Dear Friends and Colleagues,
External Verifier Visit from City & Guilds Exam Board- a good report
Family Literacy Language and Numeracy courses, in the Family Learning programme, offer learners the opportunity to achieve externally accredited City and Guilds qualifications in Literacy and Numeracy. In 2010 – 11, 121 learners achieved qualifications ranging from entry level 1 numeracy to Level 2 literacy. These qualifications are of tremendous value to parents and carers who can use them to progress to other courses at College or gain employment. For some of our learners this is the first formal qualification they have ever achieved and as well as inspiring them ensures they become a great role model for their children.
Entry level qualifications are marked and verified internally by Adult Learning staff and then a sample are externally verified by an External Verifier (EV) from City and Guilds, once a year. This external verification process is very thorough but I am pleased to say, following the EV’s visit last week, he confirmed the high quality of our assessments, in his report. He also visited a class and was, therefore, also able to confirm the high quality of teaching and learning on our courses. Thank you very much to our tutors last year who enabled learners to achieve qualifications and thanks also to Stella Houlihan, Anna Bridges and Ben Chapman who worked very hard on the day to ensure that our EV recognised the robustness of all our assessment and administrative procedures.
Progress towards our learner targets for our Skills Funding Agency Contract- steady progress
Every academic year we are set a target number of learners by the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) who provide our funding. Reaching our learning target helps us to secure our funding allocation for the following year. (The academic year runs from 1 August to 31 July) This year, 2011/12, we are working towards a service target of 7,200 learners. Despite the difficult economic climate, which has impacted on fee-paying PCDL courses in the brochure, we are making steady progress, as we approach the end of the autumn term. A snap shot of our current figures is:
The weekly learner figures (25/11/11)
PCDL 2,412
NLDC 137
FLLN 293
WFL 46
Unity 34
NLDC Contacts 317
TOTAL- 3,239
This figure will decrease slightly when the PCDL team make their course cancellation decisions on 12 December 2011, for those courses which start in the first 3 weeks of January, only.
PCDL course enrolments are taken by staff in the NCC call centre at John Dryden House. After some initial teething troubles in coping with the volume of calls for our service, as well as other NCC services, I am pleased to tell you that call waiting times have improved considerably and a much better service is being offered to our learners.
To support our enrolments a good deal of advertising, using a variety of media including texting, email and radio, takes place through out the year. For example, most recently, a small spring term PCDL courses flyer will have come through your letter box, in addition to the autumn term brochure, which also advertises spring courses. In Family Learning and CommUnity Learning programmes, a good deal of advertising is done by our partners.
In addition, many tutors are keen to promote their courses locally. A marketing pack containing a business card, flyer and blank template is available to tutors. If you would like some of these to use in venues or with groups appropriate to your course contact Support Services on 01604 237119 or AL-SupportServices@northamptonshire.gov.uk
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Hate Crime – On- line Training reminder
In a previous bulletin all staff (sessional and substantive) were asked to complete the important short training module on recognising and reporting Hate Crimes and Incidents.
If you have already completed the training, thank you. If you have not completed it, please can I remind you to do so before the end of December 2011.
Some of you may be experiencing difficulties with the link for hate crime training. If so follow the instructions below:
1. Copy and paste the link into the address bar in your internet browser and press enter. www.northamptonshire.gov.uk/traininganddevelopment
2. Your will be directed to the NCC Training Course pages.
3. In the search box type Hate Crime Training press enter.
4. This will then take you to the hate crime training pages. You need to have a NCC email address in order to log on. (If you do not have one you should contact the ICT Department 01604 237666). There are instructions for you to follow so you can self register for this site.
Thank you to Tania, in the Family Learning Team, who provided these revised simple instructions .
Congratulations to Anne Wilshin
I am delighted to inform you that Anne, our CommUnity Learning Team manager, is having a baby . She will take maternity leave for approximately 6 months.
The closing date for applications from Curriculum Coordinators in the CommUnity Learning Team for this fixed term post is today - 2/12/11
- Shortlisting takes place on 5/12/11
- shortlisted candidates will be notified on 6/12/11
- Interviews will take place on 14/12/11
Interested candidates should contact Anne or myself for an informal chat
The interviews for ‘back fill’ hours will be held in January. Further information on the progress of the selection process will be included in future bulletins.
Recruitment to Adult Learning Support Services
The adverts for the vacant administration posts are now in the bulletin and closed on 8th December 2011 at 12 noon. Please note that only NCC employees can apply for these posts and have to follow the recruitment process. Any interested parties need to complete and submit an application form to HR by the closing date. We intend to interview successful candidates w/c 19th December.
After discussion with HR, there has been a slight change to the Support Services Structure in regards to the Administrator 2 posts. The changes have been authorised at Director level and have followed the appropriate HR processes and procedures. Julie Bromwell’s job title is now Senior Administrator. She has taken over the line management of the Administration/Data team and responsibility for their day-to-day tasks. Ben continues to co-ordinate venues but has also been given the responsibility of Exams (amongst other things). This arrangement has informally been in place for some time so this should not affect you unduly.
Equipment Sale
Those of you that have expressed an interest in the equipment we are selling will be contacted in the very near future with a list of equipment, the cost of the equipment and what to do next.
If you have any questions or queries about this bulletin, please contact Alison or Anna.
Have a good weekend
Kind regards
Alison
