Ray Isaacs, IT Diploma Consortium Lead, South Holland
Jane Mudge, Training Co-ordinator, Smedleys Salads
Nigel Akers, IT Diploma Co-ordinator, Nottingham City
Chris Perry, Head of ICT, Newhall Green High School
Matthew Hopkins, ICT Development Officer, Lincolnshire Voluntary Sector Consortium
Narrator: Employers may not yet be aware of the Diploma in IT. To introduce the new qualification, South Holland consortium created a simple booklet giving an overview.
Ray Isaacs, IT Diploma Consortium Lead, South Holland: My initial preparation was to put together a booklet of what the Diploma was about. It put down very clearly all the criteria of the IT Diploma. Obviously I didn’t want to frighten anyone off by giving them too much. I didn’t ask them to set schemes of work or anything. I explained all the soft skills, the functional skills and I basically asked for help in assessing those, judging whether the learners were making progression in working within their team.
Tutor: Now we can get metal in three different types of ways.
Ray Isaacs: So, as they are helping with work experience and work related learning, they are recognising that the whole curriculum is changing in the way that the Diploma has brought these changes with relationships between employers and learners.
Jane Mudge, Training Co-ordinator, Smedleys Salads: There's 13 students coming today for a tour. Ray came to see us and told us about the Diploma and what it involved, and I agreed it was really good.
Shop Floor Manager: Everything’s recorded on here. Managers can sit in the office and find out exactly what’s going on.
Jane Mudge: We’ve been to have a look around the college, and we’ve met some of the children, but it’s not the first time we’ve had a tours so this isn’t a problem.
Narrator: Nottingham City Consortium draws on the expertise of their employers, but acknowledges that practitioners should continue to support and define the learning.
Nigel Akers, IT Diploma Co-ordinator, Nottingham City: The employers that we’ve worked with, they know their business and what we need to do is learn from them, so, it’s not a matter of telling them how they should talk to the youngsters. We don’t ask them to get into the detail of the principle learning or anything like that. They haven’t got to do any school-speak/education-speak - that’s the teacher’s job, to link the experiences they get with the employers with those bits of principle learning and the syllabus and all the rest of it.
Narrator: In preparing their employers, practitioners from Manchester Consortium made clear what was expected from the relationship and the level of commitment involved.
Chris Perry, Head of ICT, Newhall Green High School: To prepare for our visit to PC World we sent them some documents outlining some of the key questions that we wanted the students to be able to answer. After that, a couple of members of staff went to visit the PC World store, had a chat with their management, had a look round. We told the staff that the students were bright students, students who were generally well motivated, and students who were keen to learn.
Narrator: Employers coming into places of learning may need additional support from the consortium to avoid alienation. Nottingham Consortium have an innovative approach to support this.
Nigel Akers: Engagement with employers needs to operate on two levels. There’s one where I go out to the employer or my colleagues go out to the employer, and they’re on safe territory there. They feel comfortable, they can talk about what they do, show what they do. To encourage them to come into a school situation can be a little frightening and that’s why, as part of the IT Diploma package what we’ve done in Nottingham, is create an IT Diploma Centre which is a unit separate from the main school building, where it looks pretty much like any office block, any business operation, so business people come in without having to worry about walking down the corridors with hundreds of other youngsters of all ages. So, I feel that’s important that we try and create a halfway house for the IT Diploma delivery, that has a feel for business but is still a school situation, and that will make the companies, the businesses that come in feel comfortable as well.
Narrator: Ray Isaacs used face-to-face meetings with employer, Matthew Hopkins, to prepare him for a mentoring role with his learners.
Matthew Hopkins, ICT Development Officer, Lincolnshire Voluntary Sector Consortium: Ray actually took me through the Diploma and what the objectives of the Diploma are. He then took me through what my role would be and the amount of time and the commitment that I would need to give. And he also took me through the standard of output that I should expect from his students. And he also took me through the level of interaction that I would be expected to have with them in terms of turning up regularly for meetings, talking with them, offering the students feedback and guidance where necessary.
Ray Isaacs: Once the employers are confident about the basics, it’s my experience that they’ve been willing to take more on, a larger role in the assessment and in the development of the work for the learner.
Matthew Hopkins: I feel very well prepared, and because I’ve been so well prepared for this I’m thoroughly looking forward to this, and I have to pinch myself sometimes. I sometimes can’t believe I’ve been so lucky to find a group that’s hopefully going to be so in tune with what we’re after.
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