Cost Effective Solution

Over the past few years Yale College has become an increasingly diverse environment. There are 3,000 full-time students, 10,000 part-time students of whom 800 are work based learners. In addition there is a growing population of international students from as far afield as India and China.

Wrexham is refuge for a number of asylum seekers making the local population more diverse which naturally reflects in the student population. Elaine said, “It is so important that we provide the training needed for our staff to enhance their skills in these areas. On a basic level we don’t want to do anything that may add to any potential tensions but on a deeper level we felt that it is fundamental to raise awareness and to provide staff the soft skills they need to support the students in the best way possible.”

“The eLearning helped us with compliance; we are subject to ESTYN inspections. Equality and Diversity is a cross-college function and therefore, for the last couple of years it has been a specific brief for the inspectors to review. In general we wanted to raise awareness; the eLearning was a quick way to get a large group of people trained without having to do multiple training sessions. It is also important to keep topping up the awareness and keep Equality and Diversity fresh in people’s minds.”

Elaine added, “I looked at a number of solutions. To my knowledge, this was the only on-line solution that is bilingual. We looked at offering workshops that are delivered by external agencies but the cost was prohibitive. Even if we had a sufficiently large budget, we wouldn’t have been able to train so many people so quickly and we certainly don’t have the resources internally to train all the staff.”

“We looked at offering workshops but the cost was prohibitive.”

Elaine presented the business case to the Senior Management Team (SMT) and governors. The business case included the financial figures and a risk analysis. The SMT agreed that it was the best solution and the College agreed to go ahead with a pilot for 100 staff.

Successful Rollout

Elaine facilitated a number of internal marketing activities to successfully promote the eLearning. Elaine also explained how she got the details she needed to start the project, “Initially I sent an email to all faculties to see who was interested in doing the eLearning. I collected staff’s details and created a database to download the results into. The final results will be fed back to the faculty directors.”

“I promoted the eLearning on the college intranet and kept people informed with deadlines and the number of places left. I added a paragraph to the weekly bulletin in print and web format. In order to create a specific time and space for staff I set up an open door session in the training bank. I used a training evaluation questionnaire to get delegate feedback which was mainly excellent. Other staff logged on at their desks or even at home!”

Elaine will continue communicating the feedback and results, “I also plan to post a thank you on the intranet with the college’s average score and publish an article in the college’s magazine with a picture of the staff with their certificates.”

Tangible Results

“The training was very well received. Staff were enthusiastic to have this kind of training. They talked about their pass rates and felt excited when they did well. The atmosphere was very buzzy in the staff rooms. Colleagues even competed to get the best scores. The staff really liked the instant feedback from their test scores.”

“Staff really liked the instant feedback from their test.”

“Staff discussed the content, in particular the psychology, childcare and sociology staff who would like to use the eLearning for their students. The front line staff talked about the importance of language and respect for people.”

“People learn differently; the modules offered flexibility in how they were used. Some staff liked the visual images and voice over; others preferred the sound off and read the transcript instead. Some staff used all three. They also liked the pause facility and the ability to rerun the lesson in case they missed something.”

“Feedback from the staff was very positive and many people will change their working practices. For example; the reception staff said they were less likely to make assumptions about people and their needs and therefore offer more help. In general staff found the independent learning side of things very useful; everyone is so busy that it is great to be able to fit the eLearning around their schedule.”

“The reports generated from theLearningBusiness eLearning platform provide all the information we need for our own records and for the Governor’s report. We are able to pull off a report of all the staff that completed their training so that we can issue certificates. The feedback questions answers will be collected to create a best practise ideas report.”

“Many people will change their working practises.”

“Ideally we would like to roll out the eLearning to the rest of the staff and students. We have been delighted with the results and feedback. We found working with theLearningBusiness straight forward. There is always someone we can talk to, the response times are good and enquiries are resolved quickly.”

“One of the main things we learned from this exercise is that we can change perception and preconceived ideas. The eLearning also highlighted the importance of raising awareness and refreshing the key diversity messages on an ongoing basis.”

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