Teach Too
A clear sense of purpose for collaboration
The importance of being collaborative
‘Everyone who is incapable of learning,’ Oscar Wilde once said, ‘has taken to teaching.’
Although it is impossible to agree with such a sentiment, it does raise an interesting point. Teachers like all professionals need to stay up to date; we all need to keep learning. This applies particularly to leaders who need to ensure that vocational educators are up to speed with industrial practice.
One way Teach Too projects remain up to date is by working closely with employers and Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEP). Such collaborative partnerships need to take account of technical and vocational education for adults, retraining opportunities alongside progression pathways.
A clear sense of purpose
Teach Too projects have shown that a clear sense of purpose underpins provider/employer partnerships. Effective practice is informed by detailed business cases that outline mutual expectations, benefits and risks. These should be articulated and agreed at senior levels within the collaborating organisations. At Lincoln College, a ‘proof of concept’ was central to the success of the Teach Too project.
At the macro-level the significance of meeting local skills needs and priority sectors including funding drivers, especially the impact of the apprenticeship levy and LEP investment priorities, will be important in collaborative arrangements. The emphasis given by the Gatsby projects preparing for the technical routes is likely to be particularly important here as is the emergence of new cost sharing models.
Smaller scale partnerships may well focus on developing technical education through a social purpose imperative. This emerged from recent Teach Too projects that focussed on adults further away from the workplace. The collaboration between ELATT, an IT training organisation, and a web development company focused specifically on unemployed people from disadvantaged neighbourhoods.
Nottingham College worked in partnership with small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and micro businesses in the construction and sustainability industries to provide structured work experience for Level 1 learners. Work experience added considerable value to employers and also enabled individual employees to strengthen their coaching and mentoring skills.
Teach Too and T Levels implementation
Progression for learners and employees was a key motivating influence to support collaborative working between employers and providers. Teach Too has been used to prepare learners to take up apprenticeship positions. Employers grew to know the learners participating in Teach Too projects well allowing them to foster appropriate work place skills and attributes and enhancing their prospects for employment.
With the advent of T Levels, collaborative local partnerships need to take account of vocational education for adults, as well as retraining opportunities alongside progression pathways. Research has looked at effective practice in employer engagement for 16/17-year olds studying below level 2. These cases studies reveal a range of approaches that are likely to be successful in supporting learners in the transition year and gaining access to T levels.
Get involved
At the heart of this work is the principle of effective collaboration. We shall be sharing many more examples throughout October from current Teach Too projects. If you would like to contribute contact Mark Ravenhall at markravenhall@sky.com copying in Colin Forrest colinforrest@sherwoodeducation.co.uk.