Leading Organisations - Natspec€¦ · Leading Organisations #NatspecAC18. Measuring progress and outcomes - developing a consistent approach Megan Dauksta Kirsten Jones. Workshop

Leading Organisations

#NatspecAC18

Measuring progress and outcomes - developing a

consistent approach

Megan Dauksta

Kirsten Jones

WorkshopAims and Objectives

To inform participants on:

• existing Welsh policy

• the Additional Learning Needs and Education Tribunal (Wales) Act 2018

• a collaborative project between Welsh Specialist Colleges

• the challenges of setting long-term goals and measuring progress

Natspec The voice of specialist further education

It is the Welsh Government’s expectation thatmainstream FE establishments will normally meetthe education and training needs of the majorityof young people who have a learning difficulty.

(Welsh Government 2017:2).


The Welsh Government’s policy is to fund the duration required based on the young person’s capability to progress and achieve against their education and training outcomes. For the majority of young people accessing specialist provision, the duration will be comparable with the duration of provision available within mainstream FE establishments, i.e. two academic years (Welsh Government 2017:3)


So……

• tension between notion of person-centred planning and a two year placement norm;

• danger that the promotion of an inclusive education agenda is being used to shroud policy and practice that is funding rather than provision driven;

• assumption that young disabled adults are best educated where their parents live.


• Young people and parents are not informed about post-16 education and training options other than their local mainstream FE college

• Specialist Colleges are not permitted to attend young people’s transition review meetings.

• General FE colleges are not required to meet young people before confirming that they can meet their education and training needs.

• Careers Wales Advisers are prohibited from making parents aware of specialist FE providers’ provision.


Quality Assurance

▪ Estyn, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate for Wales inspects General FE Colleges every 7 years. Specialist FE Colleges are also inspected every 7 years but have additional Annual Monitoring Visits that result in annually published reports.

▪ FE Colleges have achieved judgements of ‘Excellent’ while scrutiny of reports reveals that Independent Living Skills (ILS) provision has been judged as ‘unsatisfactory’ and ‘adequate’.


Additional Learning Needs & Education Tribunal (Wales) Act 2018

• SEN to ALN

• Unified system 0-25

• Introduction of Individual Development Plans

• Devolvement of learner funding to Local Authorities

• No ringfenced funding


Where does all this leave Specialist Further Education Colleges??

With the need to better articulate:

- quality of provision

- outcomes

- measures of progress over and above accredited learning


The picture in Wales

• 22 local authorities

• 9 independent specialist colleges

• 14 further education institutions + 2 sixth form colleges


The project brief

• Reviewing all systems for measuring non-accredited progress

• Producing a common set of principles for the above

• Ensuring that those allocating funding and reviewing progress have a common means of evaluation


Details of the project

• Visits to all but one of the ISCs in Wales – and RNC, Hereford

• Reviews of their systems for RARPA

• Meetings with Welsh Government representatives and Estyn HMI

• 2 workshops to formulate long-term learning aims and share ideas


Findings

• The legal aspect

• RARPA

• Issues common to Wales and England

• Proving progression and achievement to non-specialists

• Outcomes on inspection – Ofsted and Estyn

• Issues of parity – notice period, frequency, number of inspectors, scrutiny of work etc.


Potential solutions

• Common systems

• Replicating what is well-known, accepted and widely used in education

• A form of common baseline assessments as for English and mathematics


The key to success

• Long-term learning aims that are specific, easily measured and clearly indicate the destination outcome

• Maintaining a focus on two key words ‘progress and achieve’

• Guidance and quality indicators

• Shared categories of skills development for IDPs


Let’s have a go and see how it works

• How many of you already formulate goals and targets?

• Sit with someone who doesn’t know you

• Ask them to share with you a long-term aim for their professional life

• Formulate a learning goal (and then repeat the process with your partner)

• Note down the key issues as you go along


Steps to getting there

• Now produce as many medium- and short-term goals as you think achieving this long-term aim will necessitate

• How frequently should they be set and reviewed?

• How many of each should there be?


Reflections

• Are we giving our staff sufficient time and support to formulate learning goals and targets?

• Are we quality checking goals and targets sufficiently, for example with OTLAs?

• Do we ensure moderation of achievement sufficiently?

• Do our records of success (data) stand up to external scrutiny without explanation?


Our findings – a long-term learning aim

• needs a verb that can be measured

• should use the first person consistently and potentially start with ‘I want to...I aim to…’

• should not be too broad or too specific

• shows a benefit to the learner’s future life

• demonstrates a social return on the investment made

• enables analysis of positive destinations


Positive destinations

• Jargon in reports

• What do we consider as a positive destination?

• Could these categories be shared across colleges?


Supporting non-specialists to set goals and measure progress

• Awareness raising/training events

• Research - such as Natspec’s paper on issues with EHCPs

• Guidance with hints and tips

• Exemplars

• Suitable verb list

• Mini-textual progress reports

• Quality checklist

• A centralised process to enable feedback to ensure continuous improvement


Further work needed

• A common system for the banding/measurement of baseline starting points at pre-entry

• A shared means of measuring achievement – such as a percentage or movement up/along a level

• Moderation of RARPA processes – shared quality indicators

• An improved focus on the measurement of destination outcomes/social return

• More collaborative working


References and links

• Welsh Government, 2017a. Securing provision for young people

with learning difficulties at specialist further education establishments

• Welsh Government, 2017b. Technical Guidance for Careers Wales

• Welsh Government, 2017c. Technical Guidance for specialist

further education establishments

• Estyn, 2016. Learner progress and destinations in specialist colleges

• Estyn, 2017. Learner progress and destinations in independent living

skills learning areas in further education colleges

http://gov.wales/docs/dcells/publications/171130-technical-guidance-for-careers-wales-en.pdf

http://gov.wales/docs/dcells/publications/171130-technical-guidance-for-specialist-fe-establishments-en.pdf

https://www.estyn.gov.wales/sites/default/files/documents/Learner progress and destinations in independent specialist colleges.pdf

https://www.estyn.gov.wales/sites/default/files/documents/Learner progress and destinations in FE.pdf

Leading Organisations

#NatspecAC18

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Leading Organisations - Natspec€¦ · Leading Organisations #NatspecAC18. Measuring progress and outcomes - developing a consistent approach Megan Dauksta Kirsten Jones. Workshop