ENGAGE
GUERNSEY COLLEGE OF FE WEEKLY NEWSLETTER ISSUE 86
16 September 2016
Welcome to Engage
PRINCIPAL'S POINT
A very busy week welcoming our new students, and a fantastic Team Building day held yesterday - thanks to all involved! A big warm welcome from us all to our new staff that have joined us this week, and congratulations to Irene who will be PL for Business until 1/2 term.
Thank you to Sally, Nicola and Lorraine who are working through all the MIS/Timetabling issues, and thank you all for your patience whilst these are fixed.
Why not take a moment to check out the newly updated College website with lots of new info and a bright new look!
I hope everyone enjoyed the treat of doughnuts and strawberries today from the Health & Wellbeing group as we got to the end of our first week with students!
Have a great weekend!
Louise
News from the field...
Upcoming changes to vocational education, a short guide on Vocational and Technical Education from the Sainsbury Review can be found here:http://tinyurl.com/jpsr26x
Louise has created a summary power point which can be found here:http://tinyurl.com/j7k84ls
STUDENT PASSPORT
As you know we are working to provide all our full time students with a certificate which identifies their wider skills and achievements. We are aiming to get these certificates endorsed by a number of local stakeholders. Please follow this link below for an example of the student passport, which you can share with students through your tutorials to encourage attendance in all aspects of College life including Enrichment sessions.
Team building day - winner!
The winner of the memory quiz which took place in the Library on Team Building day was
- Levi Joe Garnham
There will be a little something special finding its way to Levi over the next few days
Thanks to everyone who participated
Lorraine
THE NEW STAFF SITE!
Don't forget to look for Larry!
Somewhere in the site you will find a picture of Larry Granger that Rachel has hidden, who is one of our College Governors and a very good sport! If you spot Larry, please email Katie Blampied and let her know where you saw him, and she will enter you into a prize draw at the end of the week to win £10 of Co-op vouchers. Larry will move around each week of the term, so if you’re not lucky one week, please try again the next! The competition commences this Monday. We are looking forward to hearing from you!
And the winner of Where is Larry this week is...
News from LSS
In the library, Rachel is pleased to have had a lot of really positive feedback about the changes at Coutanchez and LOC libraries. Both staff and students have found Coutanchez library brighter, more cheerful and looking like a “proper College library”. There has also been lots of praise for the new room with air-con at LOC library! Improvements at all three libraries will continue apace over this term, with comfortable seating areas currently in the works.
Delancey Community Garden. Thank you to all the volunteers who came along last Saturday and did an amazing job weeding, all of whom got extremely wet but achieved so much. Still much to do in the garden so please come along and support this worthwhile cause.
Full lists of English & Maths students for this year can be found here:
English:http://tinyurl.com/jk6tcsp
Outcome Agreement
Susan Havis will be joining us two days a week starting Monday 5 September, I’m sure you will all join me in welcoming Susan to our College. One of the areas Susan will be working on is in expanding the cross college knowledge and understanding of the OUTCOME AGREEMENT between the College and the Education Department. Susan will be hosting brief, informal information and discussions sessions at each campus where any member of staff interested in finding out more about the outcome agreement is very welcome to attend.
The schedule for these sessions is as follows (12.00 - 12:45)
Monday 19th September DELANCEY
Monday 10th October LES OZOUETS
Monday 3rd October COUTANCHEZ
ENROLMENT DAY REVIEW (Post 26th August 2016)
Thank you so much to all staff who were involved in the planning, preparation, training, setting up, enrolling, tea making, advising & guiding students, taking payment, making ID cards, and taking down of this year’s enrolment event. It was a fantastic day, well done to Steph who just clinched the title of ‘most enrolments completed’!
As ever with a big event such as this there are always areas where we can improve and make the process better easier for students and staff.
There will be an post enrolment review meeting which will inform next year’s planning, all staff who were involved or would like to be involved in the future are invited to attend.
Please contact Laura Le Maitre to confirm your attendance.
The meeting will be held on:
Friday 23 September 2016
10.30-11.30
Committee Room, Coutanchez
News from Faculty D
FAB - CHPSS would like to thank Sally Cutler for her excellent support in the enrolment of our Level 3 Year 2 returners & the Delancey caretakers for preparing the rooms for the new learner's starting this week & the LSS team for Enrichment Day.
Sports Level 3 Yr 2 had an awesome team building exercise on the High Ropes at Rue Maingy with Outdoor Guernsey (pics below)
On Thursday 22nd Early Years will be going to Herm for a day of fun activities to units that they will be taught during their time in college & Sports Level 3 Year 1 Coasteering has been postponed due to the weather.
