Memorandum submitted by Newbury College
INTRODUCTION
Whilst Newbury College has been working with
local schools, there has been an increase in numbers and strategic
inclusion over the past three years. It is now seen that this
area of work is increasingly important and is seen by senior managers
a strategic priority.
CURRENT ACTIVITIES
Work Related Tasters: These are six week courses
for year 10 and year 11 in local schools, these tasters are in
such areas as Parenting, Sport and Recreation and Cookery.
They are non-accredited courses and are funded
by the schools. These have been running for three years and have
grown in structure to approximately 35 students over the programme.
The sessions last for about two and a half hours per week.
INCREASED FLEXIBILITY
PROJECT (IFP)
We have four cohorts for IFP. This is due to
the geographical nature of West Berkshire, half of the schools
being nearer to Reading College as a provider.
The IFP project provides opportunities in Vocational
GCSEs in Engineering and ICT, NVQs in Administration and Foundation
Award in Construction.
Students come from local schools and spend two
half days with us per week.
We are in the middle of this project, the second
cohort ending in 2005.
The involvement in this project has highlighted
a number of issues, that have to be addressed for us to be able
to develop services in this age group, these will be listed later.
INFILL PROGRAMME
The College is often approached by the LEA,
parents and schools to take in year 10 and year 11 students. Many
of these have been having problems at school, usually behavioural
in nature.
These students come under a variety of programmes,
a GCSE programme, a vocational programme or a mixture of both.
These courses are funded by the schools or the LEA, in extreme
circumstances the LSC is applied to.
OTHER PROGRAMMES
Out of these previous programme there have been
other developments:
— Short programmes for the Pupil Referral
Unit.
These were very vocationally orientated and were
held both on and off site and have been taking place with year
nine students upwards.
One school in particular has worked with the
College and the Education Business Partnership to develop a three
year programme for a small group of year 10 students. These students
spend three days at school doing three GCSEs and two days at College
studying two vocational subjects. It is planned that this group
will go on to Modern Apprenticeship once they have completed full-time
education.
This group will also undergo team building exercises,
residentials and work experience. The project is in its early
days and a review will be undertaken before the end of the Christmas
Term.
IMPACT OF
14-16 PROVISION ON
THE COLLEGE
Like many projects the 14-16 provision started
in a small way and in some respects has surprised us in the way
that it has grown. This growth has brought with it issues that
have been addressed through the strategic planning of the College.
STAFFING
One of the biggest issues is the staffing. This
concentrates on several main issues:
(1) Staff's ability and willingness
to teach 14-16 students. A number of staff are unwilling to undertake
this work, even if well supported. Whilst this has not caused
the College any problems with the Union, it has concerns with
the staff involved. The College was able to establish a pre-16
Co-ordinator, but in order that this role can be effective there
needs to be support by delivery staff and by the Senior Managers.
One step forward was to ensure that from the
start of 2003 all job descriptions have a clause stating that
the role could be asked to provide part of the 14-16 provision,
but this would take a great deal of time.
(2) Subject staff availability:
The provision that Newbury College provides is
largely vocational and the course mirrors high demands in the
general enrolment pattern of the College, so placements in areas
such as Motor Vehicle, IT and Beauty are short supply. This means
that there is a high demand for part-time staff in the 14-16 programme.
These staffing arrangements mean that whilst we can provide a
variety of the short courses, subject to the availability of the
staff, we can not rely on the longevity of the staff, as they
can leave on only two weeks notice, therefore long term commitments
pose problems.
There is also an issue about the subject support
to these staff. The part-time staff need both student and subject
support, which for the subject support needs to come from the
vocational area.
In an area like West Berkshire staff shortages are
an issue, which the College has to address.
(3) Pre-16 students on site:
The College, obviously, has the duties and responsibilities
of the schools in these circumstances.
This has meant incorporating the activities that
are required, ie registration, break supervision, and instant
absence notification. We have dealt with this by adapting the
College system and we are employing staff who can be on call at
all times when the students are on site.
The College's policy is to try to ensure that
the pre-16 students are treated in the same way as the other students
with the College. This means giving them full access to the facilities
such as the pool tables and lift. Thus extra supervision is needed,
to ensure "high spirits" are not left unhindered.
The schools involved in this programme are encouraged
not to send their students in school uniform, with the uniform
they stand out as being "different". The staff who are
less enthusiastic of having them on site are often all too willing
to put damage or incidents down to these students, much of this
is due to culture and one of the biggest challenges for the team
is to work on the attitude of teaching and support staff.
FINANCES
As currently the LSC tends not to fund this
activity, or only by exception. Any free activity agreement, government
funded project attracts a great deal of interest from the schools.
It has become apparent that the College needs to place very strict
criteria to ensure that the College's courses are not seen as
a "dumping ground". The criteria are proving to be increasingly
important in upholding the standard of students.
This is where the relationship between the College
and the schools is proving to be important.
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN
LEA SCHOOLS AND
THE COLLEGE
From the early days the College has tried to
ensure that all partners have a good communication system.
The pre-16 Co-ordinator has regular meetings
with the school co-ordinator and the lecturers involved, to try
to ensure that all sides are able to contribute to the scheme;
having a positive effect on the students if both sides can talk
knowledgably about the other side of the students' life.
The College has also taken a lead wherever possible
at 14-19 local activities to ensure that the College can be sure
that strategically it can maintain its influence. This has now
included the LSC practitioner groups.
PRACTICAL ISSUES
Once any two institutions join together there
are a number of very practical issues that have to be dealt with.
The difficulties increase when there are five or more schools
to deal with.
The issues are:
— Timetables—we have found that
no school has exactly the same timings throughout the day. Trying
to group together students to produce economies of scale can prove
problematical.
— Free school meals—many of the
students receive free school meals. This is not an issue that
FE colleges have to deal with. In our case a special arrangement
with the facility managers has developed.
— Dress—students who come for
a half-day have the dilemma of what to where. This needs to be
a joint agreement, because one school group does not do as the
rest, then they run the risk of causing problems for the students.
CONCLUSION
The College sees itself as having an important
role in the local provision of 14-16 activity. It is early days
and there are many issues still to resolve, but it is a growing
activity and it is the College's intention to ensure that it has
a developmental role.
December 2003
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