Northamptonshire Adult Learning Service

Adult Learning Service (ALS) Bulletin 4 March 2016

 

Message from Anne Wilshin – acting Service Manager

Keep in touch meetings

I am holding a ‘Keep in Touch’ afternoon on Tuesday 8^th March 2016 at William Knibb Centre in Kettering. This is for anyone in the service (casual, zero hours or substantive staff) to call or meet with me and share their ideas on improvements that could be made within the service over the next six months.  I can’t promise that what you suggest will definitely be done but I can promise to listen and investigate.

Six half-hour appointment slots are available for anyone to book to have a chat with me.  Please email me if you would like a slot (1pm, 1.30pm, 2pm, 2.30pm, 3pm, 3.30pm) and I will book you in – please let me know if you would like a face-to-face meeting, at William Knibb, or a telephone conversation. Meetings will be completely confidential and SMT are fully behind this initiative. You are very welcome to bring a colleague if you would like to.

Once again, many thanks for all your support, and I hope the term is going well for you.

Anne Wilshin, awilshin@northamptonshire.gov.uk

Queries about increases in fees on some courses in the summer brochure

You will be aware that a number of courses in the new summer brochure are more expensive than previously.  As you would expect some members of the general public are very disappointed about this and have been contacting the service to ask why or to complain.  Please do not get too involved in conversations about this but refer the individual to adulted-customerfeedback@northamptonshire.gov.uk

 

In order to have a consistent approach SMT have agreed the following procedure.

 

• All  queries or complaints will be sent to adult Ed customer feedback and assigned to Maureen Patton to respond.

• If there are a huge number SMT will review if it is fair for Maureen to deal with all of them but in the meantime the attached standard email will be sent as an explanation or used as a basis to explain the changes.  

 

Learning Walks - a new  initiative

Tutors will be aware that as part of   the quality assurance process the Adult Learning Service carries out formal OTLAs  every  other academic year  if the tutor observed   achieves  a grade 2 in the observation of their session.  New tutors receive a PSV (Professional Support Visit) before a formal observation  and if existing  tutors start teaching a completely  new subject  they  are also observed teaching that new subject. Tutors whose sessions are  graded 3 or 4 are observed again within the academic year.  This process seems to work well and has been established now for a number of years. 

 

However  the Senior Management Team (SMT) and the Curriculum Development Group (CDG) have recently  been exploring how other services carry out visits to classes which are not part of this formal process with a view to introducing “learning walksâ€.  These unannounced visits to classes are becoming increasingly popular in schools, colleges and in local authorities and are sometimes called “quality drop ins†or “management walk throughs †but NCCALS  has  decided to go with the term “Learning Walkâ€.   The purpose of these visits is to  complement the established OTLA process and not to replace or replicate it.

 

This service is therefore introducing Learning Walks from 6 March  2016 and will pilot them in the second half of this spring term and into the summer term. The visits will be unannounced and will last from 20 – 60 minutes.  The tutor will get written feedback after the visit  using the template attached.    The Learning Walk will be supportive and it is  not the intention to use  learning walks  to respond to any complaints so please do not think that there is a “hidden agenda†if your class is visited.   However    the visit will have an overarching  theme and it has been agreed that  for the first set of visits the theme will be the use of  initial assessments.  Managers and coordinators will carry out the visits and will be looking for evidence on how initial assessments have been carried out and if they help a learner to understand their own personal learning goal.

 

It is worth noting also that during Ofsted inspections that inspectors carry out a number of learning walks, as opposed to full inspections of  classroom sessions, so it is  hoped  another benefit of this new initiative will be to prepare tutors and teaching assistants for Ofsted.

 

The criteria for visiting a class are deliberately  very broad.  A  Learning Walk may be undertaken for the following reasons but this list is not exhaustive.  The visit can take place in order to:

 

• collect evidence for a particular theme – e.g. embedding English and maths, use of e learning,  IAG, elements of RARPA – including  initial assessment ( theme for Spring/Summer terms)

• check the suitability of the venue and/or  other facilities

• find out more about  how the same  subject is delivered  by different tutors

• support a  tutor who is experiencing  challenging behaviour from learners

• find out how well a partner is working with  a tutor and the  learners

• see examples of good practice

 

Thank you very much for your cooperation in this new initiative.  If you have any feedback or questions please do not hesitate to contact your line manager in the first instance.

 

Message from Michelle Chadbon – Progression Curriculum Coordinator

 

IAG and Progression - Reminders and updates

 

Remember to take a look at the Information, Advice and Guidance sections in Moodle. There is  lots of useful information  for you and your learners.   The link is:  https://nals.org.uk/course/view.php?id=537

 

Remember to talk to your learners about opportunities for careers advice.  In order

to  refer an individual learner, encourage the individual to contact the IAG and Learner Support team on the same email address as tutors can use to book an adviser to visit your learners for a group session.  The email is . communitylearning@northamptonshire.gov.uk

 

Detailed information about IAG opportunities for learners  can be found in the ALS staff handbook on pages 36 – 38

 

Administrative support at the William Knibb Adult Learning Centre in Kettering

 

The Adult Learning Service base at William Knibb now has a land based telephone number.

Extension: 66977

Full number: 01604 366977

 

Please note that externally you have to use the Northampton STD code.  The number also appears on the outlook contact for WilliamKnibbALS.

 

Emily Town will be at William Knibb once a month to put office processes and procedures into place. If you would like to speak to Emily about any of the processes, she will be at William Knibb on the following dates:

 

Monday 7th March 2016

Monday 4th April 2016

Monday 9^th May 2016

 

The bulletin will be updated as more dates are confirmed. Please note: If you require any administrative services such as photocopying or printing, please refer this through to the Support Services Team on al-supportservices@northamptonshire.gov.uk or 01604 367119, instead of referring these directly to Emily.

 

SMT update

This week SMT discussed whole service performance data.  It was noted that, to date, the service has 5,049 learners on community learning courses which is very pleasing because it is a significant increase on last year when there were only 3,988 learners on courses at the end of February.  There are a number of outstanding class profiles which are affecting success and retention rates so if your course has finished please send in your class profile as soon as possible.

Out of hours office support for Tutors and Evening Administrators

Please note that the out of hours office number is 01604 365909. This number enables a tutor to seek assistance if there is a problem at their teaching venue when the JDH administration office base is closed

 

 

Pay claim deadlines for 2015 - 2016 academic year

 

 

If you have any questions about any information in this bulletin please contact cberrevoets@northamptonshire.gov.uk