Beacon Awards legacy case studies

Abingdon and Witney College

We won the RCU Award for Support for Students in 2021. The programme ‘A carer’s journey’ is a collaboration between Oxfordshire Adult Learning (a faculty of Abingdon and Witney College) and Action for Carers, Oxfordshire, which started in 2018 as a series of workshops and short courses that support the needs of unpaid carers.

The programme consists of three stages:

Stage one focuses on confidence building and empowering the carer to manage their caring role. Courses include first aid at home and safer moving and handling.

Stage two focuses on maintaining the physical and mental wellbeing of the carer, reducing stress and isolation and contributing to a better balance between life and caring. Courses include art for relaxation, mindfulness and creative writing.

Stage three focuses on improving motivation to move on from the caring role into volunteering or employment.

Before the first pandemic lockdown, lessons took place in person at one of our campuses or in community venues. Feedback always highlighted the benefits of spending time with others in the same position, the friendships and support carers found in addition to the learning that was taking place.

At the time of winning the Beacon Award, the pandemic was in mid-flow and all course delivery had moved online. The online delivery model proved very successful and was well-received by carers. The unexpected benefits have been numerous, not only for the learners, but also for the college:

• Fewer car and bus journeys - better for the environment
• Time and money saved by not travelling to lessons
• Reduced time away from loved ones being cared for
• Reduced cost and stress of finding cover whilst the carer attends lessons
• Improved wellbeing reported in learner feedback
• Improved and developing digital skills
• Improved lesson attendance
• Improved learner retention
• Increased enrolment numbers

As a result of positive feedback, delivery has remained online ever since. One potential disadvantage was the loss of direct contact with others, but despite not meeting in person, learners have reported maintaining existing friendships and support networks, and establishing new ones.

The course offer has expanded over time in response to surveys and requests from learners, with greater focus on mental health and physical wellbeing, post-pandemic. Yoga for relaxation, arts and crafts, cognitive fitness, strength and conditioning are some of the newer courses on offer. In response to the cost-of-living crisis, courses on money management, reducing food waste and cooking nutritious meals on a budget have been added.

The development of the curriculum on this programme is totally responsive and led by our learners and our partners at Action For Carers, Oxfordshire. This allows for a dynamic course offer that continues to be a lifeline and invaluable support for unpaid carers in our community.

Heidi Jordison is the Head of Faculty at Oxfordshire Adult Learning

The Bedford College Group

It’s been just over a year since we won the AoC Beacon Award for Inclusive Learning Leadership. Since then, our plans for EDI have developed considerably alongside big changes within our organisation.

We have taken the opportunities that come with mergers and growth to bring about a new appetite for inclusive practice. However, as we grew, we noticed distinct differences in EDI issues across campuses, with hugely differing demographics from town to town. Having a one size fits all approach to EDI does not work for The Bedford College Group. We wanted to give people the opportunity to discuss what is important to them and to channel ideas for change.

Immediately after our Beacon Award win, we started to explore the move from the concept of ‘equality’ to ‘equity’, which involved us taking into consideration that treating everyone the same was not good practice. Equity gives us the opportunity for perspective taking: not everyone is starting from the same place in life. We also explored the idea of ‘belonging’ because we want our staff and students to bring their ‘whole self’ to college, and we wanted to understand what this meant to everyone. Did they feel that they belonged?

To address this, we wanted to get staff more involved in group-wide EDI work. We looked for staff to act as diversity coordinators who would run forums and manage their diversity strand, based on the protected characteristics. Each diversity strand would also have an executive sponsor to ensure that EDI work was being discussed in leadership spheres too.

We expanded the number of diversity forums and set about increasing their output and staff engagement. Our current diversity strands are:

• The LGBTQ+ Staff Forum

• The Race Equity Forum

• Women’s Wellbeing Network

• Men’s Health Café

• Multi-Faith Network

• Neurodiversity+ Group

• The Family First Forum (which relates to all things maternity, paternity, family and parenting).

The diversity coordinators and members of each forum then come together as part of the Unity Forum which is an opportunity to share what they’ve been working on, and the successes and challenges for each strand.

The forums decide their own priorities and purpose. They can work in whichever way they want; remote or face to face meetings, a social slant to their meetings, or more of a working group with an action plan. Some groups are an arena for members to share their experiences and get support. We simply ask that each hosts activities that are relevant to their strand; such as a Lunch and Learn for staff, and to make recommendations to the EDI Committee for truly inclusive practice. We also ask that they consider a charitable or community slant to what they do. Above all, and most importantly, these are inclusive entities. Any member of staff can join regardless of their own identity. We often find that people come along as advocates/allies, or to ask questions and learn.

Overall, we are creating opportunities for people to come and talk about difference. We hope that through this work we move on from staff seeing EDI as something extra they need to do, to becoming a core and fully ingrained part of all aspects of college life.

Ashley Spiers is the Group Head of EDI and Belonging at The Bedford College Group

South Eastern Regional College

At South Eastern Regional College (SERC), we won the AoC Beacon Award for Widening Participation in Education in 2021/22. Our winning project, CARE, delivered a pioneering high-impact engagement and education strategy for adults in Murlough Ward in Newcastle, Northern Ireland.

The CARE project offers targeted initiatives to support adults previously failed by the education system in successfully returning to education.

• Collaborating extensively with all stakeholders
• Adjusting programmes around learning communities
• Responding to individual learner needs
• Engaging extensively within targeted populations

The project aimed to help adults with low or no qualifications to access education through targeted interventions and had a specific focus on adults who had a lack of trust in education or did not believe in their ability to return to education. The strategy required a dedicated effort, continuous review, implementation of various strategies, patience, and determination to achieve the outcome over a longer period of time.

A dedicated and highly skilled project team led CARE and initiated a dynamic series of engagement and strategic interventions over four years to make education more attractive to adult returners and remove all barriers to their participation in education. The CARE project grew quickly by introducing more engagement techniques and initiatives to improve access to education.

The project directly addressed inequalities around unemployment, education, and poverty in Murlough through education, and the number of adults enrolling in return-to-education courses in the Murlough community increased from none in 2015 to 50 per annum students in 2020/21.

From 2021 to 2024, the successful CARE model was implemented in the Bangor, Lisburn, Downpatrick, and Newtownards communities. The CARE project has had a significant positive impact on hard-to-reach communities in the southeast region, improving access to adult education in deprived areas.

Moreover, the implementation of enterprise qualifications for economically inactive adults has been highly successful, with 10 enrolments in the first year and 50 enrolments in the second year. The destinations following all CARE programme courses have seen 99% of adults on these programmes progressing to either work or further study.

The CARE project provides a blueprint for every further education institution on successful engagement and course planning for adults returning to education in economically deprived communities. This work continues to grow and will evolve to target more adults and raise their aspirations around education and employment every year.

Kim Godsman is the Programme Development Manager and Student Company Mentor at South Eastern Regional College, Northern Ireland