&MY TUTOR
ME
Jane Johnson (pictured rear centre) found new confidence in her abilities, thanks to her Workers’ Educational Association tutor Catherine Howell (rear right), and they helped turn derelict land into a community resource.
JANE JOHNSON After school I worked at the local library. I married young, at 22, and had three beautiful children. So I swapped the library to be a term-time only food technician at my local Catholic school. Unfortunately, I had a second benign brain tumour on my acoustic nerve and had to leave work as my complete deafness in one ear and balance disorder made it unsafe for me to work. I returned to school three years later as a school librarian and teaching assistant after completing a Level 3 Cache Teaching Assistant Course. Catherine’s approach to teaching was excellent. At the start of the course none of us knew anything about gardening, nor did we believe we could turn a derelict and overgrown piece of land into a working vegetable garden and resource for those who felt socially isolated in our community. But Catherine broke the lessons down into small sections of practical and theory. Everything she told us was a new, vital piece of information on our successful journey to establish the garden. I have gained more confidence and, along with some other ladies, I’m exploring the idea of living a more sustainable life. I’m also a volunteer distributor for the Food Network and I am looking into other WEA courses that may help more people in my community.
WHAT’SNEW WHY SHOULD I CARE? Ofsted will be consulting on four new inspection judgements:
CATHERINE HOWELL Jane approached the course, Growing Fruit and Vegetables, with infectious enthusiasm. It was part of a much bigger community project to develop a small garden space for food growing. Jane enlisted a small group of local learners who completed the course with her, using the garden as a practical demonstration space. Jane wasn’t terribly confident, but she found food growing fascinating and was really keen to progress. By the end she was, with the other students, making the right decisions about growing in the garden, applying and sharing her knowledge and working independently outside the course hours. I’ve been a community environmental project manager for
10 years, having studied environmental management at university. I have a real belief in education being the key to building community resilience in the face of changing economic, social, political and environmental conditions. I completed PTTLS courses and my assessors’ qualifications with a former employer and use these as the basis for delivering WEA courses in a range of environmental subjects, through the Green Branch based in Newcastle. My courses vary between being potentially very theoretical or very practical, with a good grounding of knowledge but innovative ways of applying it. Social media is brilliant for keeping up with developments in my subject.
IN EDUCATION AND TRAINING? AND WHY SHOULD I CARE?
WHAT’S NEW? Ofsted’s 2019 Education Inspection Framework, out for consultation in January, will change the way that further education providers and schools are inspected. Ofsted plans to introduce inspection processes that place more emphasis on assessing learning outcomes, taking into account the breadth and richness of the curriculum and provision. Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector, Amanda Spielman, has said
that she wants to bring the inspection conversation back to the substance of people’s learning and to treat teachers as experts in their field, not just data managers.
a quality of education judgement replacing the current pupil outcomes and teaching, learning and assessment judgements; personal development; behaviour and attitudes; leadership and management. However, as Spielman has repeatedly said, further
improvements in FE quality are likely to be hampered by a continued squeeze on funding for post-16 education and training. She has called for an increase in 16 to 18 funding in the Comprehensive Spending Review expected next year. Meanwhile, an Ofsted report published in November, also handed FE providers the specific challenge of improving Level 2 programmes. Read the Ofsted research on Level 2 programmes at
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/level-2-study- programmes
inTUITION ISSUE 34 • WINTER 2018 9
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