WEA Education Blog

Community Learning in BIS 'New Challenges, New Chances'

Just read the HOLEX extract from in the BIS New Challenges New Chances Reform Plan published today: http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/biscore/further-education-skills/docs/f/11-1380-further-education-skills-system-reform-plan.pdf

Here's the bits on Informal Adult & Community Learning:

 Community Learning

BIS funding will continue to support a universal a community learning offer, with a wide range of learning opportunities available to all adults in England.

The consultation endorsed a new, clearer commitment to using the public funding subsidy to support access, and progression in its widest sense, for people who are disadvantaged and who are furthest from learning and therefore least likely to participate. In the 2012/13 academic year we will pilot different locally-based ‘community learning trust’ models to channel Adult Safeguarded Learning funding and lead the planning of local provision in cities, towns and rural settings. If this proves to be an effective model we will roll out community learning trusts across England to begin full operation from summer 2013. The new trusts will take account of the views of local government, local communities and local business leaders to ensure the purpose and objectives for the budget are implemented in ways that meet local need. A prospectus will be launched in the spring 2012.

 

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 Purpose of Government Supported Community Learning:

· Maximise access to community learning for adults, bringing new opportunities and improving lives, whatever people’s circumstances.
· Promote social renewal by bringing local communities together to experience the joy of learning and the pride that comes with achievement.
· Maximise the impact of community learning on the social and economic well-being of individuals, families and communities.

Objectives

 - Focus public funding on people who are disadvantaged and least likely to participate, including in rural areas and people on low incomes with low skills

 - Collect fee income from people who can afford to pay and use where possible to extend provision to those who cannot.

- Widen participation and transform people’s destinies by supporting progression relevant to personal circumstances, e.g.

    - improved confidence and willingness to engage in learning  - acquisition of skills preparing people for training, employment or self-employment
    - improved digital, financial literacy and/or communication skills
    - parents/carers better equipped to support and encourage their children’s learning 
    - improved/maintained health and/or social well-being.

- Develop stronger communities, with more self-sufficient, connected and pro-active citizens, leading to:

    - increased volunteering, civic engagement and social integration

    - reduced costs on welfare, health and anti-social behaviour

    - increased online learning and self organised learning

    - the lives of our most troubled families being turned around 

 - Commission, deliver and support learning in ways that contribute directly to these objectives, including:

    -  bringing together people from backgrounds, cultures and income groups, including people who can/cannot afford to pay
    - using effective local partnerships to bring together key providers and relevant local agencies and services
    - devolving planning and accountability to neighbourhood/parish level, with local people involved in decisions about the learning offer
    - involving volunteers and Voluntary and Community Sector groups, shifting long term, ‘blocked’ classes into learning clubs, growing self-organised learning groups, and encouraging employers to support informal learning in the workplace
- supporting the wide use of online information and learning resources
- minimising overheads, bureaucracy & administration

 

Six WEA projects to be funded by Adult Community Learning Fund

Across England the WEA has been successful with six bids to the Adult & Community Learning Fund. A diverse range of projects were approved as part of the Skills Funding Agency grants programme which is managed by NIACE. Bids were invited to maximise the contribution of community learning to the Big Society and engage and motivate disadvantaged adults.

The six successful WEA projects are in the North East, West Cumbria, Manchester, Stoke-on-Trent, London and the East Midlands. All the projects look to build the engagement of adults from disadvantaged communities in projects around a range of issues such as health improvement, advocacy, shaping services and learning opportunities and building confidence in community governance and leadership. There is a very strong local partnership theme in all the projects:

The Stoke-on-Trent project concentrates on health improvement with working men from Black and minority ethnic communities; West Cumbria will using local champions to build advocacy and services and learning opportunities for people with physical disabilities living in deprived areas; the North East project focuses on health volunteering; in Manchester adults from disadvantaged communities will use digital media to engage with the city’s cultural venues and design their own film, art and photography courses; the East Midlands project aims to inspire diverse women to become involved in voluntary leadership roles in Informal Adult Community Learning; The London project will help some of the most disadvantaged Londoners engage with and make connections between neighbourhood, local and London-wide governance in civic participation, adult learning and community-based sustainability.

Quality in Informal Adult Community Learning

I attended another roundtable event in the IACL review this week. This one was on Quality and Workforce Development. At the start, Stuart Edwards from BIS gave a summary of the issues that were emerging across the whole review as follows:

• Does there need to be a national framework?
• If so, how can things be as devolved as possible to decision making by local people?
• How can local infrastructure be resourced?
• How can spaces be opened to self activity in communities?
• How can outreach and activity of Community Learning Champions be fostered?
• The importance of Care, Guidance and Support - particularly the role of volunteers and how to make information highly accessible to would be learners.
• How can impact be reported?
• How do we engage a broader range of organisations to reach people?
• How do we make it cost effective and get the resource into delivery?
• How do we ensure quality without bureaucracy?
• How can we get a transparent, flexible, responsive and locally accountable infrastructure?
• Can we fund short term innovative work like was done through the Transformation Fund?
• How can we prioritise funding to disadvantagesd and disengaged people and communities whilst maintaining inclusive participation for social cohesion where those who can pay should pay?
• Can providers link together and link budgets together to get a 'multiplier' effect from the £210 million?
• Can we 'grasp the nettle carefully' around the current historic distribution of the £210 million across England?
• How can we make space for new organisations?

As before, we worked in groups around tables. On my table, the main points around Quality were:

• RARPA has been important in ACL but now we need a radical development of it around impact and more collective or community outcomes. These need to drive curriculum design.
• We could relook at General Learning Outcomes or a bank of agreed benefits of learning such as those from Social Investment Outcome Research.

