New NIACE content on the Excellence Gateway Tuesday, January 19, 2010 - 17:25

NIACE has recently developed new content on the Excellence Gateway for educators, managers and organisations; Using the Excellence Gateway for Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and Numeracy in the spotlight.

The Excellence Gateway is a Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS) online service for everyone who works in the post-16 learning and skills sector in England. It offers a whole range of resources, from those created by individual tutors to those created by funded programmes.

Using the Excellence Gateway for CPD

Employers are expected to support their staff with their professional development. However, managers may find it challenging to deliver their organisation's CPD programme, or may require materials to develop a staff CPD programme supporting the organisation's business priorities. Educators may also face challenges/barriers in developing a CPD plan, in finding time and resources to carry out relevant CPD activities and in finding support to record CPD journeys and ideas on measuring impact and sharing ideas.

The new content supporting CPD includes:

• CPD Requirements - Requirements for educators to maintain their professional status;
• Using the Excellence Gateway to support CPD - How educators, departments and organisations can make use of Excellence Gateway tools and resources to support and develop their CPD programmes; and
• Programmes to support CPD - How participation in one or more programmes from the Teaching and Learning Programme can bring benefits to individuals and to organisations.

Recording and reflecting on online activities can contribute to fulfilling CPD requirements. Registering on the Excellence Gateway will allow you to use a variety of learning tools and resources.

Numeracy in the spotlight

The Leitch Review of Skills recently highlighted that numeracy plays a very important role in the economic development of the UK. The Review proposes that, by 2020, 95% of adults should have numeracy skills at Entry Level 3 - identified as the minimum skills level needed to be able to function effectively at work and within the world around them. In response to the Review, the Government paper World Class Skills: Implementing the Leitch Review of Skills in England sets out a series of reforms aimed at closing the skills gap, providing all adults with the opportunity to develop the skills they need to succeed and bringing about a change in culture and attitude by 2020.

To achieve the ambitious numeracy targets required by the Government, training, resources and support for educators will be needed. To develop capacity, support will be needed not only for maths/numeracy teachers but also for:

• literacy or ESOL teachers who may wish to have a second specialism;
• Union Learning Representatives; and
• other non specialist Skills for Life teachers who support the development of numeracy within their area of work.

The new content theme provides background information, links to resources and ideas which will be useful for managers and educators and help assist them in the meeting governmental targets.

Registration and use of the Excellence Gateway is free.