New Developments
Community Learning Champions
A £3m. contract to set up and deliver a national support programme for community learning champions has been won by a consortium in which we are a partner. The contract with the Department for Business Innovation and Skills extends over 18 months till March 2011. The contract will be project managed by Liz Cousins. The other members of the consortium are NIACE, the WEA and unionlearn.
The national support programme – which was proposed in the White Paper on Informal Learning (The Learning Revolution) – closely follows the recommendations we made in a 2008 report for NIACE. (See Learning Champions: A Vital Link on the learning brokerage page.)
Apprenticeships
75 Bolsover residents from 16 and upwards will benefit from a new programme developed by Martin Yarnit Associates for Bolsover District Council. The announcement that our bid to the Future Jobs Fund has been successful brings us closer to realising the starting date next January. The programme also involves Chesterfield Council, Derbyshire PCT and possibly local schools. A bid have been made to the Working Neighbourhoods Fund and host organisations are expected to contribute to the costs of taking on apprentices who will be employed by the District Council on their behalf.
Coaching for change
A trained teacher and counsellor and experienced trainer and mentor Liz has been focussing her energies over recent months on adding coaching to her list of skills. She has recently qualified as a Life Coach with Achievement Specialists, one of UK's leading life coaching training organisations in the UK, and as an NLP Practitioner with PPD Learning UK.
If you are interested in having one to one coaching or hearing about how coaching can be used in regeneration, then contact Liz.
Priority Estates
Priority Estates were a key policy issue in the 80s and 90s but then disappeared from view when the neighbourhood renewal strategy was launched. The evidence, though, is that the priority has increased and that there is an urgent need for action to offset the impact of recession and public spending cuts. Estates – Towns Itching to be Born sets out the case for action and proposes a new strategy and is available here.
Tackling Worklessness
Helping people into employment is becoming an ever bigger policy priority. Our review of the work of the Alliance Employment and Skills Board in the former coalfields area of North Notts and North Derbyshire is available here.
Hands On, Practical Learning – A New Model of Schooling
Opportunities for practical, hands on learning are still in short supply in most secondary schools despite a decade of government attempts to shift the curriculum away from the academic. Our recent report (available here) for the Edge and Esmee Fairbairn Foundations demonstrates that practical learning is effective and sets out strategies for embedding it in schools.
Examples of work are displayed below.
Downloads
- Alliance Employment and Skills Board Evaluation - Final Report with Conclusions and Evaluations
- Estates: Towns Itching to be Born?
- Real World Learning: Options for Development - A Report for Edge and the Esmee Fairbairn Trust