Health & Social Care would like to congratulate their 6 Level 3 completers who are starting on Island Nursing and the further 2 that are off to UK to study at University.
News from Faculty B
College Profile raised after IT security event
One of our lecturers in ICT, Robert Childs was mentioned in Business Brief following a cyber-warfare lunchtime seminar. The college of FE is becoming a thought leader in the field of cyber warfare and will be holding a further series of events with the Digital Greenhouse for local industry in November.
http://guernseypress.com/business/2016/09/15/cyber-attacks-are-now-when-not-if/
News from Faculty C
News from Faculty A
In Hair and Beauty this week the Hairdressing dept hosted the UK based “Barber Bash” barbering educational team. The event was divided into demonstrations and hands on sessions for local barbers & hairdressers.
The H&C team are preparing for the Pride awards that is coming up in October.
Cakes being prepared for the Coffee morning and students & staff went out for a meal to Vistas on Thursday as a gelling and bonding exercise.
The Creative and Digital Arts team took students to enjoy a series of workshops at Candie Garden, the team also welcome a new member of staff, Gareth Hollis is over from the UK for one term and will be teaching students Graphic Design.
In Performing Arts the students have launched into the new year with first years already tackling many new acting & text analysis skills & our second years having their first session of TV & film acting in the TV studio. Exciting times ahead!
Welcome Gareth!
MIS and Exams Helpdesk & support sessions
We now have a new helpdesk as part of the College Staff Site. This can be accessed through the staff handbook or directly here:
https://sites.google.com/gcfe.net/misexams
Our aim is to provide you with an efficient service that is equitable across all 3 campuses. With your feedback we hope to be able to monitor and constantly improve on our customer service. The helpdesk will allow the team to manage their workflow more efficiently and allow us to ensure that all of your requests are dealt with in the most effective way.
Drop in support and information sessions
Tuesday 20th Sept 12-1245 LOC staff room
Wed 21st 12-12.45 Del staff room
Thurs 22nd 12-12.45 Cout staff room
BIG PROJECT: JOYOUS AND PURPOSEFUL LEARNING - Calling all staff!
The purpose of this BIG project is to establish how we are going to identify
· all the areas of good practice we have
· how we can evidence our good practice
· how we are going to promote our good practice
· how we are going to celebrate the success of our staff and students
· any areas where we want to focus on more than we currently do
We need staff from across all areas of the college academic and support staff as we want to shout about what we do well. Please contact Vanessa Mee to join this BIG project.
Health & Wellbeing BIG group
The first Health and Wellbeing BIG meeting took place and raise some really interesting points. We will be sharing more information with you all soon however we have identified “communication” as a key element to staff and student wellbeing. On that note we are asking you to “engage” with a very short feedback form. It is only a hand full of questions and this will help us to review how the college communicates digitally with you. https://goo.gl/forms/4wNr8v5hHfQA4vhE2. Thanks for taking the time and we look forward to reading your thoughts.
Fancy a re-style? New colour? Look no further than the College Hair & Beauty Salon
As from Monday 19th of September the NVQ level 3 Hairdressing students will be having Salon practical sessions from 1-4pm and 5pm to 8pm. If you are thinking about a complete re-style, new colour or have colour that you want corrected please book an appointment directly by emailing salon@gcfe.net or call 749944. Many of these students work as senior stylists in some of the top salons in Guernsey so this is a great opportunity to get some great work at our salon prices.
Many lecturers & students attended the Gay Pride March last Saturday. As well as visibly clebrating diversity and inclusion in great atmosphere, they certainly show how to hold a party!
ITL News: Calling All Staff - Old and New
If you need any support using Google Apps for Education or using technology in the classroom to support and enhance learning - I can help.
I offer one-to-one and small group training sessions, tailored to meet your specific needs. This training is open to all staff, not just lecturers.
Contact me by email, martinee@gcfe.net, to discuss your needs. I work Monday and Wednesday all day and Tuesday afternoons.
CPD
Have you managed to peruse the constantly updated CPD booklet yet? There are two fantastic training courses on next Monday; ‘Customer Service Refresher 1’ at 9.30am and ‘Pen Portraits’ at 12pm. To book your place please contact staff.dev@gcfe.net I’m still looking for more BIG project members to join my cross-college group focusing on ‘Joyous and Purposeful learning’, please let me know if you are interested. Lecturing staff, since it is International Day of Freedom next week it might be an idea to incorporate some ideas and themes around Human Rights into your sessions (click here for inspiration). Have a great weekend.
