From Shared Curriculum to Shared Practice Development

A joint practice development project

Evaluation

By Sally Betts

Ideas4Learning Ltd

15/08/2014

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Contents 1 Executive Summary .......................................................................................................................... 3

2. Project overview ............................................................................................................................... 5

2.1 Background................................................................................................................................. 5

2.2 Reports that had impact on the project .................................................................................. 5

2.3 Project Outcomes and Impact ................................................................................................. 6

2.4 Project team ............................................................................................................................... 6

2.5 Intended Beneficiaries .............................................................................................................. 7

2.6 Project Implementation ............................................................................................................. 7

2.7 Equality and diversity .............................................................................................................. 10

2.8 Ethical Considerations ............................................................................................................ 10

3. Methodology ................................................................................................................................... 11

3.1 Participants ............................................................................................................................... 11

3.2 Baseline and final comparison data ...................................................................................... 11

3.3 Project Evaluation Questions ................................................................................................. 12

4. Findings ........................................................................................................................................... 13

4.1 Reach and Engagement ......................................................................................................... 13

4.2 Quality and Responsiveness ................................................................................................. 15

4.2.1 Key findings - CPD delivered meeting the need of member organisations. ............ 15

4.2.2 Key findings – Professional Learning Network Established on Adult Enterprise

Moodle ......................................................................................................................................... 19

4.2.3 Key findings – Cluster Groups established and providing support ........................... 24

4.2.4 Key findings – A new CPD methodology established ................................................. 28

4.2.5 Key findings: Project dissemination taken place ......................................................... 34

4.3 Sustainability and Wider Applications .................................................................................. 35

5. Discussion ....................................................................................................................................... 38

5.1 Reach and Engagement ......................................................................................................... 38

5.2 Quality and Responsiveness ................................................................................................. 39

5.3 Sustainability and Wider Applications .................................................................................. 41

6. Conclusion and Recommendations ............................................................................................ 42

Appendix A: References ................................................................................................................... 44

Appendix B: Training Needs Analysis Questionnaire ................................................................... 45

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1 Executive Summary

The "From Shared Curriculum to Shared Practice Development" project, commissioned by

the Education and Training Foundation, bought together 19 organisations. These were a

mixture of 15 FE Colleges and 3 Adult and Community Learning providers and 1 social

enterprise, with North Hertfordshire College taking the role as lead partner. The provider

organisations were spread across 6 regions. The project took place between January - July

2014 and focussed on two priority areas:

responding to the needs of disadvantaged learners and

vocational education and training

The organisations, with the exception of 1 Adult and Community Learning provider were

already linked together as members of a network delivering a shared curriculum. The

organisations had access to materials to deliver a L2 and L3 Adult Enterprise course. The

shared curriculum materials were designed to be delivered using a 50% online self-study

approach.

The joint practice development project was used to explore ways in which organisations

successfully delivering Adult Enterprise provision could support the remaining organisations

within the network who were experiencing difficulty in doing so or who had not yet started.

The four organisations selected to mentor were chosen because they were already

demonstrating that they were delivering to disadvantaged learners and or within vocational

education and training.

In order to achieve joint practice development the project implemented a new continual

professional development (CPD) methodology with 5 strands:

Cluster support

Online CPD through social media

Face-to-face meetings/events

Online access to meetings/events

An online Professional Learning Network (PLN) – The Staff Room

These 5 strands were delivered by four organisations acting as mentors and trainers to the

other providers who were organised into cluster groups.

The project set itself some challenging targets, taking into consideration that it would be

working with a wide geographically spread, large network of providers, all with different

cultures and approaches to the delivery of Adult Enterprise. As a result, some of the outputs

were not achieved, reflections by the project team made recommendations to support others

who might be considering a similarly large scale project:

JPD Projects should run in Phases

Allow mentoring organisations to undertake their own Joint Practice Development

where they can learn the skills of JPD and mentoring prior to a second phase

working with cluster groups.

Provide organisations with ‘Opt out’ opportunities

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On large scale projects it can be hard to ensure all providers are fully aware, at the

time of submitting a bid, of the implications of being involved in the project. Offer the

opportunity to ‘opt out’ after a full project and evaluation plan has been written.

Use Service Level Agreements

Use the Evaluation Plan to develop individual Service Level Agreements for

participating organisations to ensure they fully accept their commitment to the

project.

During the implementation of the CPD methodology the project highlighted the challenges of

getting practitioners to communicate in discussion forums. It also demonstrated that social

media tools like Twitter could be used effectively to deliver training and support the sharing

of practice.

The project selected approaches that would promote the use of technologies with

practitioners not only for the delivery of its CPD methodology but also in asking for video

case studies for project dissemination. The team were already aware, at the time of writing

the bid, that there was a lack of social media skills with some practitioners involved in the

delivery of Adult Enterprise. This was supported by the Training Needs Analysis undertaken

at the start of the project. A recommendation of the project is to ensure that practitioners

selected to deliver enterprise courses not only have the skills to do so but also have up-to-

date technology skills; social media and online websites being key to many start-up

businesses success.

During the course of the project two reports were published the FELTAG report and Lord

Young’s Enterprise for All report. These two reports make recommendations to the FE sector

that providers participating within this project had already accomplished or exceeded:

Delivering a curriculum where 50% is delivered online

Delivering Enterprise Units to vocational students

Through its dissemination materials other providers can see how they have achieved this

and can use the video case studies within the development of their own enterprise provision.

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2. Project overview

2.1 Background

In 2011-12, 9 partner organisations developed a new qualification framework and curriculum

materials to help adults to become entrepreneurs. The project was called 'Adult Enterprise'

and was funded through the Association of College's Collaboration and Shared Services

Fund. When it ended in 2012 the original Project Steering Group set up a self-funded, not-

for-profit social enterprise in order for other providers to benefit from the outputs of the

original project. 30 providers paid an annual membership fee to use the shared blended

learning curriculum, hosted and administered centrally.

Despite having access to the same blended learning curriculum it was very noticeable that

there was a marked difference in the extent to which the materials were being used. This

included how they were being used and the levels of engagement and success rates of

learners across the providers.

Member organisations were geographically spread across England, making it difficult to

deliver face-to-face training and network events.

The aim of this project was to implement a new CPD methodology in order to increase the

number of organisations who could make effective use of the shared curriculum materials.

The intention being that it would increase the number of learners participating and achieving

enterprise skills.

Joint practice development has been defined as ‘learning new ways of working through

mutual engagement that opens up and shares practices with others1’. In correlation with this

the project’s aim was to introduce a multifaceted approach to CPD based on lead

organisations acting as mentors to cluster groups of providers. In addition to provide

additional means for organisations to learn from one another by providing online access to

face-to-face training opportunities and an online professional learning network space.

2.2 Reports that had impact on the project

At the time of writing the project bid the Further Education Technology Action Group

(FELTAG) report and the Lord Young review of Enterprise Education were still to be

published.

The research undertaken to inform the FELTAG (Feb 2014) report identified that

imminent digital technology developments will improve all aspects of learning and

education including providing personal support for learning, access to education, flexibility

of provision, efficiency and effectiveness of learning, assessment methods and teacher

innovation. The report also supported the setting of challenging targets of 10% digital

delivery by 2015 and 50% digital delivery by 2017. The Adult Enterprise shared curriculum

model supports providers to achieve this as 50% of the curriculum content is online.

The FELTAG report highlighted the need to develop the whole workforce in developing

their knowledge, skills and understanding of learning technology’s potential. At the time of

writing the bid the team was aware that some staff delivering the project may not have

sufficiently up-to-date technology skills to deliver aspects of the project in particular,

1 Fielding M et al, 2005

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understanding how social media and the development of online websites are key to new

business start-ups.

In his review ‘Enterprise for All – The relevance of Enterprise Education’, Lord Young

recommended that every FE College Level 3 vocational course included a module on

working for yourself and starting a business as a core component. The partner

organisations for the project were selected because of their existing use of the shared

curriculum materials. Highbury College were already using the materials with learners on

vocational courses and during the course of the project would be sharing the idea with

other organisations.

The two reports both published after the start of the project had an impact on the delivery

of the project. It became important that Adult Enterprise Centres were aware of the reports,

understood how the shared curriculum materials could help them to meet targets and

understood the key challenges posed by the reports.

2.3 Project Outcomes and Impact

Short term project outcomes

training needs of member organisations in order to effectively deliver adult enterprise

provision known

Member organisations receiving support through a mentor, cluster groups and across

the network

Medium/Long term project outcomes

A methodology for delivering CPD to a national network of organisations

implemented

Organisations delivering adult enterprise provision to a range of learner groups and

using a variety of models and marketing strategies.

