Southern and Eastern Region
SUMMER 2012
update HIGHER EDUCATION SPECIAL
Karen crowned King of learning UCATT member picks up national ALW award
Come Tweet with us Once upon a time, establishing your presence in the online world was all about building a website. And many of the best of them remain an incredibly useful primary source of information. Take the unionlearn website, for example: learning reps across the region know they can find important news, information and electronic versions of our publications there. But the online world has continued to evolve dramatically in recent years, nowhere more so than in the development of social media like Facebook and Twitter, which enable organisations like ours to develop a much more interactive relationship with learning reps, learners and other stakeholders. Some of our more tech-savvy learning reps may already have noticed unionlearn SERTUC has now joined Twitter, but for many Update readers it may come as news to find out (on the back page of this issue) that unionlearn SERTUC is now tweeting, adding our voice alongside the national unionlearn and a couple of other regional accounts. So why have we started putting out those little messages of no more than 140 characters? The reason is simple. Instead of waiting and hoping that the people we want to reach will remember to come and look for us on the net, we can now alert people to anything we think is interesting or informative, so long as they ‘follow’ us on Twitter. It’s another way of getting our message out there, not only to learners and learning reps, but also to other stakeholders and a whole range of people who want to keep up with what’s new in the world of workplace learning. It’s easy to follows us: just open an account at twitter.com and follow unionlearnsertu (that’s right, there’s no ‘c’). Barry Francis, Regional Manager
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Unite’s John Rowse signs the learning agreement with Gatwick’s Tina Oakley
Gatwick learners cleared for take-off by new deal Unite learning reps organised a successful learning day at Gatwick Airport in March to celebrate the very first learning agreement to be signed at the country’s second-largest airport. “This agreement gives us the opportunity to work with the airport to deliver the skills our members deserve,” commented Unite Regional Secretary John Rowse, who signed the agreement with Human Resources Director Tina Oakley. “The benefits of a well-trained workforce in supporting productivity and competitiveness are well documented and this agreement with Gatwick commits both parties to the development of skills across the entire workforce.” The agreement aims to encourage all full and part-time airport staff to take part in learning at the workplace by providing access to a range of courses and learning opportunities. It has created a joint union–employer Learning Steering Group (LSG), which meets once a month to help develop a learning culture in the workplace, and guarantees that the union’s ULRs can take paid time off in which to train and carry out their roles. Already, the learning rep team has helped 150 customer service staff, security officers, first aid providers and the fire service access language courses, using the innovative technology provided by Rosetta Stone.
Karen King takes the learning crown After joining UCATT to find out more about her rights, she trained as a health and safety rep at Lewisham College Trade Union Studies Centre, where head Rossina Harris encouraged her to take the TUC Discussion Leader course. Discovering her love of sharing knowledge with others, Karen began giving tool box talks and health and safety awareness sessions on building sites and became a UCATT learning rep to help promote a range of learning opportunities to colleagues. “Union-supported learning is a brilliant platform for development that has helped me to progress, and I am delighted to be able to help others do the same,” Karen says. “Nothing gives me a greater buzz than to see others recognise the potential they have and work to realise it.” Rossina says she nominated Karen for the award for the determination she has displayed overcoming the barriers faced by women working in construction.
“Karen is a brilliant advocate for health and safety on sites and influences employers and operatives to ‘think ‘safety’ when they are going about their work,” she says.
“Union learning is a brilliant platform for development.”
Photograph: Chris Brown
London carpenter and UCATT member Karen King won regional and national awards to celebrate her commitment to change lives through learning during Adult Learners’ Week in May.
Karen says there is no better buzz than helping learners realise their potential
Southend striker scores for PCS Southend United striker Neil Harris addressed a successful Learning At Work Day (LAWD) event organised for PCS members at Revenue and Customs (HMRC) in the Essex seaside town in May.
Neil Harris (far right) marks Learning At Work Day with (from left) unionlearn's Oreleo Du Cran, Mike Lightsoot and Darrell Binding (both PCS), and the PFA’s Michael Bennett
Neil talked about his whole career in football (he broke the Millwall goal-scoring record during his 400-plus appearances at his former club), and helped answer a range of questions about the current state of the game from the audience.
