CASE STUDY: VESA
“Simply put, Collaborative Learning Manager (CLM) from Perspective makes the process of monitoring progress and attendance much easier for everybody – the
school, the training provider and most certainly for us, the Delivery Partnership. In fact, perhaps the best testimonial which I can give the service is that it has allowed me to reclaim my afternoons - which I no longer need to spend on the phone or fax, chasing schools and training providers to keep track of student whereabouts.”
Jacqui Harley, VESA Administrator
About VESA
Established in 1994 as the Vocational Education Support Agency to promote the development of the Vocational Curriculum, VESA provides a range of services for schools and colleges in Leicester and Leicestershire to support and develop education & training for 13 - 19 year olds. An important part of the VESA work is centred on the provision of Vocational Qualifications for school students, through a delivery partnership that links 22 Schools and 9 Training Providers delivering courses for in excess of 500 Students.
The Problem
Schools have a statutory requirement to know the whereabouts of pupils, even when the delivery of the training is off campus. Unfortunately, manual solutions for the
management of this information - such as telephone calls and faxes - are time consuming, inconsistent and prone to error. Moreover, with an increasing number of students attending off-site courses the effective management of student attendance and progress was becoming increasingly onerous. The Solution
In an environment of distributed educational provision Collaborative Learning Manager provides a fast and intuitive web interface for training providers to record
student attendance and progress. This data is then instantly available to schools and the partnership administrators.
From an initial presentation in November 2006, CLM was quickly adopted, as schools and training providers bought into the concept. The system was rolled out in Spring 2007 across the partnership covering a total of more than 500 students studying both GCSE and NVQ Level 1 qualifications. Hardware for the system was installed at VESA headquarters, featuring extensive provision for disaster recovery in the event of a problem. Individuals using the system – both schools and training providers – are given carefully controlled rights to the data within the system using a secure USB device, this also allows the user to interact with the system securely from any web enabled PC. Consequently, training providers are now able to complete online registers featuring simple radio buttons against each student’s name to mark attendance or type of absence.
The schools can then immediately use the system through a simple one-view screen to identify any ‘red flag’ problem areas requiring action, such as unexplained
absences. Unexplained absences can be dealt with immediately then marked as Authorised or Unauthorised Absences with the addition of register notes where appropriate. A fully archived Audit trail is automatically created when any changes are made to the register, ensuring compliance for legal purposes. Schools can also add register notes to future registers informing providers of any known forthcoming absence, this is then picked up when the provider is completing the register.
Collaborative Learning Manager also integrates with the National Database for Accredited Qualifications and, on entering the course code, the units comprising the
qualifications delivered by the partnership are automatically entered into the system. Student progress is then simply entered by the training provider against each unit,
thereby allowing the schools immediate access to monitor student development.
The Results Ffom first adoption, schools and training providers began to evangelise about the service, citing its ease of use as one of the key benefits. As with any service implementation, overcoming initial concern regarding any additional personal workload was a key factor. However, having shown the schools the service, every single user acknowledged that it was sure to save considerable amounts of time, whilst providing better quality of information and reporting than has ever been possible using paper-based methods.
“Schools in particular bit our hand off to use the service – even in many cases having only taken a brief look at what it could do - principally because it saves so much time. Navigation around the system is extremely straightforward, with large, clear boxes indicating to the training provider what needs to be filled in terms of registering attendance and monitoring progress. We at VESA and the schools are then given an overview of activity, which can be viewed by individual, group, class or year, and are immediately made aware of any problems to be resolved.”
“The saving in terms of time and paperwork has already been extremely significant and, as we work towards an ever more paperless environment with CLM, more and more paper filing is becoming increasingly redundant. I can wholeheartedly recommend the service for any other 14 – 19 Delivery Partnership which has experienced the difficulties associated with keeping track of students manually – which is to say, every single one of them.”
Jacqui Harley, VESA Administrator