Project impact:

improved learner enrolment and achievement rates by 50%

organisations offering Adult Enterprise provision for the first time or for those already

delivering doing so with more confidence, skills and knowledge, making use of new

approaches, marketing strategies and targeting different learners groups.

Organisations position improved to deliver the recommendations of both Lord Young

and the FELTAG reports.

knowledge and skills learned within this project disseminated across participating

organisations and more widely across the sector (September 2014)

2.4 Project team

The project was designed to be delivered by 5 partnering organisations, each with their own

roles and responsibilities which were set out in individual provider contracts written at the

start of the project.

The project was managed by Adult Enterprise. A dedicated project manager was allocated

time to manage, run meetings and events, provide 1:1 support, set up cluster groupings in

order to facilitate the sharing of practice and to provide support to the cluster group mentors.

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Adult Enterprise also managed and contributed to setting up the Professional Learning

Network and undertook the Training Needs Analysis.

North Hertfordshire College (lead partner and fund holder for the project), Highbury College,

Morley College and London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham Adult Learning Service

were responsible for:

mentoring a cluster group of member organisations

producing video and/or paper-based case studies

delivering specific Adult Enterprise training based around their expertise

contributing to the development a community of practice on the professional learning

network

Each mentor organisation assigned a lead participant to work alongside their peers and

Adult Enterprise in order to deliver the project.

In addition a further 20 Adult Enterprise member organisations were invited to participate in

the project. A full list of participating organisations can be seen in section 4.1 Reach and

Engagement:

2.5 Intended Beneficiaries

The intended beneficiaries, for all providers taking part in the project, fitted into three

categories: organisation, staff and learners. The table below highlights the benefits the

project hoped to deliver for each category.

Beneficiary Why

Organisation To improve the practice in delivering enterprise courses To increase the number of ways enterprise skills are delivered in the organisation To increase learner numbers on enterprise courses To attract new and different learners To improve value for money in being a member of the network To improve progression results of disadvantaged and VET learners

Staff To improve knowledge and confidence in delivering enterprise courses To provide peer support to teaching staff who are frequently the only person delivering courses of this nature within their organisation

Learners To gain employment - self employment To go into further education of training - traineeship, apprenticeship, other courses To improve their confidence To support them in making decisions about their future e.g. Do they want to start a business knowing more about the skills and requirements of doing so?

2.6 Project Implementation

The sector led project aimed to use the skills and expertise of four successful Adult

Enterprise providers (North Hertfordshire College, Highbury College, Morley College,

Hammersmith and Fulham Adult Learning Service) to support and develop the practice of

member organisations who felt they were struggling or who were new to the delivery of

enterprise courses. The outputs for the project were:

1. A methodology developed for delivering CPD to a national network of providers

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2. An established shared interest Professional Learner Network

3. A training needs analysis undertaken to identify skills gaps of teachers delivering the

shared curriculum

4. A CPD programme established for existing and new staff based on the TNA

5. A training event to member organisations

6. A dissemination event to the wider FE sector

7. 10 case studies shared with the wider community

8. Mentor organisations increased from 4 to 10

9. Learner enrolments and achievements increased by 50%

The project started in January 2014 and was completed in July 2014. Project funding of

£60,000 was provided by the Education and Training Foundation.

The project was designed around four lead organisations working with cluster groups of

providers in order to support changes in practice, whilst at the same time continuing to

develop their own practice. Communication between and across clusters was achieved via

an online Professional Learning Network (PLN). Training was offered via social media and

face-to-face events included online access via Skype.

In addition to this, existing support was available direct from Adult Enterprise and IT Support

for the shared materials via Worcester College of Technology.

The diagram below is a visual representation of the approach methodology.

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Adult Enterprise undertook a Training Needs Analysis (TNA) with member organisations in

order to identify common development needs and ones specific to individual organisations.

This information was used to provide a series of training opportunities for member

organisations which were either delivered face-to-face but with online access via Skype or

delivered through the social media tools, Twitter and Skype.

The TNA was also used to identify if organisations would benefit from being in the same

cluster group. This might be because of a common development need or a desire to deliver

Adult Enterprise using a model already being implemented by one of the mentor

organisations. In practice locality and existing informal partnerships also played a part in the

final groupings.

Adult

Enterprise

Highbury

College

Morley College

Hammersmith

and Fulham

Adult Learning

Service

North

Hertfordshire

College

Cluster

organisations

Cluster

organisations

Cluster

organisations

Cluster

organisations

Online Professional

Learning Network -

The Staff Room

CPD and network

meetings and events

with online access.

Twitter CPD

sessions

Video case studies

Dissemination

–Event, Case

Studies.

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During the contracting stage with organisations, Hammersmith and Fulham had to opt out

due to a restructure within the organisation. Adult Enterprise stepped into the role of mentor

for this organisation.

Mentor organisations had the options to provide mentoring face-to-face in cluster groups or

through one-to-one visits, use email, telephone or Skype. Mentor organisations kept a

Support Log detailing all support given to providers within their cluster group.

Three meetings and a launch event were held to provide project information, training,

enterprise news and as a means for practitioners across organisations to develop a

community of practice; sharing delivery models, marketing approaches, success stories and

potential learner groups. The meetings also gave an opportunity to discuss challenges and

to provide peer support or one-to-one targeted training. During the project, online access to

meetings was introduced to support those organisations where location, time or cost

prevented attendance.

Three CPD sessions were held using social media around topics identified in the TNA: social

media, marketing and sharing practice. In order to support the social media training need,

the project delivered training sessions using either Twitter or in the case of the social media

session Skype and Twitter combined. Twitter feeds were recorded and posted on the PLN to

support organisations unable to attend the actual session.

The PLN, named The Staff Room, was used as a means for practitioners across

organisations to communicate with one another. It provided up-to-date project and enterprise

news, examples of practice, CPD and dissemination. Discussion forums were used to

enable communication both within and across cluster groups.

In order to identify impact on access to the shared curriculum materials the PLN Moodle data

was captured. Worcester College of Technology kept Support Logs from individual

organisations identifying learner access requests and IT support requests. This information

was to be used as part of the evaluation.

2.7 Equality and diversity

The organisations participating in the joint practice development project included Further

Education Colleges and Community Learning Providers spread across 6 regions and

delivering to a variety of learner groups. This project included learners of different ages,

ethnic backgrounds, gender, disability and/or learning difficulty and employment status.

2.8 Ethical Considerations

Participants were briefed and understood their feedback would be used as part of the

evaluation.

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3. Methodology

The methods used to evaluate the project were both qualitative and quantitative.

A telephone TNA interview was undertaken with 19 of the 24 organisations at the start of the

project.

A questionnaire was sent to all participating organisations at the end of the project, 11

responded out of the 19 (58%) who were still involved in the project.

Feedback was gathered from member organisations via online access to face-to-face

meetings, and telephone interviews with mentor organisations and the Project Manager.

Mentor and IT Support logs provided were used to gather information about the scale and

type of support being provided.

Moodle data was collected and analysed to provide information about access to the shared

curriculum materials and access and use of the Professional Learning Network.

Case studies were produced by mentor organisations targeted at organisations, practitioners

and potential learners. Information from within the case studies has been used to inform the

evaluation report.

Discussions were held with the project manager throughout the project, providing feedback

on progress and ideas to support moving forward.

The evaluation questions were formulated around the aims of the project in order to examine

whether the project aims and outputs had been met.

The evaluation methodology relied on participating organisations being engaged with the

project and completing baseline and post project questionnaires.

3.1 Participants

Participants in the project included a range of staff, including Vice Principals (3), Managers

(7) and Adult Enterprise Practitioners from 24 learning providers across 6 regions in

England.

In total 48 members of staff accessed the Adult Enterprise virtual learning environment and

68 learners during the timespan of the project.

3.2 Baseline and final comparison data

Baseline data was collected to determine the distance travelled by organisations,

practitioners and learners.

Baseline data collected:

Models used to deliver the shared curriculum

Staff numbers delivering enterprise courses

TNA of organisations

Learners’ enrolments and achievements on enterprise courses

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Data was collected by the project manager and collected directly from the partner

organisations using a simple questionnaire and telephone interviews.

Final project data was collected by creating a questionnaire using Google Forms. It was

chosen because of its flexibility, ease of use for participants, ability to export to a

spreadsheet for analysis.

3.3 Project Evaluation Questions

The following table outlines the evaluation questions and the methodology used to collect

the evidence for evaluation.

Question 1: Has CPD been delivered that met the needs of the member organisations?

1.1 1.2 1.3

A training needs analysis was undertaken with member organisations Training activity was delivered in-line with TNA findings Member organisations attended/evaluated training sessions

Summary of TNA requirements Training Programme and training logs of any 1:1 training activity. Attendance records, practitioner feedback.

