West Midlands Centre for Excellence in Teacher Training
Management Meeting
Monday, 10 September 2012, University House, University of Warwick
Attendees:
1.
Julie Chamberlain
Anna Hraboweckyj
Susie Knight
Vron Leslie
Fergus McKay
Mike Smith
Apologies
Apologies were received from Anne Schofield.
2.
Minutes of Management Meeting, 14 May 2012
JC apologised for missing SK off the attendance list for the last meeting and that would be rectified
These were otherwise accepted as correct.
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Matters arising
FM formally recorded his thanks to Jill Hardman for everything she did in helping develop the CETT.
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IfL update
EG reported that AS was going to London the next day for an IfL meeting and would feed back on
that in the future. From September the IfL would be operating voluntary membership. There would
be two more opportunities for people to get QTLS, in September/October, and December/January.
Applications have to be in by the end of February or end of June. People should be given the
opportunity to apply for that.
MS said some people who were planning to go on to DTLLS were waiting to see what was going to
happen to the new ITT qualifications.
SK said the AoC were bidding for the role of running the FE Guild. In a recent government reshuffle
John Hayes [Minister of State for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning] had been replaced
by Matthew Hancock [Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Skills jointly with the Department
for Education]. There are concerns that support for this policy initiative will no longer continue.
FM stated that there was very little information about the new Guild. However according to the
Lingfield Review the Guild would offer a new and different approach to professional development.
5.
Chair’s update
FM said LSIS appeared to be relying more on the CETTs to support their training programme.
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CLL was planning to advertise a business development post to support the development of content
for professional development. It may involve the work of the CETT. The person coming in would have
to rely on the knowledge that was already there.
SK asked if FM had a future plan for the CETT. FM said the CETT needed money to keep going. The
CETT kept bidding for projects and at the moment most of our work was coming from LSIS. He had
asked the university for seedcorn money. The new post might provide the impetus for change.
MS asked where widening participation stood in the university. FM said everywhere.
AH asked if the CETT had income targets. FM talked about how the CETT had been set up with LSIS
money and had been able to roll some over as well as gaining an income from winning contracts.
6.
Project manager’s update
JC said an e-newsletter had gone out in July. Two expressions of interest had gone in to the next
round of the RRF fund and the outcome was expected soon. One involved working with VL on a
Learning Coach Consortium, and one with SK and Clever Elephant on Third Sector participation in
learning and skills and community participation. A bit to run an LSIS teaching and Learning Coach Hub
had been successful.
There were three more meetings to be held in the Changing Landscapes project – on September 17
at Walsall, September 20 at the University of Warwick and September 25 at RAF Cosford.
VL talked about the Teaching and Learning Coach programme. There would be launches where
people would be introduced to the modules and shown the certification process. WMCETT would
also be expected to be a rapid response unit to help poorly performing colleges in the area who
could be fast tracked on to the programme.
7.
Business plan and current activities
EG talked about the ESRC’s work as a Learning Improvement Partner, supporting providers of
literacy, language and numeracy courses. Two members of staff had worked on that with BAES and
Warwickshire ACL and it was very successful.
There were also enough candidates to run a literacy and numeracy programme, in groups of nine and
11.
A bursary was available for people on the full DTLLS programme, not the additional diploma. People
could draw down £400 from the IfL. Had to claim by last Friday and give the names of all the people
on your course. £1,500 was available for literacy and numeracy and £1,000 for generic courses and
there would be another window of opportunity in September if there was enough money left over.
The ESRC had got £60,000 for the Accelerator project to work on developing a programme to run
over 15 months. Part of that was to make it quicker and smarten things up on the website to cut
down on the tutor time. It would be beneficial to the learners.
She was hoping to set up a partnership between the university and Dudley College to run the
university’s literacy and numeracy training programmes.
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EG said she had been approached by three people in LSIS for informal talks because they have been
working on putting together a new qualification framework.
FM asked what the thoughts were on the new qualification. EG said a Level 3 PTLLS would be all that
would be really needed as essential. She said she sympathised with training providers stretched for
cash.
MS said there was a drive to raise the level of quality for the higher apprenticeships but they were
saying the Level 3 PTLLS would be sufficient.
EG said she knew people were holding back on their plans.
FM said the new Ofsted Common Inspection Framework was looking at what colleges were doing to
raise the standards of teaching and learning but on the other hand a ‘sheep dip’ qualification was
being created. SK said she could not think of another profession that had been deprofessionalised.
MS said Ofsted had published a half-yearly review. It found 23 per cent of colleges inspected had
dropped a grade, some dropped two grades and went from grade one to grade three. It was around
the teaching and training rather than the leadership and management. Worcester, Nottingham,
Stoke on Trent and Telford had gone from one to three. Community learning providers dropped two
grades and there was a big increase in inadequate grades.
Action point: MS to send to JC to circulate
EG added that colleges used to be able to get a grade one even if their teaching and learning was not
great and now they could not. SK added that a lot of colleges had not been inspected for five years
and a lot had changed since then.
FM said if the trend continued organisations would be looking to LSIS to put money in to support the
mechanisms to improve. He said our RRF bid this time would be based around professional
development, and there will be a review process to look at Ofsted inspection grades. He wanted it to
lead into CPD activities around Ofsted.
MS continued that there was a push to get level 4 and 5s in apprenticeships but level 2s and 3s are
being requested.
The Adult Learning Fund was going to the Community Learning Trust and there were going to be 12
pilots around the country. AH said Staffordshire was setting up an education trust which was going to
be part of the LEP. SK said Solihull’s ACL had been part of the college for 20 years and was an
interesting model. She predicted a lot of mergers and said they would depend what were the most
cost effective models in terms of delivery.
AH reported that people were getting up to speed about localism. It put new demands on the Third
Sector and how would people be able to access those skill sets. She felt the bid Clever Elephant was
putting together with LSIS about FE and the Third Sector was incredibly exciting.
AH talked about the work on the Changing Landscapes project, with the second round of meetings
and follow up research. SK had concentrated on FE and ACL and AH had done work around the LEPs
and their skills plans. She said there was a lot of uncertainly, people did not know what was going on
and everything was being driven by different targets and outputs. No one was co-ordinating this and
there was competition for certain groups of students. The learning programme was suffering.
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VL said the bulletin went out in June and July and the next would go out shortly. Allen CrawfordThomas from JISC had asked about coming to do another professional dialogue seminar.
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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, December 11 at 10.30am, at University House,
University of Warwick, room number to be confirmed.
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