After much waiting the new qualifications are being launched. There is an event planned for the 14th December in London. It is being hosted by NIACE and you can find out more here
To reserve a place online look up: http://www.niace.org.uk/campaigns-events/events/inclusive-learning
Enquiries to NIACE events: Tel. 0116 2042 833 email: events@niace.org.uk
After a number of months and a lot of hard work by all involved the materials produced as part of the ELS have gone live on the Excellence Gateway. You may have had it from a number of sources but here is the link in case you missed it.http://www.excellencegateway.org.uk/316191
There are a number of really useful resources that are very practical – if you are looking for documents you can use, pro-formas that you can adapt, stuff that will help you out and save you time there are things here for you!
Obviously there is a lot to take in and you are short of time so we will be asking practitioners who have used them to give a brief feedback over the next few months on this Blog.
If you are using any of the materials please let us know how you get on by posting a comment here. If you have any problems contact alison.obrien@kandaassociates.co.uk
At the West Midlands event last Friday, at a rather snowy RAF Cosford Museum, we considered some of the alternative ways of approaching CPD. In many of the workshop discussions, we came to the conclusion that a lot of the solutions to our everyday issues are already within our organisations, we just need to find ways of tapping into them more effectively. The aim of the programme is to examine ways of delivering alternative approaches to CPD to get this information and knowledge moving about organisations more effectively.
What struck me, was that what we are really talking about here, for want of a better phrase, is “knowledge management”. Often when you say “knowledge management”, organisations reach for the IT solution – warehousing data on the organisation’s IT intranet - a process that often creates electronic fences, information overload but does not promote the sharing of effective practice. In addition, it tends to prioritise data which can be counted, but in practice, much of the information we need to improve quality, is qualitative, rather than quantitative.
Knowledge is not just data or information and so simply sharing data and information will not give staff greater knowledge and understanding, and for that reason, we shouldn’t get fixated with data and systems, but concentrate instead on the importance of human interaction. Knowledge is not simply information, it contains belief, values and commitment and it is social groups that create knowledge flows – and for most of us over 20 years old, we mean real social groups – face to face with other people, not in cyberspace space somewhere!
Knowledge flows best when it is not too tightly prescribed or imposed by the organisation – structures that are self organising or informal but supported by management often have the best results. A good example is the copier company Xerox that discovered that the service engineers fixing copiers got the best results when they departed from the formal processes in the manual. What they also discovered was that, rather than using the standard operating procedure, this knowledge was being routinely swapped at ad hoc breakfast meetings where itinerant service engineers swapped experiences and stories. Through this informal socialising, the engineers developed a collective pool of immensely useful practical knowledge which saved them time and improved their performance – Xerox’s approach was to facilitate the process by making the “Tips” available to the 25000 in their worldwide workforce.
But sharing knowledge is tricky, for most organisations, if they knew what they knew they would undoubtedly be more effective……….or even more effective. Knowledge management has a lot to offer in promoting organisational learning but we don’t necessarily give it the priority it deserves, in spite of the huge potential benefits. How much of your CPD budge last year was directly allocated to helping your organisation know what it knows and getting that knowledge to where you most need it?
The resources being developed in the West Midlands are a contribution to an alternative approach to promoting and sharing effective practice. I am not suggesting that staff should be sharing experiences and knowledge over morning coffee and croissants (although this sound like fun!!) but it is worth spending some time thinking about how your organisation could make greater use of the social context in the workplace to harness the full potential of its collective knowledge?
Alison O’Brien.
In the earlier piece of work that was undertaken for the Enhancement of Learning Support project an important element was the learner voice consultation. One outcome of the consultation was a video of learners talking about the support they receive – an edited copy is available at the link below.
Welcome to the Enhancement of Learning Support Blog. The blog provides an opportunity for anyone with an interest to contribute their views,experience or experitise to any area of the programme. Below you will find ”Posts” from the various regions and their lead colleges which are looking for information or comment. If you want to make a contribution just click the comment box at the end of every post you will get another box in which you will have the chance to ……make a comment.
Posts are usually about something specific but if you have a general point to make or you want to raise something that isn’t currently listed just add a comment to this welcome post!
The Eastern region is looking at ‘tested approaches to developing a whole organisational, inclusive approach to the management of learning support’. We are particularly concerned to look at ways in which learning support managers can see themselves as contributing to positive change throughout the organisation rather than simply being seen as people who organise support for individual learners.
We would very much like to hear from learning support managers who feel they have been able to bring about positive, organisation-wide changes and, in particular, for them to share what supported them in doing this. You might have been helped by attending a particular management training programme or by specific guidance documents, but also by less tangible but equally important factors such as changes in organisational structure or attitudinal changes within your organisation
You can find out more about the East of England Programme here
http://www.natspec.org.uk/enhancement-of-learning-support/regional-activity/east-of-england.html
Following on from our conference on 22nd October 2010, we need to collect more feedback on additional support practice in Work Based Learning, how it is embedded in the workplace and how WBL involve learners in identifying, delivering and evaluating their additional learning support. What support do you they provide and how do they provide it? What are the models and approaches?
How do you identify Additional Learning Needs and/or Additional Social Needs? How do you work with others to do this? How do you work with learners to ensure their support needs are met?
If you are involved in Work Based Learning can you give us your experiences or are you aware of any work based learning providers in your region that have effective practice we could approach?
You can find out more about the North West Programme here
http://www.natspec.org.uk/enhancement-of-learning-support/regional-activity/north-west.html
In the West Mids we are looking at alternative approaches to CPD – such as mentoring, shadowing, buddying and “Learn and share”. What we think we know is that these approaches work really well, but what the original research showed was that they are often only used for a short time during induction. What we would like to be able to do is generate a set of materials and examples of effective practice which will enable organisations to get alternative approaches off the ground more easily. It is often difficult to change practice and we hope to be able to do some of the initial work and produce some how to guides that you can use easily.
We know there is effective practice out there and we would really like to capture as much as possible. So if you are doing something really good – let us know! Alternatively please have a look at the draft documents we have produced which are available at http://www.natspec.org.uk/enhancement-of-learning-support/regional-activity/west-midlands.html and let us know what you think. Being able to deliver effective CPD opportunities by drawing on the expertise and experience of you own staff team should be a very powerful way of delivering CPD as well as being very cost effective in these times of tight budgets!
We are not just interested in mentoring, shadowing, buddying and “Learn and Share” What we would really like to hear about is anything that you feel has provided you with an opportunity to learn and develop your practice – no matter how unorthodox it might appear to be. Often the casual or unplanned is very effective and we want to see if there are ways of making the unplanned more planned!!
Can you tell us one thing that you have learnt in the last year that made a difference and ……..how you learnt it!
In London we are developing a self assessment audit tool that will enable organisations to measure their current practice in the management and delivery of learning support and use the outcomes to plan future developments.
The tool has been developed in draft and we are now in the process of piloting it with providers within the London region. We would however be really keen to gather the views of providers from outside the region. If you would be willing to have a look at this and give us some feedback we would be delighted.
You can see the draft tool and guidance etc at
We are looking at involving learners in identifying,planning and managing their own support.
We would love to hear how you involve your learners in this – have you got any effective practice you would be willing to share?
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