Question 2: Has a Professional Learning Network (PLN) been established between organisations?

2.1 2.2 2.3

The PLN exists on the Adult Enterprise Moodle Member organisations are using the PLN Member organisations value the PLN

Screenshots of PLN Analysis of network area usage. Practitioner feedback.

Question 3: Have Cluster Groups of Mentor and Buddies been established as a way to provide support?

3.1 3.2 3.3

Cluster Groups in place Buddied organisations are using their assigned Mentor Buddied organisations are valuing the support they have been given.

Cluster Group Chart Mentor Support Logs Practitioner feedback

Question 4: Has a new CPD methodology been established that enables providers to deliver Adult Enterprise provision effectively?

4.1 4.2 4.3

Organisations confidence/competence in delivering Adult Enterprise Courses increased Organisations offering/planning to offer Adult Enterprise courses increased Organisations adopting new or adapted existing delivery models

Practitioner feedback Baseline and Final data analysis Baseline and Final data

Question 5: Has the project been disseminated?

5.1 10 case studies been produced 1 Dissemination Event held

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4. Findings

The findings obtained from the evaluation data can be structured within the three themes:

Reach and Engagement

Quality and Responsiveness

Sustainability and Wider Applications

4.1 Reach and Engagement

The joint Practice development project involved three beneficiary groups: Providers, Staff

and Learners.

18 provider organisations took part in the project, this included 15 FE colleges and Three

Adult and Community Learning (ACL providers). In addition, Adult Enterprise, a social

enterprise, undertook a project management, training and support role.

25 organisations signed up to take part in the joint practice project 19 FE Colleges, Five ACL

providers and Adult Enterprise. Seven of these organisations (Hackney College, Kent Adult

Education and Key Training, London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham (withdrew due to

restructure), Newcastle Adult Learning Service, Solihull College, Tower Hamlets College and

Worcester College of Technology) were classed as opting out of the project. For some

restructure meant they were unable to continue or they simply didn’t engage with any of the

JPD activities.

One new ACL organisation joined the project, Westminster Adult Education Service.

The maps below show the wide geographic spread of the organisations covering the North

West, West Midlands, Eastern Region, South West, South East and London.

Geographical spread of participating providers

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All 18 providers participating in the project had one or more members of staff who undertook

some training or accessed one or more of the support options being offered within the

project.

During the project time span 48 staff accessed the Adult Enterprise course materials and 68

learners. The table below shows a breakdown by organisation.

Provider Staff Learners

1. Accrington and Rossendale College 2 8

2. Central Bedfordshire College 2 7

3. City of Bath College 7 6

4. Essex Adult and Community Learning 3 0

5. Furness College 1 0

6. Highbury College 1 10

7. London Borough of Barking and Dagenham 1 1

8. Morley College 4 20

9. North Hertfordshire College 5 10

10. Somerset College 3 0

11. South Essex College 1 0

12. Sparsholt College 1 0

13. Stanmore College 2 0

14. Swindon College 2 0

15. Totton College 2 6

16. Uxbridge College 2 0

17. Warwickshire College 2 0

18. Westminster Adult Education Service 7 0

The 48 staff accessing the Adult Enterprise virtual learning environment included 3 Vice

Principals, 7 Managers and 38 Teachers and others in supporting roles.

The project aimed to hit a target of 500 learners, this was estimated on each of the original

24 organisations fully participating and running at least one Adult Enterprise workshop, unit

or course.

The Lead Providers were the main deliverers of Adult Enterprise to learners and they

supplied the following learner data:

Provider Learner numbers

Age range

Gender Female/

Male

Ethnicity Outcome Retention/

Achievement/ Progression

Other Learner Information

Highbury College

10 16-54 3/7 9 White British 1 British Asian

Level 3 Retention 10 Achievement 10 6 set up in business 2 enrolling in full time courses 2 taken up full time employment.

4 Unemployed 2 Vocational students 4 Unknown 3 Dyslexic learners

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North Herfordshire College

10 18-24 (2) 24-39 (1) 40+ (7)

8/2 1 American 2 South African 1 Eastern European 4 unknown

Level 2 Retention 9 Achievement 9 (full 5, partial 4) 1 Business started 2 Pending Start 3 gained employment 1 returned to education

All unemployed or returners 1 registered disabled 1 long term sick 1 Dyslexic learner 1 Alcohol and drugs misuse issues

Morley College

20 24-52 17/3 1 Black African 2 Black British African 1 mixed/multiple ethnic background 1 mixed other 2 white – any other white background 1 mixed white and Asian 2 white British 1 any other black background 2 mixed white and African 7 unknown

Level 2 Retention 8 Achievement 8

14 unemployed and looking for work 1 employed 16-19 hours 5 unknown

The combined data for the three lead organisations highlights that Adult Enterprise courses

with a 50% delivery online attracts:

a high proportion of female learners - 70%

Adults across the working age 16-65 years old

People from a wide range of ethnic backgrounds

A very high proportion of unemployed learners - 90% (of those supplying the

information)

Highbury College noted that they were attracting a high proportion of dyslexic learners (30%)

to the course, in a previous course the percentage had been even higher 43%.

4.2 Quality and Responsiveness

4.2.1 Key findings - CPD delivered meeting the need of member organisations.

A Training Needs Analysis was undertaken via telephone interview by the project team with

19 of the member organisations. A brief summary of the TNA findings is given below:

Practitioners thought the shared curriculum materials were good (some updating needed),

easy to use and they were confident in their ability to teach the content. Nine of the centres

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questioned had not yet started running courses and so recognised that they may have

training needs at the point of delivery.

The key areas identified for development were:

• Marketing

• Stakeholder Engagement

• Understanding Funding and being made aware of funding opportunities

• Assessment

• Level 3 curriculum delivery models

• Social media skills

Learning from peers’ experiences

A training programme was devised to meet the needs of the organisations. The sessions

delivered are outlined below:

Date Activity Method Number of attendees

17th January

Stakeholder Engagement Funding opportunities Additional Training Needs Peer Sharing

Face-to-Face Meeting Swindon College Handout Circulated (18th Feb): All you ever wanted to know about Growth Vouchers

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4th April Research findings from the JPD Training Needs Analysis Regional support network/cluster groups Marketing Adult Enterprise courses – Tips from Good Practice Centres Preparing to deliver Level 3. Enterprise Educators UK membership offer. SFA funding changes to L2 First Steps to Enterprise.

Face-to-Face Meeting with Skype Access Morley College

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7th May Marketing Introduction to social media

Twitter Chat led by Adult Enterprise Adult Enterprise Moodle

7

4th June Supporting students after Adult Enterprise

Twitter Chat led by Highbury College

5th June Using Twitter CPD Twitter and Skype 3

13th June Delivering the Level 3 Curriculum Supporting students after the course.

Face-to-Face meeting with Skype online attendees

11 (3 online)

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Sharing Practice – Case Studies National Enterprise Educator Awards News: Outcome of the OCNLR appeal.

18th June Impact of Adult Enterprise Twitter Chat led by Morley College

2nd July How AE helped make students more employable

Twitter Chat led by NHC

12 participants responded to the end of project training evaluation questions.

One third of the respondents said that they had not undertaken any training during the

project. The most popular forms of training were meetings that were held face-to-face with

online access via Skype and the Twitter training sessions. The other training were given as

project briefings and telephone support.

Twitter Analytics of the use of @AdultEnterprise shows the rise in the number of Tweets

during the course of this project.

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Training delivered by Twitter was shared via the Professional Learning Network for others to

access.

PDF documents of the Twitter chats

were available for download.

An unexpected outcome of delivering

the training on Twitter was that other

people could join the sessions and

provide input. Levi, a previous

student on the courses, expressed an

interest in joining future sessions.

In response to the question:

Do you have training needs

that have yet to be met? All but one organisation responded that they did not have any

further training needs.

The following practitioners’ feedback comments show what had been learnt from the

training:

“Best practice shared from peer colleges”

“Advice on funding routes for Adult Enterprise”

“Understanding of the product”

“What others were doing re: Recruitment, Materials, Success rates”

“Reach of the qualification & potential target markets & the IV process”

“Where everyone is re delivery”

“Increase use of social media, other centre shared knowledge”

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4.2.2 Key findings – Professional Learning Network Established on Adult Enterprise

Moodle

'The staff room' was created on the

Adult Enterprise Moodle. The original

plan was to use social media tools but

the project team made the decision to

use a course area within the Adult

Enterprise VLE. They took this approach

because all participants had access to

the VLE; this is where the shared

curriculum materials are hosted.

