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• adults and young people are confident and able to participate in community activities because of adequate literacy/numeracy skills
• all adults in employment have levels of communication/numeracy to do work tasks well, enjoy their work and see opportunities for self-development
• all employers and employees recognise a shared responsibility for continuing development of communication/number skills of employees and the workplace
• all those seeking employment have essential communication and number skills for employability
• all pupils leave school having reached highest achievement levels in literacy/numeracy and confident with IT support for these
• all pupils have a strong sense of success at all stages of their schooling
• children, young people and adults see themselves as able to be readers, writers, communicators in range of ways
• city has a strong culture of reinvesting literacy/numeracy skills for the benefit of others
• literacy and number activities are seen as valuable and as activities to be celebrated
• parents (and those about to be parents/acting as parents) are confident in own roles/skills

Birmingham Core Skills Development Partnership exists to ensure that levels of literacy, numeracy and IT key skills in Birmingham increase to exceed national target levels for all client groups.

The Partnership forms part of the wider strategic planning and operating mechanisms between Birmingham City Council, Birmingham Voluntary Service Council and Birmingham & Solihull TEC, in conjunction with a range of strategic partners. The Partnership can be contacted at:

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Development Framework

The Core Skills Development Partnership supports activity which:

• links to the implementation of broader strategies
• is structured not just on pilots but on activity that has impact on whole structures
• increases multi-agency approaches and joint planning, with differing roles clearly defined
• assists organisations to identify what creates success and to make this the norm
• adds value to mainstream activities by improving the quality and diversity of opportunities
• focuses on the needs of specific client groups, especially at identified critical transition times
• has some targeting based on need, without defining people/organisations as failing
• trains staff in appropriate ways of embedding key skills in a wide range of mainstream programmes
• enhances the existing professional development of staff to create whole-organisation approaches to core skills development
• supports the linking of varieties of interventions to produce learning communities
• expands the use of appropriate technologies to accelerate learning
• supports the development of resource/learning hubs, with clusters of activity being developed into platforms for future developments
• supports assessment and target setting, based upon disaggregated, reliable information
• increases the volume of voluntary activity
• sustains the changes long-term by creating new ways of working that become independent of ongoing financial support
• contributes to planned outputs and contributes towards longer-term outcomes

Development and Business Plan 1999 - 2000

Contents

Click any section below:

1. Context for 1999 - 2000
2. Strategic Objective 1 : Raise the baseline attainment of children on entry to school
3. Strategic Objective 2 : Raising the literacy and numeracy attainment levels of pupils at school age
4. Strategic Objective 3 : Increasing the key skills levels of young people out-of-school
5. Strategic Objective 4 : Meeting the specific needs of disadvantaged groups
6. Strategic Objective 5 : Raise the key skills attainment levels and increase the employability of unemployed individuals
7. Strategic Objective 6 : Develop the key skills of employed individuals in order to enable job retention
8. Strategic Objective 7 : Increasing the levels of individual commitment to core skills development
9. Organisational Developments
10. Spend and Leverage table
11. Generated Output table

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Context for 1999-2000

The need for a city-wide focus on core skills development, as described in the original SRB Challenge Fund bid, remains as acute as in previous years. The annual business planning approach, within the broad initial framework, has proved to be a very cost-effective way of staying responsive to the rapidly changing national education and training agendas. The current context shaping the Partnership’s support for developments includes:

