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News from the Open College Network - Yorkshire and Humber Region (OCNYHR) 28th May 2009

OCNYHR Chief Executive, John Scott Lawton
j.lawton@ocnyhr.org.uk

Welcome to new members of the Open College Network Yorkshire and the Humber

The following five new members were ratified at the OCNYHR Board meeting on 19^th March 2009. We very much look forward to working with each of them to develop their provision over the coming months.

Learner Voice Event at Digital Media Centre, Barnsley - Tuesday 7th July 2009

OCNYHR Chief Executive, John Lawton, will be speaking at a NIACE Regional Achievement Dialogue Seminar, ‘Learner Voice: What does it mean to you?’.

The half-day, free event takes place at the Digital Media Centre, Barnsley on the morning of Tuesday 7^th July 2009. The target audience includes tutors and managers in Language, Literacy and Numeracy provision and learners are welcome, too, to share their views as to what learner voice initiatives mean to them.

OCNYHR Chief Executive John Lawton said, “The Yorkshire and the Humber region is the only part of the country where the Learning and Skills Council has supported a Regional Learners’ Panel to give learners a formal opportunity to comment on and shape regional policy and provision. For this, the LSC and the learners who have supported the development of the Panel should be congratulated and supported.”

“At a local level, many providers are now finding innovative ways to consult with learners. I’m particularly interested in how these initiatives ‘hear’ the voice of learners who, in the past, have been marginalized or excluded from mainstream consultation arrangements. I’m currently researching how some of these issues play out in the language we use and I am interested in how at the Open College Network Yorkshire and Humber (OCNYHR) we get the learner perspectives into our thinking and planning.”

To find out more about the seminar and to book your free place, please click here to download the application.

Spotlight on OCNYHR Members as part of our News Pages

If you would like your OCN provision to feature on these pages to share what you have achieved, please get in touch with us, we’d love to hear from you.

If you have an innovative project to share, or wish to celebrate the successes of learners you have worked with, please email me directly at: j.lawton@ocnyhr.org.uk

NIACE Seminar on: The Role of Learning in an Economic Recession

OCNYHR Chief Executive, John Lawton and OCNYHR Business Development Manager Clare Wigzell, along with Jill Brunt, the CEO for the National Open College Network (NOCN) were all invited to share their opinions at a NIACE hosted seminar on: ‘The Role of Learning in an economic recession’, with particular emphasis on the Yorkshire and the Humber Region.

The seminar was addressed by Thea Stein from Yorkshire Forward, the Regional Development Agency’s Executive Director for Economic Inclusion; Bill Adams from Yorkshire and the Humber TUC, giving the trades unions’ perspectives; and Philippa Lester, the Regional Learning and Skills Council’s Skills Development Director.

1. To read a short précis of each contributor’s presentation and to follow the question and answer and debate sessions, please click here to download the article.
2. To view data from Yorkshire Forward (Regional Development Agency) related to employment sectors and the impact the recession is likely to have in the short, medium and long terms, please click here to download the article.
3. To find out more about the Learning and Skills Council’s key principle of maximising and expanding the use of existing, effective resources through partnership working, please click here to download the article.

OCNYHR delegates emphasised the opportunities for individuals and companies to learn their way out of recession and for unemployed adults to have wide ranging opportunities to invest in and have open access to both vocational and non-vocational learning opportunities to build their confidence and skills sets.

To read OCNYHR’s specific one-page briefing for this, ‘Learning and the Recession’ seminar, please download it via this link: 'Learning in the Recession - an OCNYHR Response'

For a case study featuring our work on the Skills Passport, please go to:

Partnership Working in South Yorkshire Using the Skills Passport

Learning at Work at OCNYHR as part of Adult Learners’ Week

OCNYHR decided to have a ‘Learning at Work Week’, not just a Learning at Work Day, to help share the hidden talents among our staff.

