(a) The conceptual context

Objectives
To set up systems to enhance the working relationships between trainees, trainers and employers so as to ensure the full integration of Key Skills within vocational training, to the mutual benefit of trainee and the workplace

(a) In the process, to train 'mentors' in the workplace, allowing them to gain qualifications themselves, thereby increasing their ability to guide the trainees through their training.
(b) To allow trainees to achieve an overall qualification, Level 3 NVQ, of which Key Skills will form an important part.

Target Group
The programme is aimed at trainees and the recently unemployed on the Modern Apprenticeship programme (the young unemployed) in Care and Child Care based at the St Asaph site of the University of Wales, Bangor. However, the principles can be applied in a range of contexts.

Players involved
(a) The trainees (including the recently unemployed), who are all Modern Apprentices.

(b) The 'lead player' is the University Training Centre at St Asaph, whose Centre Co-ordinator is a member of the Welsh committee of the Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work, which is the Lead Body for the training of Care employees. All centre staff have received training for
     (i) the implementation of Key Skills by awarding and lead bodies, and
     (ii) extensive 'in-house training'

(c) Other appropriate, complementary providers either as deliverers or providers of specialist advice, e.g. mapping the Key Skills against the vocational route undertaken by Northumberland Training Agency.

(d) Local employers, through their workplace assessors.

(e)The relevant Certificating-Awarding Body.

The close links between the players are revealed in the way in which the Key Skills are fully integrated into the vocational route with extra evidence produced after discussion between trainee, assessor and employer.

Results
(a) The involvement of the employer in the planning stage of gathering evidence for Key Skills as well as the vocational units means that the Key Skills are treated as an integral part of the training package.

(b) Trainees see the 'relevance' of Key Skills in improving their overall skills, especially the opportunity to use them as a platform for the more specific, 'on the job', vocational skills.

(c) 'The tasks enhance the candidate's contribution to the workplace and give him/her a sense of achievement in producing studies and documents that make everybody's work easier. It also provides a good candidate with evidence to show the care and inspiration he/she has received from both the training centre and the workplace and the personal commitment needed to produce a portfolio of a very high standard.' (Key Skills Best Practice Project)

(d) The trainees obtain the appropriate NVQ, including the Key Skills component. (e) The strategy encourages a genuine partnership between trainee, trainer and employer.

 

(b) Recruitment/Selection Criteria

No formal prior qualifications are required for enrolment on a Modern Apprenticeship course as the employers believe in recruiting people on potential and innate ability. However, as part of the selection process, candidates are interviewed by the employer and the Centre Co-ordinator. The decision on the level of qualification on which to begin, is made during the induction process.

 

(c) Training Programme/Curricula

Pre-training
Pre-training is closely linked to a programme of accrediting prior learning or achievement through an Individual Action Plan. This involves trainees and trainers mapping and linking prior learning/skills against the NVQ by means of a 'talking through' process. This leads to a programme aimed at 'filling in the gaps'. An area of concerted action focuses on the Key Skills of Working with Others and Improving Own Learning and Performance which are often lacking, but are inherent at Level 3 NVQ. This approach would benefit the 40+ age group in particular.

Basic Skill development
The whole NVQ training programme is predicated on the principle that, as a result of the comprehensive mapping of
(a) individual trainee prior learning, and
(b) the relationship between this and the Key Skill components/threads of the vocational qualification,
trainees can be targeted with appropriate basic/Key Skills 'menues'. These involve ongoing discussions between trainee, trainer and employer, the result of which is the completion of an assignment which provides opportunities for basic skills to acquired and the necessary assessment evidence generated.

Vocational Skill development
The discrete vocational skills acquired by the trainees are those required for Level 3 NVQ Care and Child Care. Many apprentices enrol already holding the GNVQ in Health and Social Care.

 

(d) Instructional design

Classroom setting
The greater part of the training programme takes place 'on-the-job', at the workplace; a minority of time is devoted to 'off-the-job' training that takes place at the Centre. The classroom setting is one that facilitates autonomous learning, and thus is structured to allow individual trainee-trainer contexts.

Team projects
The learning process is centred on the completion of skills-based tasks or assignments which allow the generation of evidence to show that both a Key Skill, or aspect of a Key Skill, and an appropriate vocational skill have been mastered or acquired - at the relevant level. Two types of these assignments are available: (a) general assignments or projects which are worked through by a group, and (b) where one of the team tasks provides insufficient evidence for trainee, trainer and employer then, following discussions, further individual-targeted projects or tasks are used. These contexts are ideal for use with trainees who have been unemployed for some time.

