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PICO - Apprentices taking FS English and or Maths, who experience blended learning as part of their programme, how well do they achieve FS assessments at the first attempt, in comparison to those who experience traditional delivery programme?

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PICO - Apprentices taking FS English and or Maths, who experience blended learning as part of their programme, how well do they achieve FS assessments at the first attempt, in comparison to those who experience traditional delivery programme?

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Problem: Coordinating; designing a standardised approach to FS Maths and English delivery, for a growing direct apprenticeship provision for the Level 3 standards. A number of niche programmes, are being developed, such as Events. The current delivery has not been able to balance the learning efficiencies with first time passes and delivery costs efficiencies. The people involved : learners;employers;assessors-tutors; senior managers and leadership. The barriers have been many, primarily learner-employer time, intensity of deep learning and study skills - preparation for exams.
Intervention:
1. A two day intensive course has been designed and delivered utilising CGPP text books, Forskills and a number of worksheets for our Apprentices, for both English and Maths. This would also act as the comparative evidence going forward.
2. Design a blended approach, by examining the Forskills resources and how they can be used as an interactive approach blended with traditional methods - 5 day course to include the assessments.

Biddy Lall
The JGA Group

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What works:

Regular weekly meetings with a core team

Standardised scheme of work across a large college, tweaked slightly to embed and relate to vocational contexts

Liaising with vocational areas - greater communication improves attendance

Using twitter, reading blogs, continuously sharing good practice to improve teaching, learning and assessmen

Hollie B&FC

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Consistent and regular attendance to lessons, both GCSE and Functional Skills.

Kaelanne-CWC, London

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In an attempt to improve our high grade achievement, we have decided on differentiating for our learners using Grade 4 & Grade 5 topics.........focusing on Grade 4 topics work which is predominantly what students would have experienced at school or for those who studied at the College previously ( we have just started the new spec). Using Grade 5 topics as stretch and challenge or extension material. Hopefully if we focus the students up to February on achieving the grade 4 topics we can do some intense work from March to May on a few Grade 5 topics.
Kaelanne-CWC, London

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supporting staff to teach mixed ability groups - including increased esol enrolment due to reduction of funding for esol programmes

Rachel Phipp - BPC

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placing English and Mathematics lecturers into curriculum areas nurtures greater mutual respect between E&M lecturers, students and curriculum area staff
-evidenced with ligher attendance rates; to both lessons and exams - both FS and GCSE.

Rachel Phipp -BPC

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Hopefully - entering a larger number of students for the Nov resit exam, to engage and motivate learners, which has been received quite positively by the majority of them. Only downside is keeping them motivated until results are out in January.

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What works Collaborating with vocational tutors to deliver contextualized lessons. Sometimes in the workshop or a hybrid of classroom and workshop. Learners can then relate maths/ EnglistWhWh o their vocational training and

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One of the biggest challenges at present is not having enough experienced and qualified staff to teach GCSE English. Especially with the added issues of staff illness/absence.

Julie, Blackpool & the Fylde College

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Collaborating with vocational

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Securing good outcomes for students on GCSE English programmes despite the challenges of:

English teachers being managed by non-specialists.

English teachers often being non-specialists.

English as a subject sitting in vocational areas which neither understand nor value its importance.

Students allocated onto GCSE English despite having very low skills levels.

Poor and arguably, diminishing standards of behaviour.

Poor attendance.

Ineffective, poorly understood and therefore rarely utilised disciplinary procedures.

David Grice - South and City College

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Following a merger with South and City College, many established (and largely successful) procedures have been abolished in favour of a standard cross-college approach.  A new approach has been taken to almost every aspect of the business including, but not limited to:

Setting direction

Developing People

Designing the organisation

Managing the instructional programme.

Line management of maths and English staff

David Grice  - South and City College

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Having oversight of 1400 English students because I do not trust vocational schools to place them on the correct English curriculum

William CWC

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English curriculum innovation or strategy 

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English curriculum innovation or strategy 

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Created GCSE self assessment packs using AQA materials for the new spec . For our progressing students who achieved a 3/D in previous year and retaking again, we accessed their mark breakdown from the AQA secure site and identified the questions they needed to improve on.  They then accessed the Mr Bruff tutorials we stored on Padlet, identified three success criteria when watching it and then attempted the task.  Students then self assessed against  gold, green and amber band answers and explained which band they are in and why before any teacher feedback took place. Impact in high grade achievement which is above provider rate for first time in 3 years and up 11% on last year.