Alongside him, Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA) Education Officer Michael Bennett detailed his own learning journey, while our own Oreleo Du Cran explained how unionlearn was helping workers in all sectors across the region develop themselves personally and professionally. “This event was a departure from our normal LAWD event, but it was very well received by those who came along and having a Southend United striker as one of the speakers certainly helped,” said PCS Eastern Region Learning Coordinator for Revenue & Customs Darrell Binding. 3
Professor David Latchman CBE Q& A
Opening doors to higher education Professor David Latchman, Master of Birkbeck, explains why London’s only specialist provider of evening higher education is keen to develop ever-closer links with union learners
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Why does Birkbeck offer a 10 per cent discount on course fees to union learners? We put our outreach and widening participation teams in touch with unionlearn after I met Barry Francis on a committee, and the discussions reached a point where it was clear that we wanted a more meaningful relationship: unionlearn wanted union learning reps to actively promote what Birkbeck had to offer, and Birkbeck wanted to encourage links, which is why we decided to make a gesture and provide a 10 per cent discount off course fees. It’s the first time we’ve ever offered a discount, and it’s been pretty successful: we’ve seen more than 100 people coming through the unionlearn route, and I think we will do something similar with other groups in the future, particularly now that there have been substantial fee increases across the sector.
What else is Birkbeck doing to reach out to non-traditional/ hard-to-reach learners? Reaching out is central to our strategy. Potential Birkbeck learners don’t have access to the sort of careers guidance that is available to 16 to 18-year-olds in school and aren’t necessarily familiar with university as people are if their parents experienced higher education. Once we get people expressing an interest through our advertisements or personal contacts or unionlearn, we step in and make sure they understand how the finance works or how to apply or what’s the right course for them in terms of their career or aspirations. And once they’ve applied, we don’t say, ‘That’s fine, we’ll see you in October,’ we also run summer workshops, keep in contact and help them move on from making the commitment to study to making the transition.
What can Birkbeck offer union learners, especially in the current climate? Birkbeck offers high quality teaching: in research terms, we’re in the top 150 in the world, so we’re offering very
high-quality staff who are very active in research, and we’re offering that teaching in a way that you can combine with continuing to work. I don’t think it’s very viable for mature people to give up work for three years and live on their savings or with the help of their partner’s income: what we offer means you can carry on with your job and study at a pace that’s suitable in a high-quality institution. We think face-to-face teaching is better for mature students: they can interact with other students in the class and outside and they can interact with their teachers. It’s a very good thing to do that – many people don’t necessarily want to do a pure distance learning course.
What was the thinking behind establishing Birkbeck Stratford? We’ve always run informal short courses in every borough of London, but we decided something more was needed in east London, which is the area that has the lowest participation in higher education. Stratford was the obvious choice because of its good transport links (this was all pre-Olympics): we started discussions in 2005/6, first taught there in 2007/8, and now we have more than 1,000 students studying there. The very exciting development is that we are opening a new purpose-built building jointly with the University of East London (UEL) in 2013, which is the first example of a joint building between a new university like UEL and an older university like ourselves.
What is your proudest achievement to date as Master of Birkbeck? It’s very satisfying to see the initial idea of teaching in Stratford develop so that there are now students studying there and the new building rising out of the ground. But in addition we have survived the various policy changes thrown at us: when the government removed funding for students who might have originally done an English degree, for example, and later decided they needed a computer science degree, we lost 40 per cent of our teaching funding.
To have gone through all that and to have emerged with even more students and in a better financial state is also very satisfying – so my proudest achievement is the combination of Stratford and survival.
How would you like to see further work with unionlearn developing in the years ahead? I would like to see more people coming in through unionlearn, and your ULRs going out and promoting what we have to offer more. But I also think we need to work with your colleagues to see what people want. We are very much demand-led: if there is sufficient demand for something that a particular union or particular group of members want, then we can talk about developing a particular unit on a course or a particular course to meet that demand.
Professor David Latchman CBE CV David Latchman studied Natural Sciences as an undergraduate and a postgraduate at Cambridge University in the 1970s, gaining a PhD for his work on genetics in 1981. After first undertaking post-doctoral research at Imperial College, London, he took up the post of lecturer in genetics at University College London (UCL) in 1985. He became Professor of Molecular Pathology in 1991, Director of the Windeyer Institute of Medical Sciences in 1996, and Chair of Human Genetics and Dean of the Institute of Child Health in 1999. Professor Latchman took up his appointment as Master of Birkbeck and Professor of Genetics at Birkbeck in 2003. He continues as Professor of Human Genetics at the Institute of Child Health, UCL, where his laboratory is located.
