Employer Engagement - organising it all...

The big question with Employer Engagement, particularly when it is going well, is how exactly to organise it. It would be impossible for me to write out a scheme of work for each employer, for each unit and allocate them to various schools. Instead, they just need to be made aware of how they might be used and be happy to be contacted by any of the consortium schools for the agreed purposes. These could include:

-Guru Lectures

-breakfast meetings

-Industry Insight days

-Hosting Events

-Holding competitions (Multimedia, websites)

-Project management - being involved in an actual project (multimedia, or project management or managing technology solutions)

The trick is knowing which employers would be involved where. In principle I would like five big employers to come along to the Jan meeting to work with the individual schools for their Project management unit. The employers would be linked directly to a school. In some cases, like with Premier, the employer can engage - if they are happy to - with the entire consortium. (i.e hosting visits and such...)

So as of now, that's the plan......

Employer Engagement - Premier Radio Station on board!

So, today I set out to do some more all-important employer engagement and it occurred to me - for all sorts of reasons - that it may be useful to do a blog! (as a means of keeping a log).

9:15AM, just had an enormously boring assembly and got straight on the phone to Croydon Park Hotel. Spoke to a polish receptionist who very politely told me that the people I needed to speak to were the HR department. She gave me a contact and asked me to ring back at 10:40 (I will). I also spoke to a member of the booking and sales team there asking if they would be willing to host a one-off free meeting for a number of us consortium members! No such thing as a free lunch, but who knows - always worth asking! She said she'd get back to me, but again that the best person to speak to would be HR (G.O). So shelving that for now and moving on to my next conquest. (contact - hr@croydonparkhotel.com Speak to Gina O'neil)

9:26AM Phoned Centrale. Got through the "gatekeeper" (we ought to have a cold calling/sales training day for this sort of thing) and then got accidentally disconnected. When I rang back I explained to the receptionist that I was from a local school. She immediately connected me to someone - I didn't know who - but had made the assumption that I was a teacher ringing a parent (who happens to work in the management department there!). A parent contact is never a bad thing! I spoke to a lovely lady (PG) who said the next step was to send an e-mail detailing what exactly it is I needed from Centrale and that she would take it from there. So that's that - an e-mail to send out and follow up in a few days. (contact in management pamelagraham@centrale.co.uk)

Next, 9:30AM -rang the Whitgift centre a hundred million times. No response. The departments in "management" were 1. operations and charities 2. Facilities 3. marketing 4. Office manager. I tried all of them. No response!

anyway 9:42 - an important one! GAME.CO.UK I rang the head office and got through to a cancankterous switchboard operator. She passed me on to someone in PR - the line went to voice mail. I rang back and asked for a contact and explained what I was after. She said I needed to speak to someone in Marketing or PR and told me (unbelievably) that there was only ONE person in PR/Marketing at head office and she was in the Bahamas (or somewhere) until Monday. So i took down her email adddress and other details and said I'd follow up on it.

So far, nothing concrete. (Contacts: Lucy White - lucy.white@game.co.uk - P.R & marketing)

9:48 - Wesley Owen. Rang head office and a lady told me that the whole company is up for sale. Lots of uncertainity all round, but I've got to say the people - every one I spoke to - were really really lovely. Anyway, the initial lady passed me on to Samantha in personell. Samantha then passed me on to Ruth in operations. (I'm getting to grips with the different departments and which contact might be most useful). Ruth in operations was very enthuasiastic about the opportunity to be involved in the curriculum and could quite easily see the mutual benefits including publicity and marketing for their books and products! Unfortunately because of the situation, we decided we'd have to wait and see what happened with the takeover and then go from there! (contacts: Ruth Wallace, 01480462622, operations manager)

10:00AM I finally hit gold! PREMIER RADIO, London. The contact I was given was in Marketing and Events - Richard Smart (richard.smart@premier.org.uk, 02073161366) I explained the Diploma in IT and what we were hoping we could achieve by engaging a radio station. He then surprised me by saying that Premier had tried (a few years ago) to do more to engage croydon but plans hadn't quite worked out at the time. It was useful to understand how Premier works: He explained: Most expenditure and costs come from licences and employing people. Premier Radio basically run a radio station (Christian) which has now gone national. They also have plans to launch a Gospel station in london in January. Premier also has an online TV presence; publication (magazines, leaflets) department, and a fairly well developed web presence. It cost 4-5 million to run, 50% donations, 25% advertising 25% from the ministry. What came next was really exciting. Richard mentioned that there was a portable radio station sitting in a warehouse in Croydon. Some time ago they were hoping to put this in place in a school in Croydon but it hadn't panned out. I explained that this is something we could potentially link to the "Managing Projects" unit as well as the potential of Technology. He was quite keen for me to send him an e-mail inviting him to a meeting in which we could discuss the curriculum and how to be involved. I explained that at the very least we would expect learners to be able to visit their premises and have a look around for the Exploring organisations and Potential of Technology units. He seemed quite enthuasiastic about the whole thing! So another email to send, and this one looks like more of a definite lead!

Steering Group Meeting 2

Our second steering group meeting was much more fruitful. More purposeful or perhaps I felt that way because I had more of a purpose myself, i.e I knew (marginally) more about what I was talking about than before. The learning curve -especially for someone who has never been in either management or school leadership -has been steep.

Anyway, in a nutshell, we presented funding models (I will post these in another blog) and presented my report (awarding body comparison report). It took our members about 1 minute (after my hours of research!) to decide on Edexcel. (more on why or why not go with Edexcel in another blog)

Attendance was good. Being promised an incentive helps but everyone involved is pretty amazing and committed regardless. (I hope!)

