Ofsted’s latest examples of good practice

Ofsted’s Good Practice Team has published new examples of good practice by four learning providers. These examples can be found in the Ofsted Good Practice Database – available exclusively on the Excellence Gateway. Most examples give you access to the providers’ original files to help you start your quality improvement journey with  confidence. Read more:
http://www.excellencegateway.org.uk/page.aspx?o=301507

College shares its award-winning practice for inclusive risk assessments

Richmond Upon Thames College has developed an award-winning project that provides guidance and advice on completing inclusive risk assessments for students with medical conditions or disabilities. The project has helped the college to better understand the needs of its learners ensuring all students are given every opportunity to participate in college life. The college has uploaded its guidance resource to the Excellence Gateway so it can be of benefit to other organisations.  Read more:
http://www.excellencegateway.org.uk/297676

Excellence Gateway user needs survey

We need your feedback! Please help us to improve the Excellence Gateway to better meet your needs by completing our online survey. Click here to complete the survey:
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The Moodle virtual learning environment (VLE) and Mahara e-portfolio were identified as the ideal vehicles to introduce the online Progression and Employability Skills (PES), a compulsory course for all full time students at London’s Newham College.

During supported independent study sessions, facilitated by study coaches and with additional technical support from e-learning advisors, students are able to develop their e-portfolios to demonstrate their progress and capabilities to potential employers and universities. The PES programme is delivered entirely online and has proved highly successful with students.

Read this Excellence Gateway good e-practice case study, in full at:
http://www.excellencegateway.org.uk/page.aspx?o=301763

The Excellence Gateway is the sector-led, online service for supporting the professional practice of the further education and skills sector and its continuing development.

Share your experience and provide useful feedback on the Excellence Gateway through this online survey:

Excellence Gateway online user needs survey

The survey takes about 10 minutes to complete.

The Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS) is responsible for managing the Excellence Gateway and ensuring it meets the needs of learning providers across the sector. This means the needs and interests of learning providers drive the strategy for the Excellence Gateway, and the service’s development.

The Excellence Gateway provides a wide range of online resources and support. Contributors come from across the learning and skills sector and include, for example, the JISC Regional Support Centres, Ofsted, the Skills Funding Agency and learning providers themselves, as well as LSIS.

By completing the survey, you will help LSIS to understand what you want from the Excellence Gateway and how you use other online services.

‘Sparks’, Bexley College’s Moodle-based virtual learning environment (VLE), was not a popular platform by September 2008 and was underused by both lecturers and learners. John Jackson, e-Learning and VLE Professional Tutor, and Dave Byrne, ILT Training and Development Co-ordinator, set out to discover what could be done to turn this situation around and start to embed e-learning across the College.

Over 60 staff and 1,750 learners, representing a wide range of programmes from basic education, access to higher education, Business, ICT, Beauty, ESOL (English for Speakers of other Languages), Art and Design and Construction, were involved in the drive to extend and enliven e-learning at Bexley College.

Read how they fired-up ‘Sparks’ in this new case study for the Excellence Gateway.

The School of Arts at Barnet College covers a range of subjects including Multimedia Design, Graphics, Music, Photography, Fashion, Creative and Performing Arts. The School has been leading the way in exploring the use of blogs for students working at Entry Level through to those on Foundation Degree courses. Recognising the wide range of prior experience with online tools amongst teachers and learners, Barnet’s approach is exploratory and experimental with experience shared across the College as new staff members are encouraged to introduce blogs as part of their own practice.

This RSC London case study for the Excellence Gateway describes how teachers at Barnet College are using blogs in a variety of ways with their learners, and how their learners are responding to the experience in different ways.

Read the full case study on the Excellence Gateway: http://www.excellencegateway.org.uk/page.aspx?o=288577

Croydon Adult Learning and Training (CALAT) has made use of its Moodle virtual learning platform to work collaboratively with a range of organisations to provide new learning opportunities and to meet the needs of specific groups of learners.

In partnership with Mary Ward College, CALAT developed blended delivery of a community translation course that reduced the cost to the learner of undertaking this vocational programme.

In a second innovative partnership, CALAT’s Big Lottery-funded Family Learning Team has developed a project working with the London Fire Brigade Crossfire Team, local primary schools and other key community services to develop an online resource for children and their families in fire safety.

Read the full case study on the Excellence Gateway :
http://www.excellencegateway.org.uk/page.aspx?o=282258

John Ruskin College

John Ruskin College used an ILT Health Check, offered by JISC RSC London, to help identify the strengths and weaknesses of its use of ILT to manage, deliver and support learning.

This Excellence Gateway case study looks at the College’s response to the key findings and recommendations, and subsequent progress since its completion.

Read the case study here:
http://www.excellencegateway.org.uk/page.aspx?o=274540

The recession brought new challenges to Jobwise Training as the company found it increasingly difficult to engage the interest of employers. The company came up with the idea of a driving simulator to make its training as relevant and engaging as possible. This, and an investment (funded under LIG4)  in industry standard handheld computers for its courier trainees, has helped it to improve outcomes for its learners in a difficult economic climate.

Read the Jobwise Training case study on the Excellence Gateway

This RSC London case study for the Excellence Gateway, focuses on the whole-organisation approach to improving teaching and learning at Lewisham College, and how through personalisation and mobile learning, this approach is being realised in practice.

Read how the College sets out to create a:

• stronger sense of responsibility and ownership among learners of the outcomes of their programme of study
• clearer distribution of responsibility within the management of courses
• more defined approach to individualising student programmes.

Lewisham College: Personalisation and mobile learning at the heart of the learning strategy

A challenge for Hillcroft College is that it is a small provider but with a national catchment area offering very flexible patterns of attendance. For example, the ‘Women into Management’ is a Level 3, national programme offering residential weekends. These women learners include some employed in community group leadership and management roles, and who typically join this roll-on programme at different stages. They also have different patterns of engagement – some wanting to achieve a qualification in the shortest time, others fitting attendance around other commitments and taking up to 18 months to complete.

Hillcroft aims to use its Moodle virtual learning environment (VLE) to enable learners to engage with one another and with course materials throughout their programme, whilst maintaining the quality of provision by supporting tutors and learners in their use of the VLE.

Read the full Hillcroft case study on the Excellence Gateway