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Higher education
© Janina Struk/reportdigital.co .uk
Unionlearn SERTUC is here to help union learners across the region develop their careers, with an increasing range of new opportunities available at higher level.
Take the union route to uni After completing a diploma in employment law at Central Bedfordshire College, former Kettering General Hospital UNISON steward Emma Kinzett is all set to start a full-time law degree in the autumn – at the age of 39. Emma started the latest leg of her learning journey after she was elected a UNISON steward at Kettering General Hospital, where she had been working as a healthcare assistant (HCA) since 2007. “I enjoyed representing people at work, especially when I managed to save someone’s job because that’s crucial to most people,” she says. After completing the stage one and stage two union reps courses through TUC Education, she followed branch secretary Ian Kelly’s suggestion that she take the one-year Diploma in Employment Law at Central Bedfordshire College. “We did a lot of contract and case law on the academic side and we were also encouraged to bring scenarios from the workplace to bounce ideas off each other and understand how everyone’s interpretation of something is completely different,” she explains. Taking the course meant that every Thursday between September 2009 and July 2010, Emma had a two-hour round trip in the car from her home in Market Harborough – but she always managed to arrive on time, says course tutor Mushtaq Arain. “Emma was never late for the class even though she travelled over 50 miles by car on the very busy M1: I know many reps who live literally next door to us who are regularly late citing traffic problems!” Emma was also a model student in class, he says. “Emma was always excellent in her contributions to group work, almost always did her workplace reports, read the
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following week’s work and came prepared – she was an ideal learner on our course.” Emma says she was really pleased when she finished. “I put a lot of effort into it and I was really quite chuffed that I passed and got my diploma.” She decided to apply for the law and criminal justice degree at De Montfort University in Leicester after leaving her hospital job for personal reasons. “I thought, ‘What do I enjoy doing, what am I good at?’ and after doing the diploma, I thought this is what I’ve got to do – I can’t see myself doing anything else now,” she says. “I was over the moon when they offered me a place: I want to do something with my life, and this is an example for my seven-year-old daughter Izobel to show her how you get on in life: you have to learn, you have to get proper qualifications.”
I want to show my daughter how you have to learn and gain proper qualifications to get on in life.
Greenwich Uni launches new higher apprenticeship Apprentices and full-time administrative staff could benefit from a new higher apprenticeship programme specifically designed to help them move up to the next level when it comes onstream this September. Greenwich University is launching a new higher apprenticeship in business and professional administration in September which unionlearn SERTUC has helped develop over the past two years. Research by the university into the feasibility of offering the programme revealed there was definitely a gap in the educational market, says unionlearn SERTUC Union Development Coordinator Jon Tennison. “There are a number of people who have completed advanced level apprenticeships who said they were interested in doing a higher level qualification but the progression routes simply weren’t available,” he explains. In addition to helping organisations create new progression routes for their apprentices, the programme also aims to help employers who are keen to offer existing staff the chance to develop high-level skills. The higher apprenticeship will combine a locally-delivered, work-based Foundation degree in Business and Professional Administration with an NVQ Level 4, with the emphasis on a work-based curriculum where units are based on real-life projects in the workplace. Accredited by the University of Greenwich, the Foundation degree will be delivered initially by half a dozen partner
providers in the south-east London area: Bexley, Bromley, Guildford, Lewisham, Greenwich Community and North West Kent colleges. In the longer-term, the idea is to roll out the programme to make it available nationwide, especially since the framework has been designed to be flexible enough to meet a range of employer needs. “It was our record with employer engagement that led to our involvement with the project steering group, when it was originally set up by the South-East London Lifelong Learning Network (SELLLN),” Jon explains. “With our network of union learning reps in workplaces, we’ve been able to show how they can get into workplaces in a way they would probably find much more difficult if they were going through conventional management structures.” Union learning reps who are keen to encourage their employers to offer the new higher apprenticeship in business and professional administration should contact Jon to arrange a fuller briefing on how the new programme could work in their workplace. Email: JTennison@tuc.org.uk. Tel: 020 7467 1212.
