Aiming for Excellence Marian Jebb Marilyn Wood Post-16 Quality & Data Management October 2014

Workshop aims 1.Highlight some of the strengths of the WBL sector and improvements over recent years 2.Consider the challenges: Ensuring a relentless focus on improvement Meeting individual needs 3.Discussion activity: how can we move from ‘good’ to ‘excellent’?

This is how far we’ve come…  Increased openness to sharing best practice, ideas and resources  Commitment to improving literacy and numeracy  Focus on supporting learners with barriers to participation  Agility in responding to employers’ needs  Improved tracking and use of data

Apprenticeship success rates

What your learners like best

Where we go next…

A relentless focus on improvement  Self-assessment: – Needs to build on strengths as well as addressing weaknesses – Self-critical approach

Self-assessment is … the first essential step in a cyclical process of bringing about change and improvement… based on professional reflection, challenge and support among practitioners. Effective self-assessment involves taking wide- ranging decisions about actions which result in clear benefits for all learners. Most of all, it is about striving for excellence.  How well are we doing?  How do we know?  How can we improve things further?

A relentless focus on improvement  Impact of collaboration and learning from best practice  Board/SMT role in challenging underperformance and setting targets  Benchmarking!!

Meeting individual needs  Using feedback to help learners improve  Integration of on- and off-the job training – how is learning reviewed and reinforced?  Embedding and contextualisation of skills into vocational settings

Vocational teaching and learning is most effective when it is collaborative and contextualised, taking place within communities of practice which involve different types of ‘teacher’ and capitalise on the experience and knowledge of all learners. It’s about work…Excellent adult vocational teaching and learning Commission for Adult Vocational Teaching and Learning

Meeting individual needs  Enabling all learners to achieve their full potential – including the most able  Challenging learners to achieve higher levels of knowledge and practical competence  Tracking and early intervention (extending best practice)

Discussion  What’s the difference between ‘good’ and ‘excellent’?  What are the main priorities for improving quality in WBL?  What are the practical steps that providers / NTfW / DfES could take?

What next?  Looking beyond Wales (and beyond WBL)  Could WBL develop more of a focus on reflective practice / research?  Role of the Quality Managers network and NTfW networks?  Scope for sharing resources?  Give us your feedback and ideas on Learning Wales (and anything else)…