• The emerging Sure Start strategy which aims to link education and health services in more robust family support structures to improve the abilities of children about to start school; and the increased coherency of planning and delivery brought about via the Early Years Forum and Early Years Development Plan.
• The increased focus on early excellence centres, community learning networks and healthy living centres, with parallel interest in generic work with parents and family learning. Whilst these are generic activities they obviously include an element which focuses upon language and communication development.
• The National Numeracy Strategy which aims to create a more focused approach to maths learning in primary schools, and to give additional support to schools with substantial numbers of under-attaining pupils at Key Stage 2.
• The Family Numeracy Strategy which parallels the work done in family literacy.
• The National Year Of Reading which aims to create a whole-community culture of reading. The Year is aiming to encourage many more people to read for pleasure and for information, to read more widely and more often, and to sharpen their reading skills in particular contexts. The Year provides the opportunity to create additional linkages across a range of partners. As part of the Year Birmingham City Council has launched its reading strategy ‘Birmingham Reads’.
• The national framework and national code of practice for Out-of-Hours learning, the increased expectations around homework, and the increased opportunities to expand out-of-hours learning and out-of-school childcare places through the New Opportunities Fund.
• The requirement for Education Services to formulate Behaviour Support Plans and Education Development Plans. Both of these include a focus on improving attainment levels through appropriate, planned support to schools and pupils.
• The national expansion of the ICT infrastructure via networking of libraries, the broader plans under the ‘New Library: the People’s network’, the National Grid For Learning etc.. In a different context are the parallel proposals for the University For Industry and the need to specify the core skills content to be carried through such learning networks.
• The New Start strategy, which forms part of the Government’s ‘Investing in Young People’ approach. This encourages a new approach to tackling disaffection, moving away from piecemeal schemes to comprehensive local strategic responses based upon research and upon considerations of effectiveness and value-for-money. The Birmingham New Start partnership will enable a range of previously disconnected sets of provision to be reviewed and brought together within one strategic drive. Together with other measures, such as introducing the National Traineeship, raising standards of quality and effectiveness in post-16 provision, and widening the range of vocational options for 14-16 year olds, the New Start strategy will contribute to increased participation and increased achievement of skills amongst young people.
• Birmingham City Council’s recently published consultative Corporate Youth Strategy. Amongst the targets that contribute to the corporate objectives are commitments to encourage the involvement of young people in youth fora and in ‘Local Involvement Local Action’ processes; to offer core skills development opportunities to young adults; to offer out-of-school activities for underachieving young people in order to boost their basic and core skills; to tailor prevocational training to the needs of young people; to establish the ‘Corporate Parenting’ role of the City Council in relation to children looked after/ children leaving care; to support work through foyers and more general work with disadvantaged young people; and to involve young artists in a number of targeted projects.
• The launch of the new National Learning Targets for the year 2002, as part of the framework to enable the improvement of the skills base over the next few years. The launch will be followed by a National Action Plan setting out the levers to be put in place. The targets align with the targets we are using as Core Skills outcomes.
• The publication of the First report of the National Skills Task Force (‘Towards a National Skills Agenda’) addressing issues of skills shortages, skills gaps and longer-term needs. The Report stresses the emphasis on raising the volume, quality and relevance of learning in the workplace; and calls for effective strategies that link employers, national training organisations and local training providers - particularly around IT skills. Their grouping of skills includes a category of ‘generic skills’ which goes beyond the recognised key skills to include reasoning skills, work process management skills and personal values such as motivation and initiative.
• The introduction of the National Traineeship will require additional staff development, drawing on the experiences with Modern Apprenticeships.
• The Green Paper ‘The Learning Age’. Resulting from this consultative document there is now the opportunity to access an Adult and Community Learning Fund which will create new ways to invest in learning opportunities through community-based activities which are relevant to people’s everyday lives whilst being innovative and sustainable. The Basic Skills Agency is one of the fundholders, focusing on proposals around basic skills activity. The Paper also led to the establishment of a National Working Group on Post-School Basic Skills. This is due to report soon and is anticipated to bring forward a set of radical proposals to make real impacts upon the levels of basic skills needs identified in communities.
• The Basic Skills Agency have produced two reports that have implications for our work. ‘Influences on Adult Basic Skills’ reinforces the cumulative interplay of factors in people’s lives and reinforces our attempt to address a broad range of development fronts rather than tackling one phase in isolation from another. Their other report, ‘Use It or Lose It’, highlights the decline in basic skills with longer periods out of work and cross-references to their other work which shows the relationship between low basic skills and likelihood of being unemployed.
• Local Authorities now have access, through the Standards Fund, to national funding support for the establishment and implementation of Lifelong Learning Development Plans. At the same time, Birmingham City Council has a well-developed framework for Lifelong Learning; and Birmingham & Solihull TEC, the City Council and the range of providers in the city are working towards the implementation of agreed activities to widen participation, to enhance existing forms of adult information and guidance, and produce coherent approaches to learner support. The ESOL Partnership, and the emerging complementary Literacy & Numeracy planning group, need to be seen in the context of these wider local and national developments.
• The extension of the Welfare To Work proposals to include lone parents and the longer-term unemployed. The review of the New Deal operations in Birmingham may highlight additional work to be done to ensure that core skills are delivered well in all of the options.
• The growing recognition of the significance of the voluntary and community sector in offering routes to those disadvantaged groups that others may wish to target. The voluntary sector is increasingly being credited not only as a provider and an intermediary, but also as a planner and commissioner of learning opportunities.
• There are a new range of locality-based developments that are focusing on people and not solely on capital builds. These, whether New Deal For Communities or Education Action Zones, will need careful liaison if the Partnership is not to lose its strategic edge into a range of discrete initiatives that attempt to reinvent solutions to well-rehearsed situations. At the same time, there are now a sufficient number of Single Regeneration Budget (Challenge Fund) activities in Birmingham to make careful cross-referencing of on-going activity an ever stronger requirement. The identification of clear routes for support, clear sources of leverage, and clear sets of outputs and outcomes will all become more important as the development agenda gets ever more complex.

