WEA Education Blog

10:10, Sustainability and the WEA

The WEA's nine strategic priorities include one on 'Promoting Sustainability'. When the 10:10 campaign was announced many in the WEA wanted the Association to sign up straight away. We didn't then, partly because reducing 10% of emissions in 2010 is going to be pretty hard and mostly because hardly anyone involved in the WEA would have been involved in that decision.

We were lucky because we were just about to have a one month placement of a Masters student from Forum for the Future to help us sharpen up our plans for this priority. Steven Bland worked with us for a month and talked with many people across the WEA. In particular, he led an online survey of the views of WEA staff, tutors and members - the biggest survey we've ever done. Out of over 13,000 people we e-mailed we had a high response rate and over 600 respondents agreed to continuing to stay in touch on this issue in the WEA. It also gave us a clear mandate to sign up to 10:10 with over 56% of members, 63% of tutors and 61% of staff in favour and no more than 8% against in any of these groups.

So, we are asking WEA Trustees to sign the Association up to 10:10 and all it involves.

If you'd like to read Steven's report of his placement you can get it here: Download Forum for the Future placement report. 

WEA Conference 2009, Skills for Social Justice

The WEA's conference at the beginning of October was a success. The Friday event, open to many, covered items around Skills for Social Justice and emphasised, to me, how this seems a more real issue in Scotland than it often does in England.

The Saturday was the WEA's business conference and this was greatly speeded up by effective electronic voting. However, as I've felt in previous conferences, the issues being raised were often not fully discussed because of the traditional structure of conference proceedings. Many motions raised issues around older learners, engaging with issues of disadvantage through the downturn, campaigning for lifelong learning as we move towards a UK General Election, the need to reduce paperwork and bureaucracy faced by students, tutors and volunteers and the work of the WEA internationally. However, we didn't manage to group these into the effective debates and discussions that would do credit to the issues raised.

Hopefully, we can look at how other organisations, like the Women's Institute, manage their conferences to develop strategy out of issues raised throughout the organisation at grass routes level.

LSIS - now giving resources to providers

I attended my first meeting of the LSIS (Learning & Skills Improvement Service) Council on 15th October in London. Ruth Silver and Graham Hoyle led the meeting and the new LSIS Chief Executive, David Collins, outlined some of the new direction for the organisation.

LSIS has been given a much reduced budget but, within that, there was good news that, soon, the resource for providers will be allocated into Provider Accounts according to the number of Full Time Equivalent learners they have. This will mean the WEA can access some support resources without the tiresome explanations of why we're not like an FE college. In addition, the services to providers look clearer and you can rate each of them through the website. The Leadership toolkits, including Adult & Community Learning are now free and providers can have free quality 'health checks' two years after inspection from LSIS nine Regional Development Partners. The online Safeguarding Training was presented and several members of the Council indicated that this is a welcome resource.

All these seemed an improvement on what we'd seen earlier when I feared LSIS was captured by General FE and Workbased Learning providers. Finally, the new (elected) Council will be different for LSIS management to work with as the end of the session indicated when a number of people on the Council insisted that sessions need to involve them more in the discussion and less in receiving information.

Learners - who called us that?

Over the last 10-15 years the term student has gradually been replaced with 'learners' -not happened in schools or universities and this has led some adult 'learners' to ask 'why?'.

Historically the WEA has used the term students. However, 'learners' is pretty solidly what government, inspectors and funders call the recipients of provision in the Learning Age. But what do adults on courses call themselves when they talk to friends, family or colleagues about their course? I find it hard to believe they say 'I'm a learner'.

Some WEA learners have clearly given this some thought. Here is a poem they wrote on the matter:

Most of the time we’re a jolly, hard-working crowd and happy to do our bit for the WEA.  But there’s one thing that gets our goat it’s being labelled “learners” – especially by people who tick boxes and deliver targets.  And of course there’s the paperwork too. That goes without saying.  We try hard not to complain but …

Ever the optimists, rather than moaning and groaning we penned this little ditty (with apologies for the rhyming couplets) dedicated it to WEA students and tutors around the world, had a little chuckle and moved swiftly on …

Ten eager learners

Ten eager learners

All feeling fine

The tutor brought the forms in

Then there were nine

 

Nine eager learners

Waiting for their fate

“Please complete in triplicate”

Then there were eight

 

Eight eager learners

Yes, learning can be heaven

But someone runs a cheaper course

Then there were seven

 

Seven eager learners

One is feeling sick

Performance targets to be met

Then there were six

 

Six eager learners

No-one wants to skive

But up went the course fees

Then there were five

 

Five eager learners

A knock at the door …

In comes Ofsted

Then there were four

 

Four eager learners

Bless the LSC (not!)