How do you take time out and relax?
Delighted to announce that the College has been accepted to have a Confucius Classroom! Chinese delegates will be with us in College on 19th October - more news to follow!
QUESTIONS & IDEAS
When is the lift at CTZ going to be fixed? While we wait for it to be fixed, what happens if a person with limited mobility needs to take an exam? The lift engineers will be with us soon, the delay has been due to staff sickness, and hopefully the lift will be running smoothly again soon. In the meantime, if a student with mobility issues needed to take an exam, the venue would be altered to ensure that the student could be accommodated.
FAB
- Amanda, Cathy & Sarah for always being so kind and obliging :)
- Chocolate Cake! (Thanks Steve!)
- Doughnuts & Strawberries - thank you!
- Delancey Caretakers working hard to get all the rooms ready and clean for the start of term. Thank you.
- Lindsey for all her hard work on Team Building Day!
- Our fabulous reception teams for looking after all our new students so well this week - thank you.
- Dan for helping Louise set up her controversial padlet session on team building.
DRAB
- All of my posters, student work and teaching resources have been stripped from the Classrooms !! I will need to make again. Also very bare for our new Learners. ! Please contact Mark Robert to discuss this - thank you.
WANTED: BOOKS!
The Access Department are on the lookout for some reading books for the Entry Level 1/Entry Level 2 learners. If anyone has some books they no longer want and are willing to donate, please mark these for the attention of Siobhan at Delancey.
The reading ages are between 5-9 years old. The books must be age appropriate and be suitable for both children and adult readers alike please.
As a guide, Siobhan suggests books such as the following:
Roald Dahl
Dr Seuss
Michael Morpurgo
Asterix books
Terry Pratchett
J K Rowling (Harry Potter)
Comic books
This list is not exhaustive, just a guide to appropriate books. There is now an Access reading trolley which will hopefully be used as part of the Literacy sessions and it would be great to fill this with wonderful books!
MacMillan Cake Sales! FRIDAY 30 SEPTEMBER
The Access team will be holding a cake sale from 10 - 12am at Delancey and Les Ozouets Campus.
The Hospitality & Catering Team will be holding a Coffee/tea & cake morning in the Restaurant at Coutanchez.
Delancey Garden Members wanted
WOULD YOU BE INTERESTED IN BEING ON A COMMITTEE FOR THE DELANCEY COMMUNITY GARDEN? MAYBE YOU HAVE A SKILL TO SHARE? OR WOULD LIKE TO POTTER IN THE GARDEN WEEDING OR WATERING?
THE GARDEN WILL EVENUTAULLY BE A PLACE THE PUBLIC CAN SIT AND RELAX SURROUNDED BY FLOWERS, HERBS, VEGETABLES AND FRUIT TREES OVERLOOKING HERM AND LIHOU ISLANDS… WHO WOULDN’T WANT TO BE A PART OF THAT!
PLEASE CONTACT ME tristanb@gcfe.net if you would like to be a part of this fantastic project. This is also open to non GCFE staff.
Rotary Shoebox Appeal
Access will once again be collecting shoeboxes for the Rotary Shoebox Scheme to distribute to disadvantaged children. If you have any shoeboxes no larger than 13 x 8 x 6 inches that you no longer want please donate them to this good cause along with items to fill the boxes. These can be educational, any health and hygiene product or small luxuries. (No large clothing items, food, liquids, war or religious items, medicines, sharp or dangerous items.) All items must be new or ‘nearly new’. The boxes will be packed for boys or girls from the age of 1 year old up to 15 years old.
Example of items: Book , Hat and gloves, Hairbrush, Toothpaste and brush, Crayons, Jigsaw, Pens and pencil case, Playing cards, Washbag, Doll, Toy Car.
Swimarathon
As I was the Captain of the Swimarathon Team last year, I have received and email inviting us to enter a team for this, their 40th Anniversary – same time, same day (although year later!) and same lane. The date is set for Saturday 8th October at 1pm in Lane 1 (Nice lane with wing of the pool attached so no need to get out of the water and ladder access at the deep end!). If you would like to take part this year, please let me know – pencil in the diary and I can send sponsorship forms later on in the year.
Many thanks and kind regards,
Hazel
For the attention of all new staff
Can all new staff make themselves known to Dan Hunter, email Danh@gcfe.net if a) they are members of a UCU teaching union or b) they are interested in joining the UCU teaching union.
This will enable us to keep an up-to-date union member email distribution list to ensure all members are kept in the loop.