Personal development exercises
Almost all the exercises/tasks used are based upon personal development strategies. The assignments fall into three categories:

(a) stand-alone projects undertaken in the Centre, which target the needs of particular trainees, require them to relate the skills programmes to their own workplace context, and then, through a process of self-evaluation, provide evidence which allows them to generate evidence for, perhaps, Application of Number and IT, the vocational programme, and the wider Key Skills of Working With Others and Improving Own Learning;

(b) an assignment is set up in the workplace to provide evidence for the trainee and fulfil a specific workplace need. This type of exercise requires the trainee to work alone and with workplace colleagues and clients;

(c) an assignment generated by normal working practice. Because this extra evidence is closely related to the workplace and is in daily use, the trainee feels a sense of achievement in having made the work of his/her colleagues easier.

These projects are supplemented by 'open sessions' once a month. Even though they are voluntary, trainees are encouraged to attend as the group sessions ensure that they do not feel isolated in their own workplace establishments. Taken together, the assignments and the 'open sessions' address the issue of personal development in a positive way.

Class discussion
The class discussion functions at two levels. First, they are used as a pedagogic device when the context or the issues are appropriate, for example, with the monthly 'open sessions'. Class or group discussion is also important in its own right as an integral part of Communication.

 

(e) Practical training

Exercises, work tasks and work experience placements
Exercises are designed to target either a specific Key Skill, within the context of the vocational area or workplace, or several Key Skills. Examples of the type of exercise used in the scheme are as follows:

(a) a stand-alone project: this links the off- and the on-job components of the work, with the training provided in the Centre and assignments set to produce documents that will be used by staff in the workplace. For example, Care Plans using Key Skills-generated IT, produced by a Modern Apprentice which are then put into use at the residential home where the trainee is employed. These replace hand-written notes. The candidate then uses the completed Care Plans to provide evidence for Application of Number and IT.

(b) An assignment set up at the workplace: for example, a trainee producing written and word processed notes on procedures at the workplace. This generated evidence for Level 2 Communication while providing free training at the residential home which is a statutory requirement.

(c) An assignment generated by normal working practice: this is ideally based upon Application of Number that is an extension of normal vocational tasks. The findings, conclusions and suggestions are again useful to the employer.

All the assignments are fully integrated within the vocational unit at the workplace. The off-the-job training includes time spent looking at the programme for gathering evidence for the NVQ and planning assignments involving Key Skills to be taken back to the workplace. Closely linked with this strategy is that of the use of 'mature mentors in the workplace'. The Centre has encouraged the training of mature practitioners in the workplace to level 3 NVQ who can act as guides or mentors to the Modern Apprentices. The older trainees are better able to respond to such more mature mentors. These mentors pay the registration fee for the NVQ programme themselves and the Centre provides the training for them to work through the level 3 with the trainees, guiding the young person through the training. This both helps the trainee and addresses the very real issue of a shortage of confident workplace assessors. The on-the-job assessments are done by the workplace assessors through witness testimonies and reports.

 

(f) Evaluation and feedback

Evaluation occurs at two levels: the evaluation of the trainee achievement and the evaluation of the scheme.

Evaluation of the trainee achievement: this is carried out by

(a) the Centre's Internal Verifiers (the Course Co-ordinator being the lead Verifier), and the managers of establishments where Modern Apprentices are employed; and

(b) the External Verifiers appointed by and responsible to the awarding/certificating bodies.

Their verifications suggest that the results obtained by the trainees on the Level 3 NVQ programmes reveal a successful development programme. Feedback to the trainees is by certificate.

Evaluation of the Scheme: this has been done by the Key Skills Best Practice Project. They consider the Scheme to be successful on the following grounds:

(a) the involvement of the employer in the planning stage of gathering evidence for Key Skills as well as the vocational units means that Key Skills are treated as an integral part of the training package.

(b) The Key Skills tasks are all relevant to the trainee's workplace, an important issue because NVQ is an employer-led workplace qualification.

(c) The tasks/assignments are not only relevant to the unit to which they belong but they also enhance the trainee's contribution to the workplace and give him/her a sense of achievement in being relevant.

(d) The Scheme allows trainees to generate evidence to show the care and inspiration he/she has received from both the training centre and the workplace, and the personal commitment needed to produce a portfolio of a high standard.

(e) The application of Key Skills reveals a genuine partnership between trainee, trainer and employer.

 

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