The staff room demonstrates the number of ways in which it was designed to be used:

Share project, national and international enterprise news

Share practice and ideas

Disseminate case studies

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Promote discussion through forums

Provide support through Cluster Groups

Offer CPD opportunities (showcasing the learning materials)

The Staff Room was used by 18 participants from 11 different providers. 61% of providers

accessed the PLN. However, only 38% of the staff who’d accessed the Adult Enterprise

materials (48 in total) accessed The PLN.

The following chart shows Staff Room activity by both Teachers (Project Manager and

Cluster Mentors) and Students (participating organisations).

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The following table shows a breakdown of what participants were accessing within the

Professional Learning Network:

Activity Views Threads Posts

News Forum 208 32 33

The FELTAG Report 3

Twitter Chat Transcript May 7th 9

Twitter Chat Transcript June 5th 6

Cluster Group 1 Forum - South and West - Highbury College Lead

23 0 0

Cluster Group 2 Forum - North and Midlands - North Hertfordshire College Lead

71 5 7

Cluster Group 3 - South East - Morley College Lead

24 1 1

Cluster Group 4 - London - Hammersmith and Fulham Adult Learning Services

14 0 0

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Managing and marketing Adult Enterprise

79 7 11

Morley College Enterprise Courses

8

Level 2 First Steps to Enterprise forum

14

Concept and planning forum 16 3 3

Products and Services forum 2 4 5

Sales and Marketing glossary 9 1 entry

Technologies forum 2 0 0

Social Enterprise forum 2 0 0

Finance and Responsibilities forum

2 0 0

Human Resource Management forum

9 3 3

Business Development forum 15 2 2

The figures in the table above shows participants were looking at the materials but were not

engaging in the discussions and sharing of practice that was being encouraged on the site

through a wide variety of topics.

11 Participants answered questions in Evaluation Survey about the Professional

Development Network. The following chart asks them to identify which elements of the PLN

they accessed.

Two of the participants who stated that they hadn’t used The Staff Room did appear on

Moodle usage data, the project team believes that they had not identified that the PLN had

been given the name The Staff Room.

Two participants who hadn’t accessed The Staff Room indicated that they had made use of

the sharing practice, news and case studies. As all forum posts are sent out on a daily basis

in full, it is likely that they were able to read and follow links in posts without accessing the

PLN itself. This could be true of other organisations who were not accessing the PLN and

did not complete the end of project evaluation.

Two members from London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham who had to opt out of the

project because of a restructure, accessed The Staff Room during the course of the project.

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When asked on a scale of 1(low) – 5 (high) how important is it to have a place where Adult

Enterprise teachers can share practice, ideas and ask questions

they responded as follows:

3 – 45%

4 – 18%

5 – 36%

Participants were asked to explain either the benefits they found in using The Staff Room or

to provide a reason as to why they hadn’t used it. The feedback suggests that the benefits fit

into two areas, sharing practice and as a storage place for topic related information.

Reasons for not using the PLN were regarding time issues and not seeing a need because

their delivery of Adult Enterprise hadn’t started.

Benefits of The Staff Room Reasons for not making use of The Staff Room

“good place to share resources and ask for contributions around a specific topic, programme and indeed possibly awarding organisation.” “encourages ideas generation and continuous improvement.” “fosters sense of community to bounce ideas around off line.” “as long as all participate great way to share best practice” “single storage to secure ideas” “It quickly becomes habitual. If someone recommends a video to watch via email often you don't get the time to look at it and often you then lose what could be a vital resource. Having everything in the same place makes it easier.” “I have used the Staff Room extensively to disseminate information to Adult Enterprise Coordinators and their staff. It has a real value in sharing expertise, news, information and good practice. It has however been difficult to encourage people to use it, even though it has been one of the elements of the Adult Enterprise package that members would like to retain in the new business model for the programme.” Project Manager

“Too busy - lack of time and with Adult Enterprise coming to an end - Uxbridge College doing its own pilot delivery” “We haven't yet started using the AE resources.” “Time constraints precluded me using the Staff Room”

An unexpected outcome of The Staff Room was that it demonstrated the effective use of

social media with RSS and Twitter feeds. This was a training need highlighted in the TNA

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findings. This was noted by one of the practitioners in her training evaluation as the key thing

she’d learned, “best practice on Moodle”.

4.2.3 Key findings – Cluster Groups established and providing support

One of the key challenges the project wanted to address was to provide support to a wide

spread of organisations. The use of cluster groups was designed to provide 1:1 support and

local small group support or to link organisations who were considering adopting the same

model.

The organisations were grouped as follows at the beginning of the project. Due to a

restructure London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham had to withdraw.

Group Mentor Organisation Mentoring the following member organisations

1 Highbury College Totton College, Sparsholt College, Somerset College, Swindon College, Bath College

2 North Hertfordshire College Warwickshire College, Solihull College, Worcester College, Furness College, Accrington and Rossingdale, Newcastle ACL

3 Morley College South Essex College, Essex ACL, Central Bedforshire College, Uxbridge College

4 London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham

Tower Hamlets College, Hackney College, Stanmore College, Barking and Dagenham ACL

Original Cluster Group pairings

Group Mentor Organisation Mentoring the following member organisations

1 Highbury College Totton College, Sparsholt College, Somerset College, Swindon College, Bath College

2 North Hertfordshire College

Warwickshire College, Furness College, Accrington and Rossingdale

3 Morley College South Essex College, Essex ACL, Central Bedfordshire College, Uxbridge College

4 Adult Enterprise Stanmore College, Barking and Dagenham ACL, Westminster Adult Education Service.

Revised Cluster Group pairings

Adult Enterprise took on the mentor role for the London Borough of Hammersmith and

Fulham.

In the evaluation survey only one of the 7 organisations, who in project terms were classed

as a ‘buddied’ organisation, recognised that status. Three organisations classed themselves

as “An organisation independently running/planning to run Enterprise courses without the aid

of a mentor” and two organisations didn’t answer the question.

Evaluation feedback from the one ‘buddied’ organisation that recognised its status:

Question Answer

What sort of support did you require in order to deliver the Adult Enterprise Curriculum?

Marketing advice

On a scale of 1(low) – 5 (high) To what extent have you made use of your mentor?

3

Please describe either (1) what the impact has been of having a mentor for you/your

None as yet we haven’t started delivering the product yet.

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provision or (2) explain why you didn't take advantage of the support offer.

To what extent have you made use of peer support from your cluster group?

3

Please describe the benefits and challenges you have found from being part of a cluster group?

I have no issues being part of a cluster

Each Mentor organisation kept a Support Log detailing support requests from their buddied

organisations. The support logs show that Adult Enterprise also provided some support to

organisations who had been assigned a different mentor.

The organisations’ support logs show repeated attempts to make contact with the named

person within each organisation. Attempts were made initially by email and then followed up

with telephone calls and further emails. Establishing links between mentor and buddied

organisation proved extremely difficult and were most successful where there was some

face-to-face contact at meetings or through previous informal networks.

Mentors found it frustrating that they could not make contact:

“Some just failed to communicate which can be disappointing, after several attempts via email and

phone I put my energies into supporting those who were communicating.”

Adult Enterprise who had the most contact with buddied organisations felt that one of the

challenges was that the AE curriculum is placed within different parts of colleges, often

operating in a silo and often not a strategic priority for the college.

The tables below provide evaluation feedback from Mentor organisations, from both the

online questionnaire and telephone interviews:

North Hertfordshire College

Question Answer

How many organisations did you provide support to?

1 (Warwickshire College)

How was the support given? Email

What types of support was requested? Delivery methods

What impact have you seen on the organisations you mentored?

“limited as still in initial in email discussion around funding arrangements around vocational offers”

What methods did you use to engage your cluster group? Which was the most successful in your opinion?

The PLN, the Staff Room

Please describe the benefits and challenges of working with multiple organisations?

Benefits – shared knowledge Challenges - difficult to get those with different agendas engaged

Have you made use of peer support from the other Mentor organisations?

Yes my Mentor has been Coralesce via twitter and the staff room. Curriculum Development Manager has been excellent source to bounce ideas with and suggest alternative links & networks

What top tips would you give to others planning a mentoring project?

be clear about your target market(s) use social media to market

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be enterprising and be prepared to be responsive too! ensure that the delivery team are working with their audience

What would you do differently if you were involved in a similar project in the future?

Smaller number of centres to participate in the project which may impact on the outcome over the timescale

Highbury College

Question Answer

How many organisations did you provide support to?

3 (Sparsholt, Bath and Totton)

How was the support given? Telephone, email and face to face and the staff room

What types of support was requested? Mainly talking through delivery methods and advice on marketing. Feedback on delivering the level 3

What impact have you seen on the organisations you mentored?

