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After previously carrying out her level one at another college, she enrolled on the Level 2 full time Beauty Therapy course at my current further education institution. The first stage in any enrolment of the course (after application) is for the students to come in for an interview. Emma is confident while speaking and did not struggle with any communication skills and was enrolled onto the course. The second stage of the initial assessment process is undertaken after the student has been enrolled and during the first two weeks of the course. The students are given small tasks to complete.
These are carried at home and during erected work exercises during class hours. One of the exercises is a research task designed to assess reading and writing skills. This exercise also allows the tutor to assess if the student is capable of keeping to deadlines, their research skills and the motivation of the student. The content of the research which Emma undertook was sound and she was able to answer oral questions on the subject. However the written part of the task was not up to the standard needed with many spelling mistakes and sentences with poor construction.
This was also mirrored in the assignment which the students were set to undertake at home. The course is a vocational course, however strong literacy skills are needed from the students as this what is required when the student goes into industry. A Fresh Start (1999) states that adult learners the ability to read, write and speak in English and to use mathematics at a level necessary to function at work and in society in general. ‘ The main call from employers is that the students will need to be able to record down personal details of clients correctly, as well as treatment details.
These need to be of a high standard that the information could be read and understood by another harpist. This is particularly important when it comes to medical details and previous treatment details so consistency can be achieved in treatments across the business. As a level 2 course it is a key factor to employers that the students come out of the course competent in basic areas, particularly communication skills as this is a key part of the Job and has a high impact on employability.
This is reflected by the Quality Improvement Agency (2008) ‘It is now recognized that good literacy, innumeracy language and CIT skills are critical, not Just to the achievement of level 2 ND higher levels of accreditation, but also to efficient performance within the work place. ‘ When the assignments were discussed with Emma, she agreed that writing was an area she didn’t feel confident in, and that as much as she was confident in her reading ability she struggled to transfer it to the assignments without directly copying from the resource she was working from.
From this discussion it was decided that we would do some further assessment with Emma in the form of practice consultations to assess if her skills directly related to the beauty therapy industry needed improving. Her communication during the consultations was very comprehensive but the written record was not reflecting the knowledge gained from the client. Emma was referred to the literacy specialist within the school. After liaison between Emma, the tutor and the literacy specialist, it was decided that she would undertake a Level 1 English functional skills course alongside the beauty therapy course.
This course covers speaking, Listening and Communication, Reading and Writing. The Department for Education and Skills (2008) state that ‘Functional skills are practical skills in English, mathematics and information and communication technology COT) hat allow individuals to operate confidently, effectively and independently in life and work. ” This would help improve her skills, making her more employable, and could lead to a progression onto the functional skills level two if she decided to enroll on the level 3 beauty therapy course. In their report Mimi wouldn’t expect a math teacher to teach plastering… Embedding literacy, language and innumeracy in post-16 vocational programmers – the impact on learning and achievement. ‘ (2006) Car et al suggests that ‘Research shows that learners benefit from being taught by teams of Taft, each with their own areas of expertise, working closely together. We decided that a partly embedded approach to learning would be best with Emma. With both the literacy specialist sessions and some work in class to support this. It was decided that we would arrange Enema’s vocational course tutorial sessions to fall before the hand in dates for assignments.
This would allow us the chance to read over a draft of the assignments, and to work on any areas which she was struggling with. The literacy specialist would focus on developing the writing aspect of the functional skills module with her. It was also decided that within the vocational course to carry out a session on research skills with the whole of the class. This would involve setting small tasks which would strengthen how the students carry out assignments and promote discussion among the students on how they carry out assignments.
Emma would be paired with a student for peer support whose initial assessment results were very strong, has previous qualifications to BEET level and has carried out research assignments before. This would not only benefit her, but would strengthen the research skills of the whole class. Extra time was given over in sessions weekly also to focus on the consultation techniques. This involved the students working on a rotation with each other to ensure they had a cross section of different consultation types.
This was opposed to the initial scheme of work where this was carried out in one session, and allowed the tutor to track the progress of the consultation technique of Emma as she also liaised with the literacy specialist and carried on her functional skills sessions. Her continuation with the functional skills and embedded learning within her course has already led to an improvement in some areas of work, and would continue to build on her skills to increase her employability potential after course completion. Bibliography/reference list A Fresh Start: Improving literacy and innumeracy.