Agenda (below)

Gateway 2

Through the Gateway....nearly. Had to "resubmit" (or our 14-19 development officer did) indicating

a) employer engagement capacity linked to estimated numbers
b) Employer Engagement mapped to Units

Did a huge big spreadsheet that covered every possible avenue. The capacity is there....i.e the employers are there. Engaging them is going to the thing.....

So now - once again - we wait to see whether we are devliering for 2010. What I love about the process is that my timetable (and others) will already have been reshuffled in preparation for the preparatory year (if that makes any sense). If the application is denied...I have two days off timetable for nothing! Woooo...

First Steering Group Meeting

Setting the scene: Our consortia (I imagine) is a rather large one. By that, I mean that we have 9 institutions (hang on let me check...) yes, 6 schools and 3 colleges to be exact.

Schools:

• Archbishop Tenison's -co-lead with Croydon College
• Norbury Manor
• Virgo Fedelis
• Addington High
• Ashburton
• St Mary's

Colleges:

• Croydon College -co-lead
• Coulsdon College
• St Josephs College

Of the schools and colleges mentioned above, the attendance was as follows:

• Archbishop Tenison's -Me
• Norbury Manor -Deputy Head (Curriculum) + another teacher of ICT
• Virgo Fedelis -Head of ICT
• Addington High -Head of ICT
• Ashburton - /
  St Mary's -/
• Croydon College - /
• Coulsdon College -Head of Business & ICT
• St Josephs - /

There was also a most helpful 14-19 development officer present to oversee and do all the 'real' answering of questions!

So some tea/coffee/biscuits later, we had a prompt start at 4PM. The Agenda twisted and turned (as these things do) to adapt to the question at hand, but in essence things went as follows:

1) Welcome and Introductions
2) Purpose of the Steering Group (another post may be necessary for this, I think!)
3) Role of the Curriculum Group
4) Post 16 Diploma in IT estimated entries for 2010
5) Brief discussion of models (funding and allocation of roles within steering group)
6) Agenda for next meeting to include (Choosing a Spec, Deciding on projects, mapping employers to units, levels and project involvement, Possible funding models (how to spend the 40K!)
7) Next meeting -16th June, Tuesday!

Invitation to first steering group meeting....

With some positive results to go on, I was advised to invite steering group members to a meeting at the beginning of May. In the run up to the meeting, my school had agreed only to release me as 'Lead' and for the responsibilities associated with the role, for 12 lessons and the equivalent of 16K of funding in return. A 14-19 Diploma Development Officer agreed this would be the best way forward and this was confirmed via a written e-mail to our headmaster. Consortium funding has now been increased to 40K for the year 2009-2010, and the allocation of the remainder of the funding as well as delegation of roles and responsibilities within the steering group will need to be on the agenda for an upcoming meeting (perhaps not the first one though!)

Collaboration, as anticipated, proves to be one of the main problems of working as a Consortia. Teachers are busy people! Replying to e-mails and coming to after-school e-mails aren't the sort of things they would automatically prioritise! Below is a copy of the second reminder e-mail I sent out to all members.

Dear Colleagues,

I am pleased to invite you to an IT Consortium Meeting on the 6th May, Wednesday at Archbishop Tenison's (3:30-5PM) Details are in the attached meeting agenda. As we are at a crucial stage of both perfecting our application and embarking on the preparatory year leading to delivery in 2010, I appreciate your commitment to attending these meetings. Your input will be necessary (see agenda) on a number of things, and it will also be an ideal opportunity for formal introductions to members in the group! We hope to present an overview of the year ahead as well as look at a Diploma in IT specification comparison (which promises to be revealing!) Please confirm your attendance (or let me know if you are unable to make it) by replying to this e-mail. Snacks/drinks will be provided so I do need numbers ASAP. You can also visit a site (still under construction) www.croydondiplomas.tk for a copy of the agenda and all related documents. I have created an online forum for any questions or answers you might have to the posted threads.

With warm regards,

RB

I used moonfruit (www.moonfruit.com) to set up a super-quick website complete with a forum and poll! http://croydondiploma.moonfruit.com/ No one uses it of course, but it is useful (even just for me) to have a record of meetings, logs, and important documents altogether in one public place! Fronter may have been an alternative but logging in and remembering an id and password is just one more thing to do!

Through the Gateway at last....nearly!

I should admit that the Gateway results were not at the forefront of my mind during the Easter Break, but when the results did come (after having been postponed once!) they were as follows:

6th April, 2009
Diploma Gateway 3 Results
Consortium ID: 84
Information Technology: 2

Explanation of Gateway 3 Categories

Category 1 – recommended to go through for 2010 delivery with no conditions

Category 2 – recommended to go through for delivery from September 2010 with conditions that need to be met within 3 months (review June/July 2009)

Category 3 a): not ready for September 2010 delivery– could potentially start in 2011 if conditions are met within 6 months (review Oct/Nov 2009)

Category 3 b): not ready for September 2010 delivery – could potentially start in 2011 if conditions are met within 12 months (reviews Oct/Nov 09 and June/July 2010).

Categories 2, 3a and 3b – Please refer to the Decision Panel Remarks at the end of your feedback for details about your conditions

The Decision Panel Remarks for IT were as follows:

Key points:

Fairly good proposal overall; strengthened by good links with HE.

Details need to be provided of how employers will be engaged in planning, delivering and monitoring all aspects of the diploma, including applied learning and potentially the project;

Clarification is needed over employer engagement being sufficient given the numbers of learners forecast.

My conclusions from this were that we need to
1) Produce a comprehensive list with employers/clients mapped to specific units and linked clearly to the estimated numbers for delivery in 2010
2) Provide a few examples/models for delivering the project (Level 1, 2 and 3) with employers/clients on board.