West Midlands Centre for Excellence in Teacher Training
Management Meeting
Tuesday, 11 December 2012, University House, University of Warwick
Attendees:
1.
Julie Chamberlain
Elaine Goodall
Vron Leslie
Fergus McKay
Barbara Parkinson
Mike Smith
Apologies
Apologies were received from Anne Schofield and Susie Knight.
2.
Minutes of Management Meeting, 10 September 2012
These were accepted as a correct record.
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Matters arising
FM reported that CLL had not yet advertised the business development manager post mentioned at
the last meeting.
The School of Health and Social Sciences was being disestablished. Half the School was going to the
Medical School and half to CLL. CLL will run a Masters in Social Work and take in 10 staff, 10 PhD
students and 100 students. There was also a suggestion CLL would be part of a new Warwick
initiative around professional development. CLL has also put in a proposal to run a part-time twoyear Masters in Coaching, based on a model that has been successful at the University of Lancaster.
It was hoped to recruit for that from September if it got the go-ahead.
MS talked about developing apprenticeships at a higher level and said if there was a foundation
degree available that would fit in well.
Action point: MS to send FM information when he had it.
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Chair’s update
FM passed round an email from Rob Wye, Chief executive of LSIS, about government plans to cease
funding LSIS. VL said Markos Tiros of LSIS had offered more funding for more cohorts to undertake
Hub Teaching and Learning Coach training.
FM said Paula Jones, ACETT chair, felt confident there was a job for the CETTs to do after LSIS had
gone.
MS had met the ALP representative leading on this and his view was that the new Guild would not
just replace LSIS but the model would be a chartered institute where people could get chartered
status through qualifications, not necessarily time served. This had huge implications for the CETTs
and development. FM asked if organisations would be able to become members of the Guild, and MS
said it was going to be like Investors in People for organisations and that could be where the CETTs
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had a role. Someone would have to come up with the qualifications and deliver them. FM felt it was
more of a devolved responsibility model and MS said it was giving it back to the people in the sector
to govern.
BP said a similar thing was happening in the Third Sector as organisations watched the Charity
Commission disappear.
EG asked who the Guild was going to talk to, as sector bodies and LLUK and SVUK had been done
away with. MS said the money going into the Guild would be residual money from LSIS. EG asked if
they would get funding from the government, and MS said they would get some pump-prime money
but then be independent.
MS believed it was a huge opportunity for CETTs as the Guild would be looking for organisations to
work through. The current Guild consultation was open to everyone.
EG said the timescale was the government wanted LSIS to have the qualifications available from
March, so there was from March until September to change them. The frameworks, learning
outcomes and assessment criteria had to be in place.
FM reported that WMCETT had been invited to join the Collaborative Organisational Learning
Programme for lead providers to support partner organisations. WMCETT was being asked to
participate in the programme and work with one of our partners to monitor and report on any
development it is doing and that report would be audited by LSIS to see if we had picked up on the
right things. Some of the money would go to the partner organisation and some to the project coordinator. We were looking for the organisation and the person to do the job.
Action point: JC to forward email to Priority Area Co-ordinators.
6.
Project manager’s update
The Changing Landscapes project report had been sent to LSIS. The Teaching and Learning Coach
launches had been held in November. WMCETT had also successfully won funding from the LSIS
Regional Response Fund for a Changing the Dynamics project.
JC and EG had attended an ACETT meeting on behalf of WMCETT at the start of November with other
CETTs from around the country, hosted at LSIS in Coventry. LSIS talked about the importance of the
CETTs in the running of the Hubs project and how they wanted it to continue in the future.
The e-newsletter would be sent out before Christmas.
7.
Current activities
MS – summarised the findings of the Heseltine Review containing 89 recommendations for further
and higher education. The findings on the skills agenda had been accepted virtually in their entirety.
In the report it was argued that funding should go to the customer as far as skills are concerned and
LEPs were very important. MS believed that it may spell the end of the SFA with the funds moved to
the LEPs instead. There was also the Richard review of apprenticeships. There was a discussion
about apprenticeships and what constituted them, with MS saying two companies were to be
prosecuted for fraud for running six-12 week training programmes and calling them apprenticeships.
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Both the Richard and Heseltine reviews said the SFA was not fit for purpose and funding should be
fitted in with the localism agenda and look at the skills agenda in the local area. MS said the idea was
also to bring more people from industry into teaching, and turn the clock back 10 years.
