FERA Conference, October, London

Feedback from FERA Conference, Friday 22nd October

Engaging 16-19 year-olds in Learning: Carrot or Stick?
Participation, Retention and Achievement

This was an interesting conference raising several issues that we could consider in relation to CfE, MCMC and learner engagement. Although the conference was primarily focused on provision in England and Wales, some of the issues were pertinent to Scotland, and there was also discussion relating to recent MCMC research findings in Scotland.
I’ve tried to summarise the main ideas presented, but can give further information to anyone interested.
1. Geoff Hayward, Director of Research at the Department of Education, University of Oxford and Director of the Nuffield 14-19 Review.
• More young people are being attracted into further education, and are staying in the system for longer. However, there is statistical evidence that young people are migrating from employment to education (those previously who would have been employed are now in education). This could be seen as structural youth unemployment, and the we need to consider whether we are really helping young people into the labour market.
• Too often young people leave education to go into low paid, temporary employment, or unemployment and come back to college to gain another qualification at the same level that they previously acquired.
• Arguably we are stockpiling qualifications , against other countries – qualifications that are not actually needed for the labour market. “Qualifications become increasingly self-referential inside an education system that fails to engage with the reality of the labour market, which surprisingly places little value on most vocational qualifications currently offered in FE colleges.”
• Do these qualifications actually make us more innovative, creative, raise the GDP – arguably no. Very weak evidence that qualifications leads to jobs, unless you need that qualification to register for a particular job.
• ‘In search of the elusive quarry’ – employability and generic skills, or the ‘Unbearable lightness of skills’. Attempting to define a skills set is a fool’s errand and a waste of money – over past 30 years there have been 5 policy changes trying to define skills needed, but skills need to contextualized and cannot successfully be taught in isolation.
• Argues for more school based vocational system similar to Austria’s.
• Stop putting up with qualification pathways that don’t lead anywhere.
• Help young people develop to be innovative and creative – develop businesses.


2. Gary Warke, Deputy Chief Executive of Hull College Group, one of the largest FE colleges in England. Outlined strategies used to engage and sustain young people in college.
• Offer discovery ½ days/full days for pupils at age 13/14, parents and school staff. Raises the awareness of college potential and helps develop partnership working with schools.
• Developing a range of apprenticeships with local employers.
• Provide alternative learning provisions using collaboration with school, college and other learning providers.
• Very clear pathways with qualifications: entry to degree.
• Constant curriculum review to make sure this reflects labour market opportunities.
• Guidance and support crucial. Contacts need to be made and sustained with schools early on. A great deal of pastoral care was given in guidance tutoring.
• Innovation in learning and teaching – have in place learning coaches for lecturers and learning mentors for young people.
• Core skill are integrated into all subjects.
• Developed a teaching award for those teaching young people – awarded by Edexel, as the it was recognised that additional knowledge and skills were needed.
• E-learning co-ordinator employed in each faculty to help embed technology in the curriculum and to keep staff up-to-date with innovations in technology.

3. Dr. Ian Finlay, Independent Researcher, Young people on the margins: in need of more choices and more chances in twenty-first century Scotland.
Dr Finlay was discussing his recently published paper (British Educational research Journal, October 2010). The aim of the study was to find out more about the lives of young people catagorised as NEET. The research team worked with 26 young people in small groups, and engaged with them using a variety of creative and artistic activities designed to help them construct accounts of their lives. Three significant issues emerged from their lives stories:

• The problematic nature of the discourse of NEET, and why Scotland had changed to MCMC;
• The challenges of school-exclusion policies and practices and;
• The myth of low aspirations. Young people have the same aspirations as other people but their expectations are lower.

• There needs to be more opportunities that are tailored to meet individual needs, and more choices in terms of the range of provision available – often in a non-formal or voluntary sector. “Youth workers and advisors in these sectors seem to be able to develop the kind of close, supportive relationships with young people that are difficult to develop in secondary schools because of the structures and numbers involved.”

• Argues for family size scale of provision – difficult to provide in schools and colleges.

I have the research paper if anyone is interested in reading it.

For further information contact me: Karen.lawson@scotcol.ac.uk

EDDG meetings on the topic of Assessment

This week we had two well attended lunchtime meetings of our EDDG group. Assessment was chosen as our focus partly because the SCE Assessment Policy is currently undergoing review and also to lead us into the Curriculum for Excellence vision of creating an 'Assessment is for Learning' college.

As always, at these meetings the attendees shared examples of good practice such as:

• Starting a unit by setting a mock summative assessment and allowing the learners to find out how many gaps there are in their knowledge and privately discover how much they need to learn to be successful
• Using quiz type formative testing throughout the course which can be peppered with 'pub quiz' type questions which tend to lighten an otherwise stressful experience
• Using feedback stickys at the end of a lesson to let the lecturer know of gaps and successes in the learning
• Using Quizdom linked to a presentation -this is an electronic voting tool given to the learners that then allows the lecturer to monitor the understanding of their lesson
• Peer assessing and peer reviewing and the 'two stars and a wish' approach where students give feedback to one another about what they've done well and what they might do differently
• Regularly sharing in staff meetings what is happening in the classroom that seems to work well
• Involving students in decisions about how they want to be assessed
• Using regular informal testing at the end of a lesson. This appears to lead to the learners paying greater attention throughout the class
• Using Flip cameras to video group work
• Using D2L and various fora (Blogs, Wikis etc) to feedback to the learners. This creates a platform for further group discussions and collabarative learning
• Students developing assessments for one another can help them to look at a topic from a different perspective

These are some of the techniques that are being used across college and the value of each was discussed. It was agreed that it wasn't always easy to balance the academic content with useful formative assessment and strive to keep our learners engaged along the way.

Also discussed were the problems faced with plagiarism and academic dishonesty and how sanctions can and are being used. Some lecturers draw up a contract with their learners regarding plagiarism at the start of each course. This is explained to each student and they are asked to sign and agree to its content. This approach doesn't always work with individuals but it can be revisited if a student is thought to be contravening it.

It was put forward that students may plagiarise material because they have not been able to, or had the support to develop essay or report writing skills in their already packed curriculum. Help with accessing the correct materials, effectively reading these, taking appropriate notes then personalising and presenting their findings would be very useful especially to those going on to study at University but also as a skill to take through life.

As always the discussions could have continued longer but ended on how important good feedback is in the journey of a learner and what is helpful to allow progression.

Thanks to all who gave up their time to attend.

Carole