William CWC

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The biggest leadership challenge I currently face is trying to encourage a culture shift in how staff perceive the time spent on tracking of student progression and the capacity to offer intervention. It is vital that staff see tracking and monitoring as an invaluable tool to improve student outcomes, and not as a bureaucratic data gathering exercise.

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For GCSE English, the students now have two shorter lessons of an hour and a half each. These are split for a paper 1 and a paper 2 focus. This has encouraged lecturers to enter into a greater degree of professional dialogue within the team, with regards to student progression and strategies to raise standards of teaching, learning and assessment. The splitting of the papers has also reduced the workload of lecturers as the communication channels are opened and work split is negotiated based on the extensive monitoring of student in year progress and performance.

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Inspiring students to see the relevance of GCSE maths topics when the syllabus is getting much harder. So many repeat failures and no option to put them through functional skills instead which may be more relevant to their vocational options.

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In the last 2 years we have created a 12 week programme for apprentices which encourage them to intensely focus on either English or maths functional skills at one time. They then roll into the alternate subject for 12 weeks, regardless of whether they have passed or not. This fast track approach has improved their focus and given the subjects more of a sense of urgency. This has greatly improved timely framework success.
Debra Jory City College Plymouth

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The college has opted to enter most students in for GCSE; this has had an impact on T&L in the classroom in terms of differentiation. There has also been an increase poor behaviour.
Mukesh Patel
South and City College

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sRunning a number of CPD events to raise the awareness of the importance of maths and English. These events ran one each term where activities were used relevant to that faculty as well as this important examination information was given out. This proved to be highly successful as many tutors understood that their programme of study included success in maths and English and that they had an important part to play in it.
Also ran a maths and English month. Activities were run near main reception; many by A level students. This was not as successful as the maths activities sent to all tutors to use in their tutorials. There was positive feedback from tutors concerning the tutorial activities.
Mukesh Patel
South and City  College

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Staff training and support to maintain a strong team.
Flexible central SOW to support blended learning.
New system to assess and record student progress.  This also supports whole college monitoring of progress.

Carl Pagen

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Big Challenge is continuing to do more with less. Continuing to drive success rates up, meet the needs of individual students and personalise learning. Do this with less resources due to government reduction in funding. 

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Big Challenge is continuing to do more with less. Continuing to drive success rates up, meet the needs of individual students and personalise learning. Do this with less resources due to government reduction in funding. 

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Carl Pagen

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The main challenge we have as an organisation is keeping learners engaged and motivated when up-skilling after achieving their main aim in their current framework.
Some learners have lost motivation  at school and then find it difficult to engage with learning after sitting maths and English exams several times in school.
Samantha Greenwell
BL Training

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- We have regular meetings (Monthly) where all the Skills Support Team and Operations Manager meet to discuss outcomes, learner development and achievement, teaching methods and any  issues. This  covers all ALN students and F.S aims and allows us to  discuss upcoming issues/ concerns, share good practice and teaching strategies and offer each other support.
Data is collated in preparation for these monthly meetings to look at success reports, so that staff have full awareness
Pass percentages have increased
Samantha Greenwell
BL Training

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We have decided to split the learning into two. In January we will run 5 week courses (non accredited) which will lead onto the 10 week accredited functional skills course. The marketing of both courses I feel needs to be "sexy" but having trouble coming up with ideas.

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This organisation receives funding for Adult skills through the local council. We have struggled to get enough learners to make the courses viable. Last year we ran with course numbers of 5 and 6 for English and Maths respectively. In the event, the maths was more successful because more learners took and passed the exams. even though this was only 50%. It seems that learners are quite happy to come and learn but when the exams are booked they just don't turn up, or turn uo and go AWOL.

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Raising achievement rates at higher level Mathematics.  All learners seem to find Level 2 a challenge. Many of our learners have Maths as their weaker topic and even those who enjoy Maths find the L2 exam a struggle with few actually achieving a pass.
Ali Foster
Seetec

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- Supporting staff to devise ways of embedding maths and English into the vocational topics so that the learning becomes relevant to the individual learners.  This has helped build learners confidence with written and speaking, listening and communication significantly improving pass rates in these elements of FS English.
Ali Foster
Seetec

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- Teachers meeting to discuss resources.  It was generally agreed by teachers at a recent meeting that learners are more engaged when doing more practical tasks for their maths i.e. measuring up rooms for carpets, going out to car parks to collect data on car makes, colours, ages etc. Another activity learners appear to like are having to find the answers on cards which are placed around the classroom, which also then hold another questions for them to have to find the answer to.