Hard to measure. Chris at Totton is going to be made redundant, he was Head of Programme. Clare at Sparsholt is still yet to run a programme, although they are keen to promote and have produced some leaflets marketing the offering. I met face to face with the Assistant Principal at Bath not the name contact (Geraldine). They are keen to start using it as they have a big group of students running all different types of small businesses, focusing on fashion, and jewellery. I have no luck making contact with Somerset and Swindon College although I have made many attempts.

What methods did you use to engage your cluster group? Which was the most successful in your opinion?

The Staff room

Please describe the benefits and challenges of working with multiple organisations?

Benefits: having someone to talk to who is struggling with same issues. Listening to how they have targeted their market differently. How they have set up different partnership relationships in specific sectors. Challenges: Some just failed to communicate which can be disappointing, after several attempts via email and phone I put my energies into supporting those who were communicating. I have to say some of the main contacts have had Adult Enterprise programme bolted on to their day jobs, and this programme isn’t their main area of responsibility. So the urgency sat with me.

Have you made use of peer support from the other Mentor organisations?

Yes the support I have received from North Herts has been invaluable. We are both Gazelle colleges but hadn’t met until working on this project.

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What top tips would you give to others planning a mentoring project?

It takes time, and results and impact can be felt in the future and not just straight away.

What would you do differently if you were involved in a similar project in the future?

Meet with each college in the cluster individually and do the TNA, rather than a third party . You then able to establish a rapport very early in the project.

Morley College

Question Answer

How many organisations did you provide support to?

None

Adult Enterprise

Question Answer

How many organisations did you provide support to?

7 (Barking and Dagenham, Furness, Warwickshire, Essex ACL, Somerset, Sparsholt, Stanmore College)

How was the support given? Most of my engagements with coordinators were on a face-to-face basis, two were by telephone.

What types of support was requested? Advice on DWP and SFA funding and also initiatives available to support businesses access the programmes, such as Growth Vouchers and Growth Accelerator. A number of centres were keen to find out more about how they could reach specific target audiences; this advice was given face-to-face, by sharing power point slides and information sheets and via Twitter Chat. One or two providers wanted advice on what the Level 3 Curriculum delivery model might look like. One Centre new to the programme as a result of seeing the support on offer through JPD asked for a training session for staff on the use of the shared curriculum content.

What impact have you seen on the organisations you mentored?

Whilst centres have been very appreciative of the support and information provided, it is difficult to see whether it has made an impact. One of the difficulties the project has encountered is that the AE curriculum is placed within different parts of Colleges, often operating in a silo, often not a strategic priority for the college and finding it difficult to access support. The feedback received from centres was positive, whether they received face to face or telephone support. Generally they found support on funding, marketing and general information and ideas on support for students very useful.

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What methods did you use to engage your cluster group? Which was the most successful in your opinion?

The Staff Room

Please describe the benefits and challenges of working with multiple organisations?

Benefits: It has been beneficial for me to share my experiences with other organisations but also to share information I have gained from the AE centres themselves and how they have utilised the AE curriculum. Challenges: The challenges have been the lack of engagement by the centres and the difficulties they face in terms of the strategic importance placed on adult enterprise by their organisation.

Have you made use of peer support from the other Mentor organisations?

No

What top tips would you give to others planning a mentoring project?

Restrict the project to a smaller number of organisations or preferably run the project with a single organisation looking to share practice across the organisation. It has been very difficult to engage 24 centres across England.

What would you do differently if you were involved in a similar project in the future?

See top tips above.

4.2.4 Key findings – A new CPD methodology established

The project introduced five strategies for delivering CPD across a national network of

providers. These five approaches formed their new CPD methodology:

Cluster support

Online CPD through social media

Online access to network meetings

Face-to-face meetings/events

An online Professional Learning Network (PLN) – The Staff Room

In order to measure whether or not introducing the new CPD methodology had worked the

following six areas were examined:

a) Evidence of shared practice across organisations

b) Participants’ confidence/competence in delivering Adult Enterprise Courses

increased

c) Participants’ attitude to delivering Adult Enterprise had changed

d) Organisations offering/planning to offer Adult Enterprise courses increased

e) Organisations had adopted/ were planning to adopt new or adapted delivery

models

f) Organisations marketing/planning to market using different approaches.

a. Evidence of shared practice across organisations

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There were many examples of organisations sharing and discussing practice during

meetings and Twitter chats. Below are a few examples of sharing of practice taken from the

extracts from the meeting minutes:

“Students are provided with a professional working environment for the duration of their time at NHC.

Taught sessions are held within the classroom areas while independent study takes place in the

WinWeb™ Hub – a custom-made area within the college for small businesses to hire for work or

meetings (free to NHC students). Students are offered the opportunity to use the Hub once their

course of study is completed (again free of charge). They also have access to various business

related phone apps, meeting rooms and business workshops.” NHC shared their model of delivering

a level 2 course over 6 weeks. (April)

“Julia Hoskins of Swindon College shared a presentation that she has developed to promote the Adult

Enterprise courses internally to the various departments at her college in order to help the different

sections of the college understand how to use the programme. Swindon College is a large vocational

college (e.g. make-up, plumbing, motor vehicle, construction) and many of their students will

potentially go on to start their own business. There are also opportunities for the college to deliver the

courses at full cost. As part of her presentation, Julia arranged guest access to the Moodle for staff so

they could experience the units for themselves. “If I can sell it to tutors across the College, they can

sell it to their learners and they can look for full cost opportunities.”” (April)

“Central Bedfordshire College is just about to start offering their first AE course and are currently

recruiting students. Over the past year the College has been promoting an Enterprise culture very

strongly and have identified lecturers currently working for the college who have run their own

businesses and might be interested teaching on AE.” (January)

“At Furness College there has been very little activity. They may have to look at bringing in outside

deliverers. They are currently identifying champions in the college.” (January)

“I let some my student teach the classes I ran, so Adam the student who has a successful web design business delivered a sessions in- creating an online business and social media for business, Alan an accountant delivered Financing for a new Business – they have great skills they need to be shared!” (June)

Here is an example of a discussion in one of the four Twitter Chats:

Any more ideas for local partners? What local organisations have you joined up with? #aechat @BathCollege worked wit @curo housing assoc successfully. Even got a venue #aechat @AdultEnterprise Talk to your local JSP. They are working with Federation of Market traders to get new businesses off the ground. I know of centres who have linked up with women entrepreneur's networks. #aechat @N_HertsCollege have worked with local town centre landlords. #aechat @AdultEnterprise work with evening courses to turn passion to profit #aechat

The partner organisations were asked where possible to keep progression information about their learners and for some this enabled them to share some unexpected outcomes of delivering Adult Enterprise courses:

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“Clare – A fine artist has commissioned Highbury construction students to build an Art Studio at a new home.” “Adam Greenough – web designer has been commissioned to build 6 websites for student businesses”

“Thank you for facilitating and leading such a life changing creative course. If anybody had said nine months ago that by July14 we would have created a business whereby we would have purchased properties to the value of a quarter of a million pounds and installed disadvantaged tenants and would be achieving a turnover of £20k p. a we would not have thought it credible. But we persevered. What with your drive encouragement energy and enthusiasm and putting theory from the modules into practice we have learned a great deal. Much of the learning has been at both the conscious and unconscious levels ,and in addition to the wonderful structured learning experiences - e learning, taught classes ,discussions, presentations tutorials-much has been accidental learning during work at our enterprise. Highbury Learners.” Peter and Victoria Jobson Collingwood Care services” “Collingwood Care Service, students Victoria and Peter Jobson have set up in partnership with Highbury College. They will be based at Highbury Campus from September. They will employ apprentices who will train at the College, will provide work placements and work experience for Highbury students. Collingwood Care is part of Highbury’s Employer’s Advisory Board.”

The following are extracts from the Evaluation which provide some examples of the impact

of sharing practice had:

“As a project manager and teacher I am often asked to take part in projects. This project was different from the start because Highbury was already delivering the L2 & L3 Programme. The College was already achieving excellent results, we felt brave and excited to have been asked to take part. I felt we could contribute early on in the development stage, particularly as many of the Colleges and Training Providers hadn’t started yet. I know from the responses we received at the coordinator meetings sharing our challenges, successes and videos resonated with the group. On a personal level this positive support was very much appreciated at the time and peer support is incredibility uplifting. During my professional career I have always collaborated in business and now on educational projects, the synergy created working along like-minded passionate people was almost tangible. Often at our coordinator meetings I felt colleagues didn’t want to leave continuing to talk share and support each other. This has been a very positive experience for me, I am sorry it’s coming to an end.” “Prior to the project I hadn’t used twitter, the project got me started I am still at the infant stage but it was fun learning alongside great people, so this project got me going.” “North Herts College for me has always strived to be an enterprising college, their ideas, processes and can do attitude is fragrant and infectious. We are working the similar projects beyond Adult Enterprise Programme. Working on this project has enhanced our working relationship having adult enterprise”

b. Participants’ confidence/competence in delivering Adult Enterprise Courses increased

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The evaluation questionnaire asked participants to measure changes in skills/knowledge and

in confidence. The responses are shown below:

The majority (64%) of the respondents considered that their skills and knowledge had

developed. On analysis of the No and Other responses, three classed themselves a No but

one made the additional comment, “but the meeting gave me some good ideas.” And the

final person considered they were not involved enough in the project.

