Most organisations now have systems in place to track and review learner progress - but how well do they work? Their effectiveness directly affects learner progress and achievement and in turn, the organisation’s success rates and inspection outcomes.
Inspection reports continue to show that the Learner Progress Tracking and Review systems can be further developed to ensure the organisation knows precisely, on a month by month basis how their learners are performing and that the review process complements this by improving learners’ motivation and commitment.
This workshop demonstrates the techniques and approaches that work.
The workshop is split into two distinct but related sessions:
- Morning – Milestones and Progress Tracking
- Afternoon – Effective Learner Reviews
The workshop focuses on learner progress in relation to holistically assessed NVQs, Technical Certificates, Key Skills and other qualifications together with interpersonal and workplace skills.
Delegates will undertake practical exercises to develop progress milestones for courses they manage. Particular emphasis will be placed on making what is recorded meaningful to learners, involving employers, setting targets and strategies to make the process a motivational experience for learners.
The workshop also addresses the different ways in which Equal Opportunities and Health and Safety can be effectively incorporated into the progress review process and the relationship between progress reviewing and ILPs.
MILESTONES AND PROGRESS TRACKING
Success Rates and Timely Success Rates are excellent measures of how well a programme is operating but these figures measure past performance. If the figures are not good, it is too late to help those learners identified.
Effective progress tracking using a well designed milestones system ensures that the organisation knows precisely, on a month by month basis, which:
- Learners are not where they should be, in relation to their NVQ, Key Skills, Technical Certificate, E2E programme components, and by how much
- Learners are where they should be, and which ones are ahead and by how much
- Assessors and subject Tutors (Key Skills, Technical Certificate etc), are having difficulties progressing learners at the expected rate
- Assessors and subject Tutors are performing very well or better.
With this type of performance information, managers are in a position to take precise action to ensure that ‘at risk’ learners do not become early leavers and that any staff who need support are also identified quickly.
Session Objectives
To help ensure that progress tracking processes are delivering optimum learner achievement. As a result of attending this workshop participants will understand or better understand how:
- The different approaches to developing a learner progress tracking system can be used
- To design, or enhance the design, of a learner progress tracking system
- how to measure learner progress in their development of personal, social and workplace skills
- what a progress milestone is, and how they relate to targets set during Progress Reviews
- what different types of progress milestones look like, and how to use them to monitor learner progress
Session Content
Delivery of progress tracking will involve interactive discussions, practical group problem solving exercises, case study analysis, and individual learning activities focused on:
- Defining what progress milestones are, and how they should relate to ultimate course outcomes and the specific targets agreed during Progress Reviews
- Identifying appropriate progress milestones for different types of learning programme
- Using progress milestones to monitor learner progress
- Developing documentation that helps learners track their progress ‘at a glance’ and how this relates to ILPs and the E2E passport
Participants are asked to bring course documentation such as NVQ standards for the courses they manage, to enable the approaches to be contextualized where appropriate.
EFFECTIVE LEARNER REVIEWS
Effective learner progress reviewing makes an important contribution to assuring that learners are motivated and committed, by ensuring that they have a very clear understanding of what they are achieving and what they have yet to achieve.
Session Objectives
The aim of this session of the workshop is to help organisations ensure that progress reviews are a stimulating experience for learners, in which all aspects of their progress is clearly captured, and which produces clear and measurable achievement targets for the next review.
As a result of attending this session participants will understand or better understand how to refine and improve:
- Management of the progress review process
- The quality of progress review completion
Session Content
Delivery will involve interactive discussions, practical group problem solving exercises, case study analysis, and individual learning activities focused on:
- Clearly defining the purpose learner progress reviews serve, and the responsibilities of everyone that should contribute to the process
- Building greater learner and tutor ownership of, and commitment to the process
- Improving employer engagement in the process
- Identifying and using measures to determine how effectively the progress reviewing process is working in the organisation
- Identifying what good Progress Reviews look like and developing guidance which helps tutors to produce effective reviews, and criteria to measure the quality of the content
- Identifying the characteristics of effective progress review sessions including criteria for observing progress reviews
For Whom
This intense and highly interactive session is for managers and practitioners with responsibility for maximising learner progress, success and achievement on Apprenticeships, Train to Gain and E2E programmes.
Learning will be faciliated through
- Practical analysis and evaluation of methods, tools and techniques
- Presentation of examples of good practice
- Tutor feedback to individuals
- Participants’ critical evaluation of their organisation’s approach to managing learner progress tracking
- Group and individual problem solving exercises
- Comparative analysis of their organisation’s practices, with the experience and arrangements used by other workshop participants’ organisations.