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Adult Learners Week 2020 – 5 Days of Celebration⤴

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Scotland’s Learning partnership has organised a week of events to celebrate Adult Learner’s Week 2020 

The 29th celebration of Adult Learners’ Week in Scotland is very
different from our normal programme of activities – social distancing makes getting together a little harder. The lack of technology skills and tools make it all the more challenging, but adult learners across Scotland are still planning on having a good celebration

The Morning Sessions are open to everyone
to join learners and providers. These sessions are from 11.00 – 12.30.
The Afternoon Sessions are specially designed by learners
with learners and for learners only.

Monday 7th September: Let’s Talk Participation                                   

Ten years is a long time, but no time at all. Join us to hear how far we’ve come when we talk about participation. The Learning and Work Institute’s national participation survey has its roots in the early Adult Learners’ Week campaigns so join us for expert input from Sir Alan Tuckett and Dr Fiona Aldridge to find out how things have changed in the last 10 years and talk about what we need to do and meet the Minister for Adult Learning Richard Lochhead. Sign up here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/lets-talk-participation-tickets-116613428905

Tuesday 8th September: Scotland Connects

This year’s Adult Learners’ Week is timed to celebrate with colleagues across the world, connecting with colleagues in Europe and beyond to help develop a world worth living in. Meeting with Cabinet Secretary Michael Russell, Chief Executive Niamh O’Reilly, AONTAS and Edicio Dela Torre, President of the Education for Life Foundation to talk about our learning connections and champions and how we benefit. Sign up here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/scotland-connects-tickets-116618991543

Wednesday 9th September: Adult Learning & Health

Health literacy became extremely important during a pandemic –
Presentations from Lord Nigel Crisp, Co-chair All-Party Parliamentary Group on Global Health; Jason Leitch, National Clinical Director, Scottish Government; Glynne Roberts, Programme Director (Well North Wales); and FALNI, Northern Ireland will delight and inspire us to think about how we better link with health across the country and ensure learning is at its heart. Sign up here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/adult-learning-health-tickets-116621033651

Thursday 10th September: Work and Learning

Adult Learning at work, for work and in work – a day of celebrations and achievements-hearing from some of the great projects people are involved in across the country. Join us for some inspiration and challenge our thinking about work-based learning, learning for work and learning in work. Meet Ed Gibbon from Stirling Council, WEA, James Russell from SDS and Jamie Hepburn, Minister for Business, Fair work and Skills and let’s talk about the role that adult learning can play in the recovery. Sign up here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/work-and-learning-tickets-116622451893

Elevenses Celebration
Adapting to the situation and making changes, meeting online, sending out learning packs, calling people to see if they’re okay we will be sharing cake and a cuppa with learners and providers across Scotland.

Young Scotland ‘s Got Talent – webinar: Contributions of young people with learning disabilities to the Covid19 crisis⤴

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About this Event

We are currently living in unusual and confusing times during the Covid-19 outbreak. We are immensely proud of everyone who has continued working on the frontline throughout lockdown and we wanted to create a unique Young Scotland’s Got Talent (YSGT) to honour them.

Values into Action Scotland (VIAS) and the Scottish Commission for Learning Disability (SCLD) invite you to a special online Young Scotland’s Got Talent event focused on celebrating these extraordinary young people who are giving it all in the global fight against coronavirus.

The event will feature keynote speakers and workshops as well as a showcase of talented young people and a marketplace to gain useful information about services near you. All of it will be delivered online.

Join us in this exciting first for VIAS and SCLD and celebrate the talents and courage of all of our frontline workers in these times of uncertainty.

Sign up here:  https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/young-scotlands-got-talent-on-the-frontline-tickets-110957115720 

Online Learning opportunities⤴

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Education Scotland CLD officers have collated a range of websites and specific online courses that may be relevant to those working in the Community Learning and Development sector. We hope you find these useful – please get in touch with Susan.Epsworth@educationscotland.gov.scot if you know of an opportunity worth sharing

Learn 100% online with world-class universities and industry experts – Browse Future Learn’s free online courses in subjects ranging from Psychology and Mental Health to Creative Arts and Media https://www.futurelearn.com/courses

Black Lives Matter – Explore resources from petitions to books and courses – to help you get involved in the Black Lives Matter movement, and educated about the history of black oppression https://www.futurelearn.com/info/blog/black-lives-matter-resources