Gill Hawkins
RACPD

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Functional Skills Maths L2 appears to be more and more challenging to our learners.  Trying to make the teaching and learning as effective as possible is our aim however availability of the learners is limited. Successfully encouraging learners to take responsibility for their learning and make use of the VLE outside of the classroom is proving to be a challenge.

Gill Hawkins

RACPD

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Achieving good grades with learners who are not motivated to learn and play the system i.e. they know we need the numbers(16-18) so play up a lot. Helping teachers with behavior management skills in the class and getting vocational tutors in on consistency of discipline.
Ingrid Ekeleme
Newham College of Further Education

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- Class contact - GCSE students are given 2 x 2 hour lessons every week as opposed o 3 hours once a week . This way able to spend input and writing time on paper 1 in the first session and paper 2 in the second. For Functional skills students we have one 2 hour sessions as opposed to 2 one hour sessions. This helps us manage attendance expectations.
Punctuality and attendance - we involve the vocational area by giving end of class/lesson feedback on who was absent in class to vocational tutors, especially those who have these learners most of the time, the heads of school, and the support team where applicable. In as much as we have attendance officers, internal departmental chasing and blocking of cards enables us keep track of students, especially those with poor attendance. Signs of potential increase by 11 to 29% when comparing to last years data.
Teaching and Learning - weekly planning engages all the tutors, providing new staff and those new to teaching in general, e.g. or graduate trainees and volunteer staff, opportunities to be part of the thinking through process in terms of class make up (levels, strengths, vocational course, etc) and what would work for us. This way, quality of resources and quality delivery is in check.
Ingrid Ekeleme
Newham College of Further Education

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Improving our approaches to the teaching and learning experience, whilst being innovative in our approach to "commerciality" in the delivery of FS at both levels 1 & 2 .
Biddy Lall
The JGA-Group

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- Coaching in the workplace to encourage development of learner's self esteem in different areas of maths
Biddy Lall
The JGA-Group

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Preparing learners for resits with limited information..

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I have forever and always struggled with students and their transition from Level 1 Functional Skills to Level 2. Once Level 1 has been achieved the jump to Level 2 seems to be such a huge gap that they struggle to achieve. A majority of these learners aren't logical thinkers which means they can't understand what a Level 2 question is asking of them.

Brad Kendrick
Bournemouth and Poole College

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This academic year I have changed the way in which students targets are set. They are given a list of the topics due to be covered in the half term. They choose one of these as an "area for development." They will then answer a set of questions based on this topic and get a score. The students then create CSMART target where they will look to improve on the score when they attempt these again at the end of the half term.

Brad Kendrick
Bournemouth and Poole College

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Many trainer-assessors are negative about maths and english and they lack confidence in their ability to teach it which then impacts on the learners. They don’t promote and embed maths and english which leads to lack of motivation and lack of achievement.
Jackie Machin

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- Changing the focus of my role to supporting trainer-assessors rather than direct learner support. This has been successful in developing the trainer-assessors own subject knowledge and teaching methods which has led to an increase in functional skills pass rates. This role has now been adopted across all regions in the company.
Jackie Machin

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- Each student studies English and/or Maths for 2 x 1 hour sessions per week in a dedicated English and Maths zone - in classes of a maximum size of 15 - ideally around 6 for Maths GCSE.
Engagement appears to have improved, learners feel more supported, attendance approx 93% currently.
ISSY BREWER
HARTPURY COLLEGE

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The biggest challenge to both English and Maths provision in FE is the engagement of learners who have a negative attitude towards the subject and may have failed to achieve a grade C/4 on numerous occasions throughout school. To motivate, identify, bridge the skills gaps and achieve success is the challenge........
ISSY BREWER
HARTPURY COLLEGE

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There is a lot of emphasis on data management and performance monitoring.  Although this is important I would like to be able to spend a similar amount of my working day on looking at the improvement of teaching and learning to improve the student's experience and progression opportunities.

