Empowering tutor development through strong and collaborative partnership working
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Information about the partnership
The Greater Gwent Adult Learning Partnership, which is led by Coleg Gwent, was established in 1990. There are five main delivery partners, all of whom are local authorities. They are: Aneurin Leisure (Blaenau Gwent), Caerphilly, Monmouthshire, Newport, and Torfaen. The partnership offer includes curses in essential skills alongside a range of full-cost recovery courses and clubs. The tutors who deliver the programme, in community learning venues, are employed by the local authorities. The head of partnership is assisted by a small team at Coleg Gwent, including three part-time Development Support Coordinators (DSCs). The DSCs develop cross-borough initiatives which, once agreed with the partnership managers, are implemented across the partnership and are overseen, facilitated and supported by the DSCs.
Context and background to the effective or innovative practice
Although ACL tutors are well supported by their employing authority, they often have very few opportunities to meet with other tutors of the same subject, as they are almost all part-time staff who travel to community education centres to deliver their classes. This situation can result in duplication of effort by tutors, limited opportunities for continuing professional development (CPD), and failure to share ideas and good practice across the partnership. The initiatives described below ensure that a cross-partnership approach is taken to supporting and developing tutors.
Description of nature of strategy or activity
Cross-partnership subject-specialist task groups
There is a group for each main curriculum area. The group members are curriculum co-ordinators or experienced subject-specialist tutors from each local authority, led by one of the DSCs. The groups meet when needed to carry out such tasks as:
- producing common assessment materials for popular units in the curriculum area
- planning standardisation events for assessors, in line with awarding organisation requirements
- writing new units in consultation with Agored Cymru, where needed
- ensuring that good ideas and innovative practice by tutors are disseminated to all tutors in the curriculum area
Digital mentors’ group
This group supports tutors in all curriculum areas to embed digital tools in their teaching, and to help their learners to develop digital skills. The digital mentors each have up to four hours per week to support tutors in their own local authority and to collaborate as a group on cross-partnership activities such as:
- monthly “Digital Tool of the Month” and webinars, which tutors can watch in real time or asynchronously
- a website of ideas, and links to useful sites for using digital tools
- a termly newsletter with tips, ideas, and links to useful websites
Continuing Professional Development
While professional learning for tutors is also provided within each local authority, cross-partnership training and CPD is offered in a number of formats including classroom-based workshops, online courses that are available to partnership staff at any time, and webinars.
Tutor conference
An important feature of the CPD programme is the annual tutor conference day, which enables tutors to attend talks by guest speakers, participate in a choice of workshops and meet with other tutors from their curriculum areas to exchange ideas and share good practice. The themes of the conference are based on current needs and developments. The theme of the 2023 conference was mental health and well-being, while the 2024 conference will feature the use of artificial intelligence for tutors and learners. To remove some of the barriers for part-time tutors to attend, classes are cancelled for the day of the conference and hourly paid tutors are paid to attend.
Professional qualifications
The Training, Assessing and Quality Assurance (TAQA) assessor and Internal Quality Assurance (IQA) qualifications are available as blended learning courses, which tutors can start at any time, and work towards as and when their workload permits. The partnership also offers tutors who aspire to be observers the opportunity to undertake the Agored Cymru Observing Teaching Practice qualification. The partnership used the Adult Support Fund to good effect to offer accredited training from two external training organisations who provided Google Educator courses at basic and advanced levels, and the level 3 award in Leading First Aid for Mental Health.
Other partnership support
Tutor Briefing Meetings: These are meetings held in each local authority of the partnership at the beginning of the academic year. The head of the partnership provides a briefing to update all tutors on the outcomes of the previous year, and to inform them of new developments. Relevant professional learning, such as Prevent training, is often included in these meetings.
Tips from Tutors: This is a collection of good practice ideas, distributed to tutors in the form of a newsletter or e-book. The good practice is identified by observers in the cross-borough observations, and other tutors can adopt, or adapt them for their own courses.
Welsh Champion: A new cross-borough initiative is the role of a Welsh Champion who provides tutors with ideas for embedding Welsh language and culture into their courses through a termly newsletter and a shared resource site.
What impact has this work had on provision and learners’ standards?
The cross-partnership approach is effective in supporting the continuing development of tutors. The impact of the CPD programme is assessed by asking tutors, at the end of the academic year, to rate the usefulness of the CPD that they have undertaken for their practice as a tutor. In 2022-23, 88% of tutors rated the benefits of their CPD as four or five, on a scale of 1-5.
The collaborative approach is also very effective in reducing duplication of effort. A recent example is the cross-partnership approach to AI. Guidance for tutors and learners has been produced, as well as a risk assessment of potential misuse of AI in assessments. AI awareness units at different levels have been written for Agored Cymru by the digital mentors and ICT curriculum groups. Suggested assessment tasks and resources for these units are currently being produced, which will be made available to tutors across all curriculum areas. The tutor conference in March 2024 will feature AI, with guest speakers and the opportunity for tutors to try a range of AI tools.
How have you shared your good practice?
The sharing of good practice across all areas of the partnership is the main focus of the initiatives detailed in this case study. In addition, whenever the opportunity arises, good practice is shared beyond the partnership including with other departments in Coleg Gwent and with other ALC and FE providers, via regional or national training and network meetings.