Abertay University has four free credit-bearing courses to help individuals develop their digital marketing abilities, and support businesses. They are delivered online and include live teaching sessions. https://www.abertay.ac.uk/courses/digital-marketing-micro-courses

Professional Development Resources for College Staff  on CDN LearnOnline https://professionallearning.collegedevelopmentnetwork.ac.uk/

Free online learning in a range of subjects from the Open University    https://www.open.edu/openlearn/free-courses

Find training, tutorials, templates, quick starts, and cheat sheets for Microsoft 365, including Excel, Outlook, Word, SharePoint, Teams, OneDrive, OneNote and more https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/training

The Microsoft Certified Educator Program is a professional development program that bridges the gap between technology skills and innovative teaching, learn more: https://education.microsoft.com/en-us

Trend Micro https://internetsafety.trendmicro.com/webinars

Digi Learn Scot – a range of pre-recorded webinars to learn online at a time that suits you https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzFsp7PF70TMlqVM4nCsxSg?view_as=subscriber

 

DYW Summer Leavers’ Programme 2020⤴

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An online portal E-DYW has been created, it is a One-Stop-Shop for young people, educators, employers, parents/carers that can be accessed at https://www.dyw.scot/. It will include multiple resources from private & public sector bodies to provide support to young people leaving school this year.

A series of sessions have also been created to support both young people, parents and carers delivered through our Scotland’s Biggest Parents’ Events and DYW Skills Academy.

Scotland’s Biggest Parents’ Event (SBPE) series is aimed at providing information and relevant updates on topics that are of interest to support young people with the transition from school. The first event will take place on Tuesday 7th July 2020. www.dyw.scot/sbpe 

The DYW Skills Academy: Get Industry Ready delivered over July and August is a series of activities and virtual experiences with industry to support young people to build capacity to enter the labour market.  www.dyw.scot/skills-academy

 

Big CLD Blether⤴

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John Galt, CLD Education Officer reflects on the Big CLD Blether

I’ve been absolutely blown away by the amazing response of the community learning and development (CLD) sector to the Covid-19 crisis. While the lockdown obviously led to the abrupt suspension of most face to face CLD activities, from the start we’ve been hearing examples of how community workers, youth workers, adult educators and family learning workers in both the public and third sectors have continued to support learners and communities with dedication, creativity and kindness. Across Scotland, CLD practitioners have been supporting community initiatives to deliver food, medicine or provide vital social contact to vulnerable families and isolated people; engaging with young people through imaginative digital youth work; adapting learning activities to be accessible online, by phone or through resources to use at home; and helping to extend the reach of school and community hubs for children of key workers and vulnerable families. Many CLD providers are now playing a key role in helping to develop local and national recovery plans.

So I was delighted to help to facilitate The Big CLD Blether  – a virtual discussion with over 90 CLD practitioners and managers across Scotland which was jointly hosted by Education Scotland and The CLD Standards Council for Scotland on 28th May. The session was one of a series held throughout May to support practitioners from across the education system. (#ESBigBlether)

One of the challenges in our diverse sector is finding common digital platforms to use. We went for Google Meet for The Big CLD Blether which seemed to work well for most people.

The discussions were based around four themes and participants chose which ones to take part in. We were lucky to have 3 or 4 experienced practitioners in each themed discussion who shared their experiences and addressed questions from other participants. There were a lot of issues raised in each of the four discussions. Notes from the session will be available on iDevelop but here are some of the points raised:

Theme one: Operational challenges for CLD providers

Participants recognised the good work being done to support the changing needs of learners and communities. CLD organisations are also dealing with significant challenges though. Many 3rd sector organisations are facing extreme financial pressures and some staff had been furloughed. In some areas, local authority CLD staff had been redeployed. Many have been realigning what they do to engage learners and communities remotely while trying to address the clear digital inequalities that exist in our communities. The move to digital is a steep learning curve for many and so effective professional learning for staff is key. There is a strong recognition of the need to support the health and wellbeing of learners and staff.

Theme two: Engagement and learning – what’s working well?