One dug her heels in

Then there were three

 

Three eager learners

One named Sue

She couldn’t get to class that day

Then there were two

 

Two eager learners

Raring for some fun

More forms landed

And then there was one

 

One eager learner

Sitting all alone

Why not call us people?

I might as well go home

 

 

Common Inspection Framework for FE & Skills published

Ofsted has published the revised common inspection framework for 16+ learners. You can download it (16 sides) here.

No surprises but it is worth noting that Adult Community Learning (ACL), which briefly became Personal & Community Development Learning (PCDL) now seems to be down as 'informal adult learning'. This makes the implementation of the proposals in the 'Learning Revolution' White Paper particularly important to Adult Education providers like the WEA.

'Control Shift' Conservatives policy on local government

LSIS has provided a useful summary of the Conservatives policy document on local government 'Control shift'. The summary can be downloaded here and the paper itself is available here.

It has a radical underlying theme and one which, if implemented, would have an impact in many areas. Adult Education may not be the first you'd think of but the concept of a 'general power of competence' going to local authorities. This could have a number of effects beneficial or otherwise. If nothing else, it suggests the Tories will fight the election claiming to massively devolve power and reduce process targets and agencies that supervise them.

Peer Review Development Group lessons for self regulation

I attended the review session of a Peer Review and Development Group formed by three local authority adult education services: 

Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire and the WEA’s Southern Region. The group, which has met for well over a year, reported on the developments they had shared around self assessment, observation of teaching & learning and RARPA (Recognising & Recording Progress and Achievement on non-accredited learning).

It has been a very successful piece of work – which covered the period where all four had been inspected by Ofsted. It reinforced the value of honest self assessment and effective observation in driving improvement and there was a genuine and significant effort to respond to comments from Ofsted in each provider’s inspection about RARPA. Alongside that, it was an excellent piece of reflective continuing professional development by the colleagues involved.

However, for me, it also raised questions on the whole direction of self-regulation and the extent to which providers, working honestly to improve, need to be ready to challenge demands made by regulators and inspectors.

The RARPA situation is a particular case that I have written about before. The LSC's original statement on RARPA says that it intends to 'put the experience, aspirations and success of learners at the heart of what we do’. In reality we know that decisions by the Information Authority at the request of Ofsted have made the learner central only in the way a fish is central to the activities of an industrial fishing fleet. If the reductionism of regulators' view of RARPA continues, how can anyone be sure the approach is valued by tutors or learners? Whilst the last couple of years has at last shown we are at the limits of managerialism, ‘outstanding’ practice in RARPA seems now to require more extensive moderation than some GCSEs with none of the 'currency' provided by the qualification. The confirmation that Ofsted will not inspect provision that has no public funding suggests that this is either about driving non-accredited learning out of the hands of people on modest incomes or about finding ways to get through tick-box AKA ‘light touch’ inspections.

The implementation of the Learning Revolution gives us the opportunity to challenge the sorry slide in the direction of RARPA and refocus attention on devising great teaching and learning experiences for adults that they recognise as being of value.

 

 

Celebrating the Oakfield animators in Liverpool

I was lucky to be invited to attend the premiere of a short animated film at the FACT centre in Liverpool on Friday. The film, made in a WEA project involving a partnership with the care provider, United Response and Mersey Rail, was screened in the cinema in front of an audience of friends, family, workers and the film makers themselves – from the Oakfields Day Centre in Anfield. The film makers received a red carpet reception and the audience enjoyed both the current film – 'From Oakfiends to Ironmen’ see it here along with fascinating short documentaries on how the film, and an earlier one, had been made - see here.

For me, it was the combination of enjoying the film on a big screen with an enthusiastic audience plus the insight into the process that the ‘behind the scenes’ films gave that made this such a celebration of success.

The group are now moving onto a project working with bus staff to look at how access to bus services for adults with learning difficulties can be improved. Another animation is planned.

 Now, back to thinking how to comply with regulators’ requirements that individual achievement data is neatly recorded in non-accredited learning!

WEA on Trafalgar Square fourth plinth

It’s a couple of weeks ago now but I want to congratulate Chris Sharman for getting onto the fourth ‘plinth’ on the first day. Chris is a great advocate of the WEA and really took the initiative in a way which got the WEA into the national newspapers. So, this year, we can say that WEA art has been exhibited in the highest profile way. Apart from that, I love her comment that ‘adult learning make your brain tingle’.

WEA ICT provision on Channel 4 News

WEA computing classes in the East Midlands were features on  Channel 4 News recently. The item looked at the decline in places for adult learners on ICT (Information, Communication, Technology) and the difficulty this presents for learners and providers.

The video is just over three minutes and puts the case for growth in ICT in the interests of learners very effectively.