4. Oxford and Cherwell Valley College (OCVC)

“ACT NOW! Get that Job Retrain and Upskill @ OCVC”: How courses were selected

Following a successful Response to Redundancy bid to the LSC, OCVC set about identifying the courses to make up their ACT NOW! provision. These were established initially by input from the Project lead and the Management Information Systems (MIS) team. MIS was able to source appropriate Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF) courses from the Learning Aims Database (LAD), which in turn enabled 14 Curriculum Managers to select from some 1,000 QCF courses from which to build their curriculum area offer.

The MIS manager provided invaluable information on the funding available and how it might work. Ingrid Widdows, ‘Get That Job Project Manager

The MIS team also created a “Ready Reckoner” which helped curriculum areas determine course viability as well as course costs per learner. This facility made it easy to open the programme to fee paying (non JSA claimants), and non-fee paying learners (JSA claimants) thus maximising learner numbers and up-take.

With this information, and after discussion with JCP to determine the most up-to- date LMI and sector vacancies, the College was able to select courses, create course codes and market the prospectus. Effective internal partnership working between college departments was key to ensuring a swift response, which enabled the three week turn round from conception to publication of the ACT NOW! brochure.

This approach produced a wide and varied curriculum offer, with all managers contributing their ideas. Some courses were selected using LMI information only, whilst others were included as they had been popular in the past; some would be classed as general interest, whilst a few were requested specifically by local unemployed people attending the Banbury Job Club. The OCVC offer was diverse and the strategy to devise such a mixed programme was deliberate:

…we used a scatter gun approach as to what we put on. We realised we had a big programme, we knew that not all courses would run, we now know what works, so we can now refine the offer, we did ‘test the market’. Lesley Donoghue, Vice Principal, Development

Key Attributes for Success:

Buy-in

Strategically, OCVC is focussed on employer responsiveness and has an Employer Services department which spearheads the work. The notion of working with local area information, and specifically labour market information, is rooted at the core of their business. Curriculum Managers are adept at using and interpreting such data when designing their curriculum offers:

at OCVC employer responsiveness is a key priority within our 3 year strategic plan. Out of the plan falls an action plan with targets, both documents are reviewed by the Governors annually. Labour market information is integrated in this process; it is detailed through all our business processes, curriculum business planning, and through Employer Services. All curriculum managers have to include this information in their curriculum business planning. Lesley Donoghue, Vice Principal, Development  

Buy-in for the ACT NOW! offer has been at all levels of the organisation. The College realised very quickly that the scale of success would be dependant on the appointment of a dedicated project lead, to manage the process, to circulate, collect and collate information from the 14 Curriculum Managers, and to maintain effective communication channels to ensure continued buy-in and co-operation from all:

… Communication was essential. Ingrid was very positive and motivated the staff to engage, so much so the engineering offer was made overnight!  We now have people on the programme, can tailor to their needs. We have a strong curriculum team; we respond and have the skills to do it! Phil Neave, Engineering Curriculum Manager

In addition to securing internal buy-in, OCVC developed collaborative and creative links with a range of external organisations to share information and stretch resources where possible. This is demonstrated through their bid, made in partnership with all main local providers in Oxfordshire. OCVC formed a partnership group, to take the work forward, comprising: Oxfordshire Adult Learning Service, Ruskin College, WEA, Abingdon and Witney College, Ethnic Minority Business Service, Henley College and Ngage Solutions.

Marketing

Aside from the usual approaches of leafleting, advertising in doctor’s surgeries and marketing through family centres, OCVC proactively manned a stand at the Banbury Job Club. The brainchild of MP Tony Baldry, the Job Club combines the knowledge and experience of organisations who can help people find a new job or who help them gain access to benefits they may be entitled to whilst they look for work. http://www.cherwell-dc.gov.uk/index.cfm?articleid=4026

Senior Mangers from the various curriculum areas took it in turns to attend the Job Club each week, to offer information, advice and guidance as well as in depth information relating to ACT NOW! courses. This, coupled with working with JCP, proved invaluable in providing an insight into the client group as well as learning that more marketing was needed to bring the college to the community:

…at the launch Curriculum mangers went to JCP centres…so as to understand the issues for those who are unemployed…some are extremely vulnerable and there is a whole range of needs, some people didn’t know of the College or what training is available.  Lesley Donoghue, Vice Principal, Development  

Organisational Challenges and Solutions:

In addition to the challenges of a time sensitive project and the need to identify appropriate courses for a varied client group, the College had to put systems in place to provide a flexible and responsive service to manage and monitor enquires. A tracking system was set up to ensure that, once a potential learner had made an enquiry to the College, they were managed and kept up-to-date with class viability and start dates. This system was helpful in keeping learners ‘warm’, particularly when, on the odd occasion, courses were unable to run as published due to low learner numbers, or when learners were unable to attend a course on the published date and were subsequently placed on a waiting list. To address this and as an attempt to manage expectations, the College has elected to refresh their PEP offer and have refrained from making it time limited, which they feel will help boost learner numbers and accessibility.