On the question of confidence 45% of the participants considered their confidence in

delivery had improved, 27% did not feel any different and analysis of entries under

‘Other’ gave reasons such as not in a delivery role or not yet delivered any Adult

Enterprise provision.

c. Participants’ attitude to delivering Adult Enterprise had changed?

36% thought their attitude had changed.

“yes in that need to be ahead of the curve in that anticipating what the clients will want - some

modules not appropriate for certain groups working with incubation hubs has proved useful

around local data.”

“be proactive and respond to demands - keep an eye on the market place which requires

energy!

understand more of what is needed for start-ups.”

“I have a lot of ideas, but not able to start working on them yet.”

“Yes slightly - was useful to see what other colleges have learnt.”

27% didn’t think their attitude had changed

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“Not really; we already had a philosophy and approach to managing enterprise courses and

projects.”

“No not really, I am running a number of projects so this is what I do on a day to day basis.

The Adult Enterprise is an excellent business tool so it is easy to promote. We have had great

success with both the L2 & L3 programmes.”

“No we are looking at different delivery models to attract full cost.”

“As an employee of Adult Enterprise, I believe that there are lessons to be learnt from the shared curriculum model. Whilst effective in providing content, it has become clear that the organisations really need to own the content, update it regularly and use their own systems for hosting. Generally the coordinators I have spoken to feel it is an excellent curriculum resource, but is not widely shared in their organisations, although they recognise that it could be used for a range of learner groups.” Project Manager.”

Unexpected outcome: One organisation, Westminster Adult Education Service’s (WAES)

attitude to the delivery of the shared curriculum resources had changed. WAES had been a

member in 2011/12 but had not renewed its membership in either 2012/13 or 2013/14, by

accident they received an email inviting them to the 4th April event and a member of staff

attended. The member of staff who attended had not previously been involved with Adult

Enterprise but on seeing the materials and hearing the Mentor organisations talk about their

delivery models went back and re-engaged her organisation. They have now trained seven

members of staff and are planning delivery in the new academic year.

d. Organisations offering/planning to offer Adult Enterprise courses increased

e. Organisations had adopted/ were planning to adopt new or adapted delivery models

f. Organisations marketing/planning to market using different approaches.

These were measured by analysing Moodle data, participant input at meetings and the final

evaluation survey. Data was taken from differences between September - December 2013

and January-July 2014. The decision was made to do this as some organisations had run

courses in previous years but changes in staff meant that there had been gaps where there

had been no delivery and the organisation was for all purposes relaunching.

Prior to the project seven organisations were actively delivering the Adult Enterprise Shared

Curriculum by the end of the project 11 organisations were delivering or planning to deliver

in the new academic year.

Organisations showed that they were considering different models, especially as delivery

options increased with the news that they would be able to host, adapt and deliver the

materials as they wanted to:

“Yes want to market to different groups especially women returners. We plan to have the

programmes uploaded to ihighury and it will become a fully on line programme.”

“Yes a new delivery model is being adopted for September 2014.”

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“Yes - Uxbridge College delivering 4 units in the Autumn - no logs or accreditation.”

New approaches to marketing were also being used or planned:

“Yes want to market to different groups especially women returners.”

“Will be using twitter more frequently!”

“Marketing to businesses offering units as master classes and possibly full cost.”

The following table shows you the breakdown in data per organisation:

Provider Courses Pre/post

New Models

Marketing

1. Accrington and Rossendale College

Yes/Delivered Planning Desired link JCP

2. Central Bedfordshire College None/Delivered Delivering L2 Full cost

3. City of Bath College None/Delivered Housing residents association

Delivering to Housing Association residents.

4. Essex Adult and Community Learning

None/None None None

5. Furness College None/unknown Considered Apprentices

6. Highbury College L2&L3/L2&L3 Full Cost Fully Online on iHighbury.

Yes want to market to different groups especially women returners.

7. London Borough of Barking and Dagenham

None/Planning Reed Family

Planning

8. Morley College L2&L3/L2&L3 More unaccredited L3 & full cost Implemented less hours per week. Host internally on own Moodle and grow provision.

9. North Hertfordshire College L2/L2&L3 for returners market a longer thinner approach covering some units whilst on Getting a Job course. Assessing law, social media & finance as full cost courses. Enterprising Mums referrals

Will be using twitter more frequently! NHC are hoping to work with a local enterprise network with the Ice House programme to promote AE

10. Somerset College None/unknown Considered across college

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4.2.5 Key findings: Project dissemination taken place

At the time of writing this report five case studies had been produced and another 5 were in

production/planned. The project had hoped that the mentor organisations would create the

first five videos and then member organisations the rest. In the end, mentor organisations

were responsible for creating all the case studies but they did so in such a way that they

would be useful to all member organisations and to different people within those

organisations; managers, teachers and learners.

The project team made the decision to produce video case studies that could be used to

engage organisations with the delivery of Adult Enterprise, help teachers to consider new

approaches and in marketing to attract new learners.

Case studies were shared via The Staff Room and news that they’d been added emailed via

the News forum to all member organisations.

Highbury College Adult Enterprise Course https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiCiSy41XdA

(posted 12th June at time of writing had 57 views) Target audience: Providers, Teachers

11. South Essex College None/Planning 20 learners signed up from JCP

12. Sparsholt College None/Planning Yes a new delivery model is being adopted for September 2014

Sparsholt College is still looking at the full cost offer.... We want to promote at our Countryside Day

13. Stanmore College None/Unknown

14. Swindon College None/Planning Full cost delivery model

Business West and Chamber of Commerce to target small business units. Potentially market to existing students.

15. Totton College L2/uncertain future

16. Uxbridge College No/Planning Uxbridge College delivering 4 units in the Autumn - no logs or accreditation

Linking with Chamber of Commerce and other business networks.

17. Warwickshire College None/Planning Full cost Marketing to businesses offering units as master classes and possibly full cost.

18. Westminster Adult Education Service

None/Planning Planning Planning

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Highbury College Adult Enterprise Success Stories

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0N1u1Kkhj0 (posted 12th June at time of writing had 37

views) Target audience: Learners, Teachers within delivery of the programme.

Highbury College Adult Enterprise Webinar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVGysJstBZM#t=11 (posted 22nd July at time of writing

had 14 views) Target audience: Learners, Teachers within delivery of the programme.

North Herfordshire College Path to Success Adult Enterprise

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgyIEYtCGpA (posted 15th May at time of writing had 21

views) Target audience: Learners, Teachers within delivery of the programme.

North Herfordshire College two Learner films still in production

Morley College three videos still in production

North Herfordshire College paper-based case study, here is an extract

“Marc Day recently completed his level 2 hairdressing and was long term unemployed due to

disability/ illness. He was looking for a route back into employment and felt that the best

option for him would be to take his new skills and start a mobile hairdressing company,

concentrating mainly on elderly clientele based in residential or sheltered housing.”

During the project the Evaluator suggested to the project team that, in addition to the case

studies and in light of the FELTAG and Lord Young reports, they had other knowledge that

could be very beneficial to the wider FE sector. As a result the project team will be putting

together three handouts based on information shared within the project (see section 4.4 for

some examples):

Delivering a 50% online curriculum

Delivering Adult Enterprise courses to vocational courses

Marketing Adult Enterprise courses

A sector wide dissemination event has been planned for the 1st October at Tower Hamlets

College. The focus of the event will be on the outcomes of the Joint Practice Development

project, enterprise education and employability and using shared curriculum to meet

recommendations of FELTAG report.

4.3 Sustainability and Wider Applications

During the course of the project the Adult Enterprise board made the decision to cease

operating the social enterprise from July 31st 2014. In order to ensure that organisations

involved with the Adult Enterprise shared curriculum could continue to do so, the board

made the decision to give all member organisations the materials so that they could adapt

and deliver them in any form they wished.

For those organisations who did not have a Moodle VLE platform on which to host the

materials, Coralesce Ltd who would take over the Adult Enterprise website and would

continue to host the materials for those organisations that needed the option.

