Vision2Learn Conference
“Solutions4Success”
Tuesday October 25th 2005
ADMINISTRATION
Debbie Henderson-Newport
The following notes are from the Administration break out session:
The question was posed: What does it take to set up a Successful Vision2learn College?
- Marketing
- Good Tutors
- Good Admin
- Funding
- Communication Skills
- A supportive Management Team
- Time to Administer
- Realistic Expectation
- Strong Relationships
- Robust Process
- Learners!
- Strong Learner Relationship
- Support from V2L
In both sessions we then went on to talk generally. The following points were covered:
- What do Auditors want? How do we find out what they want BEFORE then come to see us.
- Auditors still want to see paperbased systems.
- It was mentioned that the Candidate number and Batch Number need to be written on the Internal Verification Feedback. We discussed this and thought the easiest way was was we receive the feedback and we have registered the learner with NCFE, we write it on - reading for the External Moderator.
- Much discussion on how many hours we spend on Admin. There was concern that enough time is not given to administrators to complete tasks. Currently Newbury College has 468 learners and Debbie works 25 hours per week (she is always busy!)The job is a mixture of proactive and reactive. You can plan your day, yet about 50% of it is answering emails and queries that come from tutors, learners and prospective learners. This is time consuming, yet needs to done effectively! Now that exams have been abolished, it has made the job alot easier!
- Administration processes need to be streamlined. There are certain tasks that need to be completed on certain days. EG: Monday: Learner Registrations come from Creating Careers. Tuesday: Enrolments are sent from Creating Careers. Newbury College provided a copy of their Admin structure for getting learners started on their chosen course. You can view a copy of this by clicking here
It is important to know what the status of your learners is at all time. Newbury College finds it useful to keep a culmulative spreadsheet for each week containing the status of each learner. EG: Personal details, status of enrolment, wether we are awaiting a copy of their passport to prove elibility. If a learner phones asking their status - we are able to tell them why there has been a delay.
- We discussed the need to have administrators meetings. Jonathan suggested maybe Creating Careers could put these on for us so we can get together and share best practice. It is also possible to come to Newbury College, yet it would need to be during a half term break as rooming is impossible during term time!
Initial Advice and Guidance
Newbury College asks it's tutors to do their own Advice and Guidance. A copy of the form the tutor uses and the questions that they ask can be viewed. Click here When Newbury College receives new learner registrations from Creating Careers, they we send out a spreadsheet to the tutors indicating which learners have been allocated to them. We allocate due to work load and in discussion with the tutor. The tutor then is responsible to phone their learner to complete the Initial Advice and Guidance.
Once the tutor has completed the Intial Advice and Guidance and all paperwork has been received from the learner and tutor, the learner will be allocated to that tutor.
While this process can be time consuming for the tutor - it may well be the only chance the tutor gets to converse with their learner, creating a relationship from the beginning - the Human Touch!
Some colleges post their advice and guidance, and sometimes 1 lead tutor does all the Initial Advice and Guidance. There is no right way just what works for each individual college.
- Debbie from Newbury College discussed that her primary importance has always been the tutors. If you nurture your tutors, they will nurture their learners. Make time to go out for lunch, celebrate success and to ensure the tutors have their needs met. Whether it be training or time paid for getting to know a new course.
If you attended this session and know that I have missed something, please update the Wiki. Also if you wish to discuss any admin issues or solutions, you can email me or call me directly on 01635 845402.
Debbie Henderson-Newport
Distance Learning Administrator
Newbury College