Examples of what is working well were threaded through each of the discussion groups.  We heard about the wide range of digital platforms being used by CLD providers to engage young people, adult learners and community groups. We heard lots of examples of practitioners being flexible and endeavouring to start where learners are at online and we were reminded of the Digitally Agile CLD principles and the great resources out there, such as those on digital youth work from YouthLink. There were frustrations at the limitations that some organisations placed on using some platforms, although there was a recognition of the increased importance of digital safety. We heard that Youth Awards like Hi-5 and Saltire are being widely used to recognise young people’s volunteering during the crisis and that as lockdown eases, there is an increasing focus on supporting young people through street work.

 Theme 3: Supporting the health and wellbeing of CLD participants and staff

CLD practitioners can help participants to address the impacts of staying at home and feelings of grief, worry, stress or loneliness. We heard some of the feedback from the Lockdown Lowdown study which led to discussions on how can we best support the mental wellbeing of young people now and as lockdown continues to ease. Meanwhile feedback from the CLD Standards Council practitioner survey highlighted that many workers were dealing with stress themselves. Effective CPD and peer support are increasingly important priorities for practitioners.

Theme 4: Looking forward – the role of CLD in the recovery phase.

CLD practitioners have important roles to play – in education recovery plans and in wider community renewal. There are many opportunities for CLD to contribute including outdoor learning, blended learning with schools, supporting parents and families, youth awards etc. broad range of services, showcase ourselves. CLD workers will also have key roles to support community groups and organisations to rebuild and help to rebuild partnership working and collaboration to ensure that resources are deployed to best effect. Much of the focus for recovery planning will be at the local level and it is important that CLD partners are involved. There will also be an increasing need for CLD to support wider regional and national collaboration to support ‘building back better’ efforts. Participants were keen to maintain some of the new processes that have been put in place during lockdown.

Feedback about The Big CLD Blether was positive. Participants told us that they enjoyed re-connecting with CLD colleagues and discussing experiences and  pieces of work going well.

Both Education Scotland and the CLD Standards Council are keen to keep the discussions going with further CLD ‘blethers’ so please watch this space!

 

 

Social Enterprise Academy: Online learning offer⤴

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The Social Enterprise Academy is a social change organisation that helps people to use their personal strengths to build sustainable enterprises and achieve greater social impact.  Our work with young people focuses on enabling young people to be active citizens, finding a cause they care deeply about and then getting the chance to create positive change in their communities and beyond.  We provide fully funded, ongoing support to schools and young people so they can set up sustainable, youth-led social enterprises that have a profound impact on the schools, community and the young people themselves.  For more information about our Schools programme see our website.

Social Enterprise Academy:  “Our Response to the Covid-19 crisis”

“We’re aware that the context in which young people are learning in has changed drastically over the last few months and we believe that supporting them to engage with their community is more important now than ever before.  Young people are feeling anxious and helpless, identifying needs around them and taking positive action will help them contribute to their community whilst developing their own skills and improving well-being by creating positive change. 

We’ve been so impressed with all the amazing ideas teachers and young people all across Scotland have already come up with to support their community during this time of crisis and we wanted to provide some guidance for young people who also want to contribute but don’t know where to begin. Here is the overview of a series of activities that we will release each week that will take young people through the experience of identifying the needs around them, exploring how they can take action now and plan for the future.

Home Learning 1 – What is Social Enterprise

You will also see information about Activity one attached below and we would really appreciate it if you could share this with the young people you work with. They will be able to submit their ideas for each activity (directly to us or you can submit them on their behalf if you would prefer) and every young person who takes part will receive a certificate.  Each week new tasks will be revealed to help them on their journey, with useful resources and guidance throughout. They don’t have to complete every single activity and they don’t have to complete the activity on the same week that they are released – for example, you could have a ‘social enterprise’ fortnight towards the end of the series and ask them to complete one activity each day if you would prefer. We are keen to be flexible and supportive so feel free to run these activities in whatever way suits you and your young people best.

Home Learning 1 – What is Social Enterprise

There will also be an opportunity (in addition to the home learning activities) for young people who would like to take part in our virtual Dragons’ Den competition. They will be asked to submit a community champions idea with a chance to win £100 seed funding so that they can set up their social enterprise once they return to school, develop an existing school based social enterprise or to continue developing their products whilst at home – more information to follow on that.

The final document attached is a flyer for our online CPD that you would be very welcome to attend and please feel free to share this with your colleagues. This is an excellent opportunity to come together with fellow educators and explore how we can all support young people to take action now, despite the challenging circumstances. During the session we will also share support and resources the Social Enterprise Academy can provide at the moment and when the schools re-open – including workshops for young people delivered by social entrepreneurs.

