Other News and Stories

WorldSkills Competition

WorldSkills Competition – Helsinki, Finland May 2005

The UK team was placed 12th in the world, based on average team score, at the 2005 WorldSkills Competition in Helsinki, winning one gold, two silver medals and seven Medallions of Excellence.  A Stonemasonry student, who studied at York College, a partner in the Stonemasonry CoVE, won one of the silver medals. The gold medal was won by an Autobody Repair student who studied at a college in Northern Ireland and the other silver medal by a beauty therapist who studied at Lowestoft College.

WorldSkills is the largest skill competition in the world, with over 700 competitors from 40 countries.  The UK team gained their highest score ever, 505 out of 600 points exceeding the 500-point World Class benchmark standard.  In 2003 the UK team was placed 15th overall and they hope to use the experience gained to build on their success and reach even higher at the next competition in Japan in 2007.

Other award winning CoVEs

• Liverpool Community College – Visual and performing arts curriculum area which includes the Media and Journalism CoVE gained a grade 1 in their recent inspection. Leadership and Management was also given a grade 1.  Some of the strengths identified by the inspectors were: specialist equipment in media, music technology, journalism and technical theatre is excellent, the college has particularly strong links with industry and the local community and the teaching is very good.

• Brunel Training Group’s CoVE for Advanced Engineering had an article in the Engineering Technology journal published by the Institute of Incorporated Engineers.  The article reported on the success of their mobile units which they use to take training to industry and the support this has received from employers.

• ITS Training Services have been demonstrating why they are a CoVE for international trade and logistics with an innovative approach to sharing best practice with a local high school’s teachers and students.  Throughout the day’s events, students soon realised that international trade (shipping) requires a wide range of departments involved in the process with intelligent staff who are able to solve problems quickly. The need for understanding contracts, communicating in different languages and accurately balancing the trailer load were just a few of the challenges of the day. This project highlighted the transferable skills between the high school curriculum and the employers’ requirements in a competitive job. 

News from the LSC

A new streamlined end of year 1 assessment tool (RAF01) is now available on the LSC website.  All CoVEs from round 6, or any who have had their interim status extended or rejoined after suspension need to use this form for confirmation of full CoVE status.  There is also a guidance document available (RAF02).

The thematic study by ALI and Ofsted is currently been edited and it is expected that the report will be available by the end of September 2005.

The GHK Employer survey should be available in September.  Both reports will be available on the LSC CoVE website http://cove.lsc.gov.uk/index.cfm

 Regional Networks

This year money was delegated to regions from the LSC National Office to be used on CoVE dissemination activities relevant to the region.  The LSDA has worked with three regions to facilitate activities.

• North East has set up a North East Construction and the Built Environment Vocational Excellence Network.  This group plans to work with relevant industries, Sector Skills Councils, employers, LSC, Regional Development Agency and the Regional Skills Partnership to create an influential voice for the sector in the region.  They will also provide a one-stop shop ensuring there is adequacy and sufficiency of construction and built environment level 3 provision across the region.
• West Midlands CoVEs provided one-to-one mentoring with non-CoVE providers covering a range of topics such as: recruitment and retention of apprentices, employer engagement, teaching and learning strategies and improving year 11 engagement.
• South West CoVEs covered two areas, one group have carried out group mentoring, and those CoVEs covered by the pathfinder Sector Skills Agreements met with other providers and the Sector Skills Councils to identify ways of implementing / taking forward the Sector Skills Agreements in the region.

Sector Skills news

For further information form the Sector Skills Councils see the individual SDG meeting summary.

Skillset

Skillset are keen to find out which providers are directly involved with photo imaging and how they are engaging with employers whether through work placement or employer groups. Skillset would like to hear from CoVEs who would be interested in participating in a programme of short CPD courses for people already in the industry, either by providing facilities, teaching time or both. For further information or to express an interest email Pippa Walkley at pippaw@skillset.org or call 01934 853 732.

SummitSkills

Industry tutors shared best practice and learnt more about qualification developments at a recent conference organised by SummitSkills.  Seventy delegates, consisting of heating, ventilating, air conditioning and refrigeration lecturers and other industry partners, gathered at the event which had the aim of providing information, support and guidance to the training network.

Themes covered on the day included portfolio building, qualifications, candidate assessment and tracking and qualifying existing workers. Representatives from SummitSkills, City and Guilds, NG Bailey, HVCA and Leeds College of Building acted as guest speakers for the day.

Neil Collishaw, SummitSkills development manager, said: “This is the second year such an event has been held for the training network. By bringing lecturers together we are creating a pool of experts that can benefit from each others’ work and standardise the way industry qualifications are delivered.”

Employers will also benefit from lecturers working together in this way. By keeping tutors up to date and confident with changes to the industry qualifications, the quality and consistency of training in colleges and training centres will be maintained at a high standard.

It is hoped that the relationships formed at this event will develop further over the forthcoming year, leading into a third annual conference in 2006. For more information contact SummitSkills on 0870 351 4620.