WMCETT Board Meeting Agenda
held on Tuesday, 12 May 2015 at
Heart of Worcestershire College, Bromsgrove Campus
Present:
Maureen Atkinson, Chair
Julie Chamberlain (Project Manager WMCETT) Secretary
Colin Barnett (Worcestershire County Council)
Helena Baxter (WTPA)
Peter Robinson (North East Worcestershire College)
Helen Kinghorn (Warwickshire College)
Fergus McKay (Director WMCETT)
1. Apologies
Colin Barnett attended the meeting on behalf of Ros Partridge.
2. Minutes of Advisory Board meeting, 9 December 2014
These were accepted as a true record.
3. Matters arising
These would be discussed under other agenda items.
4. Director’s update
FM talked about a plan by Coventry and Warwickshire colleges to put together a joint proposal to the LEP
to bid for funds for a project to do with employability. The CETT would also be involved.
HB said the Worcestershire Training Providers Association represented private providers on the local LEP
Skills Board, and it was very much about growing apprenticeships. A UTC was going to be set up from a link
with Worcester University. Other Midlands LEPs were focusing on totally different approaches. Cyber
security was also a big subject for Worcester LEP.
CB said it was very different from what the council adult and community education department was doing.
They were trying to get a new structure in place. The skills strategy was only going to help a few people. PR
said the best way to get funding for something was to link with a local company or educational
establishment.
FM reported that WMCETT had been visited by Rob Pheasant who was doing a survey for ETF and we fed
back that we did not have contact with people there, and they needed representation in the regions. It was
hard to find out what was going on. CB agreed the platforms for that had disappeared. HB said the training
providers had had a useful presentation from Jisc and their representative was going to attend all their
meetings to tell them what was available. The help available with Feltag looked very good.
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FM said the University had put in a joint bid with universities in Germany and Romania for European
funding to look at a different way of teaching mathematics.
Action point: JC to send paper on mathematical resilience to Advisory Board members
The project proposal focused on strategies to enable individuals re-engaging with mathematics. The result
of the bid should be known in July. PR said the project proposal was interesting, came at a good time and it
was relevant. People were often very motivate to learn but something psychological got in the way and had
to be dealt with first. MA said one of the problems with maths was that the way it was taught had changed
completely, and some schools were now offering maths classes to adults as well. Staffordshire University
was also running classes to help people. HB said Worcestershire schools did something similar, and for
English teaching. FM added that BAES taught language for maths classes too.
5. Project manager’s update
JC reported on work WMCETT had done with emCETT on a bid they had won from the Education and
Training Foundation, called Leading GCSE English and maths in the Education and Training sector. emCETT
won the contract for most of the Midlands and north. The project aimed at helping senior leaders lead and
manage significant change in relation to English and maths, post 16. WMCETT had been involved in six
consultation events, and a website toolkit was produced which could be used at events such as governors’
meetings, and dipped into to consult resources, find background information etc. The website is at
http://gcseleadership.com/
emCETT had also won a project to write and pilot some Level 5 English and maths sessions to help equip
teachers in the education and training sector to teach GCSE maths and English. This involved Steve Pardoe
and Catriona Mowat who also work for WMCETT, and WMCETT had helped out by running a pilot session at
the Centre for Lifelong Learning. The modules have gone to ETF and should be available to be run soon.
JC reminded the Board that WMCETT has a contract to work for the Education and Training Foundation,
through ACETT, to have a maths, English and SEND lead. Part of the remit was on Information, Advice and
Guidance, and on seeking to discover what extra CPD and support was needed, and to feed back to the ETF.
In maths there has also been two more subsidised maths enhancement programmes which recruited a
total of 36 people. WMCETT was also involved with promoting NCETM one-day and half day free maths
CPD programmes around the country. In English, WMCETT had asked to host an English Enhancement
Programme at the University of Warwick after research showed a large demand in the Midlands, and it
filled up with 23 people. A national waiting list had also been set up which showed demand.
WMCETT is running four one-day Rising to the Challenge events in June, at the University of Warwick, at
Heart of Worcestershire College, Birmingham Adult Education Service and Stoke on Trent College, with
mornings for managers and lead practitioners looking at strategic and management issues, and afternoons
for specialist and vocational teachers, covering effective teaching and learning. There is also another
subsidised maths enhancement programme running in June at Birmingham Adult Education Service, and
Maths and English Fest! 2015 which will include workshops and information sessions, with a charge of £50
per person. Last year WMCETT ran Maths Fest 2014, which was a big success.
JC presented the budget which showed there was enough funding left for WMCETT to keep going until the
end of August 2016.
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FM hoped WMCETT would be able to win sufficient projects to support their sustainability plan. The
number of people interested in what WMCETT was doing showed there was a need for the CETT to
continue, and the people who worked for us had good reputations as specialists.
6. Any other business
FM invited the Board members to give updates on their specific areas.
CB said he was expecting big changes in adult education as funding was moving more towards
apprenticeships. His service was trying to diversify and the community learning model was the only hope.
Different subjects and types of courses were being offered and people were very happy with them. There
were quality issues in ensuring tutors were suitable. The shorter learning experience was popular, either
workshops or short courses, and language courses were the only long ones. Trainers set the price for their
workshops based on the market rate and the authority added 30 per cent and agreed a minimum number.
The customer base was often affluent and highly intelligent people with a good amount of leisure time. The
model would not sustain the whole team when public funding goes but it had opened the door to people
who had an interest in running courses.
PR talked about reduced funding for 18+ students, and the dual mandate for FE around apprenticeships
and traineeships and adult skills. Students with a D in English or maths now had to continue to study the
subject which was a condition of funding. He had appealed for information about a college in the country
which was doing it brilliantly and had not got an answer. He had spoken to Nick Boles about it, and he said
he did not necessarily see that students had to study GCSE.
HK said Warwickshire College had been judged Outstanding by Ofsted when it was easier to be
outstanding, and had not been inspected for several years, but inspectors had come in again in March. The
Funding Agency had changed the way data was produced and it was completely different. English and
maths were mixed in with other subjects, and Level 1 and 2 results looked dire. The college self-assessed its
English and maths at three and Ofsted agreed. Inspectors wanted vocational tutors to teach English and
maths in the same lesson. Last year there had been 2,000 people doing English and maths, and this year it’s
3,000. There had been 400 being put in for each exam last year, and now it’s 800.
HB said apprenticeships were going through reforms. 1,000 employers were involved in TrailBlazers, but it
was the bigger employers such as Jaguar Land Rover which were writing the new standards. There were
concerns about who would take responsibility for the standards, and employers did not want the digital
voucher. The aim was for three million apprentices nationally, but if the digital voucher was introduced
most SMEs would drop out. They were carrying on delivering for now until they knew more.
Locally, numbers of apprentices in Worcestershire were going up. Worcestershire Training Providers
Association was delivering IAG in schools and talking to youngsters about apprenticeships, and a lot of
young people were doing them for a year before university. Some were earning up to £200 a week at the
age of 16. Another big push was to get all 19-24 years who were not working or studying to be working with
Job Centre Plus. There were a lot who were not looking for work and were just staying at home.
HB said she sits on the ESIF (European Structural and Investment Funds) board and there would be some
funding coming up through LEPs to help with short courses, NEET provision and some SME support.
7. Next meeting
The date was set for October 6.
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