Swindon Borough Council’s Adult Community Learning Service is focused on supporting targeted Swindon residents to progress in life, work and wellbeing, most have no or low-level qualifications. The team has made embedding and visibility of digital skills alongside maths and English a priority across all provision. This is the story of the distance travelled by the team in embracing digital skills for both staff and learners since 2019.
We interviewed:
The first step for the Adult Community Learning team was to create a new policy for making digital skills visible in curriculum provision alongside maths and English. In the first instance, Quality Improvement Manager Rachel Loxston commissioned an independent consultant to help draft a policy. This was presented to all tutors who helped to co-design the final policy. Tutor ownership and involvement therefore became a vital part of successful implementation.
The embedding of English, maths and digital skills has in some instances tended towards the burying and disguising of these skills within schemes of work for fear of alienating learners. However, learners need to be aware of the skills they are learning, know where they can be applied and how they will enable them to access and progress their current and future learning. They should also be able to identify and verbalise the English, maths and digital skills that they are using and have the opportunity to use them and practise them in further sessions.
The policy focuses on tutors’ digital skills as much as learners’, as illustrated in these objectives:
For digital skills development, the policy signposts tutors to the ETF’s Digital Teaching Professional Framework and the Enhance Digital Teaching Platform.
“It’s clearly linked to our vision…” Quality Manager Rachel Loxston talks about making digital skills visible.
Back in 2019 when the policy was first launched, the service was delivering all courses in community venues and every class had iPads. As a starting point for embedding digital skills more widely and making them visible to learners, the team discussed how to use both the iPads and learners’ own smartphones. They started by loading up the ACL iPads with useful apps, for example apps to help parents to support their children’s learning, and supporting learners to download these apps on their own devices.
Why Visible
“It’s clearly linked to our vision…”
Other modelling and engagement strategies included:
“Every learner has their own iPad…” Amy Lydiate is embedding digital skills all the time on her employability course.
“For me, it’s a confidence trick…” Tutor Amy Lydiate feels lack of confidence is the biggest issue holding her learners back.
“Every learner has their own iPad…”
“It’s a confidence trick…”
When the Covid-19 pandemic necessitated a national lockdown in March 2020, the Adult Community Learning team did not have a virtual learning platform and had not been trained for online learning, so delivery had to be suspended. Both direct delivery and subcontracted tutors continued to be paid and amongst other work and CPD were asked to look at developing their digital skills. Rachel directed them to internal training and external resources like the EnhanceDTP. They spent the summer term building up the digital skills of tutors and researching and implementing a new learning platform – itslearning – ready for resuming online or blended delivery from September.
A programme of training and support was in place prior to and during the first lockdown for both directly employed tutors and the tutors of subcontracted providers, but it was apparent a more focused training needs analysis would be beneficial once online delivery commenced and tutors became more aware of their skills needs in the new online world. Rachel and colleagues designed a training needs analysis survey with questions based on generic digital skills needs, some identified from the ETF’s Digital Teaching Professional Framework and some related to use of MS Teams and the new its learning platform. The survey ran in November 2020 and asked staff to grade themselves from having ‘no competency’ to ‘being an expert’.
Staff engaged really well with the digital skills survey. The results were used to design a prioritised CPD list identifying where support should be either to a group, on a one-to-one basis, using a mentoring model, or alternatively where to signpost staff for self-directed study including the EdTech and Essential Digital Skills training modules on the Enhance Digital Teaching Platform.
The CPD programme took another leap forward when members of the team joined the ETF’s EdTech Mentor programme in autumn of 2020. A digital CPD opportunity has now been introduced to the fortnightly tutor meetings with a microteach or sharing opportunity either related to the CPD list or focusing on some new development of interest. Every Wednesday after teaching, one of the EdTech Mentors holds group sessions with tutors around different aspects of digital pedagogy. Another team member delivers more practical sessions focused on specific digital tools. Some training is compulsory, and some is elective. When a member of staff ‘really gets hold of the training’ there is a celebration. Rachel feels that even those tutors who were initially frightened by having to use technology have now embraced the change.
There has been a significant investment in training and resources. Staff (including those on flexible contracts and subcontractors) have been included in the training and paid to attend. Where staff have needed extra resources to make online learning work, such as an extra webcam, the Council has supported them. The EdTech mentors have set up an openly accessible Padlet page for tutors to record useful digital tools and approaches that staff find along the way.
“The above and beyond stuff…” Rachel Loxston, Quality Manager at Swindon adult learning, describes how the ETF’s Digital Teaching Professional Framework was useful.
“They have improved their skillset…” Tutor Amy Lydiate believes that online learning has helped her learners to improve their digital skills.
“…82% say they’ve improved their IT skills.” Quality Manager Rachel Loxston talks about the impact on learners of changes to provision to focus on digital skills.
“The above and beyond stuff…”
“Learners have improved their skillset…”
“…82% say they’ve improved their IT skills.”
The new Essential Digital Skills (EDS) national standards featured strongly in the Council’s policy for making digital skills visible to learners. The adult learning team expected to introduce new Essential Digital Skills Qualifications (EDSQs) for the digital entitlement from September 2020 but their preferred awarding body NCFE was not authorised for EDSQs by Ofqual until February 2021. The intention is to start delivering EDSQs from NCFE face-to-face or in blended mode in the summer term of 2021. EDSQs will form part of traineeships and entitlement for target learners but the intention is also to explore offering EDSQs for workforce development with local employers.
Swindon Borough Council (SBC) delivers adult learning programmes across the Swindon area and was graded ‘Good’ by Ofsted in March 2020, just a week before the first lockdown. Over 85 percent of programmes are delivered directly via the Council’s Adult Community Learning team with the remainder delivered by a small group of specialist subcontracted providers. Courses are mostly Pre-Entry level to Level 1, and a small minority are at Level 2. A major focus is on employability courses, which have almost doubled in size over the last two years. The National Employer Skills Survey 2017 showed that Swindon has some of the highest rates of skills shortage vacancies in England. When asked, 47% of Swindon employers with hard to fill vacancies said that the reason for the shortages was a lack of skills. The vast majority of courses offered by the Council are RARPA based and include support for parenting, cookery, English for speakers of other languages (ESOL), digital skills, wellbeing and programmes which help learners explore their work or personal development options. A small minority of learners work towards qualifications in English and employability skills.