ONLINE CPD 22 May 2020

The home learning activities, Dragons’ Den competition and online CPDs are all fully funded so there is no cost to schools. We are also funded to offer one to one support for individual teachers so please do get in touch with us if there’s anything at all we can do to support you and your young people – schools@socialenterprise.academy. Thank you, we can’t wait to hear some fantastic community champion ideas and flood social media with more good news stories about young people taking positive action in their communities.

DYW School Partnerships at Breadalbane Academy⤴

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What we do

Breadalbane Academy aims to create an inclusive environment in which all young people find a pathway to success. We offer a range of learning opportunities – both within and beyond the classroom – designed to develop well-rounded individuals ready for life and work.   Partnerships are at the heart of our approach.

Collaboration with partners is a key principle in curriculum design and we work with local and national employers as well as our community to co-design our curriculum. We are proud to have links with over 50 organisations and a robust network of partners with whom we have 3-5 year ‘partnership agreements’.
We offer a wide range of planned engagement opportunities for P1 to S6 and have created a system to monitor these to ensure sustainability and ongoing improvement. These activities are structured around nine ‘employment themes’ reflecting the local and national employment picture.  As much as possible we ensure these are interactive and provide hands-on learning
which offers opportunities for creative thinking. Increasingly activities are being cross-referenced with
our school skillset and pupils are provided with opportunities to reflect on how the input has developed
their skills profile.

We know our wider community well, which enables us to understand the skills required to live and work here. Collaboration with businesses and parents allows us to create projects that specifically develop these important skills.
The school actively encourages pupils to engage with the world of work in all areas and interests.  These happen at every age and stage of their school career, giving pupils a wide breadth of ideas and
inspiration. The students at Breadalbane are not just learning to pass exams but gaining relevant knowledge and experience for the world of work.

 

DYW Learning Resources: Collated Offer⤴

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The following information outlines the core resources available to help embed DYW in the curriculum:

These outline key entitlements and expectations around DYW in education and provides guidance for planning and progression:

Career Education Standard (3–18)
Career Education Standard (3-18) (Gaelic version)

Establishments need to continue to develop sustainable partnerships with employers, businesses and colleges:

School-Employer Partnerships

There are currently a number of ways young people can develop their work-related learning:

Work Placements Standard (English version)
Work Placements Standard (Gaelic version)

DYW Learning Resources

These will aid practitioners in developing strategies to aid career advice and guidance:

Career Education Standard (3-18): Suite of Learning Resources
Career Education Standard – Exemplification Tool
CES 3-18 Reflection tool and Self-evaluation Wheel
Guidance and learning resource: Profiling skills and achievements in the context of career education

The following will help to develop DYW in the Senior Phase:

A self-evaluation guide for school/college partnerships
Senior Phase Benchmarking Tool
Learning pathways: Senior Phase design

These can aid the development equalities in relation to DYW:

DYW- Embedding equality into resources for learning’ guide
Improving gender balance from 3-18
Improving gender balance – Gender friendly physics
Improving gender balance – Big Me

Developing work placements and work-related learning:

Self-evaluation Tool
Benchmarking exercise
Building the Curriculum 4
Toolkit for Work-related Learning (PDF file)
Work Placement Toolkit (PDF file)
SQA Work Placement Resources

DYW – Quick Start Guide⤴

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The following information outlines the core essentials around DYW, in order to provide a quick overview and introduction to support  planning and implementation.  It includes the following sections:

  • What DYW is? – Introduction
  • What are the key priorities? – DYW essentials
  • Key Resources

What is Developing the Young Workforce?

Developing the Young Workforce is a seven year programme to reduce youth unemployment by 40% by 2021.
 The national milestones are set out in Scotland’s Youth Employment Strategy.  The programme is built on the CfE entitlements for children and young people set out in 2008 in Building the Curriculum 3.  DYW is a key education policy, as highlighted by John Swinney at consecutive SLF addresses : “Our education policy is enshrined by three major policies, Getting it Right for Every Child, Curriculum for Excellence and Developing Scotland’s Young Workforce.” (SLF 2017) A focus on STEM sits at the heart of DYW. The Digital Learning and Teaching Strategy, Making Maths Count report and  STEM Strategy for Scotland  will contribute useful and relevant insights.  DYW has a particular and significant contribution to make in realising the Scottish Attainment Challenge outcomes, in particular priority 4: Improvement in employability skills and sustained, positive school-leaver destinations for all young people.