The context for 1999-2000 thus continues to be one of rapid change. The development of core skills remained one piece in a complex web of developments being carried forward through the wider sets of partnership arrangements for education and training within the city. This Business Plan reflects the flexibility and adaptability to change, within wider strategic shifts, whilst retaining a clear set of development targets.

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Strategic Objective 1

Raise the baseline attainment of children on entry to school

By:

(a) Offering consistent support to parents and families

(b) training key staff in a range of agencies

(c) creating increased consistency of pre-school intervention across areas and communities

Context: Baseline Assessment on entry to school, established as a voluntary activity in Birmingham for the past few years, is now a national requirement. Work with parents and families in the years before school continues to be a vital element in raising the Baseline skills levels of children at age 5. Some aspects of the work supported by the Partnership have now been incorporated into national strategy. Private sector sponsorship has been secured nationally to fund the provision of materials for Bookstart. This will begin to provide an element of sustainability to the Bookstart work in Birmingham. The emerging SureStart programme, with its linking of education and health, the drive for early excellence and the increased amount of joint planning through the Early Years Development Plan means that there has been an increase in activity. At the same time the work is still characterised by fragmentation and a lack of connection to an overall approach. Challenge Fund resources will now be more specifically targeted on a smaller number of activities and the linking of activities in localities.

Specifically in 1999-2000 support will be given to:

1. Sustaining the Bookstart model, ensuring that the support can be accessed by the ‘harder to reach’ families.
2. Encouraging increased linkages between the various interventions, including workshops with parents of under 5s, family literacy work, Bookstart, Flying Start, Wilstar, and other language development programmes, mainstream education and library activities etc.
3. Providing additional staff training re literacy and numeracy development.

Challenge Fund Support in 1999-2000: £53,032

Planned Outputs:

9,200 parents assisted

4 training weeks

Outcomes from this activity:

Baseline Assessment average scores will rise to 3.9 (Language and Literacy) and 3.8 (mathematics)

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Strategic Objective 2

Raising the literacy and numeracy attainment levels of pupils at school age

by:

(b) increasing pupils’ access to an ICT infrastructure to support learning

(c) creating closer links between the school curriculum and the needs of employers

(d) engaging parents more closely in the literacy/numeracy development of their children

Context: Although Birmingham has shown significant gains in its Key Stage Assessments, there is still work to be done to further reduce the shortened tail of under-achievement at Key Stage 2. Support needs to also be substantially built into KS3 and into work to raise attainment levels at Key Stage 4 both in GCSEs and in vocational alternatives. The model will be to offer secondary schools a menu of effective interventions with pupils coupled with additional work with those schools where achievement levels are lowest.

Specifically in 1999-2000 support will be given to:

1. Extending the benefits of the Education Service’s literacy strategy for primary schools by a further 75%, and doubling the benefits of the numeracy strategy with primary schools.
2. Increasing the number of opportunities for the professional development of language and mathematics co-ordinators in schools (additional 40 primary language co-ordinators, 20 primary maths co-ordinators, and all secondary co-ordinators supported).
3. The practice of demonstration classes, supported by us in 1998-99 as an alternative to course-based professional development, has now been built into the national literacy strategy funded via the Standards Fund. From our evaluation of last years work there is a need to complement this national support with some local training for ‘demonstrators’ in order to maximise the effectiveness of the demonstration classes.
4. Establishing small scale action-research into the effective ways of raising literacy levels for particular underachieving groups.
5. Providing matching support for the Education Service’s planned work to improve literacy and numeracy levels in secondary schools (at least 56 schools) and special schools (at least 8 schools).
6. Further development of curriculum materials in literacy and numeracy to minimise the break in learning across the Key Stage 2/ Key Stage 3 transition.
7. Targeted additional work, within a school improvement framework, with at least 20 secondary schools where groups of pupils need additional interventions.
8. Opportunities for a further 70 schools to access ICT-based support for literacy and numeracy.
9. Providing additional support to children in hostels.
10. Pupil targeting support with at least 30 schools identified as causing concern because of overall low levels of attainment.
11. Improve the capacity of schools to plan coherently for literacy and numeracy gains by pupils.
12. Provide family learning support to an additional 50 schools through the INSPIRE, family literacy and family numeracy models.
13. Providing 250 more volunteers to work with pupils, including an increased proportion of cross-phase tutoring and an increased number of business volunteers.