“Our record of employer engagement led to our involvement with the project.”
Improve your skills for less at Anglia Ruskin You can now claim a union discount on a range of courses at one of the region’s leading providers of work-based learning Unionlearn SERTUC has signed a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Anglia Ruskin University, which enables union learners to enjoy a discount on the fees for a number of work-based courses. The university, one of the country’s leading providers of work-based learning in higher education, signed the MoU at a ULR network meeting in London earlier this year. With campuses in Cambridge and Chelmsford, Anglia Ruskin University delivers a range of programmes on which union members can update and upgrade skills that are relevant to their job roles and career aspirations and their employer’s needs.
Many of the courses are online, so union members can organise their study at times that suit them, while some courses offer networking opportunities at workshops on the university’s campuses. Full details of the new discount and incentives package that will be offered to union learners starting courses at Anglia Ruskin University in the autumn will be made available on the unionlearn SERTUC website as soon as they are finalized. Find out more about Anglia Ruskin at: www.anglia.ac.uk/ruskin/en/home.html
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Contacts Unionlearn Southern and Eastern Region Congress House Great Russell Street London WC1B 3LS
020 7467 1251
Regional education office
020 7467 1284
CWU re-opens south coast BT centre
@unionlearnsertu Regional Manager Barry Francis
bfrancis@tuc.org.uk
Regional Coordinator Jon Tennison
jtennison@tuc.org.uk
Community and Trade Union Learning Centre Manager Phil Spry
pspry@tuc.org.uk
Senior Union Support Officers Mick Hadgraft Stuart Barber
mhadgraft@tuc.org.uk sbarber@tuc.org.uk
Union Support Officers Adrian Ryan Oreleo Du Cran Joanna Lucyszyn
aryan@tuc.org.uk oducran@tuc.org.uk jlucyszyn@tuc.org.uk
Field Worker Jane Warwick
jwarwick@tuc.org.uk
Regional Education Officers Rob Hancock Theresa Daly
rhancock@tuc.org.uk tdaly@tuc.org.uk
Administration Sonia Dawson Johanna Garcia Jaspal Ghtoray Tanya Nelson
sdawson@tuc.org.uk jgarcia@tuc.org.uk jghtoray@tuc.org.uk tnelson@tuc.org.uk
Cover photo by Chris Brown of ALW Learning Works Award winner Karen King (centre), flanked by unionlearn Regional Manager Barry Francis and Lewisham College Trade Union Studies Centre Head Rossina Harris
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CWU General Secretary Billy Hayes helped the union’s South East Central Branch re-launch a completely refurbished learning centre at the Withdean telephone exchange near Brighton during Adult Learners’ Week. The centre was originally opened several years ago, but the classroom format and emphasis on formal qualifications failed to harness the initial enthusiasm and successive union learning coordinators were unable to reinvigorate the project. But all that has changed since new lead ULR Steve Taylor took over last year. With the help of £3,000 of branch funds, he replaced the outdated computers originally donated by BT with the latest laptops, and the branch backed his strategy to focus on informal learning. Billy was full of praise for the branch. “Today we are celebrating the indomitable spirit of a branch that refuses to be put off by a few problems, but rather learns from experience and comes back stronger – I couldn’t think of a better metaphor for lifelong learning!” he said. Steve is currently running a series of lunchtime cyber-cafés, where members can drop in and work through handouts and pick the brains of a proficient person on different themes such as genealogy, digital photography, social media, PC navigation and Microsoft Excel. “Since the opening, we have had a successful lunchtime learning with a genealogy-themed cyber café, which helped members find more about their ancestry, some going back to the 1700s within a few moments,” Steve says. “Once the education centre has taken off and people get interested in education, the site would be a focal point of information and guidance and people could be signposted to more formal sites of education,” Steve explains. Once the re-launched centre is running smoothly, the branch wants to move mobile classes out to other sites, such as Sevenoaks, Tunbridge Wells, Hastings, Eastbourne and Burgess Hill. CWU General Secretary Billy Hayes (second left) re-opens the CWU Withdean learning centre with the help of (from left) unionlearn Director Tom Wilson, CWU South East Central Branch Assistant Secretary Steve Taylor and BT Openreach HR Director Joe McDavid