Background
The University Centre Bishop Burton has approximately 450 Higher Education students, offering a range of provision with over forty degree-level programmes including Foundation Degrees, Bachelor Degrees and Masters programmes. Curriculum areas include agriculture, animal management, equine, conservation management, sport and criminology. Programmes run across two campuses, one based in East Yorkshire and the other in Lincolnshire. The College is a specialist land based college delivering HE provision in an FE setting.
The curriculum focus supports rural communities and employers in line with local priorities, and those generated by the Greater Lincolnshire LEP and the Hull and East Yorkshire LEP. As a national HE land-based specialist provider there is residential accommodation on both campuses.
The College is committed to investing in distinct HE facilities to enhance a HE culture. The bespoke Bishop Burton Campus University Centre Building is where most higher education students have their theory lessons, it also incorporates the student common/social area, HE café, quiet learning space and the academic study skills centre, which houses two teams focused on supporting HE students, the Life Coach Team and the Study Skills Team. At Riseholme there is an HE student suite that is for HE students exclusive use, this includes social and quiet study areas.
The design of the Higher Education portfolio of programmes offers provision with clearly defined progression routes in the majority of programmes from Level 1 through to Level 6, with some at Level 7. The College validates provision with 3 universities all of which operate a learning outcome approach rather than a competency-based framework.
The recent strategic change to transform all provision validated with the University of Hull means that he college is in the transition period embarking on revalidating programmes to competencies assessed outcomes.
What did we set out to do?
Embed the competence-based education framework led by the University of Hull to all validated provision at Bishop Burton College a partner college. The aim to transform the taught portfolio from traditional delivery and assessment of learning outcomes could be viewed as quite radical for some academic staff who were struggling to understand why such a change and therefore may not embrace transformation.
After successful implementation at the university, the transformation would be applicable to partner colleges with validated provision, and therefore full engagement from staff to embrace change was necessary.
One of the biggest challenges faced generally in FE colleges is embedding of HE culture within a what is generally a predominantly further education focused setting. This not only brings challenges for staff and students but for the leadership strategies adopted, especially in a faculty such as that at Bishop Burton that that has a diverse curriculum.
The change from learning outcomes to a competency based framework would need a whole college ‘buy in’ approach in order to have a successful implementation and successful outcomes for students. In order to achieve success, staff at all levels would need to understand and feel they are contributing to the introduction of revalidated provision. Leaders within the college have a critical role when role modelling and championing change, therefore our case study would focus on establishing the value of competency based education to Bishop Burton senior leaders and middle managers in order to achieve a institutional buy-in.
How did we implement competence-based education
In order to achieve the ‘buy in’ approach we needed to ensure that staff are fully engaged in the process and therefore it was decided that the best mode of delivery would be through face to face interactive and discussion. There are many platforms available to gain an understanding on the competency based education but to ensure full understanding and allow questioning, face to face delivery was necessary for this to achieved.
It was decided that two workshops timed both timed to follow the QAA Competence-based Education (CBE) primer launch would allow for the idea to be explored by staff and hopefully excite them enough to want to know more and foster the approach.
The workshops would be split distinctly for senior leaders and middle managers, this would allow a certain differentiation in approach and delivery between the two groups.
Workshop 1:
An initial delivery of a presentation took place explaining what competency based education is and why it can aid students in terms of development. The approach was very much that of a strategic ‘sell’ explaining that by embracing this model, the college is ahead of the sector and this could be marketed as a really strong recruitment tool – detail on how this would increase externally benchmarked data sets such as graduate outcomes was also discussed.
Workshop 2:
This was timed to take place after the senior leader’s workshop and had much more of a focus on the success of the implementation at the university and the successes that had been demonstrated. The session took form of an active workshop allowing colleagues to interact and share best practice whilst supporting each other to build planning ideas ready for validation. Throughout, the facilitators highlighted potential benefits and gave ‘real life’ examples so staff could see how the model could be applied to their curriculum area.
The session included not only curriculum managers but also marketing and support managers who may need to adopt different language when supporting students and developing marketing/recruitment strategies.
What have we achieved and what has the impact locally been?
By fostering the approach to engage with managers and leaders at various levels, academic staff that are developing provision continue to have support needed to allow them to enhance the curriculum and positively increase student experience. Although direct involvement from senior leaders in programme development is limited, raising awareness to the depth of work undertaken and how transformation of curriculum occurs, leaders are more aware of the support needed whether that be time or financial and the benefits that such a transformation can bring to the overall strategic plan of the college.
The sessions have also provided the background information needed to senior leaders when they are in dialogue with other institutions and when networking – therefore sharing practice wider.
Middle managers probably gained the most benefit operationally from the workshop session, as they now have explored and gained understanding along with a practical toolkit that they can directly apply to programme development and the wider dissemination of the enhanced portfolio.
What were the key opportunities and challenges in designing for competence based education?
Although time had been allocated for specific workshops, engagement was low due to other compounding factors within the organisation.
For those that attended data suggests that the staff appreciated the discussion around competencies and the impact that this would have on the curriculum and the student overall experience. Staff were also extremely complementary about the time given to reflect and share ideas as a group with some staff commented on the importance of collaborations as a group sharing ideas on programme design.
Plans for further development
It was evident from the participants within the workshop that so much more had been achieved through face to face interaction than what has been achieved previously through online platforms. The workshops allowed staff time and space to ensure they could fully engage with the topic.
I would encourage where possible in person workshops to allow people to fully engage with the project development of competency based education. It maybe that a designated champion within the organisation that is able to continue with the development of staff would further enhance the full college buy in approach.