We hadn’t realised just how much fun other people’s hobbies were. These included:

• Taking images with soft drinks cans and turning them into photographs
• Creating long stitch tapestries in wool – this from our new Chief Executive
• Abs and thighs; and belly dancing
• Jewellery and card making
• Finding out about Learning Styles by making Julies ‘15s’ (cakes!)
• And having a good old sing song with a Karaoke machine for 2 hours – we have a couple of superb singers that we didn’t know about and some that shouldn’t sing but joined in the fun of it
• We even had a member of staff giving guitar lessons.

In addition, OCNYHR Chief Executive, John Lawton, commenced a review into the company’s own Learning and Development Plan, making it an integral element of our new Strategic Planning cycle, to ensure that staff have the right skills set to deliver against our emerging strategic and operational priorities.

OCNYHR would like to thank the Yorkshire and the Humber TUC for their support during Adult Learners’ Week, in particular their support for our Learning at Work activities.

Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS - Third Sector) Credit Framework

This project, funded by the LSC and working with partners across the region, is testing out a credit accumulation model for the voluntary and community sector. This focuses on Leadership and Management, Governance and Volunteering.

Having devised the framework of brand new 1 credit units linked to NOCN qualifications in 2008, the current delivery phase encourages learners to use both ‘classroom’ time and supported distance learning to achieve OCN credits. They can accumulate these to achieve a NOCN qualification.

Various models of learner support are being tested – from Moodle, an online virtual learning environment; to telephone support and tutorials. Partners include Voluntary Action, Sheffield; West Yorkshire and Humber Learning Consortia; and the Assessment Centre for Voluntary Organisations in North Yorkshire. All the new 1 credit units can be accessed from OCNYHR.

For more information, please contact: Guy Farrar, OCNYHR’s Third Sector lead at g.farrar@ocnyhr.org.uk or via telephone on 01924 434600.

Leeds City College

OCNYHR congratulates all those involved in the formation of the new Leeds City College. We welcome the new Principal and CEO, Peter Roberts to Leeds. We look forward to building our existing relationships with colleagues from Park Lane College and Leeds Thomas Danby College; Park Lane was instrumental in establishing the original OCN in West and North Yorkshire and working with Leeds College of Technology will be an exciting new opportunity. The OCNYHR will be helping smooth the transition of OCN work to the new college systems and structures.

OCNYHR welcomes the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) Review Team

During the first week of June, OCNYHR will host the QAA Review Team conducting a formal review, an audit, of our status as an Access Validation Agency (AVA) for the Award of the Access to Higher Education (HE) Diploma. We are all geared up to give a good account of ourselves and would at this stage like to formally thank all the Member Organisations and associated partners who have contributed to the extensive preparations for the Review.

Regional Quality Assurance Review

All Internal Verifiers, External Moderators, Quality Managers and Quality Reviewers are invited to attend the Regional Quality Assurance Review in Wakefield on July 8^th 2009. 

Please see the CPD handbook for more details and a booking form for this free event.

Regional Standardisation of NOCN provision

Colleagues from across the Region have participated in 7 regional standardisation events to ensure rigorous, robust and reliable (the 3 ‘R’s’) consistency in NOCN provision.

Standardisation events ranged from Sector 14, ‘Preparation for Life and Work’ through to a specialist event looking only at non-Access Level Three. Every event was well attended and practitioners shared both concerns and good practice to develop consistency and understanding across levels and curriculum areas. These events will continue as a key element of the OCN CPD calendar.

Foundation Learning Tier

OCNYHR welcomes the important changes to the guidance for the Foundation Learning Tier (FLT) to take effect from August 2009. We believe this offers a more learner-centred approach.  Firstly, the different Progression Pathways have gone and there is now a generic pathway with more personalised content, level and destination, and less prescription around the skills that must be achieved.

For 2009/10 there is the temporary inclusion of provision for engagement, and existing Skills for Life qualifications will be accepted in place of Functional Skills.

All providers can use existing provision for First Steps in 2009/10 but need to migrate to the Qualification and Credit Framework (QCF) by 2011. This does not invalidate any existing FLT provision.

For further information please see the guidance available on the Learning and Skills Council’s website.