Challenge Fund Support in 1999-2000: £1,460,158

Planned Outputs:

25,000 pupils benefiting

40 training weeks

20 employers in collaborative projects with schools

400 pupils in collaborative projects with businesses

800 parents supported

60 schools benefiting

500 students in collaborative work with parents

250 volunteers

Outcomes from this activity:

(b) Attainment at Key Stage assessments:

English Maths

KS1 Level 2 & above 79% 82%

KS2 Level 4 & above 68% 66%

KS3 average level (expected = 5) 5.2 5.2

KS4 GCSE (A*-C) 45% 35%

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Strategic Objective 3

Increasing the key skills levels of young people out-of-school

By:

Context:

There is currently an increased national focus on out-of-school activities. Whilst some of this is rightly to support the raising of attainment levels at Key Stages of schooling, some activity must also be focused upon young peoples development as independent readers and writers in a range of community contexts. One part of this will be to support young people to play an increased role in local democratic processes.

Specifically within 1999-2000 work will be done to:

1. Extend the literacy and numeracy summer schools, extended learning centres etc. via the University of the First Age, the Children's University and supplementary schools.
2. Raise levels of staff and volunteer competence in supplementary schools.
3. Extend the homework support available through the Library Service and through schools.
4. Extend the literacy/numeracy components built into playschemes, playcentres and Youth Service activities.
5. Align Core Skills Partnership supported activity with other activity, to work towards the implementation of a planned pattern of out-of-school support via the New Opportunities Fund.
6. Establish a cross-city programme of ‘own time’ events for young people, focusing on reading.

Challenge Fund Support in 1999-2000: £71,500

Planned Outputs:

2000 young people

20 training weeks

Outcome:

10% increase in the volume of young people from target groups using libraries

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Strategic Objective 4

Meeting the specific needs of disadvantaged groups

Context: Although the intention of Partnership developments is to create an impact on all schools, all pupils, all families, all areas etc. it is recognised that there will continue to be a need for work that attempts to close the gaps in the skills attainment levels of different groups in the city. We are approached by organisations that ask for funding for their own outreach worker. A better approach is to identify those key link workers who have some responsibility for bridging particular client groups into education and training, and to support the work of those people. Such clarity of linkage, plus an enhancement of existing prevocational programmes to make them more accessible by target client groups will accommodate much of the work that needs to be done. The need is not for more initiatives but to increasingly position the work within coherent frameworks. The New Start strategy is making a start on this.

Specifically within 1999-2000 support will be given to:

1. Using at risk and excluded pupils as literacy/numeracy mentors with younger children, coupled with reading motivating activity
2. Making provision that keeps young people, who are at risk, engaged with education and training opportunities
3. Extending the provision of advice to adults and parents of children with an additional learning need
4. Alignment of planning activity through Education Action Zones, New Deal For Communities, other SRB Challenge Funded schemes etc.
5. Enhancement of STEP / Bridge etc. to target a range of client groups.

Challenge Fund Support in 1999-2000: £346,440

Planned Outputs:

1500 training weeks

1500 people trained to qualifications

Outcomes from this activity:

increased number of 19 year olds have a level 2 qualification

increased number of 21 year olds have a level 3 qualification

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Strategic Objective 5

Raise the key skills attainment levels and increase the employability of unemployed individuals through post-school education and training provision

By:

Context: The relationship between low levels of basic skills, increased chances of unemployment and longer periods out of work, has been well rehearsed by The Basic Skills Agency.

Specifically, within 1999-2000 work will be done to:

1. Integrate key skills into existing training curricula for unemployed people currently underrepresented in training and employment
2. Enhance and expand existing literacy and numeracy provision for adults in the community by further developing ICT-based learning opportunities
3. Provide training for a further 100 front-line staff in a range of agencies to enable them to more adequately refer and assess people with core skills. One focus within this will be those people able to act as intermediaries / paraprofessionals in meeting the needs of members of small, dispersed community groups.
4. Further implement the collaborative city-wide plan for the development of ESOL, and parallel this with the implementation of a joint-agency plan re post 16 literacy and numeracy.
5. Provide staff development for training providers who are delivering the National Traineeship.

