IfL congratulates TES FE Award winners

Tuesday 15 November 2011

IfL president Beatrix E Groves (right) with Birmingham Metropolitan College at the TES FE Awards 2011 ceremony.

The Institute for Learning (IfL) has offered its congratulations to the winners of the inaugural TES FE Awards, announced at a gala luncheon in London on Friday 11 November 2011.

The winners included teachers at Birmingham Metropolitan College, whose IfL-sponsored award for Outstanding Innovation in Teaching, Training or Learning Provision was presented by IfL’s president, Beatrix E Groves. The college’s Feed initiative offers would-be creative workers – from fashion designers and hair stylists to games developers and graphic designers – the chance to work on live projects for the college's partners in industry. By breaking down the barriers between subject areas, enabling the collaboration that creative industries require, and developing wider vocational skills, the scheme’s teachers have already helped learners achieve remarkable success.

Michelle Jennings, who is head of associate services at IfL and was on the judging panel for the awards, said, “It is very easy to be dazzled by the technological innovations championed by some providers, but nothing is more important than the relationship between the teacher or trainer and the learner. Teachers on Birmingham Metropolitan College’s Feed initiative have been successful because they help learners to engage with real-life employers in the outside world, do things properly and acquire the skills they need to get the jobs available in media, art and design.

“Derby City Council’s Adult Learning Service, which won the Outstanding e-learning Team award, has developed a virtual learning platform  that has been judged outstanding at enabling teachers to support family learning and improving the skill levels of adult learners. It is simple to access and easy to use, and has made a real impact for learners, which shows that technology doesn’t have to be complicated and flash to be effective. It has to meet the needs of learners, and some developers forget that.

“And a college that focuses on exemplary teaching and learning, through innovative continuing professional development (CPD), was shortlisted for no fewer than three of the 13 awards, and won two of them, including the Outstanding Provider of the Year award. The learning culture at BSix Brooke House Sixth Form College, for teachers and learners alike, underpins the college’s success in recent years, and is reflected in its transformation from an underperforming to an exemplary college. Its successful approach to CPD links to the findings of the 18 focus groups that IfL recently hosted with teachers around the country.”

Ms Groves said, “Innovative teaching and learning in the further education and skills sector makes a real difference to the life chances of thousands of young people and adults. The TES FE Awards present a rare opportunity to pay tribute to all the teachers and trainers in our sector, including those whose institutions won awards or were represented in the shortlist.”

 

Further reading

Helping create a university for teachers – IfL's case study about Hilary Moore, director of student and staff learning at BSix Brooke House Sixth Form College in Hackney, which has become an exemplar for extensive and innovative CPD, to the extent that other sixth‑form and general further education colleges visit BSix to see what it is doing.