All organisations would also be given the option to continue to be part of the professional

learning network, for a small annual fee, giving them access to CPD, co-ordinators’ meetings

36

and the online Staff Room. The seven organisations at the final meetings expressed an

interest in still being part of the PLN and 50% of the organisations who completed the final

evaluation survey indicated they would like to continue with the PLN.

The Staff Room kept member organisations up-to-date throughout the project with reports

that were published, events, funding streams for start-up businesses and examples of best

practice. Two reports were published during the course of the project were recognised as

being significant to this project and so the Project Manager highlighted them to member

organisations and attempted to engage a discussion around the subject:

“The recently published FELTAG report recommends that the FE Sector be set a target of delivering

10% of their curriculum online by 2015 and 50% by 2017. The Adult Enterprise Curriculum currently

meets this recommended target, based on your experience of delivering Adult Enterprise, what skills

do you think teachers need to use the shared online curriculum effectively?” Posted Bev 3rd April 2014

The providers didn’t respond to this question via the forum but during telephone interviews

the following suggestions were provided that will form part of the ‘Delivering a 50% online

curriculum’ to be produced for dissemination.

Assess that your students have the IT skills to undertake a 50% online course:

“Teacher needs IT skills and learners need IA and to have good IT skills.”

“When we recruit for the programme we ask students to sit a Maths, English and ICT, assessment. This gives us a quick understanding of the level the student is at. It is important student are comfortable with IT, I use the yard stick if you can use Facebook and eBay you’re not going to struggle. Some students have never worked on excel and that becomes a little bit of a challenge, we usually work through this in small steps as a whole class activity.” “Initial Assessment is key! We found that quite a few learners were really not ready to undertake a

blended course, and had overstated their IT skills at interview. We are also looking at alternate

ways of assessment, for example using emailed application forms and setting small online

research tasks then sending them through.”

Make students aware that half their study will be online. “All the students are fully aware of the amount of independent learning is in the programme and the need to have access to IT and the internet.”

“run first online session in classroom with tutor and IT support in case there are glitches and get

people used to it. It’s about boosting confidence.”

“May need a bit more time in the classroom rather than the proposed 50/50 split depending on

your learner group and how much support they may need”

Be flexible in delivery times – make evening slots available.”

Other tips given

“If learners haven’t done their homework don’t go over it otherwise they never will – set the expectation that they need to do the work, work hard you have to when you run your own business.” “Don’t adapt materials – take a fresh look at what you do and how you do it.”

“Make sure you have high quality resources.”

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“Select staff with enterprise background, tell them how the course will run from the start and what

is expected of them.”

Lord Young’s Enterprise for All Report, was also highlighted to the group. This report made

the recommendation that all Level 3 vocational courses should include a module on working

for yourself and how to start up a business.

During the JPD project several organisations shared their current and planned delivery

models. A number of those providers were already delivering individual units at both Level 2

and Level 3 to existing students on vocational courses. Experience from member

organisations, including which of the Adult Enterprise units they felt were most valuable to

learners will form part of the ‘Delivering Adult Enterprise to vocational learners’ handout

being produced as part of the project dissemination.

As part of the evaluation, member organisations were asked to say which units they thought

were of most benefit to their learners:

“Social Networking - good videos chosen to illustrate the importance of having a social

networking site(s) when running your own business”

“Running a Business from Home - really useful information that is relevant to most people”

“L3 Selling and Branding, L3 on line business. They are the most interactive, exciting, have to say students, feel the same way about researching businesses models.”

“Branding and Selling, Website Fundamentals, Using Social Media (L3)”

During the project Helen Robinson, North Herfordshire College used some of her time to

provide input into a CPD course, Enterprise Educator to support practitioners to deliver Adult

Enterprise courses. Helen was asked to provide input because of her background covering

business, leadership and teacher training. The CPD course is accredited and is recognised

on the National Qualifications Framework. This qualification is now available for all

organisations to access and use.

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5. Discussion

5.1 Reach and Engagement

The project involved a large number of provider organisations, 18 in total comprising of 15 FE

Colleges and 3 Community Learning organisations. Many JPD projects are contained within

one organisation, often where they have multiple sites. This project had the added challenges

of multiple organisations spread over 6 regions in England where approaches and attitude to

the delivery of Adult Enterprise courses varied considerably.

The Training Needs Analysis undertaken with 19 organisations reported that 16 of the

organisations had only one member of staff connected with Adult Enterprise and the other

three centres had two members of staff. During the course of the project 48 staff actually

accessed the curriculum materials. A new organisation joining the project requested training

for seven of their staff.

One of the aims of the project was to reach a target of 500 learners accessing the shared

curriculum materials. The project fell well short of this number, 68 learners accessed adult

enterprise materials during the project. The learners from the mentor organisations (40)

showed learners of different ages (within working age limits), genders, ethnic backgrounds

and disabilities and/or learning difficulties. The potential reasons why the target numbers of

learners were not reached is discussed below in the Quality and Responsiveness section.

Looking more closely at the learner data, it highlighted a number of things that could be

significant to all Adult Enterprise providers. Adult Enterprise courses attract learners

irrespective of their age, ethnic background and gender even when 50% of the delivery is

online. A high percentage of leaners attracted to the course were unemployed or returners

(90%), organisations who had formed links with Job Centre Plus or organisations such as

Enterprising Mums were attracting new learners. North Hertfordshire College formed a link

with Enterprising Mums and now receive referrals from them and advertise new courses via

Twitter to them.

Highbury and North Hertfordshire College data shows that 30% of the learners had a

disability and/or learning difficulty. Highbury College highlighted that they were attracting a

high percentage of dyslexic learners. This raises the question are dyslexic people more likely

to become self-employed and/or were they attracted by the 50% online option; where they

had access to multi-media rich materials, could work through them at their own pace and

revisit them as often as they needed to? Highbury had a 100% success rate for its level 3

course.

The findings that 70% of the learners were female raises these questions, are women

returners considering self-employment? Is the course attractive because of the 50% online

and the ability to fit in with family commitments?

The data also highlights a potential retention and achievement problem when working with

unemployed learners. Morley College worked with 14 unemployed learners; five of those

learners were retained and achieved a Level 2 qualification, a 36% achievement rate. During

the project organisations raised concerns about working with unemployed learners:

“These groups do not always have sufficient literacy, computer skills or motivation to complete the

units and teaching them creates more work because of the extra support required.”

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Some organisations were worried about this affecting performance figures,

“We can’t continue with unemployed because high attrition rates lower the college’s overall

performance.”

Other organisations expressed the opinion that students from this group can do well and the

course had inspired them.

5.2 Quality and Responsiveness

The project did put into place a new methodology for delivering Adult Enterprise CPD to a

large number of organisations across a wide geographical spread. They offered 5 strategies:

Cluster Groups with a mentor and peer support

Online CPD through social media

Online access to network meetings

Face-to-face meetings/events

An online Professional Learning Network (PLN) – The Staff Room

The methodology offered a range of strategies for organisations to access training and

support. It was based on discussion with member organisations and the TNA interviews.

In all instances the participation with JPD activities was disappointing; numbers attending

meetings and CPD activities were low even though the new methodology offered online

attendance opportunities. Only 50% of organisations took up the opportunity to receive

mentoring and although 61% of providers accessed the PLN it became a means to deliver

news and case studies rather than generate a truly collaborative community of practice.

The mentoring organisations tried to engage the organisations they supported via telephone

and email and through forum postings on the PLN.

“The engagement with reluctant hard to reach college’s is the problem and sometimes a frustration.”

There are a number of reasons staff from the buddied organisations might have failed to

engage with the JPD project and their mentors. It became apparent during the project that

staff with responsibility for Adult Enterprise also had other role commitments and enterprise

only formed a small part which was not seen as high priority.

“As a part-time member of staff, developing a Community Learning programme, Adult Enterprise

courses are a small part of my job, I'm afraid I have just not had the time to engage with the online

resources.”

“The challenges have been the lack of engagement by the centres and the difficulties they face in

terms of the strategic importance placed on adult enterprise by their organisation.”

Buddied organisations seemed unaware that they had a mentor; the evaluation survey

showing that only 1 of 7 ‘buddy’ organisations identified with this role. The Project Manager

suggestions as to why this might be the case was that the original email went to the co-

ordinator within the organisation and information was not fed down to the named Adult

Enterprise tutors within that organisation.

For others there were challenges with restructure including London Borough of

Hammersmith and Fulham and Totton College where the person with responsibility was

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facing redundancy. For other organisations, there had been staff changes but Adult

Enterprise hadn’t been informed and so contact was being attempted with the wrong person.