There was a discussion about funding changes and implications for 19-plus students. FM informed
the group that if someone took an access course from next September and then went on to
complete at levels four, five and six it would cancel out the level three loan. MS said there were also
plans to bring foundation learning into the mainstream education programmes, and the only two
outcomes from that were FE or a job.
There was a discussion about the problems for students with learning difficulties and how they
would be catered for within the new funding order.
FM asked if it was likely there would be more college mergers and MS said Hereford Technical
College was now linked with Ludlow, and Kidderminster would also be looking for a shared services
agreement in the next few months.
FMS reported that North Warwickshire and Hinckley College had a shared services agreement with
South Leicestershire College, headed by an overarching organisation called the Midlands Training
Organisation, with Marion Plant as director. It had two studio schools, two colleges and five
academies.
MS said the LSIS policy update would no longer be produced.
VL – talked about the setting up of regional Hubs to run the Teaching and Learning coach
programme. LSIS wanted to put all colleges that needed improving through this programme. There
used to be SLC, e-guides and PDA with the level above that Advanced Coaches. They have pulled this
together into a new programme so there would be one point of contact in an organisation and she
felt it gave it a much more sensible structure. LSIS’s aim was that we should have 100 people (at least
50) at the launch, and then run five workshops afterwards. WMCETT had 55 people registered at the
launches. People who are already advanced can do the refresher programme. We have 10-plus on
the training programme and 14 on the refresher programme. The first workshop is December 18,
with the training course in the morning and the refresher programme in the afternoon.
EG – gave an update from Anne Schofield about the IfL. It had returned to its roots as an
independent professional membership body for teachers and trainers, and there was no longer a
requirement for teachers/trainers to complete 30 hours of CPD. People who still wanted to gain
Professional Formation had to express intent in December/January and completed applications had
to be submitted by the end of June 2013. In September the UCU said membership was not required
to go through Professional Formation. BIS will fund this for non-members but has not announced
how this will happen.
The IfL had been engaged by the National Apprenticeship Service to work with trainers and coaches
for the UK World Skills team to offer a limited number of free Master Classes to colleges and workbased learning providers. It was also running the IfL Practitioner Researcher Programme, a pilot
aimed at developing research and publication skills.
AS has recently taken on a 0.8 contract with the University of Warwick and has negotiated a reduced
contract with IfL to support members wishing to gain QTLS only.
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EG – said she had been waiting for news about £60,000 which was being made available for ITT, to
run courses March to October.
There had been quite a few inquiries about the additional diploma for literacy. There was uncertainty
about running courses before the new teacher training qualifications were finalised.
The new ITT qualification was still under review. The sector was waiting for the post-consultation
recommendation.
MS said employers would accept someone who was part qualified but they would not advance in
their career unless they had a qualification. FM asked how the IfL would survive on voluntary
membership funding, and EG said the IfL were working hard on it and looking abroad.
BP – said she was happy to say WMCETT had been successful with the follow-on bid to the Regional
Response Fund, called Changing Dynamics, based on the FE and Third Sector, and looking at
community and local accountability. It would provide an opportunity for key players in the three
localities, Herefordshire, Warwickshire and the Black Country. The plan was to explore what was
happening in terms of operational relations, and help people in finding where they need to be more
involved with each other and what the gains might be.
It would look at how they could develop more co-production and accountability in three stages. BP
said they would interview the key players and then go into stage two, organise clusters of people,
principals and Third Sector infrastructure providers, and private provision. She would look for where
things were active and look to widen it. It would involve people from the LEPs, ACL, private sector
providers etc and there would be a structured dialogue in each of these areas. It would hopefully
result in more developments being identified and would enable them to move on.
MS said 60 per cent of delivery in those areas was through private sector, CSV, in Herefordshire and
Black Country Training Group. They were very influential with funding bodies because of the
numbers involved.
He said Community First undertook a similar project a few years ago and produced a report for the
LSC. The issue they came up with was that there was no consortium working of the Third Sector. BP
said she wanted to see how colleges were interpreting the localised provision. She said NIACE led a
similar project about Third Sector learning and skills in the East Midlands and that must be coming to
some sort of conclusion. Alison Orr had said it had been very good.
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Any other business
There was none.
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Next meeting
The date for the next meeting was set for Tuesday, March 19 at 10.30am, at University House,
University of Warwick, room number to be confirmed.
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