DYW Essentials:   What are the key DYW priorities ?

1. The Career Education Standard (CES 3-18):     Read the Career Education Scotland (3-18).  This document contains the key entitlements and expectations around DYW in education and provides guidance for planning and progression.

Reflective question:

  • To what extent am I familiar with the entitlements and expectations outlined within the CES 3-18?
  • To what extent do I use the CES 3-18 to plan relevant and coherent learning experiences?

2. Education -Employer Partnerships:    Establishments need to continue to develop sustainable partnerships with employers, businesses and colleges, which will enable the delivery of meaningful work-related and work-based learning opportunities.

Reflective question:

  • What type of education-employer partnerships do I currently have in place?
  • How do I ensure that these partnerships are effective and sustainable?
  • To what extent do the partnerships contribute to the curriculum design and delivery?

3. Curriculum design:   Embed DYW consistently across all that is planned for children and young people throughout education, ie. within the curriculum,  through interdisciplinary Learning, Personal Learning and Achievement and  the life and ethos of the school as a community.  For more information see Scotland’s Curriculum Refresh Narrative.   Resources for teachers and practitioners can be access on My World of Work.

In secondary schools learner pathways should be planned to reflect the needs and aspirations of young people and offer a diverse range of tailored learning programmes from BGE into the senior phase.  This should draw on a wide range of work-related courses such as Foundation Apprenticeships, Skills for Work modules, HNCs etc delivered in collaboration with colleges, training provides and employers alongside traditional subject choices.

Reflective question

  • How effectively do you plan for career education opportunities and progression pathways for learners in your school?
  • In what ways does the curriculum provision and timetabling in your establishment incorporate career education for all learners?

4.  Connect learning with the world of work:  Whenever relevant learning should be linked to careers, the labour market, employability both theoretically as well as practically.    Education establishments should therefore create work-related learning opportunities for all learners from early years to senior phase.  This may include career insight, work  inspiration, enterprise, simulated  work environments connections.   Work-based learning should be provide to all learners aqs and when required, particularly however in the senior phase.  The implementation of the Work Placement Standard should be an integral element of this.

Reflective question:

  • To what extent do I plan and incorporate work-related learning opportunities across the curriculum
  • To what extent are partners involved in delivering meaningful, work-related experiences for learners,  the delivery of skills and qualifications and highlighting prospective career opportunities?
  • To what extent do all learners our have access to relevant work-based learning experiences and palcements.

5. Improvement Planning:  DYW should be included within the establishment improvement plan and the targets should be realistic and manageable and able to be overtaken in one school year. External partners, such as employers, community learning and development and colleges, and parents should be part of the improvement planning process.  However the voice of young people  should be clear in the establishment improvement plan.   All DYW activity and targets should be clearly focussed on outcomes for learners.

Reflective question:

  • What impact are improvement measures having on learning, success, achievement, confidence, positive destinations and so on?

6. Skills:   There should be a clearer focus on enabling children and young people to recognise and track their own skills development and achievements across their learning.

Reflective Questions:

  •  How effective are profiling processes across the school/establishment?
  • To what extent do I provide opportunities to engage in profiling that supports learning and the development of skills for work and future career choices?
  • How well do I engage children and young people in meaningful discussion about their achievement within and outwith school, the development of their skills and assist them in profiling these to support their career journeys?

7.  Equalities and Inclusion:   Planning for DYW should address issues of equity, equality and inclusion. This includes: addressing parity of esteem across all types of learning and future destinations; challenging gender stereotyping; and meeting the specific needs of young people with additional support needs, from black and minority ethnic communities and those with experience of living in care.

Reflective question:

  • To what extent is our DYW offer inclusive of all learners and challenges stereotypes and bias with regard to gender, race/ethnicity, disability and learners with additional support needs ?

Resources to help you:

Next steps

  • Sign up for Education Scotland’s DYW e-newsletter
  • Find DYW news and information on the Education Scotland Learning Blog
  • Follow us on Twitter, https://twitter.com/ESskills @ESSkills