New Employer for trial added.

Details of Burton's three employers who will participate in the WBLWAY trial have been put onto the WBL-WAY Google groups.
The final addition is The Burton Brewhouse. This Arts Centre, fairly recently opened by the Queen, has began to work with the college on a range of initiatives. Amanda Skevington (Curriculum Area Leader for Performing Arts) has recently launched the Foundation Degree in Dance and Theatre Arts (DATA). Amanda works closely with Rachel Walker (Brewhouse Principal Arts Manager) who has agreed to help us with the WBL-WAY pilot phase. http://www.brewhouse.co.uk/brewhouse/index.htm

Rachel joins Sue Cormes (East Midlands Children's Centre) and Ruth Gill (Burton College Nursery) as our "trialists".

With the devolvement of WBL responsibility down to Curriculum Area Leader level at Burton College, we have a range of new FD initiatives (including Hair and Beauty).

When choosing "trialists" I have found it difficult to tap into long term employer contacts (ie. Engineering, Construction) as staff a worried about harming relations (with some employers still looking back to HND's etc). Our chosen "trialists" include a new initiative and two options with students at all levels.

Checking on Data held

After meeting with Ian Ross (Assistant Principal MIS and IT Services), Muhalb Alsaffar (Network Manager), and Tim Davies (IT Database Support), our statement on information held electronically has been updated and added to Google groups.
Ian and Garry Phillips (Assistant Principal Standards and Development) have concerns about allowing access to information. Having said that, based on discussions with Howard Brierley (Assistant Principal Collaboration and Learner Services), it is apparent that information of use to the project is limited at the moment. The new college structure (with key posts only recently appointed and roles and responsibilities still "bedding in") has devolved responsibility for employer engagement down to Curriculum Area Leader level, with each Faculty having an Advanced Practitioner with some responsibility for Employer Engagement. Devolvement results in local expertise being used but also a little confused administration - particularly on the systems front.

Involvement in pilot phase

The new mangement structure at Burton College (Faculties/Curriculum Areas/with supporting cross college roles for 4 Assistant Principals/Dircctors) has now been embedded with all key pot-holders in place. Employer engagement at HE level, and particularly FD's, is achieved at Curriculum Area level . My blog already discusses the need for cross college data (which is not easily obtainable) and data collection developments underway to address this.

Taking this into account, I intend to trial WBL-WAY with the Curriculum Area of Early Years and Care. Reasons: they have good administrative support, they have a strong FD programme, staff and students have experience of SURF Information Services support. The trial can be controlled because we can offer Burton College Nursery and East Staffordshire Childrens Centre as users who will trial WBL-WAY in a proactive way, without being over-critical. Caroline Burnham (Administrative support for Early years and Care) will assist with the monitoring of the trial.