• IACL should be inspected but this could be on a continuing basis with individual inspectors joining local or area staff (perhaps in peer development groups) on very short notice visits to see what's going on that day. This could provide information for ongoing thematic reports but, if serious issues were identified, trigger full inspections if needed. We felt this would be much cheaper and help Inspectors learn more about IACL.
• The learner voice still needs to be critical in quality. We recognised the difficulties of that at governance level but there were good examples from providers that could be shared
• Self Assessment and Improvement Planning remains critical but we must simplify it, own it, make it more immediate and feel less directed by the Common Inspection Framework in its design

On Workforce Development my table suggested:

• Maintaining PTLLS but adding a second stage with selected DTLLS units to make an IACL qualfication
• Learning from the Higher Education Academy approach with mentoring, observation, teaching, reflective journal and validation
• Recovering CPD as a valuable reflective activity for teachers rather than a bureaucratic/compliance activity.

Progression in Informal Adult Community Learning

The Informal Adult Community Learning (IACL) roundtable on ‘Progression’ met at Central Hall, Westminster on 17th March.This was one in a series that Pete Caldwell (WEA West Midlands Director) has written on here.

There was a lot of agreement on ways forward, although sometimes we had to make sure we weren’t just thinking in old ways (setting up provider partnerships, etc.) rather than finding ways that learners and communities can co-produce learning and shape the use of public funds to meet local need. We all wanted the latter but realised we still are too anxious to anticipate and appease what we think are the demands of the old gods of Public Service Agreement targets, Inspection and funding audit.

Clearly, government – and the Treasury in particular – wants evidence of progression to justify its protection of the £210 million Adult Safeguarded Learning fund. The discussions I was in centred around:

• how to evidence progression in a way that changed/developed processes in the classroom rather than adding to them
• ensuring that evidence we seek from learners is of value to them (not just to the Treasury) and they can share in it and help improve things
• whether longstanding and respected research such as the Institute of Education ‘Wider Benefits of Learning’ questions could be integrated into providers surveys and self assessment
• how to move away from the limitations of RARPA to something that showed the impact of learning both for individuals and communities.

The pivotal role of the tutor was seen as key to progression: getting to know learners, providing them with feedback and encouragement, signposting, listening and explaining. The importance of integrating care, support and guidance (particularly when involving volunteers such as Community Learning Champions) into the design of curriculum/programme would be more holistic, far more cost effective and beneficial than remote, free-standing IAG based on the usual client/professional paradigm with its targets and checklists.

Instilling confidence, building on talents, widening horizons, encouraging raised expectations are often seen as the characteristics of elite education (well known to many in the Cabinet). So, if it’s good enough for High Society why isn’t it good enough for Big Society?

There were great examples – one from the YMCA – of how a curriculum designed around young adults (almost irrespective of subject) could be used to identify talent, access small sums of money and redesign programmes around what emerges in the relationship between tutor and learner.

Everyone was keen to avoid top down or centralised evidence capture (there were few warm words for the Framework for Excellence – in fact many cold ones). Similarly, the longstanding point was made by many that the Qualifications & Credit Framework’s potential is lost without unit funding for adults and this limits the possibilities in Adult Safeguarded Learning of seamlessly progressing learners into recognised qualifications.

Whilst recognising how difficult it is, everyone wanted provision to be coordinated across a local level to help progression in the widest sense. I don't think we went far enough, though, in how provision could be shaped more by learners and communities, how they would be involved in coordination and how participatory budgeting could help achieve locally agreed impact, outcomes and progression and save money.

I was pleased to see how much of a common view there was from colleagues in colleges, local authorities and the voluntary sector. The days of centralised tidiness dressed up as 'excellence' may have nominally passed but we need to really work on designing our own approach to progression that is locally focussed, considers learners intentions, identifies the impact of learning and gets a proper balance between the collective outcomes of a programme and the experience of individuals (especially vulnerable or disadvantaged) within it.

The 'Quality' round table comes soon and it will be crucial that the argument is taken further forward there to turn attention away from what funders and inspectors think learners need to what learners and communities want from their learning and how public funding can reasonably support that and get resources into teaching, learning and engaging.

Is John Hayes the nicest man in Parliament?

You might have thought so at the celebration event for Community Learning Champions (CLCs) in London today. The minister spoke to an audience of CLCs and supporting organisations and, as before, praised the role of informal adult community learning in 'changing life choices and life chances' and its impact on the 'common good'. 

He then watched one of the videos which has been produced to show the success of the scheme click here to view and seemed so moved that he stood and spoke unscripted of how the CLCs were changing expectations, building confidence and deliverying a sense of self-worth in communities across the country. He concluded by saying that we must keep this work going.

In a way his reaction was understandable: the project seems to have really struck a chord in all sorts of places - particularly in areas of disadvantage or within organisations meeting the needs of vulnerable people. The event heard the welcome news that LSIS (the Learning & Skills Improvement Service) has provided modest funding for next year to allow the maintenance of the national website, registration and badging scheme. Whilst this doesn't provide development money it is clear (despite my initial skepticism) that registration and badging has been key to the profile and networking of Champions.

The minister indicated that he expected the Review of Informal Adult Community Learning to draw on these developments. I think he is right, the Community Learning Champions model has managed to combine local innovation and diversity within a national framework and identity creating a vital 'off the peg' model for volunteering in Adult Community Learning. I was pleased that so many Champions spoke so warmly of the training course the WEA developed.

We must all make sure that this work is integrated into the review of IACL, keep the momentum up and move away from regarding this sort work as a tolerated subset of the Skills Agenda. Instead, it's clear that the minister supports what many of us want: communities take the lead.