Association of Colleges

Guidance on how to apply for the AoC Beacon Awards

Below you will find some further advice on how to apply for the AoC Beacon Awards, based on assessors’ feedback and on some frequently asked questions.

Feedback

Each year, the assessors are asked to complete feedback forms for non-shortlisted colleges. These are useful for a number of reasons: it means that the Manager can give individual feedback to all colleges that applied for the awards, it means that the assessors can identify key trends within each award and it means that the Lead Assessor can have an overview of all of the awards and can ensure that they are each assessed to the same standard.

Some of the recurring themes that the feedback forms identify are as follows:

• Overall strengths of AoC Beacon Award applications
• Excellent partnership arrangements with schools, universities, agencies, employers, local authorities etc.
• Good quality control procedures
• Comprehensive staff handbook
• Easy to use, college-wide IT systems and good college-wide communications
• Strong involvement of Principal, Board and SMT
• Excellent dissemination through conferences etc.
• Strong links with local communities
• Strong commitment to and use of VLE and individualised learning programmes
• Enthusiasm of staff and students
• Good enhancement of career opportunities
• Excellent learner retention and achievement rates
• Good identification of the needs of the employer
• Very flexible provision in terms of coping with fluctuating demand

Overall issues of AoC Beacon Award applications

• Lack of data on recruitment, retention and achievement rates needed
• Insufficient information needed on quality assurance
• To little information/evidence needed from beneficiaries
• Reluctance of some staff to use ILT
• Organisational benefit not college-wide
• No quantitative measurement of outcomes
• Benefits to learners not made clear
• Overuse of rhetoric and clichés in the submission
• Relatively poor dissemination of work done/more detail needed
• Lack of external monitoring and independent evaluation
• Insufficient feedback from employers
• Too early to assess outcomes of the project

Feedback forms on all non-shortlisted applications dating back to the 2000-2001 Programme are kept at the AoC Beacon Awards office and any college wishing to receive feedback can contact the office to be given it over the telephone. The AoC Beacon Awards Steering Group and its team of assessors are extremely keen to contribute towards the continuing development of all initiatives that are put forward for the Awards which is one of the reasons why this feedback is available.

Colleges that have been shortlisted and/or Highly Commended are also invited to contact the Awards office to receive more detailed feedback on their submission and visit. Shortlisted and Highly Commended colleges are eligible to re-apply for the same Award. It is only colleges that have won an Award that cannot re-apply for the same Award unless it is applying with a substantially different initiative.