Challenge Fund Support in 1999-2000: £325,870

Planned Outputs:

1926 training weeks

1400 people trained to qualifications

250 trained unemployed people getting jobs

Outcomes from this activity:

(a) More than 120 staff whose retraining focuses on core skills development

(b) A 2% increase in the number of adult learners engaged in raising their basic skills levels

(note: a national adult participation target is due to be announced in late 1998)

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Strategic Objective 6

Develop the key skills of employed individuals in order to enable job retention and encourage career progression

Context:

In the Learning Age Green Papers TECs were given responsibility for drawing up Employee Development Plans for an area. The Partnership has already developed some of the elements of a plan to work with businesses to raise levels of core skills at work. This plan includes work with business advisers and business groups; support for individual employees through Weekend College / Individual Learning Accounts; development of manageable ways of working with the wide range of businesses in Birmingham etc.

The Partnership are also engaged in collaborative work with The Basic Skills Agency, the TUC, Channel 4 TV, Cambridge Training and Development, Telford College and SOLOTEC to develop and pilot the basic skills component of the University For Industry.

Specifically within 1999-2000 work will be done to support:

1. Working with cohorts of employers to establish what employers’ needs are in relation to key skills.
2. Developing and piloting ICT-based materials for basic skills at work.
3. Increasing the volume of employee volunteering to enhance the core skills of others.

Challenge Fund Support in 1999-2000: £160,000

Planned Outputs:

3000 jobs safeguarded

500 training weeks

100 people trained to qualifications

100 employee volunteers

20 employers with employee development schemes

150 businesses advised

Contents

Strategic Objective 7

Increasing the levels of individual commitment to core skills development

Context:

• An increasing number of voluntary sector organisations are engaging with education and training needs, and the Birmingham Voluntary service Council is seen as having a strategic role in these developments.
• Increased numbers of young people and adults are investing their own time in the development of their own core skills or the core skills of others. Increasingly these volunteers are from industry or are older people tutoring younger ones.
• A successful bid has been made to the national Adult and Community Learning Fund to explore the role of local mediators in reaching those dispersed and disparate members of small community groups who have basic skills needs. Finding new ways of unlocking routes to meet these needs will enable these adults to play fuller roles within their community groups and will assist in bridging them closer to mainstream provision.

Specifically within 1999-2000 support will be given to:

1. Working to meet the varied needs of members of small community groups.
2. Continuing the small grant scheme to enable voluntary and community groups to enhance the core skills aspects of their work.
3. Establishing localised ‘pools’ of core skills support resources to be drawn upon by community groups as required.
4. Continuing to bring the various volunteer organisations into closer dialogue with each other about the recruitment, training and support of literacy / numeracy volunteers in a range of settings.

Challenge Fund Support in 1999-2000: £80,000

Planned Outputs:

10 voluntary organisations assisted

5 community organisations assisted

100 new volunteers

Contents

Development of the organisation and operation of the Core Skills Development Partnership

The following organisational developments have been made:

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	SO1	SO2	SO3	SO4	SO5	SO6	SO7	Mgmnt. & Orga.	1999-2000 Total
Challenge Fund	£ 53,032	£ 1,460,158	£ 71,500	£ 346,440	£ 325,870	£ 160,000	£ 80,000	£ 125,000	£ 2,622,000
Public Leverage	£ 5,000	£ 250,000	£ 420,000	£ 345,000	£ 230,000				£ 1,250,000
Private Leverage		£ 120,000				£ 100,000	£ 5,000		£ 225,000

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	SO1	SO2	SO3	SO4	SO5	SO6	SO7	1999-2000 Total
1Aii. Jobs safeguarded						3,000		3,000
1B Pupils Benefiting		25,000						25,000
1C Qualifications				1,500	1,400	100		3,000
1E Training Weeks	4	40	20	1,000	1,926	500	10	4,000
1Fi/ii Unemployed into jobs					250			250
1J Young People			2,000					2,000
1Ki. Collaborative work with employees		20						20
1Kii. Collaborative work with pupils		400						400
2D Businesses						150		150
8Ai. Voluntary Organisations							10	10
8Aii. Community Organisations							5	5
8C Volunteers		250					100	350
8D Employee Development						20		20
1N Parents	9,200	800						10,000
1P Schools		60						60
1Kiii. Students/parents		500						500