The College demonstrated that they were aware of the risk of losing learners by implementing a flexible approach and ensuring a dialogue was maintained with learners:

…try to respond quickly, keep the lines of communication open, and keep in regular contact with unemployed people. To get this moving, be flexible and adjust to people’s requirements. If numbers are slightly down be a bit flexible and you will get their confidence and they will know we are here to help Mairi Smith, Marketing Director

We learned how to put on the programme, with fixed dates, to have systems in place to wait until we have a group to run, we kept in contact with all our learners with the aim of not losing a single enquiry Lesley Donoghue, Vice Principal, Development

The College has had to develop an understanding of the needs of a new client group as well as developing guidelines about the eligibility criteria for the ACT NOW! programme. A wider knowledge of these areas has been attained through discussion with JCP and LSC staff. However, OCVC is aware that the time pressures associated with the project resulted in little opportunities for staff training:

There has been little time for formal training sessions and learning new skills such as issuing contracts and franchising, producing new materials, guidance of ILPs, and general staff information.  Luckily we were able to build on the Train to Gain experience our Employer Services team had and people were willing to spend time on a one- to- one basis or in meetings to find out about new systems & paperwork”. Ingrid Widdows, ‘Get That Job Project Manager

Impact to date:

Despite challenges the College has run an initial PEP programme with 648 enquires which translated into 500 learners on 66 courses.  99.9% of enquires  come from either JCP or the Job Clubs, with Job Clubs equating to approximately 22% of all enquires. The College has been able to analysis take-up, which will inform their new offer from September, and can now determine the more popular courses.  IT secured 104 learners, Entry to Care & Counselling 54 learners, 73 learners took a construction related course, whilst 85 learners opted to learn about door supervision and security, 40 elected engineering and 32 enrolled on the introduction to teacher training course, and 33 learners were enrolled on Skills for Life courses. The College also ran successful tasters for Hospitality, Hair & Beauty and Leadership & Management.

The ACT NOW! approach is getting results. There has been a 100% success rate on the Health and Social Care courses; 2 of the students on the Entry 3 Introduction to Care course have secured employment, 5 of the 16 students who took the Introduction to Teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) course have progressed and secured places on the Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults (CELTA) course, and 2 of this number have now gained employment. Engineering and Leadership & Management students have also progressed.

In response to local demand the College is developing new accredited provision. This includes certificates in Door Supervision & Security Guarding and Running a Business. This responsiveness is proving highly successful; as an example 8 learners from the Motor Vehicle taster are now enrolled onto the new Certificate in Motor Vehicle course due to run in the autumn.
Employees consider that the project has been meaningful from an organisational development perspective:

Its been a challenge that was worthwhile. The College has a clear direction for the future, there will be a new curriculum put together in August which will reflect the evaluation of the pilot and outcomes from learners. Mairi Smith, Marketing Director

Indeed, the College is using the experiences of this pilot to build their Employer Services arm further and have applied for, and successfully  gained, certification against the Training Quality Standard (TQS) http://www.trainingqualitystandard.co.uk for their Engineering curriculum area. TQS is a standard which has been designed to reflect employers’ priorities and expectations in sourcing training and development solutions, and the practices of the organisations proven to be the best at delivering them. Part B of the framework is aimed at those providers with a sector focus, and deals with developing and deploying products to address individual sector needs. It is a framework that the College considers important in building its work-related provision further:

…TQS is something that will help us to keep building and developing, whilst sustaining our activity. It’s a challenge for a FE College to be recognised by companies. In our next Strategic Plan we will be able to establish and promote our centres of excellence. We will maximise the opportunities through TQS and customise our approaches. Lesley Donoghue, Vice Principal, Development  

Learners up skill and secure employment as a result of the ACT NOW! approach. One learner reported that the course she attended has given her the right skills to get a job in the sector she wishes to work in:

I now have a job working in a care home. I start my Level 2 in September, my Level 3 in April, in September I’m starting a maths course, then I want to do an access course, then a year out to get some funds together, then go to university to do nursing and midwifery. Rebecca Cooper, Leaner  

View Rebecca's full learner journey    To listen to Rebecca’s  interview at Radio Oxford on 20th July 2009 go to : http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p003r3p4/Louisa_Hannan_20_07_2009/