Sarah Pink
City College Plymouth

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On the flip side of giving great individual bespoke support, unfortunately we are still having trainers who don't like maths and English, don't like to deliver it, we still take on staff who can't complete maths and English quals themselves. This having a detrimental on those learners and in turn our pass rates.  We, very sadly, have a culture of Operations vs Quality.

Zoe Fox

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- We offer individual one to one support for learners with their work based trainer so the support is bespoke to them.  The support is given alongside an online learning platform which should give all learners a learning programme which suits their needs.
When this support is good and the trainer is good then the results are great....

Zoe Fox

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- A timeline is published college wide providing details of key  English teaching and assessment plans.  This means that English delivery is included in vocational planning and ensures that students are not asked to attend off site activities when mocks and Funbctional Skills are scheduled.  In return effort grades, results of mock exams and student attainment are published through cross college trackers.  This has meant that the vocational areas can support their students in their English and maths studies and that everyone is aware of student progress.
Sarah Pink
City College Plymouth

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The engagement of 16/18 year old learners who have previously failed or had a negative experience.  This impacts on attendance and commitment

Janet Dale & Michael Howey

Hugh Baird College

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- Take a chance strategy aims to re-engage maths teachers and learners with a bis to create more stimulating enviroment within maths lessons.  The strategy is to stretch and challenge whilst making lessons fun and vibrant.  All the learners are 16/18 year olds whi have previously failed GCSE and are not engaged in continueing with the subject.  The process is a 360 degree feedback process were staff are encouraged to take a risk and is supported by a coach.

Janet Dale and Michael Howey

Hugh Baird College

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Attedance for 16-18 is a major problem.
We have started blocking cards of students that are not attending E&M to address this.

Elizabeth Adeyemi

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- We doubled the sessions offered weekly for Functional Skills for 16-18 which means they now have 2 x 1.5 hours weekly. This is being used as a carrot to motivate the students and have as many early completers as possible.
Topic test was introduced for GCSE and FS, taken every 3 weeks with outcomes used to set targets on pro-portal.
We have also run separate workshops for higher tier learners, 100% of all the students that attended the workshop got A*-C.
Elizabeth Adeyemi
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Attendance rates on Functional Skills and accredited programmes - constant challenge and meeting learner numbers targets
Tina McPolin

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- Started to run 3 hour parallel learning workshops to run alongside main programmes to imporve learner ach rates and help develop underlying skills across ALL learners we have enrolled : we have just started these but success delivery of Spelling essentials and Punctuation basics. Looking to run wide range of these on topics such as preparing for exams using mindful techniques and Maths for ESOL learners - understanding the jargon
Tina McPolin

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- As a company that delivers across 5 sites around the country we have introduced a standardised GCSE Maths and English scheme of Work that is used across the board. Embedding fortnightly assessments to highlight students progress on basic skills.

Nicola Wareing
ProCo NW

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- Previously delivered GCSE as 3 hour sessions, this year we have separated the sessions to deliver 2x 1.5 hr sessions a week, this is to try and reduce absence for the full three hrs, improve concentration in the session and therefore hopefully see a positive impact on achievement.
Sarah Ranson

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As an organisation delivering over 7 sites with a centralised English and maths team, a major challenge we face is ensuring curriculum areas are on board with the monitoring and administering of student attendance at English and maths classes.
Sarah Ranson

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As an ACL provider we are currently under review from the council and staff morale is very low.
With specific regard to English and maths we need to attract more learners.

Pam Priest, North Lincs Council, ACL

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- We offer initial referrals for all learners wanting to do English and maths. We look at their current level of skill through our own designed initial assessment. We also discuss any support needs and look at availability to attend classes. The impact of this is to make sure learners are placed in the most appropriate class along with any necessary support to give them the best opportunity to achieve. This has also been a positive outcome on inspection.

Pam Priest, North Lincs Council, ACL

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Add (by double clicking anywhere on the padlet and typing) the biggest maths and English leadership challenge you are currently facing.

Annmarie, Joss, Sue, Anne & Claire

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jo.byrne2@gmail.com

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Add (by double clicking anywhere on the padlet and typing) a maths/ English curriculum innovation or strategy you have implemented which has had (or anticipated to) have a positive impact on learner outcomes in maths and English,  and briefly outline the evidence for that impact.

Annmarie Joss, Sue, Anne & Claire