motivating for students

Sport and Leisure learners are assessed through organised fitness activities for groups of children from local primary schools. This is used as an opportunity to develop and assess speaking and listening skills in a relevant and often challenging context.

Fitness measurements are plotted to develop the individual fitness plan.

Learners also supervise the college fitness centre and work with customers to develop individual fitness plans.

The personal health assessments undertaken at the beginning of this process are used to provide evidence of achievements in numeracy.

The retention and achievement rates of a group of NVQ learners did not reach the agreed targets. Some members of minority ethnic groups had particularly low achievement rates. The course team worked with managers and the quality team to decide what could be done to improve learner outcomes. Literacy, numeracy and ESOL development and tutoring were agreed as the areas that needed strengthening. A literacy and numeracy workshop was created in the vocational area and staff received training. The course team was reinforced with literacy, numeracy and ESOL specialists, and as a result, the learning resources and activities used were revised. All the learners were prepared for Skills for Life accreditation. The result was an improvement in learning outcomes for the learners in this group.

Adapting materials thoughtfully can make all the difference for learners with learning difficulties and/or disabilities. This applies both to materials that are produced for learners to understand, and to the facilities that learners have available for expressing themselves, as in the two examples below.

Catering learners who have progressed from discrete provision for learners with learning difficulties run a popular café within the college. There are routine procedures that they must follow to meet food hygiene and customer service requirements. Each procedure has been drawn so that learners have a visual instruction sheet. This is displayed on the wall of the work area. It gives a visual reminder of what learners must do and is accessible to all.

A group of learners with learning difficulties was concerned about an incident they witnessed in the canteen. They wanted to raise their concern with the Principal but several learners did not have the use of written language. The group composed their letter using symbols that they could all understand. The letter was later sent by the Principal to all staff.

Tasks that are realistic and meaningful might also be used with learners who are resistant to or lack confidence in learning, as in this example with ESOL learners.

A group of 16–18-year-old ESOL learners participated in a college Drug Week and listened to talks from community-based drug advice agencies. They studied a range of drug information targeted at young people. They used their research to produce their own bilingual drug leaflets giving advice in English and their community languages for a target audience of young people. The styles and formats used by the learners were particularly attractive and informative.

Achievement does not always need to be evidenced through written assignments, and learners should receive credit for achievement that is demonstrated in other ways.

Vulnerable young people on a programme for people with disrupted or troubled backgrounds made a video with the local Teenage Mental Health Project. The video looked at ways of dealing with difficult personal situations, such as finishing with your boy- or girlfriend or raising the issue of using a condom. The learners were highly motivated to talk about the different ways of handling these situations. They acted out their preferred solution, and the resulting video was used as evidence of their speaking and listening skills.

The virtual learning environment (VLE) used in the college to support key skills development provides each learner with:

• a folder of resources for each key skill
• announcements, including reminders of assignment due dates and key skill exams
• copies of key skill assignments and worksheets
• dedicated areas to support key skill team tasks
• a record of individual progress.

Some of the resources are designed in college and some are imported from dedicated learning sites such as the National Learning Network (NLN) (www.nln.ac.uk), generic sites (www.bbc.co.uk/education) or sites that are particularly relevant to the learner’s vocational area. The NLN, for example, has a report-writing activity at Level 1 that is both simple and engaging. The choice of materials to stimulate learning is huge, and the quality very high. Teachers adapt the materials to make sure that:

• activities match learners’ targets for literacy, numeracy and ESOL
• learning outcomes are clear and explicit
• activities are clearly signposted so the learner can follow through step-by-step
• learning is presented in manageable chunks
• there are frequent checks on learning and progress
• learners receive feedback on their tasks.

The team is aware how easily younger learners in particular communicate through text and chat. The team plans to set up online tutoring and support services. The ICT Champion is a member of the team and she is training colleagues to get the best from the VLE.