In some cases there appeared to be confusion about the Adult Enterprise Shared Curriculum

materials.

“Too busy - lack of time and with Adult Enterprise coming to an end”

Adult Enterprise announced to member organisations that the social enterprise was ceasing

to exist. At the same time it was explained to organisations how they could take ownership of

the materials and continue to run with them. It was also highlight that the JPD project and

their mentors were there to help them achieve this.

The evaluation identified that the mentor organisations had to some extent been mentoring

each other, Adult Enterprise acting as a mentor to North Herfordshire College,

“Curriculum Development Manager has been excellent source to bounce ideas with and suggest

alternative links & networks.”

And North Hertfordshire College acting as a mentor to Highbury College,

“Yes the support I have received from North Herts has been invaluable.”

In spite of the lack of participation from all organisations to actively engage in communication

with other organisations, it can be seen from the evaluation data that there have been

changes:

64% of respondents to the evaluation said skills and knowledge had improved

45% considered their confidence in delivery of AE had improved

36% thought they’d had a change of attitude towards the delivery/management of

AE.

There had been an increase of 22% in the number of organisations delivering/planning to

deliver Adult Enterprise. As well as evidence of organisations adopting of new models and

marketing strategies.

For those organisations who did participate there was evidence of collaboration and support

not only in implementing the new CPD methodology but also in supporting each other to

develop their enterprise provision. The project could have achieved the same level of

success with far fewer organisations involved and this in turn may have reduced the level of

frustration felt by the project team. This is reflected in the responses partner organisations

gave during the evaluation when asked to discuss what they would do differently if running

the project again. They felt that the project should have been scaled down to run with fewer

organisations and run in two phases:

Phase 1: Focus on the Mentor organisations

Provide mentoring training to the mentor organisations.

Mentor organisations to share practice with each other to widen their own knowledge

Phase 2: Engage with ‘Buddy’ organisations and develop small cluster groups (3

organisations)

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Organisations assigned a Mentor.

Mentors to undertake TNAs with their assigned member organisations

Mentors to provide 1-1 and group cluster support

Mentor organisations to introduce the PLN as an online way of working

CPD and network events to be offered to all organisations and promoted by Mentors.

5.3 Sustainability and Wider Applications

The social enterprise, Adult Enterprise, ended on 31st July 2014. All member organisations

were consulted and in order to ensure continued use of the materials, members were offered

a number of choices:

- To receive unbranded materials to host on their own Moodle VLEs

- To access the existing branded materials via the Corelsce website at a small annual

fee.

- To access updated materials allowing for 100% online delivery via a new learning

platform Canvas

- To continue to be part of a PLN, with access to CPD, The Staff Room and network

meetings for a small annual fee

The board took the decision because of a number of factors including member organisations

expressed their wishes to use the materials in different ways and using different funding

streams. This included delivering to vocational, recent vocational, enrichment learners, as

well as targeting full cost funding opportunities with businesses. They also recognised that

some of the materials needed to be updated and member organisations were starting to

adapt them independently.

The offer made by Adult Enterprise means that the organisations can both continue to use

the materials and remain part of a network of organisations through a continued PLN.

Alongside the project, an accredited CPD course Enterprise Educator was developed with

input from one of the project’s mentors, Helen Robinson. This will support other

organisations new to the delivery of enterprise skills to provide appropriate CPD to their

teachers.

The FELTAG and Lord Young Report highlight that those organisations involved in the

delivery of the shared curriculum Adult Enterprise courses are ahead of their time. They are

already delivering a curriculum which is 50% online and some of them to vocational learners

within their organisation. As a result they recognised that it could benefit the wider sector if

they shared their knowledge and expertise.

Delivering a 50% online curriculum

Delivering Adult Enterprise courses to vocational courses

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6. Conclusion and Recommendations

The 'From Shared Curriculum to shared practice development project’ did not meet all its

original outputs but did achieve 60% of them. The project has illustrated that putting in place

new ideas and methods of sharing practice will not work unless there is a full commitment to

develop enterprise skills within participating organisations. The organisations that actively

participated in the project were those that saw value in enterprise courses, identified

appropriate staff within their organisations to deliver the materials and gave them time to

access support and share practice with other organisations.

If the project was about to start instead of having just finished, then the FELTAG and Lord

Young’s report might have had much more influence in engaging the interest of senior

managers across the member organisations. These reports raised the spotlight on Adult

Enterprise courses and the move towards blended learning provision. Some providers within

the network are demonstrating successful delivery to both vocational learners and using a

50% online delivery approach. A number of organisations within the project stated that one

of the issues they faced was that Adult Enterprise was seen as a ‘stand-alone’ provision

instead of something that could be added to existing vocational provision to enhance the

employability of learners. The dissemination event and the hand-outs being produced as part

of the dissemination will help to support the wider FE sector. All dissemination materials will

be available via the Adult Enterprise website.

Recommendations

Joint practice development projects involving large numbers of organisations should

be phased, so that mentor organisations have the opportunity to share practice

before working with assigned cluster groups.

Projects with large numbers of providers need to allow an 'opt out' option for

organisations.

Service level agreements should be put in place with participating organisations after

the full project and evaluation plans have been developed to make clear the

expected participation of all organisations.

Staff selected to be mentors should be offered mentoring/coaching skills.

Video case studies can provide an effective alternative to paper-based case studies.

They do however require sufficient time to be allocated to allow for storyboarding,

capturing video and editing.

Practitioners delivering Adult Enterprise courses benefit from having been or being

entrepreneurs themselves.

Practitioners delivering Adult Enterprise courses should be selected because they

have enterprise skills themselves and have good level of ICT including up-to-date

social media skills and website creation.

There needs to be more research to identify means by which practitioners will

engage and form effective communities of practice online. This project showed that

Twitter can be used effectively, whereas discussion forums attracted ‘lurkers’ rather

than active participation.

The way in which organisations participating in this project are successfully delivering

Adult Enterprise using a 50% online model could provide information that would

benefit the wider sector following the FELTAG report.

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The way in which organisations participating in this project are successfully

delivering Adult Enterprise as part of their offer to vocational learners could provide

information that would benefit the wider sector following Lord Young’s Enterprise for

All report.

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Appendix A: References

Fielding, M., Bragg, S., Craig, J., Cunningham, I., Eraut, M., Gillinson, S., Horne, M., Robinson, C. and

Thorp, J., 2005. Factors Influencing the Transfer of Good Practice. University of Sussex. UK: Sussex

FELTAG, Further Education Learning Technology Action Group Recommendations, BIS,

February 2014

Young, Enterprise for All: The Relevance of Enterprise in Education, BIS, June 2014

ETF Joint Practice Development Project Questionnaire (End of project)

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1RTnVl14biU8YE-

PoEZjUAhOheUcAgij8qnzCL4DAixA/viewform

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Appendix B: Training Needs Analysis Questionnaire

The aim of this needs analysis is to identify the training, development and support required

by Adult Enterprise Centres as part of the Joint Practice Development Project.

Overview

General discussion with the AE Centre to establish an overview of past and current activity

and performance.

Markets and Funding

1. What market is the AE Centre targeting for Adult Enterprise?

2. Is the AE Centre aware that the AE shared curriculum can be used for a range of learners - give examples including: full time; additional units for apprentices employed by SMEs with below 250 staff; vocational part time learners; unemployed etc?

3. Does the AE Centre need support in identifying how to use the shared curriculum more effectively across a wide range of students?

4. Is the AE Centre Co-ordinator aware of the funding available for the AE qualifications: Adult Units, Adult Single Budget; Advanced Learning Loans (for Level 3 over 24); ESF funding; full cost?

Marketing

1. How is the AE Centre marketing the programmes?

2. Does the Centre use Social Media to promote Adult Enterprise? How? Which types of social media?

3. How confident is the AE Co-ordinator and other staff involved in AE in using Social Media? What are barriers to using social media?

4. Would the AE Co-ordinator and/or other staff benefit from training in using Social Media? Specify which social media?

5. Is the AE Centre co-ordinator utilizing links with key stakeholders to promote the offer? i.e. Job Centre Plus; Business Incubators; Residential Landlords etc? How could they be supported to develop these relationships?

Using the on-line learning content

1. How confident are staff delivering on AE in using the on-line learning content?

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2. Are there any barriers preventing staff using the shared curriculum, if so what are they?

Training and Staff Development

1. What are the most pressing training needs of staff delivering on the programmes?

2. How would staff linked to receive the training and support (face to face training sessions; mentoring/coaching; online; peer support?

Good Practice

1. Are they any units or aspects of adult enterprise that you feel you have developed good practice in and could share with others? What are they?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shared Curriculum to

Shared Practice Development A